Project; Bugs, Problems, and Issues - Unique ID

[Chuck_Pollard]

When I open my project within the master the unique ID's are different than when I open the project by itself.  Is there any way to fix this?  Or do I need to implement a text field to resolve?

[#2]

Chuck_Pollard,
Yes, that is by design. If you absolutely need to have the same unique ID shown at master level that you see at subproject level, then you will need to create a custom number field. However, keep in mind that you will have duplicate number at master level so those numbers wont' be "unique".

John

[#3]

Vise Versa actually I need the Unique ID that is shown in the master to be the same as shown in the project. That way it would be unique. I got 30 phone calls from people this morning because I ran reports out of the projects separately instead of from the master like I usually do. None of their files worked because all of the Unique ID's had changed. Alot of them imported a bunch of duplicates because the unique ID wasn't unique.

Bad Design.

Thankfully, we are transitioning back to Primavera in a few weeks along with most of our clients. Far to many basic functions with Project just aren't user friendly. Anything that can be done in projects can be done in Excel (for the average user) far more efficiently and for schedulers, ease of use with Primavera is beyond compare.

[#4]

Chuck_Pollard,
Sorry but I beg to differ. If the number in the Unique ID field of each subproject is replicated in the master then that field will absolutely NOT be unique as the number sequence will be repeated for each subproject.

However, it appears you have made the decision to transition back to Primavera as the right move fro you and your clients. I'm glad that decision will work for you.

John

[#5]

I must not be following what you are getting at...
I would think that "Open Quigley Door" would have a Unique Identifier assigned to such as (20972312) regardless of where (native project or master project) it is accessed or viewed. When we have hundreds of similar tasks, and someone says "Open Quigley Door UID# 792 is 100%" and we start scrolling through a list and find 16 tasks that say "Open Quigley Door" and we only have 8 of them it gets confusing.

[#6]

Chuck_Pollard,
Sorry I'll have to get back to you later with an example. I'm tied up for the rest of the day.
John

[#7]

No worries and no rush. I do appreciate your time, expertise, and patience. :)

[#8 · Accepted solution]

@Chuck_Pollard 

Perhaps I misread your intent. What I said, (in essence), is if the Unique ID field in each subproject is replicated in a custom field (e.g. Text1) then that number when viewed at master level will be repeated for each subproject as shown here:

But what I think you are saying is how can I get the Unique ID value shown at master level to appear at subproject level. The answer to that is, it requires VBA to translate the master level Unique ID back to each subproject. It cannot be done with a custom field.

I should also add that it is very easy to create a custom Text field in each subproject that concatenates the file name with the unique id. For example,

Text1 = [Project] & " - " & [Unique ID}

However you mentioned the possibility of multiple instances of the task "Open Quigley Door". My response to that is, there should never more than one task with the same description. Every task should be unique. If a SIMILAR task appears in more than one project then it is good practice to preface that task description with the project name or other identifier so it is still unique in the case where it may be viewed with other similar project tasks in a master file. Okay, so you want to use the master file Unique ID for that "other identifier". See paragraph above.

John