Missing Predecessors

Hobson Con

Hi, I used to work with MS Project and import my MSP sheet to SS.

A few days ago, a new problem bothered me.

When I imported the sheet from MSP to SS, a few Predecessors which were set in MSP may disappear in SS. Just few of Predecessors, not all of them. And all the other items or the duration are all correct.

I even don't know how to solve this problem, now I just import and paste and copy the Predecessors column which is really inconvenient.

How can l solve this problem wisely? Really need help, thanks.

J. Craig Williams

I used to work in MS Project too. It has been a LONG time since I have needed to import a Project file, so my thoughts may be outdated.

That said, Smartsheet does not have the same concept of constraints that MS Project does. In my memory, many of the import problems were related to this. If dates did not line up in Smartsheet because of a constraint in MS Project, the constraint would be rejected and this would sometimes lead to the Predecessor being absent after import.

For example, MS Project allows START NO EARLIER THAN, which fixes the start date based on time, not on some other task. Smartsheet will toss those out and the start date won't match (maybe).

It really helps to understand MS Project and how the PM may have gotten the schedule set up, which can be a tedious exercise.

Good luck.

Craig