Hyperlink an Object in Visio to a Unique ID in a Microsoft Project Schedule

[LanceM]

I know how to hyperlink a Visio object to a 'file' (PDF, MS Project file, MS Word, etc.)  I'm looking to create a link between a visio object and a specific task in a MS Project schedule.

Any help will be appreciated.

Lance

[wapperdude]

Don't have MSProject, but here's how to do it with Excel.  By extension, ought to be able to do something similar for MSP.

Open the hyperlink form, for address either browse or manually enter path and filename.

For sub-address, you have to manually enter the location within the target file.  For Excel, it would be something like Sheet1!B2.

When hyperlink is selected, it fetches the desired file, opens it, and takes you to the desired cell on the desired page.

Attached file shows example of how the form would look.

HTH
Wapperdude

[MilesT]

I presume that you are trying to create better visualisations of projects tasks and timelines, beyond what Project can do natively or even with VBA macros inside of Project

I think the only way to do this at the moment would be one of the following:

• VBA and custom shapesheet fields to interrogate project (hard)
• Save the project in Microsoft Access MDB format and then use more standard Visio data linking to interrogate the project data and diagram it as desired in Visio.  This may still need some VBA but presumably rather less;  although navigating the Project Data model in Access is non-trivial in terms of SQL queries.

I have seen the latter approach working for real in a different context.  20+ years ago (pre Office 95 days) the consultancy I was working for at the time (Logica, now part of CGI) built a project managers toolkit in Microsoft Office for small-medium projects (up to 10 people).  This toolkit automated all the project management admin (from task level hourly timesheets, accounts reconciliation for time and expense, estimating remaining spend required, standardised monthly project reports and graphs such as milestone trend charts and summary GANTT etc) from the Microsoft Project Plan upwards.  The toolkit depended on saving the Project in Access format.  A large chunk of Visual Basic and VBA to glue Project, Excel, and Word together based on the data in Access, including working round many Project bugs especially in how it resource levelled for part time resource allocations on task.  This was in Office v3/Project 4.1.  The toolkit stretched the limits of Windows PCs of the day (which is why it was only viable for small projects).