Welcome to part 2 of the task link filtering trilogy! Our last blog article discussed how to show task links on a Critical Path (Part 1). This portion will explore how you can filter your task links in two more ways, both relating to future dates. The first will go over how to filter task links with a status of “Future Tasks,” while the second will be how to filter task links to only show when they are to the right of your Time Cursor, which is another way of looking at future dependencies.

Create a OnePager chart from your schedule, go to Chart Properties > Task Links, check the box for “Show Data-driven links,” and hit OK. You should see within your chart all your task links.

Now navigate to Chart Properties> Task Links again but this time change “Filter Links” to “Use Rules” and click “Manage Rules…

In the Task Link Filter Rules, click Add Rule and select Status in the Field dropdown. Then, choose “=” under the Operator and enter “Future Task” in the Value field. In the Applies to dropdown, you will need to select Successor. Once finished, you can hit OK twice.

You will now see that the only dependencies remaining in your chart touch tasks that have a status of “Future Task.”

In this second portion, we will go over how to show task links on the right side of your time cursor since the time cursor would represent the current date for the OnePager chart. Below you will see a chart with all task links enabled and the time cursor halfway into the second year.

Now navigate to Chart Properties> Task Links and change “Filter Links” to “Use Rules” and click “Manage Rules…” then OK.

In the Task Link Filter Rules, click Add Rule and select Start in the Field dropdown. Then, choose “>” (greater than) under the Operator and choose a date in the Value field that corresponds to the current date. In the Applies to dropdown, you will need to select Successor. Once finished, you can hit OK twice.

You will now see in the chart that all Task Links to the right of your time cursor have populated while the ones to the left have not. Since the time cursor represents the chart’s current date, you only see task links that are set for future dates.

Stay tuned for the last article in our three-part series, which will cover how only to show links where the successor is a milestone in your OnePager chart! I want to remind everyone that while this exercise was performed using Microsoft Project, it can just as easily be done with a Primavera P6 or Smartsheet project.