Using a Filter to Find Missing Logic

One of our training clients recently asked us to create a rather unusual filter showing “open ends”, or activities that are missing predecessors and/or successors. While this information can be gleamed from the Schedule Log (Tools > Schedule > View Log) this report does not graphically represent these activities. A filter will of course allow us to show these activities on the Gantt Chart, so that we know when and where these activities occur in the schedule.

In the screen capture below I have created a simple filter to display activities with open ends. Notice that I have two lines in my filter and that I have selected “(Any of the following)” when combing the two specified parameters. The first row asks P6 to list activities where the predecessor value is blank. You might know that we can display predecessors as a column in the Activity Table, and if there are no predecessors for an activity then this cell would be empty.

In the second row I have added the same statement for the successor value. The only thing left to do is make sure P6 understands that I want activities that are missing predecessors or successors. In other words, if the first row or the second row statement is true, give me those results. To do this, I selected “(Any of the following)” filter parameters:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, setting up the filter is pretty simple. Leaving the value blank does not work in many situations, but for predecessors and successors this approach is fine.