Copying progress from one project to another

You can copy the progress that has been recorded in one project into another project.

You may find this useful if you duplicate a set of planning data - usually, a single project - and track ongoing progress in the original project, while editing the copy of the project, perhaps to add or re-sequence the remaining work. At a certain point, you may want to treat the copy of the project as the "main" project. You can then transfer progress from the original project to the copy.

For example, while a project is being updated as work progresses, you may need to change the future plan and submit it for client approval. You can do this by taking a copy of the project - "forking" it. At a later date, you can copy the progress from the original project to the copy to bring it up to date.

Copying progress between projects may also prove useful if you want to maintain more than one copy of a project which may develop in a number of divergent ways.

In order to copy progress from one project to another, the projects must be very similar - ie the project to which you are copying progress (the destination project) must have been created at some point as a copy of the original project (the source project). Progress is copied to those tasks and allocations in the destination project with internal IDs that match the tasks and allocations in the source project. If you attempt to copy progress from one project to a project that differs substantially from it, the progress copy will not be successful.

To copy progress from one project to another:

Open the project from which you want to copy progress - the source project - and the project into which you want to copy the progress - the destination project.
On the Home tab, in the Progress group, click Transfer Progress. The Transfer Progress dialog appears. The Transfer Progress control is enabled only if the active project has one or more progressed tasks and if at least two projects are open.
Select the project into which you want to copy the source project's progress in the Destination/To field. You can select any of the projects that are currently open, other than the source project itself. You should select a project that is a good match for the source project: if you attempt to copy progress to a destination project that is significantly different to the source project, the attempted copy will not be successful.
Specify the progress that you want to copy to the destination project in the Scope group.
Select the Write report check box to specify that a report detailing the results of the progress transfer should be produced, or clear the check box to prevent the report from being produced. If you choose to produce a report, it is saved using the file name and location that you specify in the field to the right.
Click OK. Progress is copied from the source project to the destination project. A dialog appears to inform you of the results of the progress transfer, and if you have chosen to produce a report, it is saved in the selected location.
Open the report to review the success of the progress copying.