In this Blog post , I would like to explain

• The need to maintain Relationships for manually created content
• How to maintain Relationships via Gantt chart
• How to maintain Relationships via Excel Upload

Why we need relationships in Tasks/Requirements

We work in complex interconnected world. When a person is assigned some work in the form of a Project task or a user story , some of the valid questions are

• Should I wait for someone to start or can I start immediately
• Is someone else waiting for my work to finish

This is nothing but a predecessor and successor relationship. SAP Activate content comes already with these relationships maintained for Template tasks giving you a great sense of the logical sequence in which work must be done , but when you create content manually such as creation of Project tasks or User stories , you need to maintain these relationships

How to maintain relationship via Gantt chart

The first thing you need to know is that currently you can create or delete relationships for only manually created content mainly Project tasks and user stories. So before proceeding to creating relationships, you need to ensure that the right elements are selected.

Lets start with the example below

and let use assume I can not perform Task 2 before Task 1 is done and I can not perform user story 1 before Task 2 is done. Please note that I have maintained Start date and due dates so that tasks show in Gantt chart with appropriate duration.

So how should I maintain these relationships

Step1: Navigate to Gantt chart

Step 2: Select the first task

Step3: Drag the arrow from the first task to the next task

Note that relationship is created

You can continue this for the relationship between task 2 and user story 1

Now we can navigate to task 2 and verify that relationships have been created as expected

you can go to Gantt chart , select the head or tail of relationship arrow, do a right click and delete the relationship as well

How to maintain Relationships via Excel Upload

You can have an alternate approach when you mass upload or mass update tasks via Excel upload

when you upload the tasks via Excel Upload using the template . then

you then need to  add a new Column called “Predecessor Row”

make sure that the Excel Row number  for the  predecessor is maintained in successor

Save the Excel and Upload it

Note: Mass update with Excel upload works only if you maintain manually created External ID in  the Excel sheet from the first instance of uploading and keep them stable

Next steps

Stay tuned for more information. If you want to give feedback or have a question , feel free to drop a comment. Please bookmark these two links

• Master List for Blog posts in Project, Task and Requirement management 
• Expert Portal for SAP Cloud ALM

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