As you may already know, if you open a regular master project, you won’t see any data: it’s simply linked to the specified sub-projects and functions as a control project at a higher level. People use master projects to simplify the monthly process and do integrations of actual costs, status updates and reporting through a single master project; rather than spitting everything up and doing it at the sub project level. For reporting and backup purposes, it is sometimes required that the master project be merged so that the sub-project data is available in a single project.
The question that was asked of me recently was “Can you merge a master project in Deltek Cobra 5.1 as you can in version 4.7?”
The answer is yes. You can merge the sub-projects of a Master project into a new project; however the process is slightly different in that you don’t convert the master project (as is the case in 4.7) but rather you create a new empty project and then copy the sub-project data into it.
In version 4.7, you used the Merge button in the Multi Program dialog to convert and existing multi program into a merged program.
In version 5 of Deltek Cobra, you need to come at it in a slightly different way. The need to create a new target project for the merge: it won’t let you simply convert an existing Master Project into a merged project.
So the steps for this process are to first create an empty copy of one of the sub-projects. This gets the correct calendar and other ancillary files set up in the empty project.
Once you’ve done this you’re ready for merging.
The next step is to display your Master Projects in the Projects tab of Cobra and select the master project you wish to merge.
Next you need to open the Project Information dialog for the selected project. This is where the merging action takes place. You need to select the Sub-Projects tab in the Project Information dialog and click on the Save As… button.
In the resulting Save As dialog, you select the empty project you created previously, enter a description for it and then click the OK button.
At this point Cobra will save the sub-project’s data into the empty target project, thus creating a merged project with all the sub-projects data.
You’ll note how this project isn’t listed in the Master Projects view of the projects tab. Cobra is treating this merged project as simply another regular project in the system. When you open the project, the subproject data can be seen and the project can be managed in the same way as all other projects.
Well I hope that clears up that question. For those Cobra 4.7 die-hards who are migrating over I’ll say this: if it was available in Cobra 4.7, you can be fairly certain that it’s also available in 5.1: unless it’s that rather cool FoxPro based MSSTATUS report that used to give the values for milestones. If you want that then you’re S.O.L. (Seriously Out of Luck): a reincarnation of this report has not yet appeared in Cobra 5.1.
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