Managing Tasks › Task Work Breakdown Structure

Task Work Breakdown Structure

You can view all of the tasks you create—subordinate tasks, non-key subordinate tasks, and milestone tasks—using the Project: Tasks: Work Breakdown Structure page. Use this page to design a hierarchical (parent-child) relationship between the tasks you create. You can create, edit, and reorder tasks from this page.

Tasks appear on the WBS hierarchy in the order you created them. Use the Indent, Outdent, and Move buttons to create a hierarchical structure for your tasks. The order indicates their relationship with each other. Clicking the name of a subproject in the WBS hierarchy takes you to the Project: Tasks: Work Breakdown Structure page for the subproject.

The summary task's start date is determined by the earliest start date of one or more of its child tasks. The summary task finish date is determined by the latest end date of one or more of its child tasks. After you have entered these dates and created the task, you can edit them by changing the dates of one or more of its child tasks. You can change the start and finish dates of non-summary tasks at any time from the Task Properties page.

WBS Guidelines

As you design your structure, keep the following rules and guidelines in mind:

• You cannot assign resources to summary (e.g., top-level) tasks that have subordinate tasks.
• You can use non-key and key tasks at any level of the task hierarchy.
• You cannot designate a milestone task as a summary task.

More information:

Managing Tasks

Indent and Outdent Tasks in Work Breakdown Structure

Move Tasks in Work Breakdown Structures

Sort Tasks in Work Breakdown Structure

Expand and Collapse the Work Breakdown Structure

Edit Tasks in the WBS

Configure Columns in the Work Breakdown Structure

Assign Resources to Tasks in the WBS

How to Create Key and Milestone Tasks

Task Work Breakdown Structures Guidelines