Warning task field

The Warning field indicates whether Microsoft Project has identified a potential scheduling conflict with a manually scheduled task's start date, finish date, or duration, for example, a problem with a task link or a date constraint. The information with the potential problem is underlined in red. You can then right-click the field to read the warning or suggestion to improve the project.

Data Type    Yes/No field

Entry Type    Calculated

How Calculated    When Project detects a potential scheduling conflict with a manually scheduled task, it generates a warning and changes the setting of the Warning field from No to Yes. In its field, the problem data is underlined in red.

Best Uses    Add the Warning field to any task sheet when you want to scan for any potential scheduling conflicts among manually scheduled tasks. You can sort, group, or filter tasks to show all tasks with potential problems together and systematically resolve them. To learn the nature of the conflict, right-click the task and click Fix in Task Inspector. The Task Inspector pane appears, which describes the problem and suggests solutions.

Example    You have two manually scheduled tasks that are linked with a finish-to-start task dependency. You've entered a finish date of May 4 on the predecessor task and a finish date of May 5 on the successor task. You change the finish date of the predecessor task to May 7. Because Project never changes entered dates of manually scheduled tasks, the schedule now shows that the successor task ends on May 5, two days before the end of the predecessor task—an obvious scheduling conflict. A red underline appears below the finish date of the successor task, and the Warning field switches from No to Yes. You right-click the task and click Fix in Task Inspector.

Remarks    The red underlines that indicate potential scheduling conflicts in manually scheduled tasks appear until resolved or until you choose to ignore warnings for the tasks. To ignore warnings, change the Ignore Warning field from No to Yes. Or, in the Task Inspector pane for the task, clear the check box labeled Show warning and suggestion indicators for this task.