Project Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-25-2022

Project 2016, one incarnation of Microsoft’s popular project management software, offers a tremendous wealth of functionality. However, Microsoft Project 2016 probably isn’t like any other software you’ve ever used, so mastering it can seem a daunting process. This Cheat Sheet provides you with tips and tricks for doing what you do every day as a project manager.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-22-2022

Microsoft Project offers a tremendous wealth of functionality. It is very robust and can handle all shapes and sizes of projects, from waterfall methods to agile methods and even a little bit of both in the same project schedule. Because it is so robust, mastering it can seem a daunting process. This Cheat Sheet provides you with tips and tricks for doing what you do every day as a project manager.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

When you’re planning a project in Microsoft Project 2019, consider what information you (or any other stakeholder) need to track, who has the information, how it will be delivered, and how often it needs to be updated. Frequently, this information is stored in a separate document known as the communications management plan. The following table shows a simple example. Communications Management Plan Stakeholder Information Method Frequency Project manager Status report Email Weekly Team members Project status Meeting Biweekly Sponsor Progress report PowerPoint Monthly Sponsor Risks, issues, and changes Logs As needed The communications management plan can be complex — or as simple as a Word table or an Excel spreadsheet. You enter the name or position of each stakeholder in the leftmost column, and then, across the top, enter the information that’s needed, its method, and frequency of delivery. It isn’t rocket science, but you still have to determine up front which information you might want to track, when you might want it, and in which form. You might want to check out How to Avoid Common Project Management Pitfalls. Step 1 of your Project communications management plan: gather data The first step in tracking progress on a project is to gather information about what’s been going on. The simpler it is to report progress on a project, the better, because people will do it. The more routine you can make the reporting — such as every Friday, on a specific form turned in to the same person — the easier it is to gather data. You can then input that information into Project in several ways: Use various views and tables to enter information in sheets of data, enter information in the Task Information dialog box, or use the tracking tools in the Schedule group of the Task tab on the Ribbon. The amount of data you collect is determined by the information you need to track and the level of detail. For example, some people use Project only to create a timeline for their activities. Others use resources and track their total work on tasks, just not to the level of detail that scrutinizes hourly work performed. For some people, simply marking one task 50 percent complete and another 100 percent complete — and letting Project assume that all resources completed their estimated amounts of work — is fine. Step 2 of your Project communications management plan: apply a tracking method You have to identify the best tracking method for you, which is determined by the amount and type of information you need to monitor. Microsoft provides four tracking methods in Project 2019: Task – total Task – time phased Assignment – total Assignment – time phased You can begin to understand these methods by comparing task tracking and assignment tracking. You can track information by task, indicating to the present time (or a status date you select) the total work completed or costs for the task. Or you can track information by assignment, which is a more detailed tracking that shows you the total work completed or costs by each resource. Suppose that the Test Electrical Components task is estimated to take 12 hours of work, according to the project baseline. An Engineer, Electrician, and Assistant — three human resources — are assigned at 100 percent of their time. Tracking by task – total, you can simply note that the task is 75 percent complete, which translates into nine hours of work finished. Project assumes that the three resources split the work equally — three hours for each resource. In reality, however, the Engineer spent one hour, the Electrician spent six, and the Assistant spent two. Therefore, the time phased variable enters the picture. Time-phased tracking uses specific time increments, whether you choose to track work by task or work completed by individual resources on the task. So, in the Test Electrical Components task, you can use the task – time phased approach to track the nine hours on a daily basis. Or you can use the assignment – time phased approach to track each resource’s work, hourly or daily. If the project or organization doesn’t require detailed assignment or time-phased tracking, you’re better off using the task – total method. Then you can spend less time entering information into Project and more time managing the team and the stakeholders. Step 3 of your Project communications management plan: use the tracking tools Sometimes, it seems that Project provides a handy button for everything you need to do on a project, so why should tracking be any different? The tracking tools at the top of the Schedule group on the Task tab perform updates on selected tasks in any sheet view. The figure shows the tracking tools. The five on the left are the percent complete buttons, and the button on the right allows you to mark on track or update tasks. These tools make specific updates to selected tasks: Percent Complete: Click this tool to quickly mark a task’s progress using a rough calculation of the percentage of work completed in 25 percent increments. Mark on Track: Selecting a task and clicking this tool records activity automatically to the status date as you scheduled it in the baseline. Update Tasks: To display a dialog box that contains tracking information about the progress, duration, start, and finish dates, find this tool on the menu that opens when you click the down arrow on the Mark on Track button. For example, you can indicate whether a task’s actual start date varied from its current start date. The following figure shows the Update Tasks dialog box. You can use a few more tools, found elsewhere in Project, to track and illustrate progress: Update Project: Mark all tasks in a project as complete to a specific status date. You can also use this tool to reschedule uncompleted work. Move Task: Reschedule all or part of a selected task. You can use this tool, found in the Tasks group on the Task tab on the Ribbon, to move a task forward or backward or to reschedule parts of it by the status date. Add Progress Line: Turn on a type of drawing tool. On the Format tab, in the Format group, click Gridlines. Click the down arrow and select Progress Lines. A dialog box appears so that you can, at particular dates, set up progress lines: They indicate which tasks are ahead of or behind schedule by way of a vertical line that connects in-progress tasks. For everything, there’s a Microsoft Project view You may already know that Project has a view for everything you want to do. For example, you can use Task Sheet view and Task Usage view to easily update either task or resource information. So many variations are available that you may believe Microsoft charges by the view. When tracking using the Task Sheet view, I insert a column that shows percent complete. To insert the column, simply right-click a column head and click Insert Column, then click % Complete. Depending on the tracking method you need different views serve different purposes. The following table specifies the best view to use for each tracking method. Tracking Views Tracking Method Best View Best Table or Row Task Task Sheet Tracking table Task – time phased Task Usage Actual Work row Assignment Task Usage Tracking table Assignment – time phased Task Usage Usage table When you find the appropriate view with the correct columns displayed, entering tracking information is as simple as typing a number of hours, a dollar amount for fixed costs, or a start or finish date in the appropriate column for the task you’re updating.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

Many organizations using Microsoft Project 2019 manage lots of projects at the same time. Sometimes, a project is the only project of its type in a company, such as organizing an office move. Other projects, such as a building design project in an architectural firm, happen simultaneously with several other, similar projects and draw on many of the same resources, such as architects and draftspeople. When an organization engages in projects of a similar nature at the same time, drawing from a centralized resource pool can save it time because it doesn’t have to create resources that already exist. Tracking resources across projects can also be helpful. You can use another time-saving Project feature to pull existing resources from a company address book or from your own Address Book in Outlook. How to create sharer files Both individual resources and generic resources can be created in a blank project as a resource pool and saved to an accessible location on your company network. Then any project manager can assign those resources to her own projects. These projects are then referred to as sharer files because they share resources from the resource pool. For example, if you have a pool of maintenance people whom everyone in your manufacturing company assigns to projects, create a Project file named Resource Pools and enter all the resources to share in Resource Sheet view. Or create the resource pool file named CEO and let everyone who is managing projects that require the CEO’s involvement and assign him from that central location. Then use the resource-sharing tools in Project to assign these resources to tasks within your plan. When anyone uses resource assignments from a sharer file, that information is also saved in the resource pool file. Then anyone can use that file to look at resource allocations across all projects in the organization. How to skim from project management resource pools If you use Project throughout your company, you may have a resource pool, a centralized repository of common resources that allows project managers to assign those resources to their various projects. By using a resource pool, you can form a more realistic idea of how busy resources are across all projects at any time. Don’t confuse resource pools with enterprise resources, which require that you set up Project Professional, Project Server, and Microsoft Office Project Web App. A resource pool is simply a Project file that contains only a list of resources in Resource Sheet view and is saved on a shared network drive for your workgroup or on your company server. Anyone with access to the resource pool file can assign the resources it contains to projects. A resource pool saves everybody the trouble of having to repeatedly create these resources in his or her individual projects. To access a resource that’s available to your entire organization, follow this procedure: Open the resource pool file and then open the file that will be the sharer file. Working in the sharer file, choose Resource →   Resource Pool →   Share Resources. The Share Resources dialog box appears. Specify the resources for the project. If you want to specify that a project will use only its own resources (the default setting), select the Use Own Resources option. If you want to share resources, select the Use Resources option and then choose a project from the From list. Specify what Project should do when a conflicting resource setting, such as the resource base calendar, exists. If your project’s setting will take precedence, select the Sharer Takes Precedence option. If you want the pool setting to rule, select Pool Takes Precedence. Click the OK button to complete the process. All resources in the specified resource pool are added to your own project’s resource list, ready to be assigned to tasks. After you add a shared resource to your project, you can update shared resource information, in case the person who maintains those shared resources has made a change, such as increasing the resource’s rate per hour. To do this, choose Resource →Resource Sharing → Refresh Resource Pool. If you combine separate projects into one master project at any point, Project allows you to have duplicated resources. If you link the combined projects and then delete a duplicate resource in the master project, it’s deleted in the subproject as well. A better practice is to have all the separate projects share resources from a resource pool so that no duplicate resources exist when you create the master project file. Drawing resources from resource pools saves you time because you don’t have to repeatedly re-create those resources. However, you may wonder whether you should track your resource’s time in the resource pool file to see whether the resource is overbooked. Most projects in the real world use resources that aren’t solely dedicated to a single project. New users of Project are often confused because almost every person working on their projects spends time on other work, from general communication with coworkers and clients to efforts invested in other projects. Should these beginners build resource pools to account for time shared among several projects at one time? Generally speaking, trying to track every minute of every resource’s day to see whether resources are working 100 percent or 50 percent on your tasks or are being shared among multiple projects amounts to chaos. Ask yourself this question: When this resource works on a task in your project, will he put his entire focus on that task at that time? If so, you may not need to fool around with tracking shared resources across many projects. Especially on shorter tasks, resisting the urge to micromanage the efforts of your resources outside your own project usually works well. If, on the other hand, you have resources working only half the time or splitting time between two projects routinely, consider using shared resource tools to keep track of those resources across projects. How to import resources from Outlook Project allows you to save yourself the time spent entering resource information by allowing you to pull resources from Outlook. To pull resources from Outlook, you must have it specified as your default email program: Open Outlook, and when you’re asked whether you want it to be your default program, say yes. When you insert one or more Outlook resources into your project, they’re added to your project list, using the resource name and email address as they exist in the Outlook Address Book. The default first-letter initial and work type are also preassigned. You can then add to the resource any details you like. To insert resources from your Outlook Address Book, display Resource Sheet view and follow these steps: Go to the Resource Tab on the Ribbon. In the Insert group, click Add Resources, and then click Address Book. The Select Resources dialog box appears. Click the name of a resource in the Name list. Click Add to place the selected name in the Resources list. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 to add to your project all the resource names you want to import. When you’re finished, click the OK button. The names now appear in the project resource list, ready for you to assign them to tasks. For more information on managing your Microsoft Project resources, see How to Manage Resources in Microsoft Project 2019.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

Before you create resources in Microsoft Project 2019 willy-nilly, you must understand how they affect your project. First and foremost, a resource is an asset that helps accomplish a project, whether the asset is a person, a piece of equipment, a material, or a supply. One aspect of working with resources effectively is to manage the workflow of any resource that has limited time availability for your project. When you create resources, you indicate their availability by hours in the day or days of the week. For example, one person may be available 50 percent of the time, or 20 hours in the standard 40-hour workweek, whereas another may be available full time (40 hours). When you assign these kinds of resources to your project, you can use various views, reports, and tools to see whether any resource is overbooked at any point during the project. You can also see when people are sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, or when they may be available to help on another task. You can even account for resources that work on multiple projects across your organization and ensure that they’re being used efficiently. Another aspect of working with resources effectively is understanding how the number of resources you assign to work on a task affects the duration of that task. In other words, if you have a certain amount of work to perform but few people to do that work, a typical task takes longer to finish than if scads of folks are available. The task type determines whether a task’s duration changes based on the number of resources assigned to it. Remember: The task type can be fixed units, fixed duration, or fixed work. Finally, resources add costs to a project. To account for costs in your project — such as a person working many hours on a task, computers that you have to buy, or services that require fees — you must create resources and assign them to one or more tasks. Resource types: Work, material, and cost For the purposes of resource planning, Project recognizes only these three types of resources: Work: This person, such as a programmer or plumber, can be reassigned but not depleted. Work resources are assigned to tasks to accomplish work. Material: Material has a unit cost and doesn’t consume working hours, but it can be depleted. Examples of material costs are steel, wood, and books. Cost: Using a cost resource gives you the flexibility to specify the applicable cost, such as travel or shipping, every time you use the resource. Deciding which resource type to use when adding an external vendor or equipment resource to the project can be tricky. If you want to avoid adding hours of work to the project when that resource is being used, don’t set up the resource as a work resource. Use a cost resource or fixed-cost approach instead. How resources affect task timing Under Project 2019’s default settings, effort-driven scheduling is turned off for both manually and automatically scheduled tasks. So, no matter how many work resources you assign, the task duration stays the same and Project piles on more hours of work for the task, to reflect more effort. However, in some cases of a fixed-unit or fixed-work task type, the addition or removal of resources assigned to the task should have an impact on the time it takes to complete the task. In essence, the old maxim “Two heads are better than one” may be modified to “Two heads are faster than one.” Assigning additional people to tasks doesn’t always shorten work time proportionately, even though that’s how Project calculates it. When you have more people, you also have more meetings, memos, duplicated effort, and conflicts, for example. If you add more resources to a task, consider also increasing the amount of effort required to complete that task to account for inevitable workgroup inefficiencies. How to estimate resource requirements You usually know how many material resources it takes to complete a task: In most cases, you can use a standard formula to calculate the number of pounds, tons, yards, or another quantity. But how do you know how much effort your work resources must invest to complete the tasks in the project? Include a certain amount of extra material resources if you think you will need it for rework or scrap. As with many aspects of information you put into a Project schedule, determining the level of effort rests to a great degree on your own experience with similar tasks and resources. Still, remember these caveats: Skill counts. A less skilled or less experienced resource is likely to take more time to finish a task. Experiment — increase the duration by 20 percent for a less skilled resource, for example, or reduce it by 20 percent for a more skilled resource. History repeats itself. Look at previously completed projects and tasks. If you’ve tracked people’s time, you can likely see how much effort was required in order to complete various types of tasks on other projects and draw parallels to your project. This technique for estimating effort duration is similar to analogous estimating. Check out Continuous Learning from Microsoft Project 2019 Projects. Ask and you shall receive. Ask the resources themselves to estimate how long they think a task will take. After all, the people doing the work should know best how long it takes. Allow for reserve time in a project to account for unforeseen circumstances, such as resources being less skilled than you had planned. To ensure that milestone dates are met, many people add a task called Contingency Reserve or Buffer to their schedules immediately before a milestone delivery or the end of a phase. How to create Microsoft Project resources Just as someone fills out the birth certificate whenever a baby is born, a form is filled out whenever a resource in Project is born (that is, created). On the Resource Information form, you enter information such as the resource name, the availability, and the rate per hour or cost per use. You can also enter optional information, such as the group (company workgroup) to which the resource belongs or the resource’s email address. You can create a resource as a single person or entity, a generic resource (such as a skill set with no person assigned, such as Assistant or Engineer), or even a group of several resources that work together. Many times in the early stages of project planning, you know only the resource skill you need, to be replaced later by a named individual who has both the time and the qualifications to complete the task. On the simplest level, a resource is created as a single entity — a particular person or a meeting room or a piece of equipment. You create the resource by entering information in the Resource Information dialog box. When you create a resource, you must type, at minimum, the resource name, though you can also add as much information as you want. Some people prefer to create all the resources first and add contact and cost information later. To create a resource using the Resource Information dialog box, follow these steps: Click the bottom of the Gantt Chart button on the Task tab in the View group of the Ribbon, and click Resource Sheet. At that point the view changes to Resource Sheet View. Double-click a blank cell in the Resource Name column. The Resource Information dialog box appears, as shown. Type a name in the Resource Name text box. Click the down arrow in the Type box (on the right) to choose Work, Material, or Cost. The settings that are available to you differ slightly, depending on which option you choose. For example, a material resource has neither the Email nor Logon Account option, and a work resource or cost resource has no Material Label option. For a material resource, enter a description of the units in the Material Label field. For example, you might enter pounds for a Flour resource or tons for a Steel resource. In the Initials field, type an abbreviation or initials for the resource. If you don’t enter anything, the first letter of the resource name is inserted when you save the resource. Continue to enter any information you want to include about the resource. This information may include an email address, the group type (a department, division, or workgroup, for example), booking type (proposed or committed), or code (such as a cost-center code). If you enter information in the Group field, you can then use the Filter, Sort, and Group By features to look at sets of resources. Click the OK button to save the new resource. To enter information about several resources at a time, display Resource Sheet view and enter information in the columns. You can even paste resources copied from another source (such as an Excel spreadsheet) into this view. How to identify Microsoft Project resources In the planning stages of a project, you often find that not all resources are assembled. Even well into the project, sometimes you don’t know what resource you’ll be using; you know only that you need a resource with a certain skill set to complete upcoming tasks. In this case, consider creating certain resources as generic resources. To create a generic resource, give it a name that describes its skill, such as Engineer, Security Personnel, or even Meeting Space (rather than a specific resource named Conference Room B). Then, in the Resource Information dialog box, be sure to select the Generic check box, as shown here. No formula exists for using the Generic setting to recalculate your schedule based on resource availability. However, many people find this setting useful when they use rolling wave planning or when they aren’t responsible for specific resource assignments (for example, assigning a temporary worker to a task when a temporary-hiring agency will choose the specific worker). You can replace a generic resource name with the name of the resource that’s added to your project. For example, if you enter Security Personnel as a resource, you can replace it with Jim Taylor, the name of the security professional who will do the work. To make the switch, go to Resource Sheet view and, in the Resource Name column, click the cell for the resource, type the new name, and press Enter. Don’t worry if you’ve already assigned the generic resource to tasks in the project. Project updates all assignments with the new name. How to manage Microsoft Project resource availability Lots of Project 2019 features handle resources — in particular by helping you spot resource overallocation. Overallocation is a calculation, based on the resource’s calendar and availability, indicating that too much work has been assigned based on availability. Consider Monica Mendez, an engineer who works a standard eight-hour day based on her calendar. Monica is assigned to the Write Final Report task at 50 percent of her availability and to the Create Design Specs task — which occurs at the same time as the report task — at 100 percent of her availability. Monica is now working at 150 percent of her availability, or 12 hours per day. Poor Monica is overbooked. Be careful — she might even quit the project. A resource is assigned to a task at 100 percent availability (or units) by default, but you can modify that setting if you know that a resource will be assigned to several tasks and can only spend a limited amount of time working each one. Estimating and setting availability Availability is easier to estimate for some resources than for others. A manager is unlikely to devote an entire day to any single task, because he has to deal with all the employees who report to him and also sign authorizations, attend meetings concerning various projects, and develop budgets, for example. A production worker’s availability may be simpler to pin down to a single task: If one manufacturing job spends three days on the line and one person is working on the line the entire time, it’s more accurate to say that she is working on that task full time. One mistake made by Project beginners is to overthink availability. Of course, no one spends eight hours every day on a single task in a project. Employees spend part of their workdays reading email, chatting with coworkers, and answering phone calls about issues unrelated to their projects. A resource may spend seven hours on a task one day and only three hours the next. Don’t get hung up on a day-by-day resource schedule when estimating availability. If, over the life of a task, the employee focuses on it, 100 percent availability is an appropriate setting. If that person works only five days on a ten-day task, however, that’s 50 percent availability, whether she works four hours per day for ten days or five full days at any point. The Units (availability) setting helps you spot the overbooking of a resource who may work on multiple tasks at the same time in a project schedule. To set default resource units to specify availability, follow these steps: Display the Resource Sheet view. Click the Max column for the resource. Type a number representing the percentage of time that the resource is available to work on the project. For example, type 33 for a resource who’s available one-third of the time or 400 for a resource who can provide four full-time workers. (Entries greater than 100 percent represent resources that provide a group or team to handle assignments.) The most common entry (the default) is 100 for a single resource working full time on assignments in the project. Press Enter or Tab. The entry is completed. Note that this only works for resources whose type is set to Work. When a Microsoft Project resource comes and goes In addition to being available to a project only a certain percentage of the time (say, 50 percent of the project’s entire duration), a resource may be available for only a certain period of time (perhaps April–June) during the life of the project — commonly, when you use a resource borrowed from another department or when you’re working with a freelancer who’s squeezing in your project with others. Another possible resource is one who’s available half time for the first few days of the project and then full time for the remainder. In this case, you enter a date range in the Available From and Available To columns of the Resource Availability area in the Resource Information dialog box, as shown, to specify varying availability. To specify a limited period during which a resource is available to work on your project, follow these steps: Display the Resource Sheet view. Double-click a resource. The General tab of the Resource Information dialog box appears. Use the Available From and Available To columns (in the Resource Availability area) to specify the period of availability. In the Units column in the same row, either click the arrows to raise or lower the availability in 50 percent increments, or type a number. Press Enter to finish the entry. Repeat Steps 3 and 4 to specify additional periods of availability on subsequent rows in the Resource Availability area. Click the OK button to save the changes.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

Don’t think of Microsoft Project 2019 as simply a giant electronic to-do list; rather, it’s a sophisticated tool that’s used to manage projects. And the logical byproduct of that management is a fantastic treasure-trove of information you can use to become a more highly skilled Project user — and, thus, a more competent project manager. After you send the last memo related to the project and accept the final kudos or criticism from your boss, take a moment to look over the Microsoft Project scheduling one more time. Review the Project You won’t understand every aspect of project management during your first, second, or even third project. But you will become more comfortable with your skills. Similarly, you won’t understand every nuance of Microsoft Project scheduling on your first project. You won’t even uncover every capability of Project on your second project. But gradually, as you master the ins and outs of managing projects and using Project, you’ll more effectively apply project management skills and more easily absorb the information that Project generates — and you’ll more quickly understand how it can help you avoid mistakes on future projects. Review every project at the end of each phase and at the end of the project to see what you did right and what you did wrong. Then you can use what you discover to improve your skills on the next project. It’s a good idea to do a review at the end of each phase of the life cycle, if a major risk or issue occurs, or if an unforeseen significant change takes place. Learn from your mistakes You know what they say: If you don’t study history, you’re doomed to repeat it. And repeating a mistake is the last thing you want to do when managing a project. Consider these strategies when reviewing your project: Compare the original baseline plan against the final actual activity, as shown. Even if you created interim or baseline plans to adjust for drastic changes, look at the widest gap between what you expected to happen in the initial plan and what did happen. This strategy can be the best way to see areas where you tend to underestimate the most or where changes in the project’s scope caused dramatic changes. Review the notes you made about tasks to remind yourself of changes or problems that cropped up. Insert the column named Notes into the Gantt Chart sheet and read all notes in one sitting. Note which resources failed to deliver as promised; if you manage them, provide them constructive feedback. If you don’t manage resources, maintain notes on their working speed and quality to assist in future assignments. Also note which outside vendors failed to perform as expected (and move them to the bottom of the contracting list). Assess your own communications in saved emails or memos. Determine whether you gave the team enough information to perform effectively and whether you informed management about project issues in a timely way. Assess feedback from your boss, your customers, and other stakeholders. Determine whether any overall constraints, such as the project budget or deliverables, changed dramatically during the course of the project. Ask whether end users were satisfied with the rate at which you completed the project and delivered the final product. Inquire about the team’s performance from their perspective and about whether they would rely on you to lead another, similar project. Debrief the team No project is the province of a single person. Even if no one else ever touched the Project plan, your team still provided input for that plan via the hours of activity they reported and the information they provided to you during the course of the project. Follow these suggestions for refining the communications process: Ask team members about the success of actual activity reporting. Did you send email, schedule notes, or use the Project Web App tools, such as TimeSheet, to gather resource information? Did you consider taking advantage of all the benefits of online collaboration? Should you do so on the next project? Determine whether your team rates your communications as frequent and thorough. Did you share with resources too little information about the project, or did you inundate them with too much? Did you send simple reports on specific aspects of the project or send entire (cumbersome) Project files? Did the management team feel that your reporting on the project was sufficient for their needs? Should you learn to take better advantage of other software, such as Excel and Visio, accessed via Visual Reports? Compare Versions of a Project Project managers sometimes prefer to save new versions of project plans rather than work with interim plans. This approach can work, but it doesn’t enable the project history to be captured in a single project file. No matter — Project’s Compare Versions feature lets you see the differences between two Project plan files. These files can be either two different versions of the plan for a single project or files for two separate projects that happen to be similar. You can use this method to either review events from a completed project or compare similar new projects as you’re building them. The finished comparison report shows you the project differences graphically and provides a legend to identify report features. To compare two files in Project, follow these steps: Open the file that you want to compare. The active file is considered the current project. From the Report tab, click the Compare Projects button in the Project group. The Compare Project Versions dialog box appears, as shown. If the file to compare doesn’t appear in the drop-down list labeled Compare the Current Project (filename) to This Previous Version, click the Browse button to search for and select the appropriate file. The file you select is considered the previous project. To compare tables other than the default tables that are shown, select the appropriate tables from the Task Table drop-down list and Resource Table drop-down list. Click the OK button. If you see a message indicating that you have too many columns to compare, click OK to continue. Project runs the comparison and displays the comparison report, as shown. The comparison report appears in the upper pane, and the individual project files show up in the two lower panes. The legend at the left describes the symbols in the Indicators column of the report. Click Resource Comparison in the View group on the Compare Projects tab. The Comparison Report pane changes to display resource information. Click the Close Comparison (X) button on the Legend for Comparison Report pane to close the pane. Click the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar and name the file so that the next time you want to view this comparison report, the projects and fields will already be set up. Build on Microsoft Project Success Although human nature often makes people focus unnecessarily on the shortcomings resulting from a project, the fact is that you’ve likely done many things well. Before you start planning another project, you want to store the positive aspects somewhere that you can easily find later. Create a template One option for saving information from your current project is to create a template, which is simply a file you save that contains the settings you want to replicate. When you open a template, you can save it as a Project document with a new name and all those settings already built in. Project contains its own templates for common types of projects, but you can save any project as a template. If you often repeat the same set of tasks in a project — as people in many industries do — save yourself the time of re-creating all those tasks. Templates can contain, in addition to any tasks in the project, any or all of these types of information for those tasks: All information for each baseline Actual values Rates for all resources Fixed costs You can save all this information or only selected items. For example, if you create numerous fixed costs (such as equipment) and resources with associated rates (and you use them in most projects), you can save a template with only fixed costs and resource rates. To save a file as a template, follow these steps: Open the file you want to save and then choose File→Save As. In the Save and Sync pane, select where you want to save the template. You can save it in SharePoint, on your computer, in the cloud, or in another location that you add. Navigate to where you want to save the template. The Save As dialog box appears, as shown. From the Save As Type drop-down list, select Project Template (*.mpt). Be aware that this file extension doesn’t appear unless you’ve set Windows to display file extensions. Click the Save button. You will be asked to select the type of data you want to remove from the template, such as values of all baseline, actual values, and so on. Check the boxes you want to save in the template, and click Save. Microsoft saves templates in the central folder named Templates. Master the Microsoft Project Organizer The marvelously flexible nature of Project lets you customize many settings such as tables, filters, views, and reports. For example, you can create separate tables of data to display in views that contain sheet panes. You can also create separate filters, reports, and calendars. If you have any kind of a life, you may not want to spend evenings re-creating all these elements on the next project. Instead, use the Organizer to copy them to other Project files. You can use the Organizer to copy information from one file to another file. There are nine tabs to help organize the information you can copy: Views Reports Modules Tables Filters Calendars Maps Fields Groups If you want to make a custom item that you’ve created in the current file available for use in all Project plan files, use the Organizer to copy the item into the global template Global.mpt. Though some items are copied to the Organizer by default, it never hurts to ensure that crucial items are saved there. Follow these steps to use the Organizer: Open the project that you want to copy items from and the project to copy items to. In the file you want to copy to, choose File →Info. Backstage view opens, showing the overall file choices. Click the Organize Global Template button. The Organizer dialog box appears, as shown. Click the tab for the type of information you want to copy. In the left column, click the line to copy from. By default, Project selects the Global.mpt template for the list on the left and the file from which you open the Organizer for the list on the right. If you want to copy items from another open file instead, choose it by clicking the drop-down list below the file list on the right. (Depending on the tab you display, the drop-down list may be named Views Available In, Groups Available In, Reports Available In, and so forth.) Click the Copy button. The item appears in the list on the right. (Optional) To rename a custom item that you’ve created, (a) Click it in the list on the right and then click the Rename button. (b) Enter a new name in the Rename dialog box that appears and then click the OK button. To copy additional items on the same tab, repeat Steps 5 and 6. To copy an item on a different tab, repeat Steps 4–8. When you finish copying items from one file to another, click the Close (X) button. Don’t rename default items in the Organizer. Renaming them can cause errors and malfunctions, such as the inability to display a particular view.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

After you open a blank project in Microsoft Project 2019, you can begin entering basic project information, such as the start or end date. Check out the Project 2019 For Dummies Cheat Sheet. You can enter Microsoft Project scheduling information into Project in two ways: Choose File → Info. In the Project Information section on the right side of the screen, as shown in the following figure, you can enter the start, finish, current, and status dates for the project. All you have to do to make an entry or change an entry is click on it to display the controls — for example, to change the date, just click on the date picker. After choosing File → Info, you can click the Project Information down arrow, then click Advanced Properties. The Properties dialog box opens. Enter the name of the project where it says “Title” and enter your name where it says “Author.” You can also enter company name, keywords, and other information. This information is used in many of the automated reports that Project creates. On the Ribbon, go to the Project tab and click the Project Information icon. You see the Project Information dialog box, shown here. It holds the same information as the Project Information section on the Info screen in the Backstage view. This list describes the settings within the Project Information dialog box: Start Date and Finish Date: For a project scheduled forward from the start date (see the next bullet), enter only the start date. Or if you schedule backward from the finish date, enter a finish date. Schedule From: You can choose to have tasks scheduled backward from the finish date or forward from the start date. Most folks move forward from the start date. Although you can schedule backward, use this feature only to schedule the work backward initially, by selecting the finish date and clicking the OK button. Immediately after doing so, return to this dialog box and revert to the (newly calculated) start date. If you don’t, you may encounter problems down the road if you eventually record progress. At that point, the end date will be fixed because you’ve backward-scheduled, and the start date will be fixed because you’ve recorded actuals, so the schedule will no longer be dynamic and won’t expand or contract. Current Date: By default, this setting matches the computer clock setting. However, you can change it so that it doesn’t match the computer clock setting. Changing this date is useful for looking at what-if scenarios or for tracking progress as of a certain date in the past or any date you choose. Status Date: You typically set the current date to track the progress on the project. When tracking, you usually want to see the status of the project as of the current moment, so you can ignore this setting. However, if you want to track as of the end of a fiscal period or another time frame, change it to track the status of tasks as of any other date. Calendar: Select from this drop-down list the Base calendar template to use for the Project calendar. I list this setting first because it’s the only one you have to deal with when you start a new project. For now, assume you will use the Standard calendar. Priority: This field is useful if your organization has many projects and you create links among them. If you use a tool such as resource leveling to resolve conflicts, it can consider this project priority setting when calculating what to delay and what to keep on track. Microsoft Project scheduling options One of the most valuable aspects offered by Project has traditionally been its ability to recalculate task schedules, such as when you change the project start date or there is a change to one task’s schedule that affects one or more dependent (linked) tasks. This powerful behavior saves the project manager — you — from having to rethink and reenter dates to rescheduled tasks throughout the project. But flip sides to the benefits of automation always exist, and in the case of project scheduling, automatic scheduling can lead to unwanted schedule changes based on software behavior and not on human expertise. To retain the helpful aspects of automation that make scheduling less time-consuming while allowing project managers to retain schedule control when needed, Project 2019 allows user-controlled scheduling. In user-controlled scheduling, you can select one of these scheduling modes for each task: Auto Schedule: Project calculates task schedules for you based on the project start date and finish date, task dependencies, calendar selections, and resource scheduling. Manually: Project enables you to skip entering the duration and dates, and specifying them later. When you enter the duration and dates, Project fixes the schedule for the task and doesn’t move it unless you do so manually. The manually scheduled tasks move if you reschedule the entire project, in most cases. The Gantt bars for manually scheduled tasks also differ in appearance from those for automatically scheduled tasks. The indicator for auto-scheduled and manually scheduled tasks is at the bottom of the Project window. This figure shows the Database tasks are auto-scheduled, as indicated by the time bar and the arrow in the Task Mode column. The User Interface tasks are manually scheduled, as indicated by the pushpin in the Task Mode column. On the time scale, the auto-scheduled tasks show up as blue bars on your screen and the manually scheduled tasks show up as aqua bars with vertical lines on each end. The summary task (the task with other tasks indented beneath it) should be auto-scheduled. That is because the start and finish dates of the tasks beneath it indicate when the summary task can can start and finish. The project file can have all manually scheduled tasks or all auto-scheduled tasks — or any mix of the two. By default, all tasks that you create use the manually scheduled mode. You can change the task mode for the overall project in two ways: To change the mode for all new tasks, select the Task tab, click the Schedule Mode icon in the Tasks group (the button with the calendar and a question mark), and then choose Auto Schedule or Manually Schedule from the menu, as shown here. Another way to change the mode for all new tasks is to click the New Tasks link at the left end of the status bar at the bottom of the project, then select the mode you want. You can change the task mode for individual tasks in three ways: Select the task, click the Task tab on the Ribbon, and then click either Manually Schedule or Auto Schedule in the Schedule group. Select the task, click the Task Mode cell for the task, click the drop-down arrow that appears, and click either Manually Scheduled or Auto Scheduled in the drop-down list. Select the task, click the Task tab on the Ribbon, and click the Information button in the Properties group. On the General tab of the Task Information dialog box, go to the Schedule Mode area and click the Manually Scheduled radio button or the Auto Scheduled option button. You need to balance the desires of your inner control freak versus the need to be an efficient project manager in determining how often to use manual scheduling. Though manual scheduling prevents Project from moving tasks that you want to stay put in the schedule, you may need to edit the schedules for dozens of dependent tasks in a long or complicated project. The best balance — particularly for beginning project managers — may be to use manual scheduling sparingly. How to enter the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) The schedule should be set up the same way as the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). If you want to continue the outline numbering scheme from the WBS, Project automatically extends to the schedule tasks the outline numbering used for the WBS. You can do this in two ways: Select the Format tab. In the Columns group, click Insert Column. Select the Outline Number option. You can also enter the outline number directly into the task cell by following these steps: Click to open the Format tab. In the Show/Hide group, select the Outline Number check box. The first information to enter into the new project is the WBS. Follow these simple steps to enter the WBS in Gantt Chart view: In the Task Name column, click a blank cell. Type the name of the WBS element. Using the example of the Youth Center 10K Run/Walk, the first element is Registration. Press Enter to move to the next cell in the column and then type the WBS element name. Repeat Step 3 until you enter all WBS names. You can edit the text that you type by pressing the Delete or Backspace key to clear characters. After you enter the WBS, you can use the Indent feature to create the outline format. To indent, select the Task tab and click the Schedule group’s Indent icon. This figure shows part of the screen display after you enter the WBS outline. This version shows the outline numbering as a separate column. Notice that after you indent a task, its parent task switches from manually scheduled to auto-scheduled because the duration and dependencies of the child tasks determine when the parent task can start and finish. Therefore, you don’t fill in the duration or start and finish dates for WBS elements — that information will auto-populate when you enter tasks beneath the WBS elements. How to enter tasks in Microsoft Project 2019 After the WBS information is entered, you can start entering tasks. You can create tasks in a few different ways: Type information in the sheet area of the Gantt chart. Enter information in the Task Information dialog box. Import tasks from Outlook. Import tasks from Excel. You can fill in the details of the task duration and start date when you enter the task, or later. Entering tasks in Gantt Chart view Many people who work on lengthy projects find that entering all task names in the sheet pane of Gantt Chart view is the quickest and easiest method. This method is the same one I used to enter the WBS information. You can simply enter a task name in the Task Name column, press the Enter or down-arrow key on the keyboard to move to the next blank row, enter another task, and so on. Use the Task Mode column to change the task scheduling mode from Manually Schedule to Auto Schedule for any task not using the default method. Entering tasks via the Task Information dialog box If dialog boxes provide the kind of centralized information form that fits the way you like to work, consider using the Task Information dialog box to enter, well, task information. The series of tabs in this dialog box contain all the information about a task. Follow these steps to create a task via the Task Information dialog box: In the Task Name column, double-click a blank cell. The Task Information dialog box appears, as shown. In the Name field, type a task name. You can enter any other information you would like to while you are there. Click the OK button to save the new task. The task name appears in Gantt Chart view in the cell you clicked in Step 1. Press the down-arrow key to move to the next cell. Repeat Steps 1–4 to add as many tasks as you like. As you name tasks, make task names in the project both descriptive and unique. However, if you can’t make all names unique (for example, you have three tasks named Hire Staff), you can use the automatically assigned task number or the outline number to identify tasks; these numbers are always unique for each task. Naming tasks is a trade-off between giving a full description (which is much too long for a Task Name field) and being too brief (which can lead to misunderstandings and uncertainty). When in doubt, be brief in the Task Name and elaborate with a Task Note. To insert a task anywhere within the list of tasks in Project, from the Task tab, Insert group, click a task name cell where you want the new task to appear, and click the Insert Task icon. The new task is inserted in the row above. You can also press the Insert key on the keyboard, or right-click and select Insert Task from the pop-up menu.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

Two of the main features of Microsoft Project 2019 are the Ribbon (and Ribbon tabs) and the Quick Access toolbar. These tools help you to make the most of your project management opportunities. Microsoft Project 2019's Ribbon and Ribbon tabs Each of the Ribbon tabs in Project shows different options on the Ribbon. Each Ribbon tab has a different group of controls or functions. You can navigate from one tab to another by clicking on the tab name. The first tab on the left is the File Ribbon tab. After you click this tab, you see the Navigation plan down the left side, as shown here. The Ribbon tab puts you into Backstage view, where you find choices for working with files and changing options. For example, you can create a new project, open an existing project, save your current project, or print your current project. From Backstage view, you can also share, export, or close your current project. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can click Options and customize the Ribbon and the Quick Access toolbar. The Task Ribbon tab is where you spend a lot of your time in Project. As you can see here, on the far left side of the Task Ribbon tab is the View. The default view is Gantt Chart view. It shows the task information and the chart that displays a bar chart representing the duration of each task. In addition to Gantt Chart, you can choose these views: Calendar Network Diagram Resource Sheet Resource Usage Resource Form Resource Graph Task Usage Task Form Task Sheet Team Planner Timeline Tracking Gantt You may recognize some of the groups of commands on the Task Ribbon tab. For example, the Clipboard and Font groups are standard in many Windows applications. Other groups, such as Schedule and Tasks, are specific to a particular view — in this case, Gantt Chart view. Look for the Gantt Chart Tools above the Format tab when you see the Task Ribbon tab in Gantt Chart view. In other views, you see different tools above the Format tab. The Resource Ribbon tab, shown here, helps you organize resources, such as assigning and leveling resources across tasks. In Project, resources include people, equipment, material, locations, and supplies. You can assign costs and calendars to resources. The Report Ribbon tab, shown here, is where you can create reports on resources, costs, or progress, or put them all together in a dashboard report. You can create a report that compares your current status to previous versions of your project. On the Project Ribbon tab, shown here, you find commands to help you manage your project as a whole, rather than by task or resource. For example, you can enter or change the project start and finish dates and the baseline. If you need to change working time or add a subproject, this is the place to do it.The View Ribbon tab, shown here, lets you see some standard views. Examples are Task views, such as Gantt Chart, and Resource views, such as Resource Usage or Team Planner. You can use the View Ribbon tab to look at information sorted by date or a specific period. This tab also lets you see the entire project, show or hide the Timeline, and set the timescale you see. The Format Ribbon tab, shown here, has commands that help you present your schedule, such as text styles, Gantt chart styles, and column settings. You can either show or hide the Ribbon to produce more real estate on your screen. The pushpin to the far right of the Ribbon pins it to your display, keeping it open and visible (as shown here). The upward-facing arrow (^) on the far-right side hides the Ribbon. If your Ribbon is closed, click on any tab, look in the lower-right corner of the Ribbon and you will see a pushpin. Click on the pushpin to keep your Ribbon open. You can also press Ctrl+F1 to show or hide the Ribbon. How to display tools like the Microsoft Project Timeline in Microsoft Project 2019 The Quick Access toolbar, which appears onscreen at all times, initially contains the Save, Undo, and Redo buttons. You can customize the Quick Access toolbar by clicking the down arrow at the right end of the toolbar and clicking the option you want to hide or display. If you don’t see the option you want, click More Commands near the bottom of the menu to display the Quick Access Toolbar category in the Project Options dialog box. This shows you a full list of commands you can add. This figure shows the list of commands you can choose from. The nifty Timeline tool shows the entire scaled time span of the project. To show the Timeline, go to the View Ribbon tab, in the Split View group and click the check box that says Timeline. You can add tasks or milestones to the Timeline. You can also copy the Timeline and paste it into reports or other presentations. To hide the Timeline, uncheck the Timeline box. You can also work with the Timeline by right-clicking to insert tasks, copy the Timeline, change the font, or view detailed information. This figure shows the Timeline with summary tasks and milestones. The status bar, shown here, sits at the bottom of the project, to indicate whether your tasks are manually or automatically scheduled. The status bar also lets you move quickly to some of the most popular views, such as Gantt, Task Usage, Team Planner, Resource Sheet, and Reports. You can also adjust the time scale from a high-level, time scaled view to a detailed time-scaled view with the View slider, on the far-right end of the status bar.

Article / Updated 06-04-2019

Microsoft Project 2019, which is a project management and scheduling tool, helps you organize, manage, and control defined variables. Project also can help you manage the undefined variables as well. You can use Project to organize and manage your work, create realistic schedules, and optimize your use of resources. Take a moment to look at some of the wonderful ways in which Project can help you organize, manage, and control your project. Now that you have, or your company has, bought Project and you’re investing your time to understand how to use it, you can enjoy these benefits: Use built-in templates to get a head start on your project. Project templates are prebuilt plans for a typical business project, such as commercial construction, an engineering project, a new product rollout, software development, or an office move. Organize your project by phase, deliverable, geography, or any other method. The outline format allows you to progressively elaborate the information in greater granularity depending on how detailed you want your plan to be. Determine costs by your chosen method. Examples are time period, resource type, deliverable, or cost type. Organize resources by resource type. Level your resources to avoid overallocation, or determine the impact on the duration of a task based on a change in resources. Calculate costs and timing based on your input. You can quickly calculate what-if scenarios to solve resource conflicts, maintain costs within your budget, or meet a deliverable deadline. Use views and reports with the click of a button. A wealth of information is now available to you — and those you report to. You no longer have to manually build a report on total costs to date to meet a last-minute request from your boss. Manage complex algorithms (that you couldn’t even begin to figure out on your own) to complete such tasks as leveling resource assignments to solve resource conflicts, filtering tasks by various criteria, modeling what-if scenarios, and calculating the dollar value of work performed to date. No matter how cool the tool, you have to take the time to enter meaningful data. Great software doesn’t ensure great outcomes; it only makes them easier to achieve. Microsoft Project 2019 schedules The file you create in Project is a Project schedule model. It’s a model because it models what you think will happen given what you know at the time. The schedule has a plethora of data about various aspects of your project as well as graphical representations of that information. Some people refer to the project schedule as the project plan. In reality, the project plan contains the project schedule — plus information such as the budget, work breakdown structure, project life cycle, risk management plan, and many other ingredients necessary to effectively manage a project. When you first open Project 2019, you see several options for starting a new project, as shown. You can open a blank project, create a new project from an existing project, or create a new project by importing information from Microsoft Excel or SharePoint. You can also take advantage of premade templates for common project types, such as these examples: Residential construction Software development New product launch Merger or acquisition evaluation If you don’t see the template you need, you can search for online templates by entering keywords in the search box at the top of the page. Major features of Microsoft Project 2019 When you open a new project, you see the Quick Access toolbar, a few Ribbon tabs, the Ribbon, the Timeline, a pane with a sheet and a chart, and the status bar, as shown. In this figure, you see Gantt Chart view. Here’s an overview of the major elements in Project: Quick Access toolbar: The Quick Access toolbar, above and to the left of the Ribbon, is onscreen at all times and in all views. Ribbon tab: The Ribbon tabs organize commands based on a particular type of activity. For example, if you’re working with resources, you’ll likely find the command or setting you want on the Resource tab. Ribbon: The Ribbon provides easy access to the most commonly used tools and commands. When you change tabs, the available tools on the Ribbon change. Group: A group is a set of related commands or choices on the Ribbon. For example, to format text in a cell on the sheet, first find the formatting information you need in the Font group on the Task tab of the Ribbon. Timeline: The Timeline provides an overview of the entire project — a graphical view of the project from start to finish. You have the option of showing the Timeline or hiding it. Sheet: Similar to a spreadsheet, the sheet displays the data in the project. The default fields change depending on the Ribbon tab you’re working in. You can customize the columns and fields in the sheet to meet your needs. Chart: The chart is a graphical depiction of the information on the sheet. Depending on the view or Ribbon tab you see, you might also see a bar chart depicting the duration of a task or a resource histogram showing resource usage. Status bar: The status bar, at the bottom of the Project window, has information on views and zoom level on the right, and information on how newly entered tasks are scheduled on the left. Tell Me What You Want to Do In previous versions of Microsoft Office, there was a Help function. That has been replaced by the Tell Me What You Want to Do feature. If you want some coaching on how to do something in Project 2019, just click the light bulb next to the Format tab. Enter a keyword, and you have several options to choose from. Search for “critical path” and the information in this figure comes up.

Article / Updated 03-08-2017

You can make a calendar available for multiple projects by using the Organizer in Project 2013; it serves as the control center for custom items such as calendars you create in your project files. Using the Organizer, you can copy a custom calendar from one project file into another. You can copy a custom calendar into a template that provides default settings to every new project file you create. To copy a calendar from one project to another, follow this procedure: Open the project to which you want to copy a calendar and the project file that holds the custom calendar to copy. Choose File→Info. Backstage view opens. Click the Organizer button. The Organizer dialog box appears. Click the Calendars tab. From the Calendars Available In drop-down list (in the lower-left corner), select the Project 2013 file that contains the calendar you want to copy. In the Calendars Available In drop-down list (in the lower-right corner), choose whether you want to make the calendar available in another open project (by selecting that project) or the Global template (by selecting Global.MPT). In the list on the left, click the calendar you want to copy and then click the Copy button. The calendar is copied to the current project. If you want to give the calendar a different name, make sure that it’s selected in the list, click the Rename button, type a new name in the Rename dialog box that appears, and then click the OK button. Close the Organizer by clicking the X (Close) button in the upper-right corner. Follow these pointers to copy calendars from project to project: Give the calendar a descriptive name. Providing an appropriate name helps you remember the calendar’s general parameters. If your company has standard calendars, have a single resource create and disseminate them. If ten versions of a management calendar float around and you grab the wrong one, it can cause problems. Add the project manager’s initials to every calendar template name you create. That way, you know which ones you created.