Ins and Outs of
Microsoft Project
Washington, DC MPUG
January 10, 2002
Sheri Young
Claridian Technology Consulting
Agenda
Introductions
 Microsoft Project Good Practices
 Tips on “Ins”
 Tips in the middle
 Tips on “Outs”
 Q&A

MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Introductions
Who am I?
 Who are you?

 Project
Experience Survey
Expert on all functionality
Use it in your job –
beyond the Gantt
Not a hands on user
1
2
3
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
4
5
Why are we here?

Adding to your Project “knowledgebase”
 Best
practices learned on the front lines
 Tips and tricks picked up along the way
 War stories
 Live demonstrations when helpful
 Your questions
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Think Before You Click…

Is it a picture or a project?


Do you plan to ‘manage’ it with Project?
Is this project related to other projects?
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Use same resources?
Reported to same managers / customers?
Edited by some of the same people?
 Dependent on work in other projects?

Do you have relevant history?



A template to use to kick off your project?
A similar project with actual durations and workloads?
What level of detail do you need?



At what level will you assign “responsibility”?
At what level will you track costs?
Do you depend on others?
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Is it a picture or a project?

For quickly consumed “MacProjects”, disregard
all that best practices stuff

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Use constraints with wild abandon – type your dates and drag
those bars!
Link to make visual points not calculations
Use Fixed Duration Tasks only
Type your headers and footers directly into the Page Setup
Call your resources any names you want
Freely modify the Gantt View’s table and bar styles
Microsoft Project is a GREAT schedule picture drawing tool too!
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Is this project related to other projects?

Use same resources…

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Reported to same managers / customers…


Share Views to standardize Gantt bar styles, keep columns in
same places, use same custom codes for same purposes
Edited by some of the same people…


Use a shared resource pool so you can forecast workloads
across projects
Call ASpade ASpade – standardized resource names
Use a standard template to store standard Options settings
Dependent on work in other projects…

Keep projects co-located to manage inter-project
dependencies
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Do you have relevant history?

A template…
make you look like a fast planner – kick start
your project with “typical” schedule content
 Can

A similar project with actual durations and
workloads…
 Can
be used to make you look like a planning genius
– with a more accurate plan from the beginning
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
What level of detail do you need?

At what level will you assign “responsibility”?



At what level will you track costs?


That’s the right level for your tasks – trust your staff to task it out
below that level
Add milestones for more information on detailed level progress
Keep your schedule level of detail close to the cost tracking level
– or one level lower
Do you depend on others?

Show all external dependencies as a communication tool and
CY device!
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Design before you click…

What fields you will use

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What custom code fields are needed?
Standard values for code fields

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What bar styles you will use

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What do you want to highlight for this project?
What resources you will use

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Drop down lists, formulas, graphical indicators
Shared resource pool or other naming convention
What Microsoft Project “options” settings you will use
Organizational standards and templates can go a long way to
minimize project manager time
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Some tips on the way “In”

Tools - Options Menu
 Note
“global” and “local project” options
 Turn on project summary task
 Consider default task type
 Check Calendar settings


Use File – Properties for header/footer text
Prepare Project Calendar in Tools – Working
Time
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tips for the middle
Creating a plan
 Resources
 Tracking
 Costs

MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Creating a plan
Use a template for options settings
 Project Start Date is the first predecessor
 Enter tasks column by column instead of
row by row
 Use nouns for summary tasks and action
verbs for tasks
 Use Notes for long descriptions

MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Planning - Cool Stuff
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Use Deadlines not constraints – and manually
rework the plan to meet them
Use mouse to split tasks to show periods of
inactivity
Elapsed duration ignores the calendar working
time settings (1eday=24 hours)
Links can have positive or negative lag
 In
duration units or %
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Planning - User tips
Go To Selected Task toolbar button to
slide Gantt window timeframe
 Mass changes:

 Fill
down handle
 Select multiple tasks and bring up Task
Information dialog

Use collapse and expand outline to
navigate large projects
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Planning with Project Central

Use Project Central as collaboration tool
to build new schedule
 Project
manager creates a summary task and
assigns team members to task
 Team members submit their tasks to project
manager via web
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Assigning Resources

If resources are shared with other projects, use a shared
resource pool

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If projects cannot be co-located, at least use standard resource
names to ensure they can be analyzed together
Protect yourself from typos by turning off Automatically
add new resources and tasks option
Don’t include repetitive, operational or overhead type
non-project task line items unless somebody makes
you
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Resources - Cool Stuff

The shared resource pool is a communication tool
between project managers and resource managers
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With the pool file open and connected to your file, you can see
all of a person’s assignments on every project
Your assignments get copied to the pool file so other project
managers can see how busy you are keeping that person
A Resource Pool operates like a consolidated project file for
assignment data – great for a resource manager
Note that performance issues can keep the pool from being an
industrial strength solution for large numbers of projects and
resources
Use the Resource Graph to see how busy (and how
free) a single resource or a group of resources are
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Resources - User tips

You MUST understand “the equation” to effectively work
with resource-loaded schedules

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Equation: Work = Duration x Resource Units
Examples
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The equation is always on
The equation’s behavior is affected by task types: Fixed Units,
Fixed Duration, and Fixed Work


40 hours=5 days x 100%
20 hours=5 days x 50%
80 hours=5 days x 2
And by the Effort-driven setting
For in-progress tasks, the equation applies to Remaining
Duration and Remaining Work
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Resources with Project Central
Use Project Central to communicate task
assignments to resources
 An alternative is using email-based
workgroup to notify resources by email
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MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tracking
Use a baseline to store your original plan
for comparison purposes
 Updating task status updates resource
status option setting marries or divorces
“% complete” and “% work complete”
 If you are using resources,

 Use
a Usage view to revise/update your plan
 Do not enter status at task level!
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tracking - Cool Stuff

Use Tracking Gantt View and Variance
tables to easily get a picture of current
status
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tracking - User tips

Note that updating the baseline on
selected subtasks will not update the
summary task baseline
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tracking with Project Central

Collect status via Project Central instead
of hand-typing it
 Team
members fill in one web-based
timesheet for task assignments
 Status routed to appropriate project managers
 Project managers are gateway for updating
the project plan automatically
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Costs

Costs may be entered by you or calculated by
Microsoft Project
 Set
the Actual costs are always calculated by
Microsoft Project option setting

Calculated costs are Actual Work * Rate
 Resources
may have multiple rates, changing over
time

Fixed costs are entered by user and added to
calculated costs
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Costs with Project Central

Report current cost information to web
users with Project Central
 Control
access by limiting access of
Categories to Views containing cost
information
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Tips on the way “Out” - Reporting

Use nearly WYSIWYG Views instead of
“Reports”
 Create
views for each report you need to print
 Views include table, bar styles, filters, groups
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Veporting - Cool Stuff


Use Rollup formatting for condensed schedules or highlighting
milestones
Set Bar Colors automatically with meaningful Flags instead of
manually

Take it a step further and set flags from a code field with a formula or
VBA macro
 Limited to only 20 flags
 Precedence in bar styles list affects style of each individual bar

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Time-phased Network Diagrams
Use Analyze Timescaled Data in Excel wizard to dump periodbased data to Excel and graph
Snapshots of project for web

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HTML via File – Save As Web Page
GIF via Copy Picture toolbar button
PDF using Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer utility
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Reporting - User tips

Make re-usable report formats
File – Properties values and insert them
into headers and footers instead of typing text
 Set
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Reporting with Project Central


Web users get access-controlled real-time information
Create individualized views

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Resource Managers view assignments of their resources
Cost managers see cost information
Customers see only high level information about only their
projects
Use Text-based status reports to format, remind,
collect, and collate written status reports on projects
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002
Q&A
?
MPUG DC Chapter Meeting - January 10, 2002