Project VBA: How and Why it
can
Make You a Project Guru!
A Project Guru is not just a power user
Project Gurus are great at managing and
reporting on, project information
Data management and reporting is
what makes VBA so useful and
productive
Rod Gill
• Microsoft MVP for Project since 1997
(Most Valuable Professional)
• Has over 25 years experience as a Project Manager in
Construction, Software Engineering and many other
industries in between
• Trains Project Management and advanced Microsoft
Project courses
• Author of the book: VBA Programming for Microsoft
Office Project Versions 98 through 2007
A Project Guru is not just a power user
Project Gurus are great at managing and
reporting on, project information
Data management and reporting is
what makes VBA so useful and
productive
This Session is about
How VBA helps you:
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Manipulate data
Import/Export data
Create custom Reports in Excel
Add functionality to Project
Make you stand out as an expert
Make you more money!
Up skill you to more job security
You’ll Learn
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How Project VBA will help elevate you to Guru status
Lessons from some real life examples
Some code to get you going
A road map to success with Project VBA
How Project VBA will help
elevate you to Guru status
• Helps you understand and use your application
better
• Makes you and your team more productive
• Adds value to your information
• Eliminates boring and repetitive work
• Makes following processes easier and
more reliable
• Makes you more useful and valuable at work
• Makes you stand out as a Power User/Guru
VBA – More Benefits
• If you know Project VBA, Excel VBA is easy to pick up
• Lets you integrate the power of Project and Excel
almost seamlessly
• Good schedulers likely to have the right aptitude to
program in VBA
• Can be used for any active project
• Works with or without Project Server
• VBA written for Project 98 still works in
Project 2010 – so great compatibility
Real Life Lessons from
Two Projects
1. Multi-company, multi-country, multiple programs of
projects - outsourcing project
2. Refinery upgrade
Examples
1. When more than one person needs to use the same
file:
A Project_Open event shows the View and Table
reserved for the logged in user.
2. Getting Project to automatically scroll a project to
today’s date on opening
3. Detailed graphs required weekly by Contractor,
Discipline and Construction Location
Information sent to Excel and graphed
Examples
4. Weekly report takes an hour to fill in each week
Read Project Server Data into Excel to create 80% of
the report in seconds, even when that data is half
way around the world
5. Spreadsheet holds useful progress data
Update a schedule with data from Excel
6. Manipulate Task names to save time and effort
7. Reports print differently each week
Create macros to guarantee correct formatting of
printed reports (no project Server)
When is it Worth Coding?
• I write code when to do so will take 50% less time
than doing it manually (including repetitions)
• I write code to replace a boring job!
• The more working code I have the more I have to
copy and edit and the less time it takes!
Road map to Learn
Project VBA
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Get my Book!
Learn to record macros
Learn to edit recorded macros
Learn basic loops for Tasks, Assignments
Develop code that’s easy to maintain
Develop code to work with Excel/databases
Write Add-ins
Microsoft News Groups to keep you going
http://msdn.microsoft.com/project/ for the Project
Developer Center
Finally
• I’ll be at the MSProjectExperts stand in the
Exhibitors Hall
• Get THE Project VBA book
• Chris Boyd sessions: Project Client
Advanced Development Using VSTO
and Project 2010 - Programmability
• Have a go!
Rod Gill
rodg@project-systems.co.nz
http://www.projectvbabook.com