MS Project: Introduction Course

The first session of this Microsoft Project course introduces the basics.

It begins by showing you how to navigate around the MS Project interface, menus and environment. This should be familiar to anyone who is an experienced user of Microsoft Office.

From there, it introduces the basics of setting up a new project.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• How Microsoft Project works
• Understanding the Project start screen
• The Project
• Screen
• Project Operations
• Using the Ribbon
• Showing and Collapsing the Ribbon
• Understanding the Backstage
• The Project Work Area
• Working With Views
• Working With Split Screens
• Understanding Sheet Views
• Working With Tables
• Gantt Chart View
• Working With Gantt Charts
• Understanding the QAT
• Working With the QAT
• Working With Project Files

This session covers some useful background and helps to put Microsoft Project into a practical context.

We review what project management is, why planning is so important and how project management tools, and more particularly computers, can make the process of project management simpler and faster.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Tasks and Resources
• The Importance of Planning
• Understanding the Gantt Chart
• Computers and Project Management

This session looks in detail at setting up a new project correctly.

• Steps in Creating a Project
• Understanding Your Project
• Creating a New Project File
• Calendar Options
• Changing Calendar Options
• Working With Calendars
• Modifying the Standard Calendar
• Entering Public Holidays
• Creating a New Resource Calendar
• Creating a New Task Calendar
• Setting Up Project Information
• Entering File Properties

Tasks are one of the key building blocks of project management.

This section explains how MS Project handles the individual tasks that make up your overall project.

It shows you how to create a new task, how it is measured (time, work, units etc) and how to move or duplicate tasks that you have already created.

This session also covers how you set the constraints on a task and the deadlines for a task. Ensuring that the tasks for your project are correctly set up and configured is vital for a smooth-running project.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding Tasks
• Understanding Scheduling Icons
• Our Case Study Tasks
• Reviewing the Project
• Entering Tasks
• Creating Summary Tasks
• Assignment Creating Summary Tasks
• Working in a Sheet View
• Working With Summary Tasks
• Working With Task Views
• Examining Task Information
• Understanding Task Durations
• Entering Task Durations
• Checking Progress
• Entering Milestones
• Assigning a Calendar to a Task

Dependencies explain the relationships between tasks in Project.

Within a project most tasks will be linked. So for example, if you are renovating a house you cannot paint a wall before you have plastered it, allowed it to dry and prepared it to be painted.

This session focuses on how Microsoft Project works with related tasks and how you can set up the dependencies to help you understand how your project is progressing and how best to run it.

We look at working in Microsoft Project with tasks that have a lead time and also a lag time in this session. These are tasks where they can either overlap to some extent with the previous task (lead time) or where some clear time is required between one task being completed and the subsequent task commencing (lag time). Adding lag times is also a simple way to build in a small amount of contingency into a plan.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding Task Dependencies
• Creating Dependencies Automatically
• Creating Dependencies in Task Entry
• Creating Dependencies in Task Information
• Creating Dependencies in a Sheet View
• Fine Tuning a Schedule Using Dependencies
• Auto Scheduling Tasks
• Critical Path and Project Slack
• Viewing the Critical Path
• Examining Task Slack
• Understanding Lag Time
• Entering Lag Time
• Understanding Lead Time
• Entering Lead Time
• Inactivating a Task

This session focuses on how you set up and input your project resources into MS Project.

It also shows you how to set up the costs of your resources correctly. Once you have correctly set up your tasks and resources for a project, you are well on your way to having a clear plan for its execution.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding Resources
• Entering Work Resources
• Entering Material Resources
• Entering Cost Resources
• Assigning Calendars to Resources
• Understanding Resource Availability
• Adjusting Resource Availability
• Changing the Unit Display

There are multiple ways that resources can be allocated within Microsoft Project depending on a number of things including the type of task, the duration of the task and the number of other resources available.

Understanding how to set these up is the focus of this session.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Resource Assignment Calculations
• Task Types and Work Effort
• Creating a Simple Assignment
• Working With Fixed Unit Tasks
• Working With Fixed Duration Tasks
• Making Multiple Assignments
• Adding Additional Resources
• Adding More of the Same Resource
• More Resources in Multiple Assignments
• Understanding Effort Driven Scheduling
• Working With Non-Effort Driven Tasks
• Working With Effort Driven Tasks
• Resource Assignment Summary

Having set up your resources in the previous session, this session covers how you then work with and assign your resources to tasks.

It covers part-time resourcing and how you can specify usage either by hours or percentages. We also look at a case study on resources in Project to finish this session.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Simple Resource Assignments
• Assigning Part Time Resources
• Understanding Work Contouring
• Specifying Resource Usage
• Contouring Work Hours
• Assigning Specific Work Times
• Work Times for Multiple Assignments
• Problem Assignments
• Assigning Resources in Task Information
• Assigning Resources in a Sheet
• Assigning Resources You Do Not Have
• The Case Study Resources

• Understanding Resource Levelling
• Creating Resource Chaos
• Tracking Down Over Allocations
• Checking Resource Usage
• Creating an Over Allocation Report
• Fix 1 – Changing Work Effort
• Understanding Overtime
• Fix 2 – Assigning Overtime
• Fix 3 – Hiring Contract Labour
• Fix 4 – Switching Work Assignments
• Fix 5 – Rescheduling Tasks

The other key input into a project is materials. This session covers these in detail showing you how to assign material consumption in various ways so that it best fits the profile of usage in the project.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Assigning Fixed Material Consumption
• Contouring Materials Usage
• Adding More Material Assignments
• Assigning Variable Usage Material
• Adding to a Material Assignment
• Checking Work for Materials

The final part of working with the inputs for a project is to pull together materials and resources into a Project Cost plan.

This section shows you how to add costs either per day or per usage, or to make them fixed. It also shows you how to change the costs during a project if necessary. Once we have completed this session, creating a full-cost plan for your project will be simple.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding Project Costs
• Reviewing Current Costs
• Entering Variable Costs
• Case Study Variable Costs
• Assigning Daily Costs
• Assigning Per Usage Costs
• Assigning Fixed Costs
• Assigning Material Costs
• Using Another Cost Table
• Applying a Different Cost Table
• Changing Rates During a Project
• Assigning Cost Resources
• Viewing Project Costs

This session drills down into the detail of working with deadlines and constraints.

By default, all tasks are set with a constraint of As Soon As Possible.  However, if something needs to be completed for a set date (for example, a conference), then setting that date will allow Microsoft Project to flag up very early if changes to the plan will impact that date.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding Constraints and Deadlines
• Reviewing Our Project
• Adding a Constraint
• Using Elapsed Time
• Rescheduling Tasks
• Creating a Deadline

This session shows you how to use Project to manage and keep track of a live project once you have it fully set up.

It shows you how to create a baseline for your project. This allows you to then compare future project plans with your initial plan very simply. We also cover how to update a project for actual results and how to delay tasks that are already set up.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Creating a Baseline
• Automatically Updating Tasks
• Manually Updating Tasks
• Entering Delayed Tasks
• Tracking Actuals on a Gantt Chart
• Using the Tracking Box
• Viewing Task Slippage

Understanding how to access and your data in Microsoft Project is vital, especially for larger and more complex projects.

This section shows you how to use the data tools that are contained in Microsoft Project so that you can quickly and simply manage your data.

The key topics trained in this session are:

• Understanding The Data Tools
• Basic Data Highlighting
• Highlighting Date Ranges
• Highlighting A Range Of Tasks
• Highlighting Tasks With Specific Resources
• More Highlight Filters
• Applying Filters
• Editing Existing Filters
• Deleting An Unwanted Filter
• Grouping Tasks
• Using AutoFilters

Communication is a key part of project management.

Being able to edit the output that you generate from Microsoft Project so that you can easily and clearly communicate the relevant sections of the plan to everyone involved is vital. This section shows the various formatting tools that Microsoft Project has which allow you to do this.

The key topics trained in this section are:

• Understanding the Timescale
• Changing Time Periods
• Showing Tiers
• Modifying Specific Tiers
• Formatting for Non-Working Time
• Changing Text Styles
• Working With Gridlines
• Changing the Layout
• Understanding Gantt Chart Bars
• Changing Gantt Chart Styles
• Changing Bar Text
• Formatting Selected Bars
• Changing Bar Styles

This section follows from the one above and covers how to print various reports from Microsoft Project so that you can communicate your project plan to a wide audience.

The key topics covered are:

• Printing a Gantt Chart
• Printing Sheet Views
• Printing Tasks for Resources
• Printing Resources for Tasks

Gantt charts are a key part of project management. As such, Microsoft Project contains a number of formatting tools so that you can ensure that they print in a sensible and logical way. This section covers these tools.

The key topics covered include:

• Placing Printing Commands on the Ribbon
• Using Print Preview
• Setting Page Breaks
• Printing Specific Dates and Pages
• Printing Headers
• Printing Footers
• Working With the Legend
• Getting the Right Report Fit
• Exporting to PDF