Course Duration

Course Overview

This two day course is designed for individuals who will use Microsoft Project as a tool to assist them in managing projects. The topics in this course cover the critical skills necessary to create and modify a project plan file that contains tasks, resources, and resource assignments.

Course Content

• Overview of Microsoft Project

  Exploring views in Microsoft Project
  Tables, forms and charts
  Menus and toolbars
  Gantt chart and task entry views

• Creating a New Plan

  How to start a project from scratch
  Setting a project finish date or a start date, which is best?
  Setting the default working times for the project
  Entering properties for the project

• Adding Tasks to your plan

  Entering tasks into your project
  Using the change highlighting feature
  Adding task notes
  Editing, deleting and rearranging tasks
  Using outlining to create summary tasks
  When to use estimated durations for tasks

• Linking Tasks

  Linking tasks using various different methods
  Understanding different link types and which one to use
  How to alter links between tasks
  Recurring tasks
  Splitting tasks

• Sorting and filtering

  Sorting and filtering tasks into a specified order
  Using highlights to find specific tasks easily
  

• Using Constraints Efficiently

  Lag and lead to control tasks
  Adding deadlines and constraints
  Understanding constraint types such as flexible (soft) and Inflexible (Hard) types
  Problems with placing constraints on tasks
  How to view tasks with constraints and what the symbols mean

• Project Resources

  Adding resources to your project
  Using the correct resource type
  Assigning resources to tasks
  Assigning resources to work part time on tasks
  Dealing with a resource over-allocation
  Viewing Resource usage

• Calendars and Time

  Setting up the standard calendar
  Changing the default working time and adding holidays
  Using calendars to control different working patterns
  Controlling tasks by assigning a task calendar
  Sharing your calendars with other projects

• Costs

  Entering costs for resources
  Entering costs for tasks independent of resources
  Costs and summary tasks

• Custom Tables

  Understanding custom fields
  Naming a custom field
  Creating a formula to calculate field values
  Calculating formula values for summary tasks
  Displaying field values graphically
  Formatting task bars based on custom field values

• Formatting Gantt Charts

  Adding notes and lines to the gantt chart
  Alter how the working and non-working time is displayed
  Display a project summary bar

• Tracking your Project

  Setting the baseline
  When or if you should clear the baseline
  The concepts involved when tracking a project
  Updating the tasks that went to plan
  Rescheduling tasks that are running late
  Entering actual task information
  Current date feature
  Viewing statistics for your project
  Comparing you project against what was planned
  Viewing how much tasks have slipped
  Tips on tracking a project

• Planning Techniques

  Network Diagrams
  New shapes and outline symbols
  Viewing and understanding the critical path
  How to view slack time (float)
  Should tasks be dependent on resources or should they have the duration fixed?

• Printing Charts and the Calendar

  Create headers and footers using the project properties
  Add project-level fields to headers, footers or legends
  The options for printing legends
  Print setting for the different views

• Reports

  How to use the standard reports
  How to print a report of the costs over time
  Exporting your reports to Excel or Visio

• Master or Consolidated Projects

  Master projects (Consolidating)
  Creating master projects
  Master / sub project properties
  Mixing master / sub project tasks

Prerequisites

• • Delegates should have a working knowledge of Windows or they should have completed the Introduction to Windows course. Delegates should feel at ease performing tasks such as arranging, sizing, switching between windows. Previous use of a mouse is assumed on this course.