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(PDF) Ms project tutorial | Quynh Dinh - . Microsoft project 2013 free pdf free
So it is obvious that cost resources do no work on a task and do not affect scheduling of a task. Cost value of the cost resource is entered when assigning it to a task. Click the empty cell in the Resource Name column. Type Training and press the Tab Key. In the Type field, click the down arrow to select Cost. MS Project — Assign Resources to Task MS Project Once the task and resource list are complete, resources need to be assigned to tasks in order to work on them.
With MS Project you can track task progress, resource and tasks costs. Click the box below the Resource Name column for the task you need the resource to be assigned. From the dropdown, choose the resource name. In the following screenshot as an example. You can also select multiple resources to work on a single task. Now click the Assign button. Double-click the Task Name.
Click the Resources tab. Click the cell below the Resource Name column. Select the resource from the dropdown list. The window is split in two, Gantt Chart view and Task Form view below it. In the Task Form view, click under the Resource Name column and select the resource.
We can also assign other material resources to the same task. In the Gantt Chart view, you can also look at the project summary task, to note the duration, start and finish dates of the plan. In the following example, Assign Resources is the project summary task identified as Task 0. MS Project — Track Progress MS Project Once your project plan is ready in MS Project, it becomes essential for a project manager to measure the actuals in terms of work completed, resources used and costs incurred and to revise and change information about tasks and resources due to any changes to the plans.
A Project Manager should not assume that everything is progressing according to plan and should always keep track of each task. Resistance to formal tracking of project management data is normal. You can overcome resistance to tracking by explaining your expectations, explaining the benefits of tracking, and training people to track the task themselves. Save a Baseline To evaluate project performance you need to create a baseline against which you will compare the progress.
One needs to save the baseline, once a plan is fully developed. Of course, due to rolling wave planning or progressive elaboration needed to manage projects one can always add new tasks, resources, constraints and costs to the plan. Also note, it makes sense to save the baseline before entering any actual values such as percentage of task completion. These multiple baselines seem contrary to the definition of baseline. You want to develop separate baseline plans for risk response and recovery.
You will see Baseline Gantt bars displayed together with the current Gantt bars. Update the Baseline for the Entire Project This simply replaces the original baseline values with the currently scheduled values. Update the Baseline for Selected Tasks This does not affect the baseline values for other tasks or resource baseline values in the plan. Save Multiple Baselines You can save up to 11 baselines in a single plan.
The first one is called Baseline, and the rest are Baseline 1 through Baseline It can be used as a project marker. It is visually easy to see how off-track or on-track the project progress is. Because it only specifies dates, it is simple, clear and easy information.
But sometimes this approach might be fine when the actual work and cost values generated are close enough to your baseline schedule. Select the current date. Check marks will appear in the indicators column for tasks that have been completed. On the right in the Chart portion, progress bars are generated in the Gantt bars of each task.
This table includes Work Scheduled work , Actual, and Remaining columns. Click on Task you want to update. For this task, initial scheduled Work was 16 hours, because 24 hours is greater. In the example, a Baseline is saved, because the Baseline does not change and is used as a comparison.
Note: Actual work is rolled up and also reflects on the summary task. Change Start or Finish field in Actual group. You can fill Actual duration field as well. One does not have to finish collecting survey responses before starting the tabulation. Click the box under the Type column and choose the relationship according to your requirement.
Under Lag heading column, enter the lag in terms of hours, days, weeks, or years. You can also apply lag or lead as a percentage. As Soon As Possible means the task starts as soon as the project starts, if there are no dependencies that would delay it. So, no fixed start or end dates are imposed by this constraint type, but of course predecessor and successor dependencies are maintained. Default constraint when you schedule from the project finish date.
Do not enter a Flexible task start or finish date with this constraint. As Soon As Task is scheduled to begin as early as possible. Do not enter a start or finish date with this constraint. Start No Earlier Task is scheduled to start on or after a specified date. Must Finish On Task is scheduled to finish on a specified date. Click dropdown box for Constraint type.
Choose the constraint you would like to apply. It is a better idea to use a Deadline Date which has no effect on the scheduling of a task or summary task. MS Project will alert you with a red exclamation symbol in the indicators column, if the scheduled completion of the task exceeds its deadline date.
Enter the cost under the Fixed Cost column for the task of interest. Enter a Recurring Task Status meetings, status reports, inspection dates can recur with a particular frequency.
In MS Project , you can specify recurring tasks without having to assign tasks each time separately. You can also assign resources to these task.
Enter Task Name and choose Recurrence pattern. You can also choose a specific time for the task to start as well. You can add time value in the Start box for Recurring Task Information dialog box to change this. In the following figure, start time of AM is entered. While schedule changes are made, it is also likely that the critical path will change from time to time.
One needs to always focus on the Critical Path first, when one wants to apply fast-tracking or crashing to shorten the project duration. Slack or Float are key to understanding Critical path.
All task bars in the critical path, in the Gantt Chart View on the right, will turn Red in color. Gantt Chart View displays some limited resource information, as shown in the following screenshot. It summarizes whether there may be a problem by the red over allocated icon in the indicator column. The Resource Usage view displays resources and all tasks assigned to them underneath the Resource Name. The left-hand side of the screen lists the Resources and the Task Names together with columns of total information for the resource or assignment.
The right-hand side shows a time-phased view. Click on Resource Name column heading. Resolve Resource Over Allocation One would need to either change the scope reduce the amount of work , assign more resources, or accept a longer schedule to resolve overallocation. If you add delay that is less than or equal to the amount of slack on the task, you will not affect the finish date of the project.
Substitute Resources or Add Additional Resources You can manually allot some other resource to the task. You can also right-click on the Time-phased grid in the right hand side window to display amount of overallocation by switching on overallocation.
Now you can reduce the assigned hours. In the following example, 8-hour assignment is reduced to 4-hour assignments. You will also notice a new icon in the indicator column to let you know that the assignment work has been edited.
If actual work has been recorded, you must manually reduce the remaining work on the task. Remove Overallocated Resource You can just remove a resource assignment from an overallocated resource. Level Overallocated Resources If resources are overallocated you can use resource-leveling feature in MS Project It works by either splitting tasks or by adding delay to tasks to ensure the resource is not overloaded. Leveling can delay the individual task finish dates and even the project finish date.
Project does not change who is assigned to each task, total work, or assignment unit values. Project first delays tasks to use up any available slack. Once the slack becomes zero, MS Project makes changes according to priorities, dependency relationships and task constraints such as a Finish No Later Than constraint.
You can enter value between 1 and , according to the amount of control you like in the leveling process.
A priority level of will ensure MS Project does not level a particular task. By default, priority is set at or a medium level of control. Tasks that have lower priority are delayed or split before those that have higher priority. Click on the dropdown box and select Priority.
Now you can add priority to each task as required. Leveling Steps in the Leveling process are only a few, but it is important to understand what each option does.
Project does leveling and overallocated indicators are removed If leveling is done completely, sometimes this might not happen. In Resource Leveling dialog box, under Level calculations, try to use Manual more often.
For examples, if a resource is overallocated, for say half an hour more in a week, from 40 hours to Doing so will not level resources, but it will determine when Project displays overallocation indicators next to resource names.
In Resource Leveling dialog box, under Level calculations, use the clear leveling values before leveling checkbox is selected. Doing so will ensure Project removes any existing leveling delays from all tasks and assignments before leveling.
Here you choose to level either the entire plan or only assignments that fall within a date range you specify. Numerically higher ID numbers for example, 10 will be delayed before numerically lower ID numbers.
You might want to use this option when your plan has no task relationships or constraints. In Resource Leveling dialog box, under Resolving overallocations, you have several options that you can select. MS Project will use only the free slack within the existing schedule, which could mean that resource overallocations might not be fully resolved.
Selecting this checkbox allows Project to add a leveling delay or split work on assignments if Leveling Can Create Splits in Remaining Work is also selected independently of any other resources assigned to the same task. This might cause resources to start and finish work on a task at different times.
This allows Project to split work on a task or on an assignment if Leveling Can Adjust Individual Assignments on a Task is also selected as a way of resolving overallocation.
Selecting this allows Project to level a manually scheduled task just as it would an automatically scheduled task. This will appear under the fields labeled Cost or Total Cost.
At this stage, the project manager would be focusing on collecting, monitoring, analyzing project performance, and updating project status by communicating with the stakeholders. When there is a difference between what is planned and the actual project performance, it is called a Variance. Variance is mostly measured in terms of Time and Cost. Task Slippage There are several ways to view task with variance. By comparing the currently scheduled Gantt bars with baseline Gantt bars, you can see what tasks started later than planned or took longer to complete.
MS Project will filter the task list to show only the tasks filtered in this process. So if you select Slipping Task, you will view only incomplete tasks. Any task that is already completed will not show up. You will be able to view all relevant information. To insert multiple new tasks, select multiple tasks and then press Insert. The same number of new tasks will be inserted as the number you selected. A sample WBS for this project is shown in Figure Create Summary Tasks After you enter tasks in your project, it can be helpful to organize your project by grouping related tasks into phases, or groups of closely related tasks that encompass a major section of your project.
The phases, represented by summary tasks, identify the major phases and sub-phases in your project. A summary task is made up of and summarizes all of the tasks within its hierarchical structure, which could also include other summary tasks, detail tasks, or subtasks that fall below it. A work breakdown structure WBS is the hierarchical decomposition of the work to complete the project. Figure depicts a box-type, or graphical, WBS for the case study project you are working on in this book.
There are other WBS formats that can be used but these are the two most common. Select tasks 1 through On the Task ribbon, in the Insert command group, click the Summary button.
A new summary task row is inserted above the selected tasks, all selected tasks are shifted down and renumbered, and they are all now part of this new summary task.
Type the following task names below task 11, Pre-Production complete. Production Post-Production Note that each of these became part of the previous section. You want each of these to become a summary task. Select tasks 12 and On the ribbon, in the Schedule command group, select the Outdent button. Click the name of task 13, Post-Production, and press Insert twice. Two blank tasks are inserted above the Post-Production task. Type the following task names and durations below task 12, Production.
Task Name Duration Production begins 0d Production complete 0d 8. Type the following tasks names and durations below task 15, Post-Production. Select tasks 13 and On the Task ribbon, in the Schedule group, click the Indent button.
Tasks 13 and 14 are indented and task 12 becomes a summary task. All of the selected tasks will be indented and a new summary task line will appear.
Select tasks 16 and Tasks 16 and 17 are indented and task 15 becomes a summary task. Figure Summary task Gantt bar Gantt Chart showing summary and indented tasks. The appearance of the Production and Post-production summary tasks will change once additional tasks are added in later lessons.
You have just organized your tasks into phases. Working with phases and tasks in Microsoft Project is similar to working with an outline in Microsoft Word.
You can create phases by indenting and outdenting tasks, and you can collapse an entire task list into its phase components. This approach works from general to specific. This approach works from specific to general.
In the Auto Scheduling mode, the links create a sequential dependency in which one task depends on the start or completion of another task in order to begin or end.
Linking Two Tasks When you created your project, all of the tasks in the project schedule were scheduled to start on the same date — the project start date. You must create a dependency, or link, between tasks to correctly reflect the order in which work must be completed. In this exercise, you will link two tasks to reflect the actual order in which they will occur.
Select tasks 2 and 3. Tasks 2 and 3 are now linked with a finish-to-start relationship. Select the name cells of tasks 3 and 4. Microsoft Project changed the start date of task 4 to the next working day following the completion of task 3. Note that because January 18 was a nonworking day the Martin Luther King holiday you set up , task 3 does not finish until January 25 and task 4 does not start until January If necessary, scroll the Gantt Chart to January 24 so that the link you just created is visible.
When you started the exercise in this section, all of the tasks in the project schedule were scheduled to start on the same date — the project start date. You have just linked two tasks to reflect the actual order in which they will occur. A link is a logical connection between tasks that controls sequence and defines the relationship between two or more tasks.
These two tasks have a finish-to-start relationship. The first task is called the predecessor, a task whose start or end date determines the start or finish of another task or tasks. Any task can be a predecessor for one or more tasks. The second task is called the successor, a task whose start or finish is driven by another task or tasks. Again, any task can be a successor to one or more predecessor tasks. The second task occurs after the first task. This is called a sequence, or the chronological order in which tasks must occur.
Tasks can have only one of four types of task relationships, as shown in Table Do not get task relationships in Microsoft Project confused with task dependencies in project management. A dependency is a need or a condition that exists between two elements. Knowing the dependency is an important factor in defining the task relationships. The first task MUST be done before the second task, i. Lags will be discussed in detail in Lesson A music track must be recorded before it can be edited.
Start-to-start SS The start date of the predecessor task determines the start date of the successor task. Booking musicians and Booking dancers are related tasks and can occur simultaneously. Finish-to-finish FF The finish date of the predecessor task determines the finish date of the successor task. Tasks that require the use of specific equipment must end when the equipment rental ends.
Start-to-finish SF This relationship type is rarely used. The start date of the predecessor task determines the finish date of the successor task. The time when the production sound studio becomes available determines when rehearsals must end.
The first task does not necessarily have to be done in order to complete the second task, i. It is preferred, but not absolutely necessary. Dependencies of this type can have any one of the relationships.
External dependencies are usually outside of the control of the project team. Select the names of tasks 4 through Note the new feature in Project where the row height indicators extend out into the Gantt Chart area. Tasks 4 through 11 are now linked with a finish-to-start relationship. Select the View tab. In the Zoom group, click the Entire Project button.
Click the name of the task that you wish to set as the successor. Then on the Task ribbon, click the Information button, and then click the Predecessors tab. Click the first cell in the Task Name column, and then click the arrow to select the task you wish to set as the predecessor. Linking Milestones Now that you have linked some of the tasks in the project schedule, you will link milestones across summary tasks.
Linking milestones to each other reflects the sequential nature of the overall phases. Select the name of task 11, Pre-Production complete, and, while holding down the Ctrl key, select the name of task 13, Production begins. This is how you select nonadjacent tasks in a table in Microsoft Project. In the Schedule group click the Link the Selected Tasks button. Tasks 11 and 13 are linked with a finish-to-start relationship. Select the predecessor cell of task 16, Production complete. Type 14 and press Enter.
Tasks 14 and 16 are linked with a finish-to-start relationship. They will move to the right side of the Gantt bar chart once you add and link more subtasks in a future lesson. Point to the predecessor task until the pointer changes to a four-arrow star. Drag the pointer up or down to the task bar of the successor task. Microsoft Project will link the two tasks.
Notice that while you are dragging, the pointer image changes to a chain link. Be aware, however, that this method requires very precise and accurate mouse control and is not recommended. In this exercise, you linked milestones across summary tasks. When you link milestones, you set up the natural flow of the project — when one phase finishes, the next phase begins.
In this particular project, you have not yet entered all of the subtasks for the Production and PostProduction phases, so the graphical representation of the milestones and links on the Gantt Chart may have looked a bit strange. Once you begin to enter and link these tasks, the project will begin to look more like the Pre-Production section of the Gantt Chart. Additional task information that is important to the project can be recorded in a note.
You can also provide more information about a task by linking it to another file, an intranet page, or an Internet page through a hyperlink. Attaching a note to a task in a project schedule allows you to document important information while keeping your project schedule succinct. In this exercise, you enter a task note.
Select task 7, Book musicians, by clicking on the task number 7. On the Task ribbon, in the Properties group, click the Task Notes icon. The Task Information dialog box appears with the Notes tab displayed. A note icon appears in the Indicators column for task 7.
The Indicators column is the first column to the right of the task ID column. Point to the note icon. The note appears in a ScreenTip. For longer notes, or to see other task information, you can double-click the note icon and the Task Information box will display the full text of the note.
The note icon and ScreenTip are shown in Figure As you saw in this exercise, you enter and review task notes on the Notes tab in the Task Information dialog box. You can enter a wide variety of additional information to help clarify or enhance your project schedule.
You can also attach a file, paste text and graphics from other Microsoft programs, insert sound or video files, add photos to link faces with resource names , company logos, PowerPoint slides or presentations, and organizational charts.
Do not worry about filling this field up — it can hold 64, characters. You can view both the project statistics and the Gantt Chart for the entire project. Click the Project tab, and then click Project Information in the Properties group. The Project Information dialog box appears, as shown in Figure Figure Project Information dialog box Statistics button 2.
Click the Statistics button. The Project Statistics dialog box appears and displays information such as the project start and finish dates and duration. The statistics dialog box is shown in Figure Note that, based on the current information entered, this project is slated for 95 days of duration, starting on January 4 and ending on May 16, Click the Close button to close the Project Statistics dialog box.
If you are continuing to the next lesson, keep Project open. If you are not continuing to additional lessons, Close Project.
Manual scheduling is not the default mode and creates a dynamic schedule. When you initially enter tasks into Project, they are linked in a finish-to-start relationship that can be changed later.
The task note field can only contain words and not pictures. A milestone can be imposed on the project or developed and used by the project team to track project progress.
An estimated duration of 3 weeks for a task would be shown as 3ew. A task calendar defines working and nonworking times for an individual work resource. A summary task is derived from all of the detail tasks that fall below it. Once you have entered all of the tasks and durations for a project, the project duration does not change.
Tasks that are indented below a summary task are called successors. For tasks that are linked in a finish-to-start relationship, the finish date of the predecessor task determines the start date of the successor task.
Click the name of task 14, Production complete. Drag your cursor downward so that 5 rows are highlighted, including the row for task On the ribbon, in the Insert group, click Task. Click the blank Task Name field for task Starting in this field, enter the following tasks and durations: Task Scene 1 setup Scene 1 rehearsal Scene 1 vocal recording Scene 1 video shoot Scene 1 teardown Duration 2d 6h 1d 2d 1d 4.
Project New Employee Orientation Add a note and hyperlink to a project schedule as reminders of information to be given to new employees. Double-click the name of task 9, Take picture for employee ID. In the Task Information dialog box, on the Notes tab, key Remember to use blue backdrop for digital pics. Double-click the name of task 22, Complete health insurance paperwork.
In the Task Information dialog box, key the note, Verify all insurance needs and any other insurance carriers.
Project Basics 35 Proficiency Assessment Project Hiring a New Employee You need to create a project schedule for the process of hiring a new employee for your department. OPEN a new blank project schedule.
Set the project start date to be October 19, Enter the following tasks and durations: Task Duration Write job description 2d Notify departmental recruiter 1d Post job internally 5d Post job externally 5d Collect resumes 10d Review resumes 5d Set up interviews 3d Conduct interviews 8d Select candidate 1d Make offer milestone 3. Assign a finish-to-start relationship to all the tasks.
Change the dependency between tasks 3 and 4 to a start-to-start relationship. Change all tasks to the Auto Schedule mode. Use the Statistics button on the Project Information dialog box to determine the current project duration.
SAVE the project schedule in the solutions folder for this lesson as Hiring Employee xxd where the xx in the file name is the duration in days of the project. For example, if the project is 13 days long, save the file as Hiring Employee 13d. Project Don Funk Video: New Task Dependencies After reviewing your project schedule, you have determined that some of the tasks could be linked in a different way to make your project more efficient.
Change tasks 9 and 10 so that they have a start-to-start relationship. Change tasks 7 and 8 so that they have a start-to-start relationship. Adjust the chart area of your screen so that the Gantt bars for these new relationships are visible.
Convert all tasks to Auto Schedule. Set tasks 6, 9, 10, and 14 as milestones. Assign a start-to-start relationship for tasks 1, 2, and 3. Assign a finish-to-start relationship for tasks 1 and 6, 3 and 9, and 2 and Assign a finish-to-start relationship for tasks 4, 5, 7, and 8. Assign a finish-to-start relationship for tasks 10 through Insert a new row after task Name this new task Scene 1.
Add a milestone to begin the scene Scene 1 begin and a milestone to end the scene Scene 1 complete. Indent tasks 15 through 21 under the Scene 1 summary task you just created. Add two more sets of summary and subtasks including durations for Scenes 2 and 3 under the Production summary task.
They will be identical to the Scene 1 tasks and durations except for the scene number. Assign the subtasks for Scenes 1, 2 and 3 finish-to-start relationships. Assign a finish-to-start relationship between the Scene 1 complete milestone and the Scene 2 begin milestone. Assign a finish-to-start relationship between the Scene 2 complete milestone and the Scene 3 begin milestone.
Link the Scene 3 complete milestone and the Production complete milestone with a finish-to-start dependency. Link the Production complete milestone and the Post-Production begins milestone with a finish-to-start dependency.
He must also determine when these resources are available, how much work they can do, and their cost. One of the most powerful tools in Microsoft Project is the ability to manage resources effectively. One view you will use in this lesson is the Resource Sheet view, as shown in Figure Rate Column Max.
Units: the maximum capacity of a resource In this lesson, you will be working on establishing your project resources — which are the people, equipment, materials, and money used to complete the tasks in a project. Some of the features you will use in this lesson are shown on this screen. Use this figure as a reference for this lesson. In this section, you learn how to establish and enter people resources in Project Establishing Individual People Resources People resources can be in the form of individuals, individuals identified by their job function or title, or groups of individuals with a common skill.
In this exercise, you practice setting up resource information for the individual people who will perform the tasks on the project. This saves the time and effort of retyping the information and reduces the possibility of data entry errors.
In the Resource Sheet view, click the empty cell directly below the Resource Name column heading. Type Jamie Reding and press Enter.
Microsoft Project adds Jamie Reding as a work resource and automatically enters additional, default information. Figure Resource Sheet with newly entered resource 4. Enter the remaining resource names into the Simple Resource Sheet. Enter the first column of names Scott Seely, Jeff Pike, etc. Figure Resource Sheet with resources added 40 Lesson 2 5.
You are beginning to set up some of the basic resource information for the people who will work on this project. As you are entering this information, keep in mind two important aspects of resources: availability and cost.
Cost refers to how much money will be needed to pay for the resources on a project. Although setting up resource information in Microsoft Project may take a little extra time and effort, entering this information will provide you with more control over your project. You will work with three types of resources in Microsoft Project: work resources, material resources, and cost resources. Work resources are the people and equipment that do work to accomplish the tasks of the project. Work resources use time to accomplish tasks.
You will learn about material resources and cost resources later in this lesson. Establishing a Group Resource In the previous exercise, you set up resources that were individuals. Now, you will set up a single resource that represents multiple people, sometimes called a Generic Resource.
Click the blank Resource Name field below the last resource, type Sound Technician and then press Tab. In the Type field, make sure that Work is selected. Press Tab four times to move to the Max. Units field. You may only see a portion of the field name. To see the entire field name, expand the row just as you would in Excel. Place the cursor on the bottom of the header row in the ID column just above resource 1.
Click and drag the row down. Microsoft Project will warn you if you assign a resource to more tasks than it can accomplish at its maximum units. Establishing Resources 41 3. In the Max.
You can simply click these arrows to scroll to the number you want displayed. Click the Max. This represents that she is only available part time on this project. To change to this format, click File on the ribbon, then Options, and then click the Schedule option. In the Show assignment units as a box, select Decimal.
In this exercise, you established a group resource. The resource named Sound Technician does not represent a single person. It actually represents a group of people called sound technicians. By setting the Max. You might not know specifically who the sound technicians will be at this point, but you can still proceed with more planning. Keep in mind if you use a group resource, a single resource calendar will be assigned to that resource name.
Therefore, it is beneficial to have all of the people represented by the resource name work the same hours. In the Type field, select Work from the drop-down menu. Notice that the Resource Information dialog box contains many of the same fields as the Resource Sheet. Figure Resource Information dialog box with newly added resource Resource name field Resource type field Establishing Resources 43 6.
The Resource Information dialog box closes and the resource has been added. Notice that Microsoft Project has automatically wrapped the text in the Resource Name field.
Note that the Max. This indicates that you will have two truck cameras available every workday. Add the following additional equipment resources to the project schedule.
You can use the Resource Information dialog box to enter your information, but entering it directly in Resource Sheet view is faster. Make sure that Work is selected in the Type field for each resource. Figure Resource Sheet showing equipment resources added 9. Equipment resources tend to be more specialized than people resources. Establishing Material Resources Material resources are consumable items used up as the tasks in a project are completed.
Unlike work resources including human resources and equipment resources , material resources have no effect on the total amount of work scheduled to be performed on a task. For your music video project, DVDs are the consumable that interests you most. In this exercise, you practice entering material resources for your project. Type DVD and press Tab.
In the Type field, click the arrow and select Material, then press Tab. Notice that some of the fields columns , such as Max. Units, Ovt. Rate and Calendar, are not available when you change to a material type resource. In the Material Label field, type 2-hour disc and press Enter. This means you will use 2-hour discs as the unit of measure to track consumption during the project.
Figure Material resource added to resource sheet Material label field is the unit of measure for the material resource Establishing Resources 45 5. In this exercise you entered a material resource. Depending on the project management approach of your organization, you may or may not be required to track project material resources. Bear in mind that if the project requires material and these are not entered into the software, the final cost, as calculated by the software, will not be a true reflection of the project estimate.
A cost resource enables you to apply a cost to a task by assigning a cost item such as travel to that task. The cost resource has no relationship to the work assigned to the task, but assigning cost resources gives you more control when applying various types of costs to tasks within your project.
Unlike fixed costs, you can apply as many cost resources to a task as necessary. In this exercise, you add cost resources to the resource sheet for your project. Type Travel and then press Tab. In the Type field, click the arrow and select Cost. The travel resource has now been established as a cost resource.
Just as with a material resource, some fields are not available with a cost resource. In the Type field, select Cost and press Enter. Also, unlike work resources, cost resources cannot have a calendar applied to them and therefore do not affect the scheduling of the task. When you enter the cost information for resources, tracking the finances of a project becomes a more manageable task. Entering Resource Cost Information Knowing resource cost information will help you take full advantage of the cost management features of Microsoft Project.
In this exercise, you practice entering cost information for both work and material resources. In the Resource Sheet, click the Std. Standard Rate field for resource 1, Jamie Reding. Establishing Resources 47 2. In the Std. Rate column for resource 2, Scott Seely, type Rate column. Widen the Std. Rate column by moving the mouse pointer to the vertical divider line between the Std. Rate column and Ovt. Double-click the divider line. Figure Resource Sheet with the standard rate for first two resources entered.
For a material resource, the standard rate is per unit of consumption. For this exercise, that is a 2-hour DVD. Also note that you did not assign a cost to the cost resources; this is done when the cost resources are assigned to a task covered in Lesson 3. In the real world, it is often difficult to get cost information for people resources because this information is usually considered confidential.
As a project manager, it is important that you are aware of the limitations of your project schedule because of the information available to you, and that you communicate these limitations to your project team Establishing Resources 49 and management.
As a project manager, tracking and managing cost information may be a significant part of your project responsibilities. You should define these times prior to assigning them to tasks. Resource working times apply only to people and equipment work resources — not to material resources.
Now that you have entered resources and their associated pay rates in your project schedule, you can specify the working and nonworking times for some of these resources.
The resource calendar provides default working times for an entire project. Typically, you will need to make changes to the individual resource calendars to reflect vacation, flex-time work schedules, or conference attendance. In this exercise, you establish nonworking times for your individual work resources. Click the Project tab, then click Change Working Time. The Change Working Time dialog box appears.
In the For Calendar box, select Jamie Reding. Slide the button next to the calendar until the calendar is on January, Select the dates January 28 and In the first Name field under the Exceptions tab, type Vacation Days. Press Enter. Microsoft Project will not schedule Jamie Reding to work on these two days. Keep in mind that when you make changes to the project calendar, the changes are reflected in all resource calendars which are based on the project calendar.
However, changes you make to the working times of an individual resource are not reflected in the project calendar. Establishing Specific Work Schedules In addition to specifying exception times for resources, you can also set up a specific work schedule for any given resource.
Establishing Resources 51 2. In the For Calendar box, select Scott Seely. Click the Work Weeks tab, and then click the Details button. In the Select day s box, click and drag to select Monday through Thursday. Select the radio button next to Set day s to these specific working times.
Press Enter to set your changes. Figure Details dialog box showing modified working times for Scott Seely 9. In the Select day s box, click Friday. Select the radio button next to Select Set days to nonworking time.
Click OK to close the Details dialog box. Click any Friday in the Change Working Time dialog box. Note that these days are set to nonworking time. Click any one day of the week, Monday — Thursday. Note the working times for these days. Modified working hours for Monday through Friday Fridays are grayed out indicating nonworking time If you need to edit several resource calendars in the same way to handle a flex-time schedule or night shift, for example , you might find it easier to assign a different base calendar to this group of resources.
A base calendar can be used as a task calendar, a project calendar, or resource calendar and specifies default working and nonworking times. In the For Calendar box, select the desired resource and then in the Base Calendar box, select the desired base calendar.
For a group of resources that will be using the same calendar, you can change the calendar directly in the Base Calendar column of the Entry table in the Resource Sheet view. You can customize these or use them as a basis for your own base calendar. You can add this additional information about a resource by attaching a note. Attaching a Note to a Resource In this exercise, you learn how to attach a scheduling note to a resource in Project In the Resource Name column, select the name of the resource 1, Jamie Reding.
On the ribbon, click the Resource tab, then click the Resource Notes button in the Properties command group on the ribbon. The Resource Information dialog box is displayed with the Notes tab visible.
In the Notes box, type Jamie on vacation Jan 28 and 29; available for consult at home if necessary and click OK. A note icon appears in the indicator column. Point to the note icon in the Resource sheet.
The note appears in a ScreenTip double-click the icon to display the full text of longer notes. Click File and Options 7. In the Project Options dialog box, click on Advanced in the left side pane, scroll down, and in the Weeks field, select week 8. Click OK and observe the spelling of the time units in in the Duration column of the tasks and the summary tasks 9.
Change the Schedule and Advanced options back to the way they were before: Duration is entered in Days Weeks wk In the Duration column of the Finish Surface task, overwrite the estimate by 4h? Note how the estimate is entered in hours hrs and that the question remark remains in the value.
The question mark indicates that the duration is an estimate e. In the Project Options dialog box, click on Schedule in the left side pane 4. Uncheck Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations see screenshot to the right 5.
Click OK 6. Note how the question marks are no longer visible in the Duration column 7. Interval estimates are estimates that include a minimum and maximum value, plus an optional most likely value.
Microsoft Project does not include a PERT feature, but this can easily be configured as per this exercise. We can also insert another column to calculate a PERT weighted average using a formula, which will be covered during a later exercise.
Right click on the Start column header, click Insert Column, and click Duration1 2. Right click on the Duration1 column header and click Field Settings 3. Click OK 5. Repeat the previous steps for the Maximum Duration using the Duration2 column 6. This additional time is also known as reserve or buffer and it can be added to the schedule as recognition of schedule risk.
The reserve time can be a percentage of the estimated duration, or a fixed number of work periods. The reserve time can later be reduced or eliminated, as precise information about the project becomes available. Such reserve time should be documented along with other data and assumptions. Add a new task after the Oversight task 2.
Name the task Contingency 3. By default in Microsoft Project, Duration is the number of business days a task takes. We have learned that we can change the display or entry unit, but we can also enter work estimates.
Work is defined as the number of person hours that is required to complete the work. Duration and work differ when resources do not work full-time or when more than one resource is assigned to the task.
Resource assignments will be covered later in more detail. Microsoft Project can automatically calculate the work based on duration estimates when resources are assigned, or the other way around. In our exercises we have chosen to estimate durations and let Microsoft Project calculate work. However, in other scenarios it may be more appropriate to estimate work only and let Microsoft Project calculate the duration based on resource assignments.
Either way, teams typically calculate duration or work, but not both. As part of this exercise we will also change the Task Mode of all tasks to Auto Schedule to let Microsoft Project help us calculate dates, rather than having to enter all dates manually. However, we will change the Task Type again before going into execution.
Note that Task Types will be covered in more detail in a later exercise. Observe the duration of the Prepare Site task, it should be 5 days in your schedule 2. In the View tab ribbon, click Tables, and click Work, so you can see the Work column 3.
In the Work column of the Prepare Site task, enter 30 hours Given the fact that we had estimated this task to take 5 days, the work will be performed part-time. On the View tab ribbon, click the Tables command, and click Entry 5. Expand all tasks including the Status Meeting summary task 6. Select all rows and click Auto Schedule in the Task tab ribbon All tasks will now be automatically scheduled by the scheduling engine. We will come back to this topic in more detail during a later exercise.
Select all rows 9. In the Task tab ribbon, click Information In the Multiple Task Information dialog box, click the Advanced tab In the Task type field, select Fixed Duration Clear Effort driven click twice Assumptions can be entered in the Notes field and references can be entered in the Hyperlinks field. Double click on the Prepare Site task 2. Click on the Notes tab of the Task Information dialog box 3.
In the text box, enter the following assumption: The site preparation team has meetings in the morning and can only work part of the day Alternatively, you can use the Insert Object command to insert documents in the Notes field as well.
Right click on the Set Forms task and click Hyperlink 6. Click OK Note how the Indicator column displays a note and hyperlink icon to indicate that additional information is available. Microsoft Project Server also allows teams to create project web sites where documents can be uploaded and where teams can collaborate online, but that is out of scope for this training.
This cost can be entered on the task, independent from any labor cost that will be generated when assigning resources to tasks. In the View task ribbon, click Tables, and click Cost 2. In the Fixed Cost Accrual column, select Start Changing the Fixed Cost Accrual to Start means that the cost will be occurred at the start of task, not across or at the end of the task.
This may be important for managing the cash flow of the project. Select the Prepare Site and Set Forms task using the Ctrl key you may either select the task row or any cell on the row 2. In the Task tab ribbon, click Link Tasks Note how the task bars are connected with an arrow and moved in sequence. Drag and drop the task bar of the Set Forms task on the task bar of Pour Concrete 4.
Double click on the Finish Surface task 5. In the Task Information dialog box, click on the Predecessors tab, and select Pour Concrete on the first blank row in the Task Name column 6. Click OK 7. Select all tasks and the milestone of the Walls deliverable do not select the summary task itself 2.
In the Task tab ribbon, click Link Tasks 3. Select all tasks and the milestone of the Roof deliverable 4. As a result, you can no longer see the entire project duration in the Gantt chart. There is a command that allows you to quickly zoom out to the project duration. In the View tab ribbon, click Zoom Entire Project to view the entire project duration in the Gantt chart 6. Double click on the Finish Surface task 2. Assume that we can start installing interior when the exterior installation work is half way done.
In our House Project, the frame of the roof can be assembled on the ground and lifted onto the frame of the walls. As a result, work on the roof can start at the same time as the foundation, assuming the work is performed in different areas. Double click on the arrow between both task bars 3. In both cases we can use the default Finish-to-Start dependency type. Click on the Successors column header, and drag and drop the column header to the right of the Predecessors column header The Prepare Site task does not have any preceding tasks, so it will depend on the Project Started milestone.
Similarly, the Roof Completed milestone does not have any succeeding tasks, but it should be succeeded by Contingency followed by the Project Completed milestone. The status meetings do not require links, since the dates are set by a recurrence. Oversight should be linked in between the project start and finish. The Task Inspector helps users understand why the dates and duration of a task are the way they are. This feature is in an upgrade of what was previously known as Task Drivers in Project The Task Inspector can be used for all tasks, summary tasks, and milestones, both manual and auto scheduled, but it is most useful for manual tasks to highlight scheduling problems or opportunities.
Select all four tasks of the Foundation deliverable 2. In the Task tab ribbon, click Manually Schedule, and observe how the Task Mode icon of these tasks changed in the Indicator column, along with the color of the task bar, which changed from blue to green 3.
In the Duration column of the Prepare Site task, enter No more than 5 days and note the format change of the task bar 4. In the Finish column of the same task, delete the date 5. In the Task Mode column you will find that manual tasks without duration or date values have a gray push pin icon with a question mark, whereas other manual tasks do not have the question mark. Also note the red and green underlines in the Finish column that are called warnings and suggestions respectively.
You can choose to hide or display them using the options in the Inspect command. The red line is caused by the start of a task before it can start and the green line is caused by the same change. Rest your mouse cursor on the finish date of the Pour Concrete task and read the message 8.
In the Task tab ribbon, click on the drop down arrow of the Inspect command, and click Show Ignored Problems to display this specific error again Right click on the finish date again and click Fix in Task Inspector Having the task selected, review the available options in the Task Inspector Click Respect Links and observe the result Close the Task Inspector Make all manual tasks automatically scheduled again Note that the duration of the Prepare Site task is 5 days again.
This is because Microsoft Project stores automatically calculated values in different columns in the background as opposed to manually entered values. In case you create a new manual task, there are no duration and dates yet. When you make such a task an auto scheduled task, the default duration will be 1 day.
In the Task tab ribbon, click on the lower half of the Gantt Chart command, and click Network Diagram Alternatively, you can also use the View Bar to change views. Right click on the View Bar to the left of the screen and review the available options You can also use the View tab ribbon to change views. However, note that the commands on this ribbon filter the views based on view type as per the name of the command. This is the reason why you will not see the Network Diagram view when you click on the lower half of the Gantt Chart command on the View ribbon.
In the View tab ribbon, click on the lower half of the Gantt Chart command, and review the available options 4. You may decide to continue with this file to do the rest of the exercises. This includes entering the resource names as well as information about their availability.
You can also provide additional information about the resources on the resource sheet, for example their group or other details. In the View tab ribbon, click Resource Sheet 2.
Enter the following names and rates in the Resource Name and Std. In the Type column, make sure that Work is selected for all resources 4. Add a new resource called Concrete and select Material in the Type column 5. In the Material column of Concrete, enter bags 6.
In the Std. In the Max. This value also sets the default assignment allocation to tasks, and it is also determines at what workload level the resource is overallocated. The maximum units can also be set by time period.
In the Resource Information dialog box, on the General tab, change Available From and Available To to make Imamu available only for the years and , as per the screenshot to the right If you were to open the project plan, say in , the Max. Double click on Mary James, and enter the following on the Notes tab Mary is an experienced manager While the Max. In the Project tab ribbon, click Change Working Time 2. Click Create New Calendar. In the Make a copy of field, ensure Standard is selected, and click OK 5.
In the calendar section, scroll to January 6. Create a second calendar that is a copy of the Standard calendar as well Double click on Carlos Chavez 2. In the Resource Information dialog box, click OK Calendars can also be associated with multiple resources at once using the Base Calendar column of the Resource Sheet view. In case another base calendar is associated with the resource, the scheduled personal time off will remain on the calendar.
Double click on Winny Nguyen 2. On the Exceptions tab, in the Name column, enter Vacation 4. Since we now have our calendar set up, we can apply it to the project as well. By default the Standard calendar is associated with new projects and new resources inherit the project calendar.
Since all of our team is based in the United States we could associate the United States calendar with the project, but since we sometimes hire contractors from Canada or Mexico, we want to make sure there are no national holidays associated with the project.
As such, national holidays will only be driven through the resource calendars instead. On the Project tab ribbon, click Project Information 2. By default, tasks do not have calendars. Only once a resource is assigned or once a task calendar is associated, task work will be scheduled accordingly. Go to the Gantt Chart view 2.
Double click on the Pour Concrete task 3. In the Task Information dialog box, click on the Advanced tab 4. In the Calendar field, select 24 Hours 5. The Pour Concrete task is scheduled to start on Friday at PM and it is currently scheduled for the weekend.
Once we assign a resource the timing may be different, because resource calendars supersede the task calendars, unless you check Scheduling ignores resource calendars on the Advanced tab of the Task Information dialog box.
For simplicity of our exercise, we will not select this option right now. In the View tab ribbon, in the Timescale field, select Days so it is easier to observe small changes 3. Click on the blank cell in the Resource Names column of the Prepare Site task and click on the arrow that appears 4.
Select Boris Ivanov and press Enter 5. In the Resource tab ribbon, click on Assign Resources 7. Select the Set Forms task in the table behind the dialog box and note how the dialog remains visible 8. Click Assign and you will see the part-time assignment along with the calculated cost In the View tab ribbon, check Details Select the Pour Concrete task in the Gantt Chart view In the Task Form view lower half of the screen , click on the first blank row in the Resource Name column, click on the arrow that appears, select Carlos Chavez, and click OK In the lower half of the screen, in the next blank row below Carlos, select Concrete, enter 50 in the Units column, which means 50 bags of concrete, and click OK The Team Planner is a view like the Gantt Chart view, but it is interactive in terms of assigning resources, leveling resources, and viewing resource specific non-working time, which you could never see that easily in the past.
We will first temporarily set the project status date prior to the start of the project to ensure that the tasks do not appear as late black task bars in the Team Planner view, which would have been the case if you take this course after the project finish September In the Resource tab ribbon, click on the upper half of the Team Planner command In the View tab ribbon, in the Timescale field, select Days Scroll to the first week of July , using the horizontal scroll bar to the bottom of your screen, Move the horizontal splitter bar upwards to approximately half of your screen height but do not hide the resource names Expand all summary tasks including the Status Meeting summary task Note how all status meetings have a task constraint highlighted with a calendar icon in the Indicator column.
This means that the dates are fixed and will not change based on resource availability. We can also assign all resources to all status meetings. This can be done by assigning the resources to the summary task. Normally it is not recommended assigning resources to a summary task, since it creates duplicate assignments, but in the case of recurring tasks, the assignments are automatically moved to the individual meetings. Click on the Status Meeting summary task In the Resource tab ribbon, click Assign Resources Select all work resources so do not select Concrete and click Assign Close the Assign Resources dialog box and notice how the resources are assigned to each status meeting instead of the summary task You can decide whether it is desired to assign resources to status meetings in your schedule as it introduces more detail than you may need more work to maintain.
Click Undo Budget resources can be work, material or cost resources. Once set up, they can only be assigned at the project level. During execution, the rolled-up actuals from tasks can be compared with the budget at the project level. Go to the Resource Sheet view and create a new resource by the name of Budget 2. In the Type column, select Cost for the Budget resource 3. Double click on the resource, and in the Resource Information dialog box, check Budget on the General tab 4.
In the View tab ribbon, click on the upper half of the Task Usage command 7. Right click anywhere on the grid to the right of the splitter bar and select Detail Styles 8. In the View tab ribbon, in the Timescale field, select Months All tasks in the schedule are set to Fixed Duration in order to protect the estimates while assigning resources. Have a look at what happens when we change the work effort that Microsoft Project has calculated when assigning resources.
Right click on the Start column header and click Insert Column 3. Select Work and press Enter 4. However, some organizations choose to estimate effort person hours and enter this in the Work column. In this scenario, when you assign resources, Microsoft Project would calculate the duration for you. Now that we have exposed the Work column, we notice that the Pour Concrete task only has 0.
This is because the task is on a hour calendar, starting at PM, and Carlos is on a Standard calendar. Click File tab and Options 6. In the View tab ribbon, check Details 9. Select the Pour Concrete task In the Task Form view the lower half of the screen , in the Task type field, select Fixed Units, click OK, and you will see that the duration has been recalculated to 1 hour Since pouring concrete is a full-time activity that takes 16 hours, we will have to ask Carlos to work full-time instead of half time.
Ensure the Pour Concrete task is still selected However, as a result succeeding tasks have been pushed out. In the View tab ribbon, ensure Details is checked 2. Assign Boris Ivanov to the Finish Surface task, in addition to the existing assignment of Winny Nguyen The work increased from 4 to 8 hrs.
Why did this happen? In the View tab ribbon, deselect Details 4. Right click on the Work header column and click Hide Column 5. Page 52 of Planning and Managing Projects with Microsoft Project Professional Exercises Optimizing the Schedule Exercise 34 Identifying the Critical Path The objective of this exercise is to learn how to identify the critical path in Microsoft Project and understand how it may be different from the critical path as it is known in Project Management.
On the Format tab ribbon, check Critical Tasks 2. On the View tab ribbon, click Entire Project Tasks with task bars highlighted in red are considered critical and tasks with task bars highlighted in blue are considered non-critical. Critical in Microsoft Project means that the slack of tasks is less than or equal to zero days the number of zero days can be changed in the Project Options dialog box, to the bottom of the Advanced section.
Insert the Free Slack and Total Slack column to the right of the Task Name column Free slack is the number of days a task can be delayed before it delays its successor. Total slack is the number of days a task can be delayed before it delays the project finish.
The critical path is defined as the longest path through the project. This means that if any critical task is delayed, it delays the project. On the other hand, if critical tasks can be shortened, it will reduce the project duration. It is recommended to look for longduration tasks on the critical path, because it is easier to shorten a day task as opposed to a 1-day task.
Consider the Install Interior task. We had originally estimated the duration to be 16 days based on the intended resource assignment. Double click on the Install Interior task 2. In our case the duration also reduced to 15 days initially it was a 16 day. Assign Mary James to the task in addition to Imamu Bello What changed on the task and why did this happen?
What happened with the critical path and what should we do next? However, this has decreased the project duration, by about 4 days, not by 7. This is because we have a recurring task and an overhead task that are not part of the network diagram.
We now must manually change these tasks to see the updated critical path. Expand the Status Meeting summary task 5. Delete the last meeting. Double click on the Finish Roof task 9. In the Task Information dialog box, on the Advanced tab, in the Task type field, select Fixed Units, and click OK This removes the trailing split and reduced the duration of this critical task by one day.
However, this makes the Oversight task critical again. Reduce its duration by one day. In the Duration column of the Oversight task, enter 63 days Target dates can be entered using the Deadline feature and this feature is recommended over the Constraint feature, which will be covered in the next exercise.
Double click on the Project Completed milestone 2. On the View tab, in the Timescale field, select Days, and scroll to the Project Completed milestone Although hard to see, note how the Gantt chart includes a green arrow right next the project finish milestone.
Double click on the Build Frame on Ground task 2. In the Gantt chart view a constraint icon appear. Double click on the Build Frame on Ground task 4. Always make sure to minimize the use of constraints.
The next exercise will address resolving overallocation. Go to the Gantt Chart view and observe the red people icons in the indicator column 2. Rest the mouse cursor on the icon and read the information When right clicking on the icon, you will have the option to delay the task to the next available day of the resource. However, this indicator does not tell us, which resource is overallocated. In the Resource Sheet view, we can see what resources are overallocated.
Go to the Resource Sheet view and observe the resource names in red 4. Rest the mouse cursor on the exclamation mark icon and read the information However, this indicator does not tell us when the overallocation applies. In the Resource Graph view, we can see when and by how many hours resources are overallocated. Go to the Resource Graph view and select Mary James by scrolling horizontally to the left of the splitter bar 6.
Units, indicated with a bold black horizontal line, indicate an overallocation. This screen shows that Mary is double allocated for a number of days. However, this view does not tell us what assignments are causing the overallocation. The new Team Planner view does so. In the View tab ribbon, click Team Planner 8. Those periods in which an overallocation occurs are highlighted with a horizontal red line above and below the assignment s , and the assignments are represented by task bars.
These options can be set in the Resource Leveling dialog box and used by various commands on the Resource ribbon.
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