Microsoft Project 2003 Training Manual

Microsoft Project 2003
Module 4 Finalize the Plan
Training Manual
Courseware Provided by:

Learnit Computer Software Training
250 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94104
Tel: (415) 693-0250
Internet: http://www.Learnit.com/
Learnit Computer Software Training 2004
Learnit Computer Software Training 2004 www.learnit.com
Finalize the Plan

Project 2003 Module 4
ii
Learn iT! Computer Software Training
Table of Contents
VIEW CRITICAL PATH...................................................................................................3
FILTER CRITICAL PATH ....................................................................................................3
HIGHLIGHT CRITICAL PATH..............................................................................................3
GANTT CHART CRITICAL BARS........................................................................................4
Add Critical Bars........................................................................................................4
Bar Styles....................................................................................................................5
VIEW PROJECT SUMMARY TASK.............................................................................7
SHORTEN THE PROJECT PLAN................................................................................8
EFFORT DRIVEN TASKS...................................................................................................8
TASK TYPE.......................................................................................................................8
Change Task Type options......................................................................................9
RESOURCE OVER ALLOCATION ............................................................................10
SAVE A BASELINE ......................................................................................................11
SAVE BASELINE .............................................................................................................11
Baseline Fields.........................................................................................................11
Variance....................................................................................................................12
Project Statistics ......................................................................................................12
CLEAR A BASELINE ........................................................................................................12
SAVE ADDITIONAL BASELINE PLANS .............................................................................13
INTERIM BASELINE.....................................................................................................15
SAVE AN INTERIM PLAN .................................................................................................15
PRINTING VIEWS .........................................................................................................17
PRINT AND PRINT PREVIEW ...........................................................................................17
PAGE SETUP ..................................................................................................................19
Page Tab...................................................................................................................19
Margins Tab..............................................................................................................20
Header, Footer, and Legend..................................................................................20
View Tab ...................................................................................................................22
PRINT CALENDAR VIEW .................................................................................................24
Finalize the Plan

3
View Critical Path

The Critical Path is a series of tasks that affect the e nd date of the project plan.
If a critical task within the critical path series slips, the entire project slips. The
Critical Path can change throughout the project life cycle. Always work with the
Critical Path when shortening the project finish date.
Filter Critical Path

A Filter option is available to view only the Critical Tasks.
1. Click on the drop down arrow in the Filter window on the formatting
toolbar.
2. Choose Critical.
3. All tasks within the critical path will be displayed.
Highlight Critical Path

The Critical Path can be highlighted with a font color. Typically, the Red font
color is used to highlight the Critical Path.
1. Format Menu, Text Styles.
2. From the Item to change drop down menu, choose Critical Tasks.
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4
3. From the Color drop down menu, choose Red.

4. OK.
Gantt Chart Critical Bars

Add Critical Bars
The Gantt chart view does not display critical bars by default. The Gantt Chart
Wizard is the quickest method to add critical bars.
1. Click on the Gantt Chart Wizard
toolbar.
button located on the formatting
2. Click on the Next button.

3. Click on the radio button for Critical Path
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4. Click on Finish, Format, Exit Wizard.

Bar Styles
Bar Styles can be changed and text can be viewed on the Gantt chart.
1. Format Menu.
2. Bar Styles.
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6
3. Click on the bar style to be changed in the top pane of the Bar Styles
dialog box.
4. In the lower pane, choose the Bars or Text tab to make changes. Start
and End shapes can be added to the bars as well as shape, pattern, and
color of the bar.
5. Text can be added to the left, right, top, bottom, and inside of the bar.
6. Choose which field to view from the drop down menu.
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7
View Project Summary Task

The Project Summary task is available to assist when managing the project
duration, start, and finish date. It is available through the options dialog box.
1. Tools Menu, Options.
2. Click on the box for Show project summary task in the lower right-hand
corner of the View Tab.
3. The Project Summary task is inserted as the first row of the table.
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8
Shorten the Project Plan

In order to shorten the project plan, the Critical Path must be shortened. If a task
is not critical, it will not affect the finish date of the project plan.
There are many ways a task can be shortened as follows:
Assign additional resources

Assign resource over time work
Add Lag or Lead time to tasks
Increase working time for resources through the calendar
Change the duration of critical tasks
Break up the critical path
While making changes to the critical path tasks, some tasks will change to non
critical and non critical tasks may become critical.
Effort Driven Tasks

Tasks are Effort Driven by default in MS Project. Effort Driven will recalculate the
duration, work, and units when additional resources are assigned to tasks.
MS Project bias is that it will first try to recalculate the duration (shorten), then
work hours, and finally the units depending on the Task Type.
Task Type
There are three options for task type. The default task type in MS Project is
Fixed Units. What this means is that project cannot calculate the units. When
additional resources are added to a task, the duration will be recalculated.
Fixed Duration should be used if the duration should not be recalculated when
adding additional resources. With Fixed Duration, the work hours will be
recalculated unless hours are also added to a resource. If fixed duration is
turned on and hours are added, then the units are calculated.
When using the Fixed Work task type, the duration is calculated.
The default settings for the Task Type can be changed in options.
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9
Change Task Type options

1. Tools Menu, Options.
2. Schedule Tab.
3. Change the Default task type.

4. OK.
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10
Resource Over Allocation

When resources are over allocated in a project plan, the resource name will
highlight in Red font in the resource views.
To view the resource allocation to analyze and manage what changes should be
made to the project plan, use the Resource Allocation view.
1. View Menu.
2. More Views.
3. Resource Allocation View.
4. Resource Allocation View opens two views on the screen. The top pane
is the Resource Usage view, and the bottom pane is the Leveling Gantt.
5. Determine what changes should be made to eliminate over allocation.
Finalize the Plan

11
Save a Baseline
Setting a baseline creates a benchmark for future reference. The baseline
should be set prior to the start of the project after all tasks, task durations,
resource, cost, and dates have been entered in the plan.
Save Baseline
1. Tools Menu, Tracking, Save Baseline.
2. The save baseline radio button is selected for the Entire project.
3. OK.
Baseline Fields
Saving a baseline, copies specific fields into baseline fields as follows:
Current Field Name
Start
Finish
Duration
Work
Baseline Field Name

Baseline Start
Baseline Finish
Baseline Duration
Baseline Work
Finalize the Plan

Current Field Name
Cost
12
Baseline Field Name
Baseline Cost
Variance
As changes are made to the current plan, MS Project will calculate a variance for
each field by subtracting the baseline field from the current field. This figure will
be entered in the variance field Variance Start, Variance Finish, Variance
Duration, Variance Work, and Variance Cost.
To manage and view the variance for the fields, open the table for that field. As
an example, view the Work table for the baseline and variance information for
each task. The variance table will view the fields for the Start and Finish baseline
and variance.
Project Statistics
While each table will display the variance for each task, the project statistics will
display the baseline, current, and variance for the entire project.
1. Project Menu, Project Information.
2. Statistics
button located in the bottom of the dialog box.
Clear a Baseline
If a baseline was set too early or if the project plan has changed so drastically
since setting a baseline, then use the option to clear the baseline.
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13
1. Tools Menu, Tracking.

2. Clear Baseline .
3. Choose which baseline plan to clear from the drop down menu.
4. OK.
Save Additional Baseline Plans

Up to 10 additional Baselines can be set for progress of all baseline fields.
1. Tools Menu, Tracking, Save Baseline .
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14
2. Click in the drop down menu for the Save baseline option.
3. Choose which Baseline to save (dates are entered to right of saved
baselines for easy tracking).
4. Click OK.
Finalize the Plan

15
Interim Baseline
The Interim plans are different from the Baseline plan and is used to save the
current start and finish dates for a task that is in progress.
There are ten Interim plan set of dates that can be set in a project file. Interim
plans help compare current progress dates to the baseline dates.
Save an Interim Plan

1. Tools Menu, Tracking, Save Baseline .
2. Select Save Interim Plan radio button.

3. Leave the Copy box with the Start/Finish dates.
4. Leave the Into box with the Start1/Finish1 fields.
5. OK for Entire Project.
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16
This process will now copy the information from the original baseline start and
finish fields to the start1 and finish1 fields. These fields can now be used in
views and reports to compare the baseline plan to the current plan.
Finalize the Plan

17
Printing Views
Print and Print Preview
When printing from Project, the current view is wha t will be sent to the printer. If
the timeline has been changed on a view, you may get 200 pages of Gantt Chart
bars accidentally.
Take note that what you see is what you get. Never send a Project view to the
printer before looking at the Print Preview.
The Print Preview can be accessed from the button on the Standard toolbar
or from the File Menu.
A Project view can be sent to the printer using the Print button
Standard toolbar or from the File Menu.
on the
When using the File Menu, Print, you receive the Print dialog box where you
have various options as seen below:
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From this dialog box, the printer can be changed, print range for specific number
of pages rather than all pages, and a specific date range.
For additional options, you will use the File, Page Set up dialog box.
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19
Page Setup
Additional print options are available through the Page Setup dialog box.
To access Page Setup options for the current view:
1. File Menu, Page Setup.
Page Tab
The Page Tab gives orientation options to change from Landscape (11 x 8 ) to
Portrait (8 x 11).
The Scaling option is a great way to scale down from normal size to fit the
timeline on fewer pages. You can even force to fit so many pages wide by so
many pages tall. Be sure to Print Preview before changing these settings.
The Other area gives additional control over the paper size and if the first page
should have the page number.
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20
Margins Tab
The margins are .5 (1/2) by default and can be changed for top, bottom, left, and
right.
The Borders option is also available in this tab. The outer pages option is
available with Network Diagram only.
Header, Footer, and Legend
There is a separate tab for the Header, Footer, and Legend but all offer the same
options.
The alignment window lets yo u set what is on the left, center, and right side of
the header, footer and legend. You can type in the alignment box or use some of
the shortcut buttons and drop down menu for assistance.
After choosing from the drop down menu, be sure to click on the Add button.
The choice will be added to the alignment screen.
The Preview window will show what the header and footer will look like on each
page.
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21
Following is a brief description of the different short cut buttons available.

Button Name
Button Description
Format Text Font
Font dialog box for size, style, color
Insert Page Number
Inserts the number of the current page
Insert Total Page Count
Inserts the total number of pages in the

Project File
Insert Current Date
Current Date
Insert Current Time
Current Time
Insert File Name
File Name
Insert Picture
Can add a picture from the dialog box to

the header or footer
The button options and the options in the drop down menu will add code to the
Alignment area of the Setup window. However, you will see exactly how it is
printed in the Preview window.
The Legend Tab has additional options:
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22
The right side of the dialog box offers options to place the legend on Every Page,
a legend Page, or None where the legend will not display at all. you can also
change the width of the legend and to format using the Legend Labels button.
View Tab
It is very easy to become very frustrated when attempting to print Project files.
One of the least used tabs in Page Setup can help fix a lot of problems.
Remember, that what you see is what you get so if you have a Gantt Chart
view to print, and you moved the separator bar to show less or more of the Gantt
Chart or the table, this is what you will see when you print.
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23
Print all sheets columns can be turned on so this happens each and every time
no matter the changes in the view. The first page will print with all columns.
When printing views, the columns will print on the first page only. When there
are several pages, it can be difficult to decide which task goes with which task
bar on the Gantt chart as an example. Printing a specific number of columns will
take care of this. When telling Project which columns, be sure to count the ID
column as the first column.
Enter a check box on the Print first columns option and be sure to enter the
number of columns to print.
Print Notes will print all notes on the last page. The note is printed under the ID
and Task name for each task with a note.
If you do not want Project to print blank pages, take this check mark off.
Fit timescale reduces or expands to use all available space on the page.
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Print Calendar View

It is important to note that the Calendar view has a different View tab settings as
follows:
Before printing a Calendar View, you sho uld filter the specific information for the
calendar such as Resource.
The above options are available to you through File Page Set up as previously
discussed.

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Microsoft Project 2003

Module 4 Finalize the Plan

Courseware Provided by:

Learnit Computer Software Training 2004 www.learnit.com

Finalize the Plan

Learnit Computer Software Training 2004 www.learnit.com

Finalize the Plan

View Critical Path

Filter Critical Path

Highlight Critical Path

Learnit Computer Software Training 2004 www.learnit.com

Finalize the Plan

3. From the Color drop down menu, choose Red.

Gantt Chart Critical Bars

button located on the formatting

2. Click on the Next button.

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Finalize the Plan

4. Click on Finish, Format, Exit Wizard.

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6. Choose which field to view from the drop down menu.

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Finalize the Plan

View Project Summary Task

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Finalize the Plan

Shorten the Project Plan

Assign additional resources

Effort Driven Tasks

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Change Task Type options

3. Change the Default task type.

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Resource Over Allocation

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Baseline Field Name

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Finalize the Plan

1. Tools Menu, Tracking.

Save Additional Baseline Plans

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Finalize the Plan

Save an Interim Plan

2. Select Save Interim Plan radio button.

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Learnit Computer Software Training 2004 www.learnit.com

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Finalize the Plan