Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials
Shelley Fishel
Download free books at

Shelley Fishel
Download free eBooks at bookboon.com
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1st edition
2015 Shelley Fishel & bookboon.com
ISBN 978-87-403-1141-9
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Contents
Contents
About Shelley Fishel 10
About Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials 11
1 Getting Help in Microsoft Project 2013 12
2 What is Microsoft Project 2013? 14
3 The Project Screen 15
4 Whats New in Microsoft Project 2013? 16
5 The Ribbon 17
5.1 The Task Ribbon 17
5.2 The Backstage View 18
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6 Settings 20
6.1 Tools Options Now Backstage 20
7 Setting the Project Options for your Project in Microsoft Project 2013 21
7.1 Set a Start Date or a Finish Date for the Project 22
7.2 Setting Public Holidays 25
8 Default Duration 27
8.1 Changing the Default Duration 27
8.2 Task Options 28
9 Tasks 31
9.1 Entering a task name and duration 31
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10 Selecting Parts of the Screen 33
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11 Outlining 37
11.1 What is Outlining 37
11.2 Saving Projects 40
11.3 Adding Notes to a Task 41
11.4 Creating Hyperlinks to other documents 42
12 Creating the Schedule 44

12.1 Creating Links between tasks When Automatically Scheduled 46
12.2 Changing the Link type 49
12.3 Creating Links between Tasks that are Manually Scheduled 50
12.4 Zooming 51
12.5 The Timeline 52
12.6 Lag and Lead 53
12.7 Recurring Tasks 54
12.8 Splitting Tasks 56
13 Creating and Assigning Resources 59

13.1 Creating Resources 59
13.2 The View Ribbon Resource Views 59
13.3 Creating a Material Resource 61
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13.4 Setting Resource Availability 61

13.5 Setting Individual Resource Holidays 62
13.6 Task Durations and Resources 63
13.7 Assigning resources to tasks 66
13.8 The Team Planner View 69
13.9 Filtering your project 74
13.10 Grouping your Tasks 75
13.11 Grouping Resources 76
13.12 Emailing Resources 78
13.13 Create a new Working Time Calendar 80
14 The Calendar View 83

14.1 Switching to Calendar View 83
14.2 Setting the Time Period 83
14.3 To Show a Weekly View 83
14.4 Customise the TimeScale 84
14.5 Show a Five Day Work Week 84
14.6 Format the Time Scale 85
14.7 Layout Tasks 85
14.8 Showing Resource Tasks in the calendar 86
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15 Bringing it all together 88

15.1 How to plan a project 88
16 Evaluate your Schedule 89

16.1 What should I check? 89
16.2 How can Microsoft Project help me meet my deadline? 89
17 The Critical Path 90

17.1 What is the Critical Path? 90
17.2 What are the benefits of seeing the Critical Path? 91
17.3 Display the Critical Path 91
17.4 Format the Gantt chart to display the Critical Path 91
17.5 Filter for Critical Tasks 92
17.6 The Tracking Gantt 92
17.7 Format Text Styles to show the Critical Path 94
17.8 Slack 94
17.9 Tightening the Critical Path 97
17.10 Combined Views 98
17.11 Over Allocation 101
17.12 Team Planner View 104
17.13 Constraints and Deadlines 107
17.14 What is a Deadline? 111
18 Your Project is now ready to go 112

18.1 Set the Baseline 113
18.2 Make the changes 117
18.3 Update the Project to Reflect Progress 117
19 Rescheduling Incomplete Work 121

19.1 What is meant by rescheduling? 121
19.2 Comparing with the Baseline 125
19.3 Interim Plans 130
8
20 Formatting the Gantt chart 132

20.1 Changing the colours of the Gantt chart 132
20.2 Format the Bar Styles 132
20.3 Format Bar Text 133
20.4 Adding a Project Summary Task 135
20.5 Summary Tasks 135
20.6 Outline Numbers 135
20.7 Formatting Non-Working times in the Gantt chart 136
20.8 Format the Current Date 137
20.9 Format the Status Date 138
20.10 Format Text Styles in the Table 139
21 Templates 140
21.1 What advantages are there to creating a template? 140
21.2 Copying a picture of a Project into another program 144
22 Printing and Reports 145

22.1 To Preview how your Project will print 145
22.2 To print the Gantt chart 146
22.3 Updating the Legend 146
22.4 Printing the Calendar 149
22.5 How to Customise the Ribbon 151
22.6 To add a page break 153
23 Reports 154
23.1 What benefits do I gain by creating a Report? 154
24 Appendices 155
24.1 Working with more than one project 155
24.2 Elapsed Time 156
24.3 Costs 157
25 Glossary 161
Index 162
9
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials About Shelley Fishel
About Shelley Fishel

Shelley Fishel is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and has more than a fifteen years experience in helping
people to get more from their computers. After working for an IT training organization Shelley decided
to do her own thing when she realized the limitations of delivering standard courses.
Why waste time and money on training people in areas that are not relevant to them? Its common
sense to invest that time and effort on what they really need.
That was the light bulb moment and the IT Training Surgerys unique approach has resulted in a growing
business with a team of highly qualified IT trainers.
If trainees get bored they forget most of what they learn. We like to offer a range of training approaches
to suit different people and, most of all; we aim to make training fun!
Shelley and her team have worked hard to achieve accreditation by the Learning and Performance Institute
for the IT Training Surgery, as a recognized high quality provider of IT training.
To find out more about our training give us a call on 020 8203 1774 or visit our website
www.theittrainingsurgery.com
10
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials About Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials
About Microsoft Project

2013 Essentials
Microsoft 2013 Essentials has been written to accompany our two day Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials
classroom course. In this course you will learn:
How to set up a project from scratch

The four things you must do before you add any tasks to a project
Add tasks, durations and adjust settings
The difference between Manual and Automatic tasks
How to add and schedule resources
Track a project once it starts
What the icons mean
When you see this icon you know that the information next to it is essential
This icon means that there is a tip useful information
This icon denotes a trap, something to take account of
11
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Getting Help in Microsoft Project 2013
1 Getting Help in Microsoft

Project 2013
In Microsoft Project 2013 help is accessed via the button at the top right hand side of the screen:
1. Click the ? and the help window will open
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2. Type what you are looking for into the white box
3. Press Return
4. A list of subjects that match your criteria will appear
12
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Getting Help in Microsoft Project 2013
5. Click the link of the topic you need
6. Help will be displayed
13
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials What is Microsoft Project 2013?
2 What is Microsoft Project 2013?

Microsoft Project is a project management tool that you can use to control simple or complex projects.
It helps schedule and track all your activities once you have entered the information, so you can stay on
top of the projects progress.
2.1.1 The four conditions which describe a project
Objective
Tasks
Time
Resources (people, equipment, facilities)
2.1.2 Key advantages for using MS Project
MS Project will help you to:
Create a realistic project plan.

Keep track of adjustments to your plan.
Compare original estimates with how the project actually went.
Create reports to inform others of the schedule.
Keep track of key elements:
Tasks:
Keep track of when tasks are to be started and completed

Identify which tasks are more important
View the result of delayed tasks
Resources:
Keep track of current activities

Keep track of the people and equipment involved in your project
Match task schedule to resource availability
Identify the best use of resources
Reports:
Reports provide a way to inform others of the project schedule i.e. who is doing what when?
Costs (not covered in this course)
Keep track of project costs

Keep track of individual resource costs
Keep track of individual task costs
14
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials The Project Screen
3 The Project Screen

The Gantt chart is the default view. It is a visual display chart used for time scheduling. It was invented
by Henry Gantt in the 18th Century.
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Whats New in Microsoft Project 2013?
4 Whats New in Microsoft

Project 2013?
If you have been using previous versions of Microsoft Project you will notice a significant difference in
how the program looks and behaves. Several things have been changed including the User Interface.
Microsoft Project 2013 now has the Ribbon which was introduced to the main office programs in the
2007 release. Microsoft Project 2007 did not have the general new interface which was added to Microsoft
Project with the 2010 version.
16
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials The Ribbon
5 The Ribbon
5.1 The Task Ribbon
5.1.1 The Resource Ribbon
5.1.2 The Report Ribbon New in Project 2013
5.1.3 The Project Ribbon
5.1.4 The View Ribbon
5.1.5 The Format Ribbon
17
5.2 The Backstage View

New in Project 2013 is the Backstage a way of accessing settings and files via the File Menu.
The Backstage looks on the surface just like the old File Menu however it does much more than that.
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Item What it does
Info Get information about the Project file and any other apps that you may have installed.
New Create a new Project file here or select one of the templates.
Open Open a Project File from a list of recent Project Files or locations accessed.
Close Close the current project file
Save Save your Project so that you dont lose your changes
Save as Select where to save your Project from a choice of online and offline locations.
Print The print dialogue is accessed from here and you can set how many copies and see a preview here too
Share Allows you to share a project file with others via email or as a pdf or to share your Project to a server.
Export Export or save your Project in different formats including PDF-older versions and as an Excel file.
Account Information about your Microsoft Account is shown here. If you are using a standalone version
of Microsoft Project 2013 then any other accounts that are connected will be shown here.
Options This replaces Tools Options in previous versions of Project and is where you control
how Project 2013 behaves we will be looking at this later in the course.
Legacy Formats beware!

Project 2013 can open up files created in older versions and can save files into older formats.
Once you do this however, you will notice that many of the new features have been disabled.
Save the Project into 2010 Format to re enable all features.
19
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Settings
6 Settings
In Project 2013 there are some fundamental differences to previous versions. If you are a new user, this
will not make any difference to you however if you have been using Project in earlier versions 2000,
2002, 2003 or 2007 there are a few radical differences which we will explore here.
6.1 Tools Options Now Backstage

Instead of a Tools Menu with the Program Options situated there, the Options have moved to the
Backstage which is accessed via the File menu.
We are going to take a look at the Options here in more detail before we start to create a project as these
Options control how Microsoft Project 2013 behaves.
To access the Options:
1. Click the File Menu

2. Select Options from Backstage
3. The Options main window will open
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Setting the Project Options for your
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Project in Microsoft Project 2013
7 Setting the Project Options

for your Project in Microsoft
Project 2013
When you start to create a Project in Microsoft Project 2013 there are four things that you must do first
before you start to add any tasks or resources to the project.
Set a Start Date or a Finish Date for the project

Define the Standard Working Calendar
Define the length of the working day in the Schedule Options
Set the default options for how the majority of tasks behave

7.1 Set a Start Date or a Finish Date for the Project

In MS Project the length of the schedule is determined by the tasks involved in it. You can either
Choose a project start date and see how long the project will take (recommended!)
or
Choose project end date and see when you will have to start the project to finish on time.
To set the start or finish date:
1. Click on the Project tab
2. Select the Project Information icon from the Properties Group

3. Select Start from or Finish on from the drop down menu
4. Type in the date

5. Click OK
Why just a Start date or an End date

If you fix one end of the project the other end is defined by the
number and scheduling of the tasks within the project

What if I want to change things later?

You can change your project information at any time by clicking
on Project Information on the Project menu

22
7.1.1 Define the Standard Working Calendar
There are three Standard Calendars in MS Project.
The Standard Calendar

The 24 Hours Calendar
The Night Shift Calendar
Individual resources have their schedules based on one of these calendars and one of the first things you
must do is define what the standard working hours are.
1. Click on the Project Tab
2. Select Change Working Time

3. You will be presented with the following screen
23
4. Click first on Work Weeks
5. Then click the Details button
6. Click into Set day(s) to these specific working times
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7. Select the days and the times you wish to change

8. Click OK
To select more than one day at a time

To select the days of the week click on the day in the list and then click
into the From and To boxes and make the change required.
To select more than one day, hold down shift as you select to choose days next to each
other or hold down Control as you select to choose days not next to each other.
7.2 Setting Public Holidays

Once you have set the individual working times for each day, you can also set any public holidays.
Public Holidays
Only Saturdays and Sundays are set up as non-working time in MS Project as standard,
so unless you want to work Christmas day you will have to edit the Calendars.
1. Click on the Project Tab

2. Select Change Working Times
3. Click on the Exceptions Tab
Type in the dates that you want to set as holidays probably public holidays to begin with unless your
organisation has holiday dates follow this link to find public holidays in the UK.
(http://www.dti.gov.uk/employment/bank-public-holidays)
4. Click Ok
To view the changes scroll through the calendar to see the dates marked as non-working time.
25
7.2.1 Define the length of the working day How many hours does Project assign to a one
day task?
Once you have set the working times for the whole project you need to let MS Project know how many
hours there are in a working day.
Project can then schedule tasks correctly if you set a one day task Project needs to know
what time to start the task and what time to end it.
From a cost point of view it is necessary for Project to know how many hours there are in a
day. A 7 hour day will cost 70 whereas an 8 hour day will cost 80.
If you have set a day as a 7 hour day and given a resource more than 7 hours work that
resource will show up as over-allocated. This will be governed by the settings you make here.
1. Click the File menu

2. Select Options
3. Click on Schedule
4. Enter your Start and Finish times

5. Fill in the number of hours you want to assign to a day and a week (Remember to exclude
your lunch hours!)
6. Fill in the number of days per month if required
7. Click OK
Essential
The default start/end times are entered with a colon e.g. 08:30 = eight thirty
(colon represents hours and minutes). Hours per day and hours per week are
entered with a decimal point, e.g., 7.50 = seven and a half hours.
26
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Default Duration
8 Default Duration
8.1 Changing the Default Duration
If your project is measured in months or years rather than days, it may be worth changing the default
duration measure so that tall tasks have a default as such.
1. Click on the File menu

2. Click on Options
3. Select Schedule
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4. Click the down arrow next to Duration is entered in and make your selection
5. Click OK
Default Duration for this Project only
This process sets the default duration for this project only!

8.2 Task Options

8.2.1 Default Options for Tasks
When starting a project you would expect that as you schedule tasks Project will automatically work out
the start and finish dates for the task based on the start/finish date of the project.
In Project 2013 this has been changed.
There are now two ways of scheduling tasks;
Manually Scheduled
Automatically Scheduled
8.2.2 Manually Scheduled Tasks
The default setting for tasks is now Manually Scheduled. This setting does not set default duration or
place the task in the timeline:
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Benefits of Manual Scheduling
Tasks that need to be noted, but that you dont have enough information about to schedule
can now be recorded easily
You can add detail later on when the information is confirmed
You can use this kind of scheduling for Top Down planning when you wish to concentrate
on getting things listed without being distracted by time and dependencies
28
8.2.3 Automatically Scheduled Tasks
In versions of Project p prior to Project 2010 tasks were always scheduled automatically. This means
that when you add a task to the list, a default duration of one day is shown and Project will place the
task on the timeline relative to the start or finish date of the project (Depending on whether you are
scheduling forwards or backwards).
Benefits of Automatic Scheduling
Tasks are scheduled automatically in the right time frame

If there are dependencies between tasks then the tasks will be scheduled taking these in
to account.
You do not have to come back later on to change how the task is scheduled
8.2.4 Setting the Default Task Mode
To set the Default Task Mode for all tasks:
1. Click File
2. Click Options
3. Click Schedule on the left
4. Decide if you are changing the Scheduling Option for this project or All New Projects!
5. Change the drop down to Auto Scheduled
6. Click Ok
8.2.5 How can I tell which Scheduling Method is set?
When you look at the task bar you will see which scheduling method is currently being used.
29
Quickly Change Scheduling Method for all tasks!

You can change the scheduling method for all tasks by clicking the
taskbar and selecting the method you wish to use.
You can also change the Scheduling Method for all tasks using the Mode icon in the Tasks group on
the Tasks Tab:
8.2.6 Changing the Scheduling Method for a particular task:
In the Entry Table, you can select the mode from the Task Mode column

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Tasks
9 Tasks
9.1 Entering a task name and duration
1. Make sure you are in Gantt Chart View
2. Type the task name in the Task Name column
3. Type the duration in the duration column
4. Repeat for all tasks
Task Duration Abbreviations
M Minutes, H Hours, D Days, W Weeks, MON Months

So 4H means 4 Hours and 4W means 4 Weeks
9.1.1 Editing Task Names
1. Click on Task name

2. Click into Entry Bar you may need to display this (File-Options-Display-entry bar
check box)
3. Make corrections
4. Press Enter
OR
Press F2 to make the Task Name editable in the cell itself.
9.1.2 Estimated Durations
If you are unsure of your task duration because you are awaiting information you can still enter them
into Project you can mark them as estimated durations and update them at a later time.
1. Click into the Duration column for the task

2. Type the estimated duration followed by a ?
3. Press Enter
31
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Tasks
When you schedule automatically all new tasks can have a default setting of Estimated Durations. To
change this:
1. Click on the File Menu

2. Click on Options
3. Click on Schedule
4. Take the tick out of New scheduled tasks have estimated durations
9.1.3 Milestones
Milestones are simply important checkpoints in your project. They are points at which you review the
projects progress so far and decide on any changes to the plan that need to be made.
You can create a milestone in one of the following ways:
Set the duration of the task to 0
1. Click on the Task Tab

2. Click on Milestone in the Insert Group
S
32
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Selecting Parts of the Screen
10 Selecting Parts of the Screen

Why might you want to select tasks?
Delete a task
Move a task
Insert a task
Link tasks
Selecting a Task
Click on the task name in the Entry table.
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Selecting more than one task at a time
Click on the first task and drag down to select others
Or
1. Click on the first task
2. Hold down SHIFT
3. Click on the last task
Selecting tasks not next to each other
1. Click on the first task

2. Hold down CONTROL
3. Click on other tasks
Selecting a row
Click on the row number
Note that the cursor looks like a black arrow pointing to the right.
Selecting Columns within a table
Click on the column heading
Note the cursor looks like a black downward pointing arrow.
34
Selecting the whole table
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Inserting a Task
1. Click on the line below where you want the new task
2. In the Task Group on the Task Tab click Task
Use the Keyboard to Insert!

ress the Insert key on the keyboard to insert a new line when you start
P
to type in it it will become a task.

Deleting a Task
1. Select the Task by clicking on the number of the task

2. Press Delete on the keyboard
OR
3. Right Click
4. Select Delete
1.1.1
35
Moving a Task
1. Select the row you want to move by clicking on its number

2. Release your mouse button
3. Click and drag the task number to the new location
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Outlining
11 Outlining
11.1 What is Outlining
Outlining is the process of organising your project into phases by creating Summary Tasks and Sub
Tasks. In Project, Sub Tasks are indented under Summary Tasks.
Summary Task Duration
A Summary Tasks duration is determined by the sum of the Sub Tasks within it.

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Summary Tasks appear in BOLD and Sub Tasks are indented below the Summary.
37
11.1.1 Creating a Summary Task with Sub Tasks
Note that the tasks you had selected have now been indented underneath your new Summary Task.
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11.1.2 What if I decide to create a Summary Task from existing tasks?
11.1.3 Undoing Outlining
To undo outlining, out-dent all your subtasks until all your tasks return to the same outline level.
11.1.4 Collapsing or expanding the detail under a Summary Task
You can collapse or expand Summary Tasks to view either the full detail or just the summary.
Click the plus or minus to expand or collapse the detail.
11.1.5 Show all Summary Tasks
11.1.6 Create a Summary Task for the whole Project
You can add a Summary Task that represents the whole project. The name of the Project Summary Task
will be the file name. You can change this task name in the same way as any other task name.
39
It will look like this
11.2 Saving Projects

11.2.1 Saving your Project for the First Time
1. Click on the Save Icon which is on the Quick Access Toolbar
2. Select in which folder you wish to save your project
3. Type a file name

4. Click Save
40
11.3 Adding Notes to a Task

1. Double click the task in the table side of the Gantt chart
2. Click on the Notes Tab
3. Click into the white box

4. Type your note
5. Click OK
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Quick Notes Entry

Right click on the task you wish to add a note to and choose Add Notes

11.3.1 Viewing Task Notes
Hold your mouse over the icon in the first column of the table
11.4 Creating Hyperlinks to other documents

Hyperlinks allow you to move quickly to associated documents and files, for example you may have a
report in Word that you would like to link to a particular task.
1. Right Click on the task in the Entry Table

2. Select Hyperlink
3. Navigate to the folder that holds the document you wish to link
4. Select the document

5. Click OK
42
11.4.1 To launch the document
Click on the link
11.4.2 Delete a Hyperlink
1. Right Click the Hyperlink

2. Select Hyperlink
3. Select Clear Hyperlinks

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Creating the Schedule
12 Creating the Schedule

Now that you have a list of tasks in your Project, it is time to link them up and create a proper schedule.
As mentioned earlier, if you are scheduling your tasks automatically, by adding links between tasks,
Project will slot the tasks into the correct time and make them follow on from the previous task you
have selected.
There are four types of Task Dependency in Project:
Finish to Start
Start to Start
Finish to Finish
Start to Finish
When you link tasks in Project, the default link type is finish-to-start. However, a finish-to-start link
does not work in every situation.
Finish to Start The Default Task Dependency
Task B cannot start until Task A has finished. For example, if you have two tasks: Create Timetable and
Create Exercises, the Create Exercises task cannot start unitl the Create Timetable task has finished.
Start to Start
Task B cannot start until Task A has started.
The dependent task can start at any time after the task that it depends on begins. The SS link type does
not require that both tasks begin at the same time.
For example, if you have two tasks, Pour concrete and Level concrete, the Level concrete task cannot
begin until the Pour concrete task begins.
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Finish to Finish
Task B cannot be completed until Task A is completed.
The dependent task can be completed at any time after the task that it depends on is completed. The FF
link type does not require that both tasks be completed at the same time.
For example, if you have two tasks, Add wiring and Inspect electrical, the Inspect electrical task
cannot be completed until the Add wiring task is completed.
Start to Finish
Task B cannot be completed until Task A has begun.
The dependent task can be completed at any time after the task that it depends on begins. The SF link
type does not require that the dependent task be completed concurrent with the beginning of the task
on which it depends.
For example, the roof trusses for your construction project are built off-site. Two of the tasks in your
project are Truss delivery and Assemble roof. The Assemble roof task cannot be completed until
the Truss delivery task begins.
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12.1 Creating Links between tasks When Automatically Scheduled

First of all put tasks in a logical order.
12.1.1 Linking tasks which are next to each other
1. Click on the first task to link

2. Hold down the mouse button and drag to the next task
3. Click the Link Tasks button
2.1.1
12.1.2 Linking tasks which are not next to each other
1. Click on the first task to link

2. Hold down the CONTROL key
3. Click on the next task to link
4. Lick on the Link Tasks Button

12.1.3 Linking Tasks on the Gantt chart using click and drag
Hover your mouse over the first task in the Gantt chart until you see a four headed arrow
Click, drag and drop on the next task to link to
Shortcut key for linking

Select the tasks to link and then press Control and F2
12.1.4 Breaking Links
To remove a link between two tasks
1. Select the tasks involved in the link you wish to break

2. Click the Unlink Tasks button
12.1.5 Deleting links on the Gantt chart
1. Double click on the arrow head which links the task
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2. Click on the Delete button
12.1.6 Adding Tasks into a list of tasks that are already linked
If you add a new task into a list of tasks which have already been linked it can be automatically linked
to the surrounding tasks. This means that Project 2013 will place a Start to Finish link on both sides of
the new task depending on where it is inserted in the list.
This feature is switched off by default and here are the instructions to switch it on.

2. Click on Project Options
3. Click on the Schedule Tab
4. To turn Autolink on click on the box Autolink inserted tasks
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12.2 Changing the Link type

To change the default Finish to Start dependency to any of the other types of dependency follow the
same procedure:
1. Double click the link arrow
2. Change the Dependency Type in the dialogue box
3. Click OK

12.3 Creating Links between Tasks that are Manually Scheduled

When you link a manually scheduled task to another task, Project respects the link type and places the
manually scheduled task relative to the other task. For example, the successor task with a finish-to-start
link is shown as beginning when the predecessor finishes.
You create the links in exactly the same way as Automatically Scheduled tasks.
However they will look a little different
As you can see the Gantt bars look a little different. Project does place the tasks in date order.
This is the default behaviour for Manually Scheduled Tasks. You can change it so that when you link
Manually Scheduled Tasks they stay on the date that they first began on and do not move.
12.3.1 To change the way Manually Scheduled tasks are linked

2. Click on Project Options
3. Click on the Scheduling Options
4. Clear the checkbox next to Update Manually Scheduled tasks when editing links
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12.4 Zooming
12.4.1 Zooming into the Gantt chart
In Project 2013 it is much easier to zoom around the Gantt chart and to focus on different timescales.
First display the View tab on the Ribbon and select the relevant icon from the Zoom group.
This icon enables you to set the timescale:- to any of the following
This icon allows you to zoom in or out in stages, simply click

the zoom in or zoom out button and see what happens.
This button allows you to make the entire project sit

on the screen. (This refers to the Gantt Chart)
If you have a task in the table and the Gantt bar is somewhere
off screen, clicking this icon will bring the task bar to view
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12.4.2 Changing the balance between the Table and the Gantt Chart

1. Place the cursor on the dividing line between the Gantt chart and the table
2. Click and Drag
12.5 The Timeline

The Timeline is a new feature in Microsoft Project 2013. It is useful for keeping an eye on critical or
important tasks or milestones.
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12.5.1 To Display the Timeline:
1. Click the View Tab

2. Tick the Timeline Checkbox
You will now see the timeline
12.5.2 Add a task to the Timeline
1. Right Click the task

2. Click Add to Timeline
12.6 Lag and Lead

Sometimes you wish to create a delay between tasks or an overlap. This is where Lag and Lead come in.
12.6.1 Lag a necessary delay between tasks
Examples
Sending invitations and then calling a week later to see who is coming
Giving the first coat of paint time to dry before applying the second
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12.6.2 Lead a necessary overlap between tasks
Example
A one week overlap between one member of staff leaving and the replacement member starting to allow
for on the job training of the new member of staff.
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To create Lag To create Lead
1. Double click the dependency arrow on the 1.Double click the dependency arrow on the
Gantt Chart between two tasks Gantt Chart between the two tasks
Type a duration in the Lag box Type a negative duration in the Lag box
Click OK Click OK
Using Percentages for Lead
Instead of defining the number of days for lead, you can also type in a percentage. For
Example: -50% would start the second task when 50% of the first task has been finished.
12.7 Recurring Tasks

Recurring tasks are tasks that occur on a regular basis. They might be a weekly team meeting or writing
payslips each month.
Remember that New Tasks always appear above the row your cursor is in when you add them.
1. Click on the row below where the new Recurring Task will be
2. Click on the drop down arrow under Task in the Insert Group on the Task Ribbon
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3. Select Recurring Task

4. Complete the details in the Recurring task Information
5. Click OK
The task will appear with a next to it.

12.7.1 Unrolling Recurring Tasks
The recurring task will appear in the Gantt chart as a number of small unconnected bars.
The task can be unrolled by clicking on the plus sign next to the task name. A recurring task is really a
special form of summary task.
When the task has been unrolled each individual occurrence may be customised by, for example, the
date or duration by simply double clicking it.
When linking Recurring Tasks it all goes wrong!

Recurring tasks work as long as they are not linked to any other tasks.
Linking them to other tasks may move some or all of the occurrences onto
a single day. To resolve this enter new start and finish dates.
12.8 Splitting Tasks

Splitting tasks is a great solution for breaking up work over a long span of time.
Example:
A resource spends all day on Monday on a task, waits a few days for information to arrive from a supplier,
and then spends Friday afternoon finishing the task. The resource is only working for 1.5 days.
The task appears as a full week, while project uses 1.5 days of work to calculate the resources commitment.
We need to see a Gantt bar on the Monday for a full day and a Gantt bar on the Friday for half a day.
The actual duration of the task is 1.5 days.
To perform the example above there are three steps:
1. Format the dates so that you can see the times of the day that tasks are scheduled
2. Change the zoom level to half day scale
3. Use the Split icon to move the second half of the task to Friday afternoon
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12.8.1 Format the Dates
If you dont already see the date and time in the date column of the Entry Table do the following:

2. Click on Options
3. Click on General on the left
4. Select a date format that shows the time of day
5. Click OK
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12.8.2 Change the Zoom level to half a day scale
Click on the zoom in icon until your scale looks like this:
12.8.3 Split the task
The task has a duration of 1.5 days. The first day will take place on Monday and the extra half a day on
Friday afternoon.
1. Select the task in the Gantt chart

2. Click on the Split task icon
3. Point to the bar you wish to split
4. Move the pointer to the date you wish to move the unfinished part to
5. Your task will now look like this
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Creating and Assigning Resources
13 Creating and Assigning

Resources
13.1 Creating Resources
13.1.1 What are resources and why should you include them?
Resources are usually the people working on your project but they can also be the materials that are
used. Once you have created your resource list you can:
Inform resources of their tasks and when they must be done

Create more accurate scheduling based on resource availability
Track the amount of materials used and where it is needed
13.1.2 There three types of resources in Project 2013
Work Resource These are usually people who do the work in the project
Material Resource Consumable items used in the project such as paper, paint, bricks etc.
Cost Resources Miscellaneous costs such as airfare or meal expenses (not covered in this course)
13.2 The View Ribbon Resource Views

On the View Ribbon there are new ways to view your resources:
A new view has been added called Team Planner more about this a little later.
13.2.1 To view the Resource Sheet
Click on the Resource Sheet button
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You will see the Resource Sheet View together with an extra contextual Ribbon to enable formatting of
the Resource Sheet.
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13.2.2 Creating a Work Resource
.
1. Enter a name in the Resource Name column
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2. Enter an abbreviated version of resource name in the Initials column if required (you can
add Initials to the Gantt Chart view later as it takes up less space)
3. Add a group if appropriate (Full Time or Part Time for example)
4. Change the Max Units
5. Press Enter to complete
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13.2.3 What does Max Units mean?
Max units mean the amount of that resources available time that is available to the project.
For example if Jenny works 2 days a week she is available for 100% of her two days and will be able
to work between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm.
You can set her Max Units to 100% and change her working times to show which days she is working.
For example she only works on Tuesday and Thursday. So by setting her Max Units at 100% you are
indicating that Jenny is available all day on Tuesday and Thursday to work on the project.
You can also use Max Units to indicate that you have a team. For example:
We have three decorators on the project. We dont mind which decorator turns up to paint the walls,
so long as one does. We set the Max Units to 300% which tells us there are three in total and to assign
just one decorator we assign just 100% of the decorators. More on this shortly when we learn how to
assign resources.

13.3 Creating a Material Resource

1. Click on the View Ribbon
2. Select Resource Sheet
3. Enter a Name in the Resource Name column
4. Click into the Type column
5. Select Material from the drop down list
6. Type a Material Label this will be the measurement, tons, reams, yards etc
7. Change the Initial if you wish
8. Press Enter
13.4 Setting Resource Availability

13.4.1 What are Resource Calendars
Each time a resource is created a resource calendar is automatically created that determines individual
working times. This enables you to specify which hours a person works if they are part time, or on which
days they are available. You can also allocate individual holidays here.
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Edit the Standard Calendar

When the Standard Calendar is edited the changes will filter through to the resource calendars.
You can also base a resource on one of the other calendars,

such as the 24 hr. calendar or the Night Shift Calendar.
13.5 Setting Individual Resource Holidays

1. Click the View Ribbon
2. Click on Resource Sheet
3. Double click on the resource to change


4. Click on the Change Working Time Button

5. Enter the holiday for the individual in the Exceptions tab
This will appear as non working time on the individuals calendar
6. Complete the Start and Finish fields

7. Click OK
13.6 Task Durations and Resources

13.6.1 What are Effort Driven Tasks?
When a task is Effort Driven Microsoft Project keeps the total work at its current level no matter how
many resources are allocated to it. When you add further resources, the remaining work is distributed
to them.
For example you have a huge report which will take one person a week to write, and you allocate your
writer to that task Project will schedule the task to take one week. If the task is Effort Driven and you
now add another writer to the task, Microsoft Project will reduce the length of time it takes to finish
the report to 2.5 days.
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A Non Effort Driven task allows you to add lots of resources without affecting the duration of the task.
In our example above if the Report task is not effort driven then when I add the second writer to the
task the overall duration will stay the same.
13.6.2 The Default Options
The default option for Effort Driven Settings is that they are switched on. This means that Microsoft
Project will treat all tasks as Effort Driven.
If the majority of the tasks in your projects are Effort Driven the duration is dependant of the number
of resources assigned, then leave well alone.
If however most of your tasks are not Effort Driven you may wish to turn this off.
13.6.3 To turn off Effort Driven Settings
1. Click File
2. Click Options
3. Click Schedule
4. In the list deselect the check box next to All Tasks are Effort Driven
13.6.4 To make one task Non Effort Driven
1. Double click on the task name

OR
2. Click the Information Icon in the Properties Group on the Task Ribbon
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3. Click on the Advanced Tab

4. Uncheck Effort Driven box
5. Click OK
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13.7 Assigning resources to tasks

There are various ways of assigning resources in Microsoft Project 2013.
Make the initial assignment using Assign Resources

Make the initial assignment from the Resource Column in the Task Table
Use the Team Planner View NEW!
There are two stages to assigning resources:
The initial assignment

Adding more resources after the initial assignment.
13.7.1 The initial assignment of work resources using Assign Resources
1. Click on a task in the Gantt Chart

2. Click the Resource Tab
3. Click on the Assign Resources icon
4. Select the individual resource you wish to assign
5. Click Assign
Repeat this process for all tasks that you wish to assign resources to.
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Assigning Multiple Resources

It is possible to assign more than one resource to a task at the same time. Hold
down the Control Key and select all the resources before clicking assign. This
will assign them all however NOTE that the duration will not decrease!
13.7.2 The initial assignment of resources using the Resource Column NEW
You can now add more than one resource using the resource column. In previous versions you could
only select one resource at a time this way.
1. Click on the task to assign resources to

2. Display the Resource Column
3. Select the resource to assign if you select more than one resource note that the duration
will not change if your task is Effort Driven
13.7.3 Assigning more than one of the same resource
This can only be done via the Assign Resource Icon
1. Select the task in the Gantt Chart

2. Click the Resource Ribbon
3. Click on Assign Resources
4. Select the resource to add
5. Change the percentage in the Units column
6. Click Assign

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13.7.4 Assigning a material resource
1. Click on the Task in the Gantt Chart

2. Click the Resources Ribbon
3. Click Assign Resources
4. Select the material resource
5. Type the number of Units required in the Units column
6. Click Assign
7. Click Close
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13.7.5 Assigning or removing a work resource after the initial assignment
You may decide to add or remove resource assignments in order to shorten the project, resolve over
working or simply because the wrong person is on the task.
1. Click on the task in the Gantt Chart

2. Click on the Resource Ribbon
3. Click on the Assign Resource icon
4. Select the resource you wish to add or remove
5. Click the appropriate button
6. Click Close
Replacing one resource with another
1. Click on the task in the Gantt Chart

3. Click on the Assign Resource icon
4. Select the resource you wish to replace
5. Click Replace
6. Choose a new resource
7. Click OK
8. Click Close
13.8 The Team Planner View

This is a brand new view in Microsoft Project Professional 2010 and will allow you to see at a glance
how tasks are assigned and where they fall in the timeline. This is useful if you need to work out who
is doing too much and who has spare capacity.
This view is NOT available in Microsoft Project 2013 Standard Edition
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The Team Planner View is made up of two sections. The top shows a combined view of the resources
from the resource sheet together with a Gantt bar for the tasks allocated to that person in the timeline.
The bottom portion shows tasks which have not yet been assigned.
You can also see non-working time which is shaded in very light grey on the timeline. Non-working
time includes weekends and holidays based on the shared companywide calendar.
Also displayed is the non-working time, such as personal holidays and sick days which have been added
to individual calendars.
You can customise the way that the Formatting looks in Team Planner view.
Use the icons to set the formatting for each different type of task, from Auto or Manually Scheduled, to
showing the actual work or external or late tasks. Each one can have different fill colours and/or borders.
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13.8.1 What can you do in The Team Planner View?
Reschedule a task if the person you want to perform that task is over worked.
You can allocate previously unallocated tasks by dragging.
Reassign a task to a different resource by dragging it around.
13.8.2 Dragging Tasks in the Team Planner
To reschedule a task to a different time, if you realise that you need to reschedule due to other issues
cropping up, simply drag the tasks Gantt bar to the new time period.
When you reschedule a task in The Team Planner, Project sets a Start No Earlier Than (SNET) constraint
on the task.
Start No Earlier Than Constraint (SNET) in Team Planner View

This may not be the way you wish your tasks to behave as a Start No Earlier than constraint
will not allow your task to start any earlier than the date it is constrained to even if an
earlier start date is available. You will need to manually manage these tasks!
To reassign a task to a different resource drag the tasks Gantt bar from the assigned resource to the
new one and drop it on the desired time period.
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Reassign with a Right Click!

You can also reassign a task by right clicking on the Gantt bar
in the Team Planner and selecting Reassign To:
To assign an unassigned task to any resource drag the tasks Gantt bar from the bottom pane to the top
pane and drop it in the time period where you wish to schedule it.
100% Allocation
When you assign a task to a resource this way, Microsoft Project 2013
assumes 100% availability on the task and assigns it accordingly.
You can reassign or reschedule multiple tasks in Team Planner view by holding down the control key
and clicking on each task. Then drag and drop the group of selected tasks.
The Team Planner View does not allow you to make multiple first assignments this way.
13.8.3 Prevent Over allocation with Team Planner
Over Allocation is when a resource has been given work that totals more hours than there are in the
day! I know that is normal procedure for many but not good for getting your project done in time and
on budget.
A resource can work on two or more tasks at the same time without any issues so long as none of the
tasks are full time. In this case each task appears on its own row. If however concurrent tasks take up
more time than that resource has available red stripes appear at the top or bottom of overlapping bars.
The Resource name appears in Red too.
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You can set Team Planner to prevent Over Allocation automatically. This means that if you reassign a
task to a resource that is fully allocated, Microsoft Project will push the task off to when the resource
is available.
13.8.4 Set Prevent Over allocation
1. Display the Team Planner View

2. Click the Format Ribbon in the Team Planner Tools
3. Click the Prevent Over allocations icon
The status bar now displays the message that Prevent Over allocations is switched on.
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13.9 Filtering your project

Filtering in Microsoft Project 2013 is now built in to every table that you display. You can filter in situ
by clicking on the drop down arrows on column headings. It works just like Autofilter in Excel.
1. Click the drop down arrow on the column heading

2. Select the item you wish to focus on from the list
3. OR
4. Click on Filters
5. Select the filter you wish to apply
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You can also see the filters by doing the following:

2. Click into Filter on the Data Group
3. Select the filter you wish to apply
13.10 Grouping your Tasks

Sometimes you want to focus on certain groups of information. Some groups such as resource groups
you can set up yourself and other groups exist within project ready to go.
There are some new grouping features in Microsoft Project 2013.
To group Tasks:
1. Click on the View Tab

2. Click into the drop down for Group by in the Data group
3. Select the group you wish to apply
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In this example I have grouped by duration.
You can see that an extra row containing the group heading has been added and is shaded to differentiate
from the regular tasks.
13.10.1 To remove grouping
Click on the drop down arrow by group by and select No Group
13.11 Grouping Resources

You can also group resources so that you can filter out tasks belonging to certain groups.

2. Click on the drop down by Team Planner
3. Select Resource Sheet
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4. Type the group names into the group column
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You can now use Auto filter to pull out all those resources in a particular group or you can:
1. Click on the view Ribbon

2. Click on the drop down arrow next to Group by in the Data Group
3. Select the grouping you wish to apply
13.12 Emailing Resources

You can email your resources directly from within project. There are two steps to this process:
Create a mailto: hyperlink

Send an email
Step One Create a mailto: hyperlink
1. Right click on the resource you wish to create a hyperlink for in the Resource Sheet
2. Select Hyperlink
3. Select Create Hyperlink
4. Click on the Email Address button
5. Type the email address
6. Type a subject line
7. Click OK
You now have a hyperlink in the information column

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Step Two Send an Email
1. Right click on the hyperlink

2. Select Open Hyperlink
3. A new email will open up
4. Type your message and click Send
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13.13 Create a new Working Time Calendar

There are times when you may wish to create a new calendar because the default calendars do not
meet your needs. Perhaps you have staff who work at the weekend. To accommodate them you create a
calendar with working times set as the weekend and non working times during the week. Then assign this
calendar to those resources who work weekends. All of their work will be scheduled over the weekend.
To create a new base calendar:
1. Click on the Project Ribbon

2. Click on Change Working times
3. Click on Create new Calendar
4. Type a name for the calendar

5. Decide if it is a new base calendar or a copy of the standard calendar
6. Click OK
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7. Now set up the Work Weeks for your new calendar Follow the procedure earlier in the manual.
8. Click OK
13.13.1 Assign this calendar to a resource
1. Create the resource as normal in the Resource Sheet

2. Select your new calendar from the calendar column
New Calendar or create a copy of the base one?

If you create a copy of the base calendar all the public holidays and working
times will be copied over so you only need to change the working times.
If you choose to create a brand new base calendar you will have to set
the standard working times and all the public holidays too!
13.13.2 Assign this calendar to a Task
Sometimes you may have a task that is worked on at a particular time that is not in the standard calendar.
You may be testing equipment and this must be done at weekends instead of when all the staff are at work.
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In this case you can assign the Weekend Work calendar to the task.
1. Right Click the task to assign the calendar to

2. Select Information
3. Click the Advanced Tab
4. Select the calendar
5. Click OK

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials The Calendar View
14 The Calendar View

In the Calendar View you cannot see the links between the tasks or the entire project. You can see the
tasks scheduled in a particular week or month and you can customize the timescale.
14.1 Switching to Calendar View

1. Click the View Tab
2. Click on the Calendar icon
14.2 Setting the Time Period

When you first look at the calendar veiw you will see that one month is the default veiw. You can change
this to a weekly view or you can cusomise the time frame yourself.
14.3 To Show a Weekly View

Click the Week button at the top of the calendar
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14.4 Customise the TimeScale

1. Click the Custom Button
2. Select the number of weeks to display or set a particular date range
14.5 Show a Five Day Work Week

1. Right Click on the calendar
2. Select Timescale
3. Click on Week Headings
4. Click in Show week with 7 days or 5 days
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14.6 Format the Time Scale

1. Right Click the Calendar
2. Select Time Scale
3. Make changes as required
14.7 Layout Tasks

Layout Tasks allows you to set up whether the tasks are displayed based on the sort order that is applied
(ID initially) or whether you wish to change this.
Initially all your tasks may run into each other and look very strange. To get around this change the layout.

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1. In the format Calendar Tools Contextual Ribbon

2. Click on the little arrow in the bottom right hand corner of the Layout Group
3. Click the checkbox next to Attempt to Fit as many tasks as possible

4. Click OK
14.8 Showing Resource Tasks in the calendar

You may wish to filter the calendar to show a particular resource what he or she is doing. This is especially
useful if your resources do not have Microsoft Project and you wish to present them with a list of tasks
in a time frame.
To filter for a resource:
1. Click on the Filter Drop down in the Data Group on the View Ribbon
2. Select Using Resource
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3. Choose the resource name from the drop down list
4. Click OK
Only Anns tasks are displayed here.

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Bringing it all together
15 Bringing it all together

15.1 How to plan a project

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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Evaluate your Schedule
16 Evaluate your Schedule

It is now time to check and evaluate your plan to make sure that it is free of problems and oversights.
This is the time to make any adjustments that come to light.
You can still adjust the project once it has gone live, but it is best to go live with the best possible project.
16.1 What should I check?

Are tasks in a logical order?
Are the links between tasks correct do they reflect real world working practice?
Are the correct resources assigned to tasks
Can I meet my real life deadlines?
What about the work level of the resources? Are they assigned too much work?
16.2 How can Microsoft Project help me meet my deadline?

Once you have checked your schedule, Microsoft Project can help you meet your deadline by the use of:
The Critical Path

Project Slack
Constraints and Deadlines
Team Planner View
In addition to this you could:
Add more resources to decrease critical task durations

Add overtime to decrease critical task duration
Use non-default task dependencies Start-Start or Finish-Finish
Reduce lag or introduce Lead time
Change the start date
Decrease task durations
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials The Critical Path
17 The Critical Path

17.1 What is the Critical Path?
The Critical Path is the longest sequence of tasks that have no leeway (slack in Microsoft Project). This
means that every task on this path is absolutely critical and must be accomplished on time otherwise it
will affect the Finish of the Project.
For example:
You arrange to meet your best friend Jan for coffee at a swanky coffee shop in Central London. Jan lives
outside of London and is coming in for a day of shopping. It will take Jan 2 hours to get to the Coffee
Shop but as you live in London it will only take you one hour. You have one hour of leeway (slack)
before you have to start out to meet Jan. Once you set out, every part of your journey is now critical.
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17.2 What are the benefits of seeing the Critical Path?

Identify which tasks to pay more attention to so that the project finishes on schedule
Identify those tasks which you could decrease the duration of and shorted the
scheduled finish.
The Critical Path is not a static object, it may change throughout the lifetime of the project based on
how tasks are performed as you begin to track progress.
17.3 Display the Critical Path

Ways to display the Critical Path.
Format the Gantt Chart to show the Critical Path

Filter for the Critical Path
Use the Tracking Gantt to show the Critical Path
Format the Text Styles to show the Critical Tasks
17.4 Format the Gantt chart to display the Critical Path
1. Display the Gantt chart

2. Click on the Format Ribbon
3. Tick the box marked Critical
4. The Critical Path shows up in Red

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17.5 Filter for Critical Tasks

This does not make the Critical tasks change colour it simply hides everything that is not on the Critical
Path so allowing you to focus on those tasks which are important.
1. Display the Gantt chart

2. Click the View Ribbon
3. In the Data Group
4. Click the drop down arrow next to Filter
5. Select Critical
6. Only Critical tasks will be displayed.
17.6 The Tracking Gantt

The Tracking Gantt shows the critical path in red non critical tasks in blue and a percentage complete
on the Gantt chart.
92
7. Click on the Task Ribbon

8. Click on the drop down arrow to View
9. Select Tracking Gantt



17.7 Format Text Styles to show the Critical Path

1. Click the Format Ribbon
2. Click the Text Styles Icon
3. In the box select Critical Tasks from the drop down
4. Set the format options required
5. Click OK
17.8 Slack
17.8.1 What is slack?
Slack is the amount of time a task can slip behind before it begins to affect your schedule. Tasks on the
Critical path have no slack, as they cannot get behind without affecting the scheduled finish.
94
17.8.2 What are the advantages to viewing the slack?
It is important to know where Slack exists in your schedule so you can:
View how late you can allow non-critical tasks with slack to start without affecting the schedule
Identify which tasks you can divert resources from if tasks on the critical path are getting behind.
There are two types of Slack:
Free Slack the amount of time a task can slip before it delays another task
Total Slack the amount of time a task can slip before it delays the project finish date.
17.8.3 Display slack on the Gantt chart
To see Slack in a visual way it can be displayed on the Gantt chart. It shows up as a dark blue thin line
coming out of the right hand side of the task bar.
1. Click on the Format Ribbon

2. Tick the check box labelled Slack
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17.8.4 Display Slack in the Schedule Table

2. In the Data group click the drop down arrow under Tables
3. Select the Schedule Table

You can now see the Schedule Table showing the Free Slack and Total Slack columns
You can change tables with a Right Click
Right click the grey square to the left of the first column and
above the first row choose the table from the list
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17.9 Tightening the Critical Path

After you have identified which tasks are critical in your schedule, you can begin examining them one
by one to look for area where you can make adjustments to decrease the duration of each critical task.
You could:
Add more resources to decrease critical task durations if possible

Add over time to decrease critical task duration if possible
Use non- default task dependencies using Start-Start or Finish-Finish
Reduce lag or introduce lead time
Change the Start Date
Decrease task durations
97
17.10 Combined Views

In Project there are various combined views which allow you to see more information at once. One of
these views is the Task Entry View.
The quickest way to display the Task Entry View is to split the screen so that the Gantt chart is at the
top and a form is at the bottom.
Right Click on the Gantt chart and select Split Screen
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You can change which form appears in the bottom of the screen by right clicking and selecting the form
you wish to use.
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17.10.1 Adding a new resource in Task Entry View
1. Click on the task name in the top pane

2. Select a resource name from the drop down list
3. Click OK

17.10.2 Adding more of the same resource in Task Entry View
1. Right Click in the bottom pane

2. Select Work
3. Change the units in the unit column in the bottom pane
17.10.3 Assigning Overtime Work
Overtime is entered into a separate column. This is for two reasons:
1. To ensure that overtime costs are calculated correctly (if you are using Project to calculate costs)
2. To ensure that you approve the overtime work.
When overtime is added to a task, it reduces the duration of the task but it increases the cost of the task.
Example:
Sam is setting up an exhibition. Normally this will take a full day which equals 7 hours in working hours.
However this time there have been some snags and Sam needs an extra two hours. If Sam comes back
in the morning to do the extra bits, the exhibition will be delayed. The Solution is for Sam to work an
extra 2 hours at the end of the day. This means he will have worked a total of 9 hours.
7 hours at his regular hourly rate and 2 hours at his overtime rate.
By adding overtime the task is not delayed and so the exhibition is ready on time.
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17.10.4 To add overtime
1. Make sure you have the Work pane in the bottom half of the window
2. Click into the overtime column
3. Adjust the hours
4. Click OK
Why has task duration not moved when I add overtime?

Is there more than one resource assigned?
Project looks at the resource assigned to do the most work for the task, called the driving resource.
The time the driving resource has available to work on the task determines the tasks duration.
Both resources need to have overtime if the duration is to be decreased.
17.11 Over Allocation

17.11.1 What is Over Allocation?
Over allocation is the result of assigning more tasks to a resource than the resource can accomplish in
the working time available.
Microsoft Project determines which resources are over allocated based on:
The work and duration values for tasks that the resource is involved in.
The maximum number of units available for the resource.
The calendar used by the resource.
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17.11.2 How do I know which Resources are Over Allocated?
On the Gantt chart
A small red person icon will appear in the Information column on the Gantt chart
On the Resource Sheet
Over allocated resources are shown in Red

17.11.3 How do I know when and which tasks are causing the over allocation?
Resource Usage View

Team Planner
We can see things from different perspectives by looking at these views.
17.11.4 Resource usage view
1. Click View
2. Click on Resource Usage
You will see a combined view
On the left is the list of resources with the tasks they are involved in inset below. On the right is the
number of hours being worked on each task.
Over allocated resources will be shown in red and the over allocated hours will be in red too.
As you can see there is a timeline and it is possible to see exactly which tasks are causing problems.
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17.12 Team Planner View

Click on Team Planner View in the resource views group. The over allocated resource name will be red
and the tasks which are at the root of the over allocation will have a red line at the top and bottom of
the task.
17.12.1 Ways to resolve over allocation
Once you know where the over allocation is happening you can make informed choices about how to
deal with it.
1. Move the task with the over allocated resource

2. Reallocate resource assignments
3. Assign additional resources to the task
4. Change the resource working hours
17.12.2 Move the Task to another date
If you realize when analyzing your project that a task is over allocated and happening at the wrong
time, you can move the task quite easily however bear in mind that one of the flexible constraints will
be added to the task.
1. Select the task to move

2. Click Task
3. In the Tasks Group click Move
4. Select the option you wish to use
104
We will examine Incomplete Parts to Status Date and Completed Parts to Status Date later on. (See:
What is meant by rescheduling? Page 121)

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17.12.3 Reallocate Work Resources
There are three ways to do this.
Drag the task in the Team Planner to the resource you wish to allocate it to
Reallocate using the Assign Resources Dialogue
Reallocate by changing the resource in the resource column
17.12.4 Reallocate in Team Planner View
Drag the task you wish to reallocate to another resource and drop it in the correct timeframe.
In this example I dragged the Write Exercises task from Jenny to Ann as Jenny was over allocated.
17.12.5 Reallocate by changing the resource in the Resource Column
1. On the task for which you wish to reallocate a resource

2. Click into the resource column
3. Deselect the current resource
4. Select the checkbox for the replacement resource
Here I am replacing Ann with Jenny.
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17.12.6 Reallocate using the Assign Resources Icon
1. Select the task you wish to reallocate resources to

2. Click Resource Ribbon
3. Click on Assign Resources
4. Select the Resource you wish to replace
5. Click Replace
6. Select the new resource

7. Click OK
8. Click Close
The dialogue box does not show what I have done!
You will not see the correct assignments in the dialogue box at this point.
Thats OK, Microsoft Project will have made the replacement and the next time
you click the Assign Resources icon you will see your new assignments.
17.13 Constraints and Deadlines

17.13.1 What are Constraints and Deadlines?
Date constraints are restrictions to a task when they must start or finish in a particular time frame.
In Microsoft Project a constraint will fix a tasks date at one end or the other. This can have a negative
impact on any tasks that are connected or dependent on the constrained task.
Unless you absolutely must perform the task on the specific date, it is best to leave well alone and allow
Microsoft Project to schedule the tasks automatically using the most flexible constraints.
107
Constraint What it does
As Soon As Possible The default flexible constraint when scheduling your project from a Start Date.
It means that every task will start as soon as possible given the dependencies,
duration, resources and work time.
As Late As Possible This automatically applies to every task when you are scheduling from a Finish
Date. It is just as flexible as the Start As Soon As Possible constraint.
However there is not room for delay when using this kind of constraint and
if things get delayed then successor tasks and the end of the project will be
delayed too.
Start No Earlier Than (SNET) This is a partially flexible constraint and is used when tasks can only start after
a certain date. For example, you cannot book tickets for a football match until
they go on sale, but you can continue to book them right up to the match time
(unless they sell out!)
If you type a Start Date into the Start Date column, Microsoft Project will change
the constraint to a SNET!
Finish No Earlier Than This is a semi flexible constraint too. Great for tasks that must continue until
a specified date. So you could buy tickets up until the day before the football
match for example.
If you type a Finish date in the Finish Date column then Microsoft Project
changes the constraint type to Finish No Earlier Than.
Start No Later Than This is the latest date that the task can start. If you are scheduling from a Finish
Date then Microsoft Project uses this constraint type if you type a date in to
the Start Date Column.
For example, the course is being delivered in six weeks time, so you have to start
writing it at least three weeks beforehand, however if you could start earlier.
Finish No Later Than This is the latest date that a task can finish. If you schedule from a Finish
Date then Project uses this constraint type when you type into the Finish
Date column.
For example your design needs to be submitted to the client by a specific
date, so you set a Finish No Later Than constraint a couple of days earlier to
allow for tweaking and communicating with the client.
Must Start On This is completely fixed. This constraint overrides any dependencies that you
may have set and should be used only if absolutely necessary.
Must Finish On This completely fixes on the Finish Date. This specifies the exact date when the
task must end and is completely inflexible. It also overrides any dependencies
you have and should not be used unless you absolutely must.
17.13.2 Entering a Constraint
Like with anything else that you want to do in Microsoft Project there are a few ways in which to
set constraints.
Task Information Dialogue Box

Table Area
108
17.13.3 Task Information Dialogue Box
1. Double Click the task

2. Click on Advanced
3. Select the Constraint
4. Type the date or select from the drop down calendar
5. Click OK

17.13.4 Table Area
When you want to change the constraint type for many tasks at once the table area is very handy.
1. Right Click a Colum Heading

2. Click Insert Column
3. Select Constraint Type from the drop down list
4. In the drop down select the constraint type you want
5. Place the cursor in the bottom right of the cell

6. Click and drag down over the other cells in the column to copy the Constraint.
17.13.5 Removing a Constraint
To remove a constraint for a single task
1. Double click the task

2. Click Advanced
3. Set the Constraint Type to As Soon As Possible for a project scheduled from a Start date
4. Or Set the Constraint Type to As Late As Possible for a project scheduled from a Finish Date.
110
17.14 What is a Deadline?

A Deadline is a visual indicator a black or green downward pointing arrow that shows up on the date of
your deadline. It does not constrain your task it simply shows you when your job is due by.
17.14.1 Adding a Deadline

2. In the Task Information dialogue box Click the Advanced Tab
3. Select a date from the drop down calendar in the Deadline Field
4. Click OK
17.14.2 Removing a Deadline

2. In the Task Information dialogue box Click the Advanced Tab
3. Highlight the deadline date
4. Press delete on the keyboard
5. Click OK
111
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Your Project is now ready to go
18 Your Project is now ready to go

You have now finished planning your project. You have added your tasks; you have created task
dependencies, created and assigned resources. Checked that everything is logical and in the right order,
the right people are doing the job and everything looks great.
What next?
Well firstly this is the point at which you need to get sign off from the stakeholders in your project. You
need to make sure that everyone involved is aware of how the project is shaping up and what is going
to happen. Once you have agreement, you will move on to the execution part of the project.
What does this consist of?
Set the Baseline this is a snapshot of your project at the sign off point. You will be comparing your
progress to this point.
Track progress gather information from each of the people involved in executing the tasks as to how
much they have done.
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Update the project update Microsoft Project with the information you have received from the
individuals involved in doing the tasks so that you can keep on top of how the project is getting on and
spot any problems before they arise or at least as early as possible.
18.1 Set the Baseline

Once you have got agreement for the project plan you need to set the baseline as this is what you will
use as your measuring point from now on.
18.1.1 To set the baseline
1. Click the Project Tab

2. Click the drop down arrow next to Set Baseline
3. Select Set Baseline
You will see the Set baseline dialogue box
As this is the first time you are setting the baseline you will leave everything as it is and click OK.
At a later stage, you can set further baselines so that you can compare your progress and you can set
interim plans if you run out of baselines to set.
When you have set the baseline, nothing visible happens so where can you see that the baseline has
been set?
113
18.1.2 Viewing the baseline
A snapshot of the project can be seen including the baseline in the project statistics box.
1. Click the Project Ribbon

2. Click Project Information
3. Click Statistics
You will see the following window
Current The current data
Baseline The saved baseline data
Actual Gets updated as tasks update and shows actual work/cost/duration
Variance Shows the difference between the baseline and the actual
18.1.3 Viewing the Baseline on the Tracking Gantt
To see the Baseline on the Gantt chart you can display the Tracking Gantt
1. Click on Task Tab

2. Click on the Dropdown by Gantt Chart
3. Select Tracking Gantt
114
You will now see the Tracking Gantt view

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18.1.4 To see the Baseline Table:
1. Click View
2. Click the drop down arrow under Tables
3. Select More Tables at the bottom
4. Select Baseline
5. Click Apply
The Baseline Table shows the baseline values for Baseline Start Baseline Finish Baseline Work and
Baseline Cost
116
18.1.5 Resetting the Baseline Plan
After setting the baseline you can still make changes and then reset the plan. This could happen if the
stakeholders change their mind about something or your project gets put on hold for a time and when
you come back to it, the original dates are not relevant.
18.2 Make the changes

2. Click Baseline
3. Click Set baseline
4. The following message will appear
As this is a reset of the baseline click Yes.
If you do not wish to overwrite the current baseline, click No.
18.3 Update the Project to Reflect Progress

Updating the project involves telling Microsoft Project how much work has been done on each task and
then allowing it to recalculate the schedule.
18.3.1 Changing the Projects status date
If you collected tracking information and did not have time to enter it into the project until the following
week, you can still enter the information that was correct up to that date by changing the Project Status
Date to the date you collected the information. When you close Microsoft Project the current date is
lost and next time you open it, the date will be whatever the date is when you open it.

2. In the Status Group
3. Click Status Date
117
4. Change the date
5. Click OK
18.3.2 Ways to Update Task Progress
There are several ways to enter the information about how much of a task has been completed.
Mark on Track
Update Task dialogue box
The Percent Complete Icons
The Tracking Table
There are also different scenarios for Updating the Project to reflect progress.


18.3.3 Mark on Track
This command marks a task as 100% complete and sets the actual start and finish dates to the scheduled
start and finish dates. This is only useful if the task has been completed exactly according to plan!
1. Click Task
2. In the Schedule group click Mark on Track
18.3.4 Update Task Dialogue Box
This box includes all the fields that you may wish to update in one place. If several tasks have the same
values you can select them all before launching the dialogue box.
If each task has different and unique values then you will need to update each one separately.
1. Click Task
2. Click the drop down arrow next to Mark on Track
3. Click Update Task
4. Enter the information
5. Click OK
Here you can enter a percentage complete and the actual duration together with actual start and finish
date information. This will help to build a good picture of how the project progresses and can be used as
information to base future projects upon.
119
18.3.5 Entering Actual Dates and Durations
If a task has taken longer than expected or happened late, you may wish to specify this information.
When entering a percentage complete and an actual duration, Microsoft Project will calculate the
remaining duration.
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18.3.6 The Tracking Table
This view allows you to enter information for each task one after the other and to see how Project
calculates the other progress fields based on your input.
1. Click View
2. Click Tables
3. Click Tracking
If you enter the percent complete the actual fields are populated in front of you so that you can keep
track of what is going on.
18.3.7 Percentage Complete Icons
These icons live on the Task Ribbon and can be used quickly and easily.
1. Select the task to apply a Percentage Complete to

2. Click the relevant icon
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Rescheduling Incomplete Work
19 Rescheduling Incomplete Work

19.1 What is meant by rescheduling?
As you gather information about your project and update tasks accordingly, you will realise quite soon
that parts of the project have either already slipped behind their original schedule or they will soon.
In this instance you need to make sure that you dont allow your tasks to fall too far behind and you can
reschedule the work to start/resume on the status date or at a specified date of your choosing.
This then allows you to communicate with your resources to make sure that the project as a whole comes
in on time. (Or at least not too late)
You can reschedule single tasks or groups of tasks.
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When rescheduling tasks the completed portion will be to the left of the status/project date and the
incomplete part will be to the right. You can specify what Project should do with the incomplete part
and if you tell Project to move it beyond the status/project date, then the task will be split as in the
picture below.
19.1.1 How to Reschedule Incomplete Work for one or several tasks
1. Select the task(s) to reschedule

2. Click on the Tasks tab
3. Click the Move Tasks icon
4. From the drop down list select:
Or
Incomplete Parts to Status Date: moves the part of the task that has not been completed past the
Status Date.
As you can see, the Proof Read task has been completed by 25%. By rescheduling the incomplete work
past the status date, the remaining 75% and any subsequent tasks which are dependent on the Proof
Read task are moved forwards in time resulting in a split task.
122
If your Status Date is in the past and you wish to show what happened you can use Completed Parts to
Status date instead.
When rescheduling work in Project 2013 there are more choices on the drop down menu than in prior
versions. You can now select a specific way to reschedule as well as the original Incomplete Parts to
Status Date or Completed Parts to Status Date.
19.1.2 How to Reschedule Incomplete work for the entire Project
Sometimes you need to stop work on a project for a while due to other factors. When work finally
resumes all of your date information is no longer valid and Microsoft Project will be assuming that as
time moves on work that has been scheduled should get done.
If your project was interrupted in the middle and is now set to resume then you will have quite a lot of
schedule dates to reset manually. You can make Project reschedule any uncompleted work as follows:
1. Display the Gantt chart view with the Entry Table

4. Click Update Project
123
5. Select Reschedule uncompleted work to start after
6. Type in the new date

7. Click OK
Project will reschedule all incomplete work to start after the date you specified. You now need to look
at your project carefully and check for any issues that may need to be addressed.
Any date constraints that you had previously set will need to be reset manually. You will also need to
check for conflicts between constraints and predecessor tasks and look at milestone dates and the project
finish date to see if they should be adjusted because of the delay.
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19.1.3 How to reschedule if the Project is still on Track
Sometimes there is a delay and the project continues to chug along and things do in fact get done. To
update the project in its entirety:
1. Display the Gantt chart view with the Entry Table

4. Click Update Project
5. Click on Update work as complete through

6. Type the date
7. Click OK
If you want Project to update tasks with partial percent complete you can select the Set 0%100%
complete option. This means that some tasks may update to 50% or 75% complete if that is the portion
that should have been comp.
If you want tasks to be updated as either completely finished or not done at all then select the Set 0%
OR 100% option.
19.2 Comparing with the Baseline

Once you have started to update your project having already set the baseline you will want to get a
snapshot view of how the project is doing.
19.2.1 Viewing the Project Statistics
1. Click the Project Ribbon

2. Click Project Information
125
3. Click Statistics
You can now see some actual information:
19.2.2 What do the figures mean?

Current The plan at the moment
Baseline The Baseline plan
Actual What has been done so far
Remaining What is still to be done
Variance The difference between the Current plan and the Baseline plan
19.2.3 Viewing the variance in the Tracking Gantt
1. Click the Task Tab

2. Click on the Gantt chart icon in the View Group
3. Select Tracking Gantt from the bottom of the list
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19.2.4 Viewing the variance in the variance table
1. Click the View tab

2. Click Tables
3. Select the Variance Table
4. Scroll to the right to see the start and finish variance
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Choose the table from the list
19.2.5 Setting a Task to Inactive
Once you have set the baseline on a project and begun the tracking process you may find out that some
of your tasks are no longer needed. You could delete them, however if you do then you will lose any
baseline data that already exists with relation to the deleted task. It would be much better to cancel them
so that they stay in the project for reference but do not affect the project any more.
We can do this by making a task Inactive.
This could be done in Project 2007 however it required a fair bit of work. There is a new feature in
Microsoft Project 2013 which allows you to set a task to Inactive quickly and painlessly.
This feature is only available in Project Professional!!
1. Select the task to Inactivate

2. Click the Task tab
3. Click on Inactivate in the Schedule Group
An Inactive Task is crossed out and the task bar turns white.

128
19.2.6 What happens to an Inactive Task?
When you mark Task as Inactive, project does the following:
Formats the text of the Inactive task as strikethrough and grey

Formats the Gantt bar as a hollow task (no fill colour)
Treats the Inactive task as if has 0 hours of remaining work. This means that it no longer
affects resource availability for those resources assigned to it.
Although any previous links are still visible, Project treats any successor tasks as if they are
not linked to the Inactive task. This means that the duration of the Inactive Task will not
affect the schedule of any successor tasks.
You cannot cancel/Inactivate an In Progress or completed Task.

To cancel the uncompleted work in an in-progress task, apply the
Task Work Table and set the remaining work to 0H.


19.2.7 Reactivating a Task
If you find later on that you need to reinstate an inactive task, you can do the following:
1. Select the Inactive Task

2. Click on the Inactivate Icon
19.3 Interim Plans

Interim plans save only start and finish date information, not duration or work or cost. If you have run
out of Baseline plans to keep you can save an Interim plan.

2. In the Schedule Group
3. Click Set Baseline
4. Select Set Interim plan
5. In the drop down select the start/finish dates to copy
6. In the Into box select the fields to copy the data into
7. Click OK
You can save interim data for the entire project or just for selected tasks.
130
19.3.1 View your Interim plan
To view your interim data you need to add the columns to the table so that you can see the data.
To add the Start2 column to your table:
1. Right Click on the column heading to the right of where you wish the column to appear
2. Select Insert Column
3. Select Start2 (or Finish2)
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Formatting the Gantt chart
20 Formatting the Gantt chart

In Microsoft Project 2013 formatting the Gantt chart is now very simple. You can more or less format
anything you want from colour to style to what text is displayed and where.
20.1 Changing the colours of the Gantt chart

In Microsoft Project 2013 the Ribbon interface has been added making formatting a breeze.
To change the colours simply select one of the Gantt Chart Styles from the ribbon.

20.2 Format the Bar Styles

If you want to change the bar styles completely that is easy too.
1. Click Format on the Gantt Chart Tools Ribbon
2. Select Bar Styles

3. Select the task bar you wish to change
4. Make your selections
5. Click OK
132
20.3 Format Bar Text

You can make Microsoft Project display resource names or resource initials on the Gantt bars.
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To apply the same formatting to all tasks, select all the tasks first then follow the steps below.
1. Click on the Format Icon

2. Select Bar
133
3. Select where you wish the text to be

4. Select Resource Initial from the drop down (or any other text on offer!)
5. Click OK
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LIGS University

find out more!

More info here.

20.4 Adding a Project Summary Task

To show a Summary Task for the whole project click the checkbox next Project Summary Task in the
show/Hide Group on the Formatting tab.
20.5 Summary Tasks

Summary tasks will only be displayed if the checkbox in the Show/Hide group is ticked. So if you suddenly
find that your summary tasks have disappeared, check that there is a tick in this box.
20.6 Outline Numbers

Outline numbers are used to denote a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and can be useful when
exporting a project to Excel.
To show Outline Numbers tick the check box in the Show/Hide Group
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135
20.7 Formatting Non-Working times in the Gantt chart

It can be helpful to see non-working time on the Gantt chart.
This can be either:
Non-working time set in the standard calendar weekends and public holidays
Non-working time for a particular Resource
1. Right click on the Gantt chart

2. Select Non-Working Time
3. Select the calendar whose non-working time you wish to show
4. Set the colour

5. Set the Pattern
6. Click OK
136
20.8 Format the Current Date

You can format the Current date to display boldly on the Gantt chart. This is helpful if you need to see
which tasks are ahead or behind schedule.
1. Right Click the Gantt Chart

2. OR
3. Click Format then the drop down next to Gridlines

4. Select Gridlines
5. Select Current Date
6. Choose a colour (red or orange work well)
7. Click OK
The current date will be displayed.
20.9 Format the Status Date

The Status Date is a second date field that you can use to update the project when you have gathered
information up to a particular date. It is useful to format this date so that it is visible on the Gantt chart.
1. Right Click the Gantt Chart

2. OR
3. Click Format then the drop down next to Gridlines
4. Select Gridlines
5. Select Status Date
6. Choose a colour (red or orange work well)
Click OK
138
20.10 Format Text Styles in the Table

20.10.1 What advantages are there to formatting the table?
Formatting the table can make important elements stand out. We have already seen earlier how to format
Critical Tasks in the table, there are other ways to format it too.
1. Click the Format Ribbon

2. Click the Text Styles Icon
3. In the box select the type of task you wish to format from the drop down
4. Set the format options required
5. Click OK
139
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Templates
21 Templates
21.1 What advantages are there to creating a template?
Templates allow you to base new projects on prior ones that have been successful! When you have a
project that works and you know that you will be doing more of the same type of project, starting from
a template saves time.
A template can contain:
Task List
Task Dependencies
Resource Information
Calendar Settings
Formatting

3

Change
Maastricht
University is
the best specialist
university in the
(Elsevier)

21.1.1 Creating a Template

2. Click Export on the Backstage list
3. Select Project Template
4. Click Save As
Select which folder to save your template into and then click save.
You are now prompted to keep or remove various bits of information make your choice and click Save.
141
21.1.2 Creating a new project based on a template first set the location where Project will
find templates.
First you will need to have set the default location for your personal project templates or your IT
department will need to set the location for the organisations templates.
To do this:
1. Click File
2. Click Options
3. Click Save
4. Browse to the Custom Office Templates folder (or create this folder in your Documents folder)

21.1.3 Create a new project based on the template
1. Click File
2. Click New
3. From the Enterprise short cut select the template you need.
You will have a new blank project based on your template.
143
21.2 Copying a picture of a Project into another program

1. Arrange the screen so that you have everything you want to see on it.
2. Select the rows you wish to copy (if not the whole project)
3. Arrange the Gantt chart at the zoom level required
4. Click on the Task Ribbon
5. Click the drop down arrow next to copy
6. Click Copy Picture

7. Open the program you wish to paste it to
8. Click Paste
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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Printing and Reports
22 Printing and Reports

Printing in Microsoft Office 2010 is different to previous versions of Microsoft Office and Microsoft
Project 2013 follows the same system as the rest of Microsoft Office 2010.
22.1 To Preview how your Project will print

2. Click Print
3. You will see the Print options and to the right the preview
When printing the Gantt chart what you see on screen is what you get
This means the level of zoom you are on, the balance between the Gantt chart and
the table, and whatever filters you may have applied will all affect your printout.
145
22.2 To print the Gantt chart

2. Click Print
4. Set the print options you require
5. Click Print
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22.3 Updating the Legend

2. Click Print
4. Click on Page Setup
146
5. Click on the Legend tab

6. Make your selections



You can select any of the Project Fields to be added to the legend and you can also select general fields
which are updated via the Project Properties.
For example the Manager is picked up from Properties.
1. Click File
2. Click Info
3. On the right is Project Information
148
1. Click Project Information at the top
2. Click Advanced Properties

3. Add any information to fields within the properties dialogue box
4. Click OK when done
22.4 Printing the Calendar

1. Display the calendar
2. Follow the steps for printing the Gantt chart view
22.4.1 Showing two months per page of the Calendar
1. Click the File menu

2. Click Print
3. Click page setup
149
4. Click the View tab
5. Click into the circle next to 2 to display two months

6. Click OK

22.4.2 Headers
You can add headers to both the Gantt chart and the Calendar views
1. Click on the File menu

2. Click Print
3. Click on Page Setup
4. Click on the Header tab
5. Select Left Centred or Right tab
6. Select the information to add
7. Click Add
8. Click OK when done
22.4.3 Footers
Footers can also be added following the same procedure as Headers. However when there is a Legend
on every page, the text will be left, centre or right aligned in the box underneath the legend.
22.4.4 Inserting a Page Break
Page breaks force certain tasks to always print on a new page. They appear as dashed lines above the
task with the break on it.
In Microsoft Project 2013 the Insert Page Break command is not on the Ribbon as you would expect.
You will need to customise the Ribbon to add it in.
22.5 How to Customise the Ribbon

2. Click Options
3. Click on Customise the Ribbon
151
4. Select All Commands
5. Find Insert Page Break in the list

6. On the right hand side you will need to create a Custom Group
7. Click New Group
8. Type a name for your group at the bottom
9. Click OK
10. Click Add
11. Your new icon should now appear in your new group
12. Click OK
22.6 To add a page break

1. Click on the Task that is below where the page break should be
2. Click the Insert Page Break icon
A page break will be inserted forcing tasks below the page break to print on a separate page.
153
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Reports
23 Reports
In Project 2013 there is a brand new reporting engine and you can now create many more varied reports
than in previous versions.
The new Report Ribbon with the Resources Reports showing.
23.1 What benefits do I gain by creating a Report?

Reports summarise and present specific information in an organised manner.
You can present project information in different formats

You can print information that is not displayed in a predefined table or view
In Microsoft Project 2013 the reports are set out on the page and can be edited directly. There are a
number of new reports that show you anything from over allocated resources to your cash flow.
Experiment with the different reports and find the ones that work for you.
154
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Appendices
24 Appendices
24.1 Working with more than one project
You can create a master project that contains several small projects within it or houses several different
projects so that you can see the links between them and how they sit in the timeline.
24.1.1 Inserting a Sub Project
1. Create a new blank project

2. OR
3. Add a sub-project to an existing project
4. Click on the Project tab
5. Click Subproject

6. Navigate to the folder where the project is stored

7. Select the project you want to add
You may need to expand the inserted project to see all of its tasks.
24.2 Elapsed Time

24.2.1 Tasks with Elapsed Time
The duration of some tasks is based not on the Working Time Calendar (i.e. 9:00am to 17:00pm and
no work on weekends) but on a 24hr day and a 7 day week, including holidays and non-working days.
1 elapsed day is a 24hr continuous period, 24 hrs of work instead of 8 or 9 hours.
Example
Someone is carrying a package by air. The time it takes to get from departure to arrival is 18hrs. This
can be represented by typing 18eh in the duration field.
18 hours continuous time. Starting here at 8 am on Monday and finishing at 2 am on Tuesday.
To enter duration of 1 elapsed day type 1ed in the duration column.
24.2.2 Insert a Column to the Entry Table
1. Right Click on the column to the right of the new column

2. Click Insert Column
3. Select the Column you wish to insert from the list
4. OR
5. Click the drop down arrow on the Add New Column at the end of the Entry Table
6. Select from the list of columns
156
24.2.3 Customising the Gantt Timescale
You can adjust the timescale to view the project at the level of detail you require./ here are three tiers to
the timescale, two of which are shown as default.
1. Right click on the timescale

2. Select Timescale
3. Make the adjustments you need
4. Click OK
24.3 Costs
24.3.1 Assigning a Fixed Cost to a task
You can assign a fixed cost to a resource or a task. So for example if you know that there is a shipping
charge to add on to the cost of printing your banners you can add this as a fixed cost.
1. In the Gantt chart

2. Click the view tab
3. Select the drop down arrow next to tables
4. Select the Cost table
157
5. Add the fixed cost into the fixed cost column
24.3.2 Setting how task costs are calculated
You can set how a fixed cost is accrued to the project
There are three options
Start Costs are incurred as soon as a task starts
End Costs are not incurred until remaining work is zero
Prorated The costs accrue as work is scheduled to occur
1. Follow the steps in Assigning a fixed cost to a task

2. Select the accrual option from the drop down list in the Fixed Cost Accrual column

FULL ENGAGEMENT
RUN FASTER.
1349906_A6_4+0.indd 1 22-08-2014 12:56:57


24.3.3 Entering Resource Costs
1. Click Resource
2. Click on the drop down next to Team Planner and then
3. Click Resource Sheet
Type costs for each resource in the Standard, Overtime and Cost per use columns.
Standard Rate Shows the rate of pay for regular non overtime
work performed by the resource
Overtime Rate Applies to wages paid for time you have

specifically assigned as overtime
Overtime is only calculated at the overtime rate when you allocate the work as overtime.
Cost per Use Applies to any flat rate that must be paid
every time that resource is used
Examples
It may cost 100 to hire a crane driver, and you may have to pay 6 an hour on top of that. This would
be entered as a standard rate cost of 6 per hour and a cost per use of 100.
24.3.4 Entering rates other than per hour
Resource costs can also be entered per day per week or per year.
20/day
2000/week
20000/year
Speeding up data entry

Instead of typing the rate in full you can use the following short hand
20/d (day)
200/w (week)
20000/y (year)
159
24.3.5 Setting how resource costs are allocated
The way resource costs are to be accrued to a project can be set individually for each resource.
There are three options:
Start Costs are incurred as soon as a task starts
End Costs are not incurred until remaining work is zero
Prorated The costs accrue as work is scheduled to occur
1. Display the Resource Sheet

2. Select the desired option from the Accrue at Column

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Glossary
25 Glossary
Project A connected series of task generally summary tasks to be completed in a given time
Summary Task A type of task that is made up of several smaller tasks and can be considered as a
phase of a project
Task A piece of work with a certain duration
Recurring task A task which takes place at the same time on a regular basis eg daily, weekly, monthly
and lasts for exactly the same amount of time.
NB this is a special kind of summary task.
Duration The amount of standard working time that a task is expected to take measured in
minutes, hours, days or months.
Elapsed Time Elapsed time takes no account of working hours and is the time from the very
beginning of a task to its end including non working time
Resources People or things that you need to get the project done that generally accrue a cost.
Effort Driven The more resources assigned to a task the shorter its duration becomes
Links (Dependencies) A method of determining when a task begins in relation to its predecessor or successor
Leveling Resource leveling is a way to fix over allocation by delaying a task until the assigned
resource has time to work on it or by splitting the task so that part is done when
planned and the rest is done later when the assigned resource has time.
Lag Time A delay between the end of one task and the start of another
Lead Time An overlap between two tasks
Schedule The duration and sequence of tasks within a project. A schedule consists mainly of
tasks, links, durations and constraints.
Constraint A condition placed on a task making it relative to a specific date.
Critical Tasks Tasks that will delay the end of the project if they are delayed
Critical Path The sequence of tasks that must be performed in order not to delay delivery of
the project
Slack The amount of time non-critical tasks can be delayed without delaying the finish
date of the project
Slippage The amount of time by which a project will be late because a critical task has been
delayed.
Baseline The final draft of a project schedule. Your best guess at how long the project will
take and the point at which you get sign off from the stakeholders in the project.
Tracking Recording how much progress has been made on a regular basis and comparing
this to the baseline.
161
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Index
Index
A G
Appendices 153 Gantt Chart
Assigning formatting 131
overtime work 99 Glossary 159
Assigning resources 66 Grouping
resources 77
B
tasks 76
Backstage 18
Baseline H
comparing 125 Headers 149
set 112 Hyperlinks
view 113 create 42
Breaking Links 47 delete 43
C I
Constraint Inactive
entering 108 tasks 127
removing 109 Individual Resource Holidays 62
Constraints 106 Interim Plans 129
Costs 155
L
Current Date
Legend 144
formatting 135
Link
Customise the Ribbon 149
changing the type 48
D Linking tasks 45
Dates Linking Tasks
formatting 57 deleting 47
Deadline Links
adding 110 between manually scheduled tasks 49
Deadlines 106
N
Durations
Non Working Time
resources 64
formatting 135
E Notes
Effort Driven 64 adding 40
Elapsed Time 154 viewing 42
F O
Finish Date Over Allocation 101
project 21 Overtime Work
Footers 149 assigning 99
162
Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials Index
P Start Date
Page Break project 21
inserting 149 Status Date
Picture of a Project 142 formatting 137
Printing 143 Sub Project
calendar 147 inserting 153
Project
T
finish date 21
Task Dependency 44
start date 21 Tasks
working with more than one 153 adding 48
Public Holidays grouping 76
set 25 inactive 127
R reactivate an inactive task 129
Reports 143 recurring 54
Resource Availability 62 splitting 56
Resource Calendars 62 Team Planner 70
Resources dragging tasks 72
assigning 66 Templates 139

Text Styles 137
creating 59
The Ribbon 17
emailing 78
grouping 77 W
reallocate 104 Whats New 16
removing 69 Working Time Calendar
replacing with another 69 create new 80
S Z
Saving Projects 40 Zooming 50
163

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Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials

Download free books at

Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials

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About Shelley Fishel 10

About Microsoft Project 2013 Essentials 11

1 Getting Help in Microsoft Project 2013 12

2 What is Microsoft Project 2013? 14

3 The Project Screen 15

4 Whats New in Microsoft Project 2013? 16

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4 Click on the ad to read more

Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities.

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Discover the truth

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12 Creating the Schedule 44

13 Creating and Assigning Resources 59

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13.4 Setting Resource Availability 61

14 The Calendar View 83

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15 Bringing it all together 88

16 Evaluate your Schedule 89

17 The Critical Path 90

18 Your Project is now ready to go 112

19 Rescheduling Incomplete Work 121

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20 Formatting the Gantt chart 132

22 Printing and Reports 145

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About Shelley Fishel

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About Microsoft Project

How to set up a project from scratch

What the icons mean

This icon means that there is a tip useful information

This icon denotes a trap, something to take account of

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1 Getting Help in Microsoft

1. Click the ? and the help window will open

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5. Click the link of the topic you need

6. Help will be displayed

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2 What is Microsoft Project 2013?

2.1.1 The four conditions which describe a project

2.1.2 Key advantages for using MS Project

MS Project will help you to:

Create a realistic project plan.

Keep track of when tasks are to be started and completed

Keep track of current activities

Costs (not covered in this course)

Keep track of project costs

3 The Project Screen

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4 Whats New in Microsoft

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5.1.1 The Resource Ribbon

5.1.2 The Report Ribbon New in Project 2013

1 Getting Help in Microsoft Project 2013 12

4 Whats New in Microsoft Project 2013? 16

13 Creating and Assigning Resources 59

1 Getting Help in Microsoft

4 Whats New in Microsoft

7 Setting the Project Options