Ms project

Microsoft Project is a project management application that is developed và sold by Microsoft. The tiện ích comes in handy lớn assist you in developing a schedule, assigning resources to lớn your tasks, và track the progress of your projects. Furthermore, it helps you manage your budget as well as analyze your workloads.

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Although it was the third Microsoft windows-based software, it has never been incorporated in the Microsoft office suite. It comes in two editions, the standard, and the professional edition. Several versions of this phầm mềm have been released since its initial release 35 years ago, & each version builds on the weaknesses of its predecessor.

Here are the similarities and the diversities that define each of the above versions of ms projects:

What are the Similarities between Microsoft Project 2010, 2013, 2016, & 2019?

Although you might have a preference for a specific version of this application, they are all similar in the following perspectives:

Planning và Scheduling

These are the bedrocks of any project management experience và go a long way khổng lồ determine whether your project will be successful or not. This stage dictates what should be done, by whom and when it should be done in the bid khổng lồ complete your project.

Microsoft project brings to the table several entities that aid in your project management quest.

Prioritization, the phầm mềm helps you place your tasks in order of priority so that that you first focus on what is more important.Task management allows you to lớn define tasks và how they should be distributed amongst the members of your team.The team calendar ensures that all members are up lớn date & on the same page in the project. Notifications and synchronization of works schedules come in handy.

Project Timeline View

This feature presents a top-down view of your entire project progress. It acts as a third các buổi party supervisor of your work & shows you a preview of what you have done. As such, before you make a presentation of your work khổng lồ colleagues or friends, you have a clear picture of what you are showing.

You can always showroom value lớn your timeline view by making formatting changes that appeal to lớn you. Such could include changing colors of phrases, alignments, và other modifications.

Collaboration

Any ms project version would successfully help you to collaborate and connect all the tasks involved in your project. Such is achieved by:

File sharing, the app allows you to cốt truyện files with members of your team so that each of you has the relevant documents.The team dashboard offers an overview of crucial information and statistics that relate to your work. Ms. Project enables you to showroom graphs, charts, data presentations, & any other graphics that help you organize your work for proper display.Sharing client data, this phầm mềm ensures even a customer’s data is on the dashboard for all members lớn see. The project entails more than your information but also that of your customers.

Reporting

Microsoft thrives in the art of tracking and reporting on the progress of your project. It gives you a clear picture of what has been achieved và what is yet lớn be done.

The phầm mềm allows you khổng lồ see a burndown report, an overview of your project, state of resources, cost incurrence, targets to be attained, & pending activities.

To derive a report, all you bởi vì is click on the reporting interface and choose your way of report presentation.

Resource Management

Ms. Project enables you to lớn make proper use of your available resources. It helps you lớn track and monitor the available resources và suggests the best way khổng lồ utilize the resources.

The management tool allows you to assign costs lớn resources, và hence you can tell how resources are being utilized. Furthermore, it enables you khổng lồ prioritize your tasks according to resource availability.

Multiple Projects

Microsoft Project gives you the pleasure of working on different projects on the same platform. As such, you can giảm giá with several projects concurrently through a master project plan. If you have several projects khổng lồ tackle và time is a limiting factor, this is the best option.

You can customize all the tools lớn enable you to work with a master project plan with ease so that you have several dashboards.

Different Views

This ứng dụng allows you to view a project from different perspectives & representations but on the same platform. For instance, you can use a Gantt chart, a resource usage chart, or a calendar. Even better, you can customize your views as per your project requirements và join them to khung one big project plan.

How bởi vì Different Versions Of Microsoft Project Compare Against Each Other?

Each of the Microsoft Project versions has distinct features that make it stand out from the rest of the pack.

Microsoft Project 2010

A Better Interface

Microsoft Project 2010 adopted the Microsoft office 2010 ribbon, which execution of tasks faster and more efficient. Traditional menus commands were replaced with logical command grouping.

Improved Resource Planning

The phầm mềm uses a Team Planner View, which enables you to view team tasks and modify accordingly. It helps you manage overallocation and tasks with the assigned resources.

More Flexible Scheduling

You can manually schedule tasks as you please without considering the project calendars. Such allows you to vày your projects at your own pace.

Task Inspector

This feature identifies problems and scheduling issues so that you can sort them out with ease.

Microsoft Project 2013

Faster Start-up

Unlike its predecessors, this app does not first take you lớn a blank file when you launch it. It sends you to lớn a one-stop center where you can kick off your project. Here you encounter multiple templates from which you can choose your preferred option.

You can also start a blank document or export from external or internal sources or previous open projects.

Better Data Projections

This version allows you lớn create appealing data presentation reports without going to lớn other programs. You can showroom pictures, charts, & links, among others.

There is also the incorporation of new reports that come with better graphics và formatting abilities. Burndown reports are a perfect example.

Interact With Your Team

You can stay in cảm biến with your team members directly without leaving the project. All you have to do is select their name & commence an im session, send an email, make a phone call, or even start a video chat.

However, you need to have installed Lync 2010 khổng lồ access this feature.

Trace Task Paths

Complex projects can cause your charts lớn be tangled. However, you can highlight the links chain, & whenever you click on a task, all that relates khổng lồ is shown up in one color.

Save và Share file in the Cloud

You can now save your files online on One
Drive or in your company’s online site. Furthermore, you can nói qua these files on these sites online.

Remote Access

With Ms. Project 2013, you can access your documents remotely over an mạng internet connection without having khổng lồ install the app. This allows you to work from anywhere & whatever time you please.

Microsoft Project 2016

Microsoft Project năm nhâm thìn was a massive nâng cấp on its predecessor. It added the following features on the good qualities of the next older version:

A New default Theme

A new default theme was one of the significant highlights of project 2016. The new theme is labeled "Colorful" and gives the screen a whole unique touch. However, if you prefer the older version theme, you can still change.

Tell Me What You Want to vì chưng Query Box

Sometimes it is possible lớn get lost in the maze of menus that Ms. Project has as witnessed in the older versions. Furthermore, if you are not an experienced user, it can be quite a hustle to lớn locate commands that you need. As such, the project năm nhâm thìn comes in handy to lớn solve this problem.

The "Tell Me What You Want to vày Query Box” available on the đứng top of the ribbon allows you lớn type in whatever command you want. The project then presents you with a list of options from which you can choose your option.

Multiple Timeline Bars

With this version, you can địa chỉ several timeline bars on your timeline view. All you have to vị is click the “Timeline bar” on the format group menu. If you vì not need the bars anymore, you can also delete them by right-clicking on them.

This feature enables you khổng lồ work on multiple projects at the same time and on the same platform.

Resource Agreements

This feature allows you lớn coordinate resource planning with your resource manager. It accounts for the available resources và determines how best they can be shared.

Microsoft Project 2019

This is the most recent & best-improved version of Ms. Project. It has retained most of the features that you enjoyed from its immediate predecessor but has also come lớn some impressive improvements. Some of the additions you are likely khổng lồ experience include:

Linking of Tasks Using a Drop-down Menu

Project 2019 saves you the torture of having to recall the identifications of performed tasks whenever you need to mở cửa them. Khổng lồ access a task you previously worked on, all you bởi vì is select a cell in the predecessor column, then hit the down arrow và a danh sách of recent tasks is displayed.

The order of tasks perfectly matches your project so that you can access them with the utmost ease. Furthermore, you can also look up your tasks in a drop-down in the successor column.

Presence of a Task Summary Name Field

Your project might involve multiple tasks such that it becomes hard khổng lồ know what a particular task is indented under in your project. Incorporation of the Task Summary Name field helps you know the name of a task’s summary task. Having such a field in your Task view will make your project’s structure clearer.

To địa chỉ cửa hàng this field, right-click a column"s title và select the insert column. You can go ahead & select the Task Summary Name in the drop-down menu displayed.

Timeline Bar Labels và Task Progress

You can now get a clear picture of the progress of your project courtesy of this app. Furthermore, you can label your timeline bars for clear identification. Task progress is indicated on the tasks as you work on them, making it easy to show your plans and work stages whenever you need to lớn present your work.

Improved Accessibility

Ms. Project 2019 flaunts multiple features that are meant khổng lồ make it more accessible khổng lồ users. You can customize yourproject khổng lồ fit your needs with the following features:

Change the magnification; you can change the magnification of your text so you can read with ease. Furthermore, there is the option of enlarging buttons so that they are easier to lớn spot and use.Changing views outlook, you can alter the look of bars, boxes, texts, and liên kết lines lớn your preference. You can also change fonts or increase the kích thước of writing for a different outlook.Customize toolbars & menus; you can địa chỉ cửa hàng or deduct buttons on the quick access toolbar.The project also comes with features that automate repeated tasks to save you time.

Despite the diversity of the Microsoft project versions, they all serve the same purpose. However, the efficiency with which they serve this purpose is what sets them apart. The later the version, the more efficient the release is.

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People have been managing projects for centuries. The construction of the mountaintop city of Machu Picchu was a project—although no one’s really sure whether the ancient Inca had a word for “project manager.” In fact, you may not have realized you were a project manager when you were assigned your first project to manage. Sure, you’re organized and you can make sure people get things done, but successfully managing a project requires specific skills và know-how. Whether you’re building a shining đô thị on a hill or aiming for something more mundane, Microsoft Project helps you document project tasks, build a schedule, assign resources, track progress, & make changes until your project is complete.

Perhaps you’re staring at the screen, wondering about the meaning of the Gantt Chart và Resource Usage in the các mục of Project views. Or maybe you already have dozens of Project schedules under your belt. Either way, some Project features can be mystifying. You know what you want to lớn do, but you can’t find the magic combination that makes Project vày it.

This book addresses the double whammy of learning your way around project management và Microsoft Project at the same time. It provides an introduction lớn managing projects and shows you how khổng lồ use Project to vì so. For more experienced project managers, this book can help you take your Project prowess to lớn a new level with tips, timesaving tricks, and mastery of features that never quite behaved the way you wanted.

Since its introduction, Project hệ thống often gets most of Microsoft’s attention & cool new features. This time around, Project 2010 Standard and Professional have a bunch of new & improved features that could quickly grow on you. The big change, of course, is that Project now uses the Microsoft fluent interface (a.k.a. The ribbon). It takes some getting used to, but many commands that took a cartload of clicks in the past, like turning summary tasks on & off, are now at your mousing fingertip. But wait, there’s more. For example, manually scheduled tasks let you control when tasks occur, but you can use them khổng lồ plan from the đứng top down or fill in only the information you have available, as you’ll learn shortly. Here’s an overview of the new Project 2010 features and where lớn find them in this book:

Timesaving features. Dragging the Zoom slider on the status bar lớn the left or right adjusts the timescale in a view. The status bar also has icons for displaying the most common views, lượt thích the Gantt Chart, Task Usage, Team Planner, & Resource Sheet. Project makes it easier lớn find your place in a table by highlighting the row ID & column heading for the selected cell, like Excel has always done.

Leveling overallocations. The ribbon’s Resource tab puts leveling commands within easy reach. In addition, you can choose to màn chơi selected tasks or resources, a specific resource, or an entire project.

Playing what-if games. In Project 2007, multilevel Undo provided an easy way to lớn try small experiments or to lớn recover from a mistake you didn’t see until six changes later. New in Project 2010, inactivating tasks takes what-if games to a higher level & longer time period for decisions. Showroom tasks to lớn your Project schedule khổng lồ document alternatives for a portion of your project and evaluate each one’s results. Or create tasks for proposed change requests. Then you can inactivate those tasks. You can still see them và edit their values, but they don’t affect your project schedule or the availability of the resources assigned to them. Once you’ve chosen the alternative you want—or the change đánh giá board approves the change request—you can reactivate the tasks, retaining all the information you entered.

Note

Although this book is about the desktop versions of Project 2010, Project server 2010 now combines both enterprise project management and portfolio management in the same product. In the past, you needed Project vps 2007 and Project Portfolio hệ thống 2007 khổng lồ accomplish the same capabilities. The enterprise side has lots of new and improved features in areas like time status and reporting, customizable workflows, & resource capacity planning.

Any project manager who’s calculated task start & finish dates by hand knows how helpful Project is. Simply calculating dates, costs, và total assigned work eliminates a mountain of grunt work & carpal tunnel syndrome, so you’ll have time và stamina left over to actually manage your projects.

In the planning stage, Project helps you develop a project schedule. You add the tasks và people to lớn a Project file, link the tasks together in sequence, assign workers and other resources to those tasks, and poof!—you have a schedule. Project calculates when tasks start & finish, how much they cost, và how many hours each person works each day. Project helps you develop better project plans, because you can revise the schedule quickly lớn try other strategies until the plan really works. Views & reports help you spot problems, lượt thích too many tasks assigned to the same overworked person.

Once a project is under way, you can địa chỉ cửa hàng actual hours và costs khổng lồ the Project file. With actual values, you can use Project to lớn track progress to see how dates, cost, & work compare to lớn the project plan. If problems arise, like tasks running late or over budget, you can use Project tools, views, và reports khổng lồ look for solutions, once again quickly making changes until you find a way to lớn get the project back on track.

At the same time, plenty of project management work goes on outside Project. Touchy-feely tasks like identifying project objectives, negotiating with vendors, or building stakeholder buy-in are pure people skill (although Project’s reports can certainly help you communicate with these folks). Projects produce a lot of documents besides the project schedule. For example, a project plan may include financial analysis spreadsheets, requirements and specifications documents, change requests databases, và diagrams khổng lồ show how the change management process works. In addition, thousands of email messages, memos, & other correspondence could change hands before a project finishes.

Communication, change management, and risk management are essential to successful project management, but they don’t occur in Project Standard or Professional. For example, you may have a risk management plan that identifies the risks your project faces, & what you plan to vày if they occur. You may also develop a spreadsheet khổng lồ track those risks & your response if they become reality. In Project, you may links the risk tracking spreadsheet or risk response document lớn the corresponding tasks, but that’s about it.

Note

The enterprise features in Project hệ thống combined with Share
Point help you track risks, issues, changes, and more.

In one respect, choosing between Project Standard và Project Professional is easy. Both editions of Project have about the same capabilities if you manage projects independently and aren’t trying to work closely with other project managers, teams, & projects.

Project Standard works for most one-person shows, even if you manage several projects at the same time. You can communicate with your team via email and giới thiệu documents on a network drive, or using a Share
Point trang web (Updating the Tasks list). However, Project Professional adds the Team Planner and the ability khổng lồ inactivate tasks & synchronize Project tasks to a task menu in Share
Point 2010.

However, if you manage project teams with hundreds of resources, nội dung a pool of resources with other project managers, or manage your project as one of many in your organization’s project portfolio, then you’ll need Project Professional, along with Project Server & Project website App. The difference between Project Standard & Project Professional is that you can turn on the enterprise features in Project Professional and connect it to Project Server & Project Web app to collaborate, communicate, và share across hundreds of projects và people.

Setting up an enterprise-wide project management system takes some planning & effort, depending on the size and complexity of your organization. Whether your company is small, medium, or large, you must weigh the benefits of managing projects company-wide against the effort and expense of defining project management policies, setting up the system, và bringing everyone up to lớn speed. Here are some of the advantages that Project Professional & the enterprise project management software offer:

Track all projects in one place. You build Project schedules with Project Professional. When a project is ready for prime time, you publish it khổng lồ Project vps to add it lớn the overall project portfolio. Then the status for all projects appears in a single view.

Share resources enterprise-wide. Instead of playing phone tag with other project managers about when resources are available, Project vps keeps track of all resources và when they work on which project. You can look for the right kind of resources using multilevel resource skill characteristics, & then see who’s available for your projects.

Communicate with resources. Project Web app makes it easy for you to communicate with your team, requesting status, sending messages, & so on. It also makes it easy for your team lớn communicate with you, replying with status, accepting assignments, or providing time worked.

Timesheets. Team members can fill out timesheets for project work. The time they submit shoots straight into the Project vps database khổng lồ update progress on your projects.

Track issues, risks, and documents. Projects are more than schedules. Issues crop up that must be resolved; risks lurk that you must watch and manage; & there’s no over to the additional documents produced, lượt thích specifications, plans, work packages, và so on. Using Share
Point websites & Project website App, team members can collaborate on all these elements online.

Note

Project Standard và Project Professional are both available for purchase in retail stores lượt thích Office
Max or Amazon.com. However, you must purchase Project server (which includes Project website App) through Microsoft or Microsoft partners & solution providers.

Managing a project requires other programs in addition to lớn Project. Word and Excel are eager participants for the documents và financial analysis you produce. Power
Point is ideal for project presentations và status meetings. And Outlook keeps project communication flowing. This book includes instructions for using these programs in some of your project management duties.

Office 2010 trang chủ and Business includes Word, Excel, Power
Point, One
Note, and Outlook. The danh mục price is $279, although lower prices are readily available. You can purchase Office at stores lượt thích Staples or websites lượt thích www.bestbuy.com. Office 2010 Professional adds Office web Apps, Publisher, và Access lớn the Office Standard suite for a total các mục price of $499. Here are some of the ways you might use these products in project management:

Word. Producing documents like the overall project plan, work package descriptions, requirements, specifications, status reports, & so on.

Excel. Creating spreadsheets for financial analysis or tracking change requests, risks, issues, & defects reported.

Power
Point. Putting together presentations for project proposals, project kickoff, status, change control board meetings, and so on.

Outlook. Emailing everyone who’s anyone on the project team & setting up a shared address book for everyone khổng lồ use.

Publisher. Publishing newsletters, fliers, invitations khổng lồ meetings, & so on.

Access. A more robust alternative khổng lồ Excel for tracking change requests, requirements, risks, và issues.

Visio 2010 Professional is another program that comes in handy, whether you want lớn document project processes in flowcharts or generate Visio-based visual reports. Visio Professional’s list price (which is required for Pivot
Diagrams and Data Graphics) is $559.95.

Project 2010 has caught up with its Office counterparts by now using the ribbon instead of the thực đơn bar. If you haven’t met the ribbon yet, this section provides a brief introduction. The Project window is chockablock with panes và other parts that either show the information you want or help you work faster. Some features, lượt thích the ribbon & the main Project view, are always available, while others, like the Task Inspector pane, can hide until you need them. This section shows you the basics of the Project interface. Chapter 3 takes you on a full tour of the Project ribbon & all the components within the Project window.

To provide easy access khổng lồ an ever-increasing number of commands, Microsoft came up with the ribbon. Programs lượt thích Word và Excel had the ribbon in Office 2007. Now Project 2010 joins their ranks. The ribbon takes up more space than the old-style thực đơn bar (see Using the Ribbon khổng lồ learn how lớn hide it), but it can hold oodles of commands. Many procedures that required dozens of clicks in earlier versions of Project (like displaying the project summary task) are now a click or two away on a ribbon tab.

The ribbon groups features onto logically (most of the time) organized tabs. Finding your way around the Project ribbon is easy. For instance, lớn create tasks, rearrange their outline levels, update their progress, or view their details, go to lớn the Task tab. The Resource tab has commands for creating, assigning, & leveling resources. The Project tab is trang chủ base for viewing project information, defining work calendars, setting project baselines, và so on. Project opens initially with six tabs: File, Task, Resource, Project, View, & Format. When you select one of these tabs, the corresponding collection of buttons appears, as shown in Figure 1.

Tip

Chapter 25 explains how you can customize the ribbon to add tabs, sections (called custom groups), và commands.

Figure 1. When you launch Project, the program goes khổng lồ the tệp tin tab. However, each tab has sections that group related commands. For example, on the Task tab, the Schedule section has commands for working with your schedule, lượt thích changing outline levels, linking tasks, và updating progress.

Screen
Tips provide a lot more guidance in Project 2010. For example, when you hover over a button on the ribbon, a Screen
Tip appears with a description of the command và a keyboard shortcut for triggering the command. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you can move through the tabs faster than grain through a goose by positioning the pointer over the ribbon and rolling the wheel.

Tip

If the ribbon takes up too much screen for your taste, you can collapse it to lớn a trimmer shape much lượt thích the old thực đơn bar by double-clicking any tab. To lớn use features on a tab, click the tab name, and the tab appears. When you choose a command, the tab disappears.

The ribbon contorts itself khổng lồ fit as you resize the Project window (see Figure 2). If you narrow your window, the ribbon makes some buttons smaller by shrinking icons or leaving out the icon text. If you narrow the window dramatically, an entire section may be replaced by a single button. However, when you click the button, a drop-down panel displays all the hidden commands.

Tip

If you prefer to keep your fingers on the keyboard, you can trigger ribbon commands without the mouse. Khổng lồ unlock these nifty shortcuts, press the alternative text key. Letters appear below each tab on the ribbon. Press a key to pick a tab, which then displays letters under every button on the tab. Continue pressing the corresponding keys until you trigger the command you want. For example, to insert a task with the Insert Task command, press Alt. Press H to xuất hiện the Task tab. You see the letters “TA” below the Task button in the Insert section. Press T followed by A to display the drop-down menu. Khổng lồ insert a task, press T again. See How to Use Keyboard Shortcuts to get the full scoop on keyboard accelerators.

Figure 2. When you shrink the Project window, the ribbon rearranges sections và buttons to lớn fit. Some buttons just get smaller. If the window is very narrow, a section turns into a single button (like Insert in this example). Click this button and the hidden commands appear in a drop-down panel.

The Quick Access toolbar is so small that you might not notice it above the File và Task tabs (see Figure 1). It looks lượt thích one of the toolbars from earlier versions of Project. Out of the box, it has icons for Save, Undo, & Redo, because people use them so often. But you can customize the Quick Access toolbar with your đứng đầu commands. (Chapter 25 tells you how.)

Managing projects means looking at project information in many different ways, which explains all the built-in views Project provides out of the box. Even so, you’ll find that you create quite a few views of your own. As you’ll learn in Chapter 23, views come in single-pane & combination variations. The combination view has a đứng đầu pane & bottom pane (called the Details pane) lượt thích the one shown in Figure 3 which has the Tracking Gantt view (a single-pane view) on top và the Task size (another single-pane view) on the bottom.

In addition khổng lồ the top and bottom view panes, some views have two pane-like parts of their own that appear side by side. For views lượt thích the Gantt Chart & Task Usage views, the left side of the view is a table with columns of Project fields & rows for tasks, resources, or assignments. You can địa chỉ cửa hàng or edit values directly in the table or use it simply for reviewing. The timescale & time-phased data on the right side show data apportioned over time. In a Gantt Chart view, taskbars show when tasks begin and end. The Task Usage view uses a time-phased table instead, in which the columns represent time periods, và rows are tasks và assignments.

Figure 3. The Project window has convenient shortcuts tucked away in every corner of the window & most places in between. The Quick Access toolbar is a handy place for your top-favorite commands. The Status Bar shows information about your project, lượt thích the task mode (page 116) you’ve selected. On the right side of the Status Bar, you can click icons for popular Project views or drag the Zoom Slider lớn change the timescale in the current view.

Note

The actions you can perform depend on which view pane is active. If you select a new view, then Project replaces the active pane. Project identifies the active pane by darkening the narrow vertical bar lớn the left of the pane & lightening the vertical bar in the other pane.

Just khổng lồ keep life interesting, Project also has task panes (no relation to lớn view panes) for different Project-related activities. For example, when you choose Task→Tasks→Inspect, the Task Inspector pane appears to the left of your views (see Task Inspector: Help with Schedule Problems).

Screen
Tips and Smart Tags are two other Project features that make temporary appearances. Project’s Screen
Tips blossom into view when you position the mouse pointer over an nhà cửa with a Screen
Tip, lượt thích the icons in the Indicators column in a table. The Screen
Tip for a date constraint icon tells you the type of constraint và the date. A Task note icon displays a Screen
Tip with part of the task note. To learn about the purpose of a Project field or how it’s calculated, position the cursor over a column header in a view & read the Screen
Tip that appears.

Smart Tags, on the other hand, appear when you perform certain Project actions that are renowned for their ability lớn confuse beginners. For example, if you select the Task Name cell in a table và then press Delete, then Project asks if you want khổng lồ delete just the task name or the entire task, as illustrated in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Smart
Tags also appear when you edit a task start or finish date, asking if you want to lớn set a date constraint on the task. Similarly, if you change the duration, work, units, or resources assigned, Smart
Tags help you tell Project the results you want.

Over the years and versions, Project has collected improvements the way sailboat keels attract barnacles. To lớn use Project successfully, you need to understand something about project management, but that’s an exercise Microsoft leaves to lớn its customers. The program’s Help feature is at least organized around the activities that project managers perform, but Help stills focuses on what Project does rather than what you’re trying to lớn do.

Project Help is optimistically named, because it typically lacks troubleshooting tips or meaningful examples. In some cases, the topic you want simply isn’t there. Help rarely tells you what you really need to know, lượt thích when và why to use a certain feature. & highlighting key points, jotting notes in the margins, or reading about Project after your laptop’s battery is dead are all out of the question.

The purpose of this book, then, is to lớn serve as the manual that should have come with Project 2010. It focuses on managing projects with Project Standard or Project Professional, with the aid of a few other Microsoft programs like Word & Excel. The book points out some of the nguồn tools that come with Microsoft’s enterprise project management software, but it doesn’t explain how lớn set up or use Project Server and Project website App. (To learn how to lớn work with Project Server, kiểm tra out Microsoft Office Project 2010 Inside Out by Teresa Stover and Ultimate Learning Guide to lớn Microsoft Office Project 2010 by Dale Howard and Gary Chefetz ).

Note

Although each version of Project adds new features and enhancements, you can still use this book if you’re managing projects with earlier versions of Project. Of course, the older your version of the program, the more discrepancies you’ll run across.

In this book’s pages, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for using Project Standard & Professional features (minus the ones that require Project Server), including those you might not have quite understood, let alone mastered: choosing the right type of task dependency, assigning overtime, leveling resources, producing reports, và so on. This book helps you be productive by explaining which features are useful và when to use them.

From time khổng lồ time, this book also includes instructions for using other programs, like Word & Excel, in your project management duties. Because several of these programs got a radical new look in Office 2007, you’ll find instructions for both the current và pre-ribbon versions of Word, Excel, & so on.

Although this book is primarily a guide lớn Project 2010, it comes with a healthy dose of project management guidance. The chapters walk you through managing a project from start khổng lồ finish: getting a project off the ground (initiating), planning, doing the project work (executing), keeping the project on track (controlling), & tying up loose ends (closing). You’ll find practical advice about what project managers do & how those activities help make projects a success.

Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual is designed to lớn accommodate readers at every level of technical và project management expertise. The primary discussions are written for advanced-beginner or intermediate Project users. First-time Project users can look for special boxes with the label “Up khổng lồ Speed” khổng lồ get introductory information on the topic at hand. On the other hand, advanced users should watch for similar shaded boxes called “Power Users’ Clinic.” These boxes offer more technical tips, tricks, & shortcuts for the experienced Project fan. Boxes called “Tools of the Trade” provide more background on project management tools & techniques (Gantt Charts, for example). And, if you’ve ever wondered how khổng lồ extract yourself from a gnarly project management situation, look for boxes called “Reality Check” for techniques you can try when project management textbooks fail you.

Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual is divided into six parts, each containing several chapters:

Part Two: Project Planning: More Than Creating a Schedule starts with a quick thử nghiệm drive of Project 2010 lớn whet your appetite. These chapters then take you through each aspect of planning a project, including breaking work down into manageable pieces, estimating work và duration, building a schedule, assembling a team, assigning resources to tasks, & setting up a budget. The remaining chapters explain how to refine your plan until everyone (mostly) is happy with it, and then how to prepare it for the execution phase of the project.

Part Three: Projects in Action takes you from an approved project plan to lớn the kết thúc of a project. These chapters explain how khổng lồ track progress once work gets under way, evaluate that progress, correct course, và manage changes. Other chapters explain how to use Project’s reports & complete important steps at the end of a project.

Part Four: Project power Tools helps you get the most out of Project. These chapters talk about how khổng lồ work on more than one project at a time và how to tóm tắt data with programs and colleagues.

Part Five: Customizing Project explains how to lớn customize every aspect of Project to lớn fit your needs—even the ribbon. After all, every organization is unique, và so is every project. Other chapters show you how khổng lồ save time by reusing Project elements (in templates) và boost productivity by recording macros.

Part Six: Appendixes. At the kết thúc of the book, three appendixes provide a guide to lớn installing và upgrading Project, a reference to help resources for Project, and a quick đánh giá of the most helpful keyboard shortcuts.

To use this book—and Project—you need to know a few computer basics. Like other Microsoft programs, Project responds lớn several types of clicking mouse buttons, choosing commands from menus, và pressing combinations of keys for keyboard shortcuts. Here’s a quick overview of a few terms và concepts this book uses:

Clicking. This book gives you three kinds of instructions that require you khổng lồ use your computer’s mouse or track pad. To lớn click means to lớn point the arrow pointer at something on the screen, và then—without moving the pointer at all—press & release the left button on the mouse (or máy tính trackpad). Khổng lồ right-click means the same thing, but using the right mouse button. Khổng lồ double-click means to click the left mouse button twice in rapid succession, again without moving the pointer at all. Và to drag means to move the pointer while holding down the left button the entire time.

When you’re told khổng lồ Shift-click something, you click while pressing the Shift key. Related procedures, such as Ctrl-clicking, work the same way—just click while pressing the corresponding key.

Keyboard shortcuts. Nothing is faster than keeping your fingers on your keyboard—entering data, choosing names, and triggering commands, all without losing time by reaching for the mouse. That’s why many experienced Project fans prefer to trigger commands by pressing combinations of keys on the keyboard. For example, in most word processors, pressing Ctrl+B produces a boldface word. When you read an instruction like “Press Ctrl+C to lớn copy the selection to the Clipboard,” start by pressing the Ctrl key; while it’s down, type the letter C, và then release both keys.

Throughout this book, và throughout the Missing Manual series, you’ll find sentences lượt thích this one: “Choose Task→Editing→Scroll to lớn Task.” That’s shorthand for selecting the Task tab on the ribbon, navigating khổng lồ the Editing section, and then clicking Scroll khổng lồ Task. Figure 5 shows what this looks like.

Figure 5. Instead of filling pages with long và hard-to-follow instructions for navigating through nested menus và nested folders, the arrow notations are concise, but just as informative. For example, here’s how you execute the “Scroll khổng lồ Task” command.

If you see an instruction that includes arrows but starts with the word File, it’s telling you khổng lồ go lớn Project’s Backstage view. For example, the sentence “Choose File→New” means khổng lồ select the tệp tin tab to lớn switch to Backstage view, then click the New command (which appears in the narrow danh mục on the left).

Similarly, this arrow shorthand also simplifies the instructions for opening nested folders, such as Program Files→Microsoft Office→Office14→1033.

At www.missingmanuals.com, you’ll find news, articles, và updates khổng lồ the books in this series.

But the trang web also offers corrections & updates to this book (to see them, click the book’s title, và then click Errata). In fact, you’re invited & encouraged lớn submit such corrections và updates yourself. In an effort khổng lồ keep the book as up-to-date and accurate as possible, each time we print more copies of this book, we’ll make any confirmed corrections you suggest. We’ll also lưu ý such changes on the website so that you can mark important corrections into your own copy of the book, if you like.

In the meantime, we’d love lớn hear your suggestions for new books in the Missing Manual line. There’s a place for that on the website, too, as well as a place khổng lồ sign up for không lấy phí email notification of new titles in the series.

This book helps you use Project. As you read through it, you’ll find references khổng lồ files that you can use to help you manage your projects và websites that offer additional resources. Each reference includes the site’s URL, but you can save yourself some typing by going khổng lồ this book’s Missing CD page—it gives you clickable liên kết to all the sites mentioned here. Khổng lồ get khổng lồ the Missing CD page, go to lớn the Missing Manuals trang chủ page (www.missingmanuals.com), click the Missing CD link, scroll down to Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual, và then click the link labeled “Missing CD.”

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Note

This Missing Manual includes all the Microsoft Project information you need lớn pass the Microsoft Project MCTS Exam, including the upcoming exam for Project 2010. An exam study guide will be available in ebook format (for a small additional cost) after Microsoft releases the Project 2010 certification exam. The guide will outline the exam objectives, reference the relevant content in this book, provide test-taking tips, and cover important best practices for using Project khổng lồ manage projects. After the Project 2010 certification exam is released, kiểm tra the Missing Manuals trang web for more information about the guide (missingmanuals.com).

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