Using Microsoft Project 2000

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 1 of 45 Using Microsoft Project 2000 General Conventions All text highlighted in bold refers to menu selections. Examples would be File and Analysis. ALL TEXT IN THIS FONT REFERS TO SPECIAL KEYS AND KEY SEQUENCES YOU WILL TYPE ON THE KEYBOARD. Examples are, Press the ENTER key and Type CTRL-C. All text in this font refers to text you will see on the computer screen. This applies to all text except menu selections. All text in this font refers to text you will type into the program. All text in this FONT is DOS or UNIX commands. An example is the FORMAT command. All text in this FONT is cell addresses for the Excel program. An example would be, Click on cell A8. F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11, F12 refer to the function keys on your keyboard. The word select means Click the left mouse button on. Keyboard Conventions Throughout the manual many keyboard sequences are given as shortcuts for making menu selections. The explanations of these sequences will be given later. It is important to know the conventions used to specify the sequences. Many control key sequences will be specified. For example, CTRL-R means to hold down the Control key and press the R key simultaneously. CTRL-A means to hold down the Control key and press the A key simultaneously. Not all keyboards are the same. Some keyboards may have a key labeled Ctrl rather than Control. The keyboard sequence ALT-ESC in Microsoft Windows is used to toggle the active window. ALT-ESC means to hold down the ALT key and press the ESC key simultaneously.

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 2 of 45 A. Microsoft Project 2000 Microsoft Project is project management software that allows you to plan, schedule, and track the progress of a large project. It allows you to schedule resources, assign tasks, track costs, and create time lines. We will be using Project 2000 for this demonstration. We will not be using any of the advanced features of Project 2000, so this example should be compatible with Microsoft Project 98. For our example, we will create a schedule to write a collaborative paper with four people. 1. Before You Begin Microsoft Project only helps you organize your project. To use MS Project, you must understand the tasks that need to be completed, the people that will be involved in the project and other resources that you will need. Before you begin, make a short list of the general tasks that must be covered, any milestones that must be accomplished, important dates on which tasks need to be met, equipment resources that you will need, people that will be involved and their schedule. You can get more detailed as you create the schedule, but you should have a general idea of the tasks that need to be completed and who will do them. For our example of writing a paper, I will list some of the major tasks and resources needed. TASKS o Initial meeting to discuss the paper. o Write initial draft. o Review initial drafts. o Write second draft. o Review second draft. o Combine all sections. o Review complete document. o Put together and distribute final document. Resources o Stu Available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cost is $100/hour. o Marc Available all days. Cost is $50/hour. o Diane Available all days. Cost is $75/hour. o Deb Available all day Tuesday and Thursday. Cost is $100/hour. o Computer Simulation Tool - $50 per simulation. o Computer time for simulations - $25 per hour. o High Resolution Color Printer - $3 per page. Dates/Milestones o Start date 2/1/00 o End Date 2/28/00 The project requires no other resources. This is a typical schedule because some people (resources) on your project are working on other projects, and they can only work at certain times on your project. 2. Starting MS Project To start Microsoft Project, select the START button, select Programs, and then locate the MS Project menu item:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 3 of 45 Depending on how the options are set, MS Project may open the last project your were working on, it may open with a new project, or it may open with a new project and display the help window. If you see the window below: you are ready to start a new project and you can skip to Page 6. If your window looks as shown: MS Project is displaying the help window. Click on the window: in the upper right corner of the help window to close the help

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 4 of 45 You are now ready to start creating the project so you can skip to Page 6. If your screen looks as shown below: MS Project has opened a previous project. We need to create a new project so we must close this one. Select File and then Close from the menus to close the current project: We made no changes to this file, so select No. The file will close and you will be left with a empty screen:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 5 of 45 To open a new file, select File and then New from the menus: Click the OK button to create a new project: This dialog box is asking for the start and end dates of the project. We will be entering this information later, so click the Cancel button.

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 6 of 45 We now have an empty project and can start entering information. 3. Effort Driven Tasks versus Fixed Duration Tasks When we enter tasks for a project, we have the choice of specifying tasks as effort driven or not effort driven. With an effort driven task, the amount of work required to complete a task is fixed. The time required to do the work is dependent on the amount of resources applied to the task. As an example, suppose that you are building a wall. The task will take four weeks for a single worker to complete. Thus, the task requires an effort of four man-weeks to complete. With an effort driven task, the number of man-weeks will be held constant. If you assign two workers to the task, the task will take two weeks to complete. With effort driven tasks, the duration of the task changes as we change the resources, but the amount of effort (manweeks in this case) is constant. If we do not use effort driven tasks and specify fixed duration tasks, the amount of time required to finish a task is specified and is independent of the resources we assign to the task. If we specify that a task will take one week to complete and we assign 1 worker to the task, the task will take one week and use 1 man-week of effort. If we add a second worker to the task, the task will still take one week to complete because we specified fixed duration. Since we now have two workers on the task, the task uses 2 man-weeks. Thus, fixed duration tasks keep the time required to finish a task constant while an effort driven tasks keeps the manhours constant. When you first start using MS Project you will make mistakes in the spreadsheet. When you use effort driven tasks and you modify the resources or modify the time, strange things can happen. To avoid this problem, we will use fixed duration tasks as the default for all items in the project. If we need an effort driven task, we will change that specific task to effort driven. To change the default to fixed duration tasks, select Tools and then Options from then menus: Select the Schedule tab:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 7 of 45 Select this tab. Option not selected. Fixed duration selected. Make sure that Fixed Duration is selected, and that the effort driven option is NOT selected, as shown in the above right screen capture. Click the OK button to accept the changes. 4. Assigning Resources The first thing we will do is specify the available resources and set up the working schedule. Select View and then Resource Sheet from the menus: We can now enter the resources and their cost. Fill in the sheet as shown:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 8 of 45 The Max. Units column is the maximum amount of time the project is allowed to use a particular resource. Since we specified 100%, we are able to use all of the available time of the listed resources. We also notice that resources are listed as either Material or as Work. Material resources are resources that you are charged a cost per unit. For example, the color printer costs $3 per printed page. Another example would be the cost of nails to build a house. In this case, the cost would be cost per pound. For a Work resource, the cost is based on the amount of time you use the resource. Next, we need to specify the working time for our resources. Select Tools and then Change Working Time from the menus: We must first select the resource for which we want to specify working hours. Click on the down triangle resource named Stu: and select the The calendar for Stu will be displayed. Standard calendar. Note that the calendar is the same as the Standard calendar because we have not yet changed Stu s working hours.

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 9 of 45 Stu only works on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we must specify the other days as non-working days. Click the LEFT mouse button on the M to select Mondays: Hold down the SHIFT key and click the LEFT mouse button on the W. This will select Wednesdays while keeping our previous selection intact: Hold down the SHIFT key and click the LEFT mouse button on the F: We must now specify the selected days as non-working times. Click the LEFT mouse button on the circle option Nonworking Time: next to the

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 10 of 45 Option selected. Click the OK button to accept the calendar. Before we continue, we will save the project. Select File and then Save from the menus: Select a location and a name for the project and click the Save button. The name of the project should be displayed at the top of the window:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 11 of 45 Project name. Diane s and Marc s working times follow the standard working calendar (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a lunch break) so we do not need to modify their calendars. Deb only works on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we will need to modify her calendar. Use the same methods as we used to modify Stu s calendar to modify the calendar for Deb. When you are finished, you should be back at the main project window displaying the resources. 5. Specifying Project Beginning and Ending Milestones Before adding detailed items to the project, we will specify beginning and ending milestones. This will have the benefits of causing all items to be subtasks of the project, specify hard start and end dates, and aid in the predecessor relationships between the items. To begin adding items, we must switch to the Gantt Chart view. Select View and then Gantt Chart from the menus: Spreadsheet. Graphical view. The Gantt Chart view shows us the details of every task in a spreadsheet and also displays the items graphically as a time line. In my low resolution screen captures, not much information can be displayed in the spreadsheet. I will change the location of the window split to show more columns in the spreadsheet. Place the mouse pointer over the split. A double arrow will appear:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 12 of 45 Place the mouse pointer here. Double arrow. Drag the double arrow to move the split. Location of the window split. Windows after releasing the mouse button. Change the size of the windows to display the columns Task Name, Duration, Start, Finish, Predecessor, and Resource Names. We will now enter some information for the project. Click the LEFT mouse button on the first cell in the Task Name column to select the cell: Cell selected. Type the project name. I will type Paper Example and then press the ENTER key:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 13 of 45 On my screen, the dates are displayed as # signs to indicate that the date will not fit in the current column width. To change the width of the Start column, place the mouse pointer as shown. The pointer will be replaced by a double arrow: Hover the mouse pointer here. Double arrow. To resize the Start column, drag the mouse. When you release the mouse button, the column will be resized. Resize the Start and Finish column so that they display dates properly:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 14 of 45 Next, we will create milestones that mark the beginning and the end of the project. Select the cell below Paper Example: Enter the text Start Date and then press the right arrow key (l). This will add the task and then select the Duration cell on the same row: Cell selected. We wish this task to be a subtask of the Paper Project. To demote an item, click the LEFT mouse button the right arrow :

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 15 of 45 After clicking the button, the text Start Date becomes indented and the task Paper Example becomes a summary task: Summary Task. Item indented. To denote a task as a milestone we need to change the duration of the task to zero. This can be done by clicking on the down triangle shown below: Change the duration to zero and press the ENTER key. With a duration of zero, the item is displayed as a black diamond, indicating that it is a milestone:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 16 of 45 Milestone. The summary task is also displayed as a milestone since its only subtask is also a milestone. Next, we need to change the start date of the project. Click the LEFT mouse button on the cell shown below: Down triangle appears in the cell. The cell is selected and displays a down triangle select a date:. If we click on the down triangle, a calendar will appear that allows us to Use the calendar to select February 1 as the start date:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 17 of 45 Notice that the end date automatically changes to February 1 since the duration of the task was set to zero. Next, we will enter the ending date milestone. Click the LEFT mouse button on the cell below Start Date and then enter the text Completion Date: Set the Duration of this task to 0 days and set the Start date of this task to February 28: Duration of entire project is 19 days. In the screen capture above, we see that the duration of the entire paper is 19 working days. The few screen captures above were taken in low resolution to make it easier to see the cells. With these low resolution captures you cannot see the Gantt chart. When I change back to higher resolutions screen captures (you do not have to do this) the Gantt chart will be displayed. You should already see your Gantt chart:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 18 of 45 Gantt chart. The Gantt chart is too large to be displayed in the right window pane. To display the entire Gantt chart we will need to move the window split and scroll the right window pane: Split moved. Click on one of these triangles to scroll the window right or left. Click on the right or left triangles to scroll the right window pane to display the entire Gantt chart: Summary of the entire project. The summary task now shows the entire project. As we add items, they will be placed between the beginning and ending milestones. 6. Adding Tasks The next thing that we need to do is to actually add the tasks that need to be accomplished. We will add as much detail to the tasks as possible to get a realistic model of how long the project will take and how much it will cost. First, we

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 19 of 45 must insert a few blank lines in the spreadsheet. Click the LEFT mouse button on the cell with the text Completion Date to select the cell: Cell selected. Press the INSERT key four times to insert four new rows above the selected cell: Cell selected. Select the empty cell just below the text Start Date. In my screen capture above, the cell was already selected after inserting the new lines. The first thing that we will do is have a meeting to discuss the paper. Type Meet to Discuss Paper and press the ENTER key: The text is entered, but the cell is no longer selected. Double click the LEFT mouse button the cell. The task information should be displayed:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 20 of 45 Double click here. Tab selected. Note that the General tab is selected. This section of the dialog box allows us to specify how long a task will take to complete, start and end dates, and how much of the task has been completed. The task Meet to Discuss Paper will actually be a summary task so we will not specify a duration here. The only thing that we need to specify is` which tasks must be completed before we can start this task. We cannot have this meeting until we actually start the project, so the predecessor to the meeting is item number 2, the start of the paper. To specify predecessors, select the Predecessors tab: Select this tab. Predecessors are tasks that must be completed before the present task can be started. The predecessor to this task is task number 2. To enter a predecessor, click the LEFT mouse button as shown below. The black box should be replaced by an empty box ready to accept a number: Type the number 2 and press the ENTER key. The task is added to the list and the name of the predecessor task is displayed:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 21 of 45 This is all the information we need to specify for this item so click the OK button: Date now same as project start date. Predecessors listed here. Notice that the predecessors are now listed in the spreadsheet and, since we specified item 2 as the predecessor, item 3 starts at the date specified in item 2. Next, we need to enter the items we will discuss during the meeting. Select the cell below Meet to Discuss Paper and then enter the text General Theme, press the ENTER key and type Split into Sections, press the ENTER key and then type Assign Sections and press the ENTER key:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 22 of 45 We must now make items 4 through 6 subtasks of item 3. Click the LEFT mouse button on cell Assign Sections to select it: Cell selected. Hold down the SHIFT key and click the LEFT mouse button on cell General Theme. This should select cells 4 through 6:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 23 of 45 To make the cells subtasks, click the LEFT mouse button on the indent button : Subtasks. Summary task. Notice that all three tasks start at the same time and that item 3 is displayed as a summary task. We must now specify information for each of the three subtasks. Double click the LEFT mouse button on the cell General Theme to edit its properties: Double click here. This tab selected. We see that the Predecessors tab is selected because in the last item we modified we had selected the Predecessors tab. We do not need to specify a predecessor because this item is the first subtask of item 3 and it will start when item 3 starts. We do need to specify a duration, so enter 30m in the duration field. This specifies that we will spend 30 minutes on this task:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 24 of 45 Duration entered here. We must specify who will be at the meeting. Click the LEFT mouse button on the Resources tab: Select this tab. You can either type in the names of the resources or obtain a pull down list of the resources we entered in Section 3. Note that if you attempt to type the name of a resource and you spell the name differently or misspell the name, you will create a new resource. It is better to obtain the pull down list of resources already created so that you do not accidentally add a new resource. Click the LEFT mouse button as shown. The cell will turn white and a down triangle will appear: Down triangle. Click the LEFT mouse button on the down triangle to view the list of resources:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 25 of 45 Click the LEFT mouse button on an item to select a resource from the list: To add a second resource to this task, click the LEFT mouse button on the next cell: We see the triangle in the second cell. We can now use the pull down list and same techniques as above to specify a second resource:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 26 of 45 Add the resources as shown below: We have now specified the resources for this task and its duration. Click the OK button to accept the settings. The spreadsheet above now lists the resources and the duration for item 4. Next, we need to modify task 5. Note that task 5 will not begin until we finish task 4 because we will not discuss splitting up the paper until we finish discussing the general theme. Thus, task 4 will be a predecessor of task 5. We will also assign task 5 a duration of 60 minutes and resources Stu, Marc, Diane, and Deb. To edit the properties of task 5, double click the LEFT mouse button on the text Split into Sections to edit its properties. Fill in the information shown: Predecessors. Resources. Click the OK button to accept the information:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 27 of 45 Modify task 6 so that it has a predecessor of task 5, has a duration of 30 minutes, and uses resources Stu, Marc, Diane, and Deb: We are now ready for the next major task which is doing a small amount of research. Diane and Marc need to do a literature search, Stu must do some computer simulations, and Deb is required to do some background research to find out the format requirements of the paper. Marc s, Diane s, and Deb s tasks only require time, while Stu s tasks requires his time, computer time, and simulation costs. These tasks are different than the previous tasks in that they can all be done concurrently. The tasks cannot start until the meeting is complete, but once the meeting is complete, Stu, Marc, Deb, and Diane can work independently and do not need information from one another to complete their tasks. We will now add another summary task called Background Research. Select cell Completion Date and then press the INSERT key six times: Select this cell. Type the text Background Research and press the enter key:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 28 of 45 We see that the task Background Research is a subtask of the Meeting Summary task. We need to Outdent the task. Select cell Background Research and then click the Outdent button : Item no longer a subtask. Cell selected. After clicking the Outdent button the task is no longer a subtask of task 3. We can now add the subtasks under Background Research. Add the tasks shown: We now want to make tasks 8 through 12 subtasks of Background Research. Select the tasks and then click the indent button :

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 29 of 45 Items now sub tasks. Cells selected. The Background Research task cannot start until we finish the meeting. Select cell Background Research, edit its properties, and specify item 3 as its predecessor. When finished, you should have the chart below: We must now specify the properties for the subtasks of Background Research. The first Literature Search task is assigned to Marc, has no predecessors, and requires two man-days of work. The second Literature Search task is assigned to Deb, has no predecessors, and requires three man-days of work. The Format Requirements task is assigned to Diane, has no predecessors, and requires one man-days of work. Notice that we specified the time as amount of work or man-days. This is not a duration but an amount of required work. The time it takes to complete the work depends on how long each person can work on the assigned tasks. In section 3 we specified all tasks to be fixed duration. We want tasks 8 through 12 to be effort driven so we must change these tasks. Select tasks 8 through 12 and then click the Task Information button to edit the properties of all tasks at the same time:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 30 of 45 Cells selected. Select the Advanced tab: Effort driven not selected. The Effort driven option is not selected. Click the LEFT mouse button on the square next to the text Effort driven until a checkmark fills the square : Option selected. Under Task type, select option Fixed Work:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 31 of 45 Click the OK button to accept the changes for all of the selected tasks: We can now edit the individual tasks and assign their properties. First I will edit task 8. It is assigned to Marc, has no predecessors, and requires two man-days of work. Since Marc works full time, two work-days takes two days to complete. Cell 9 is assigned to Deb, has no predecessors, and requires three man-days of work. Since Deb only works on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the three man-days of work require more than a week of time to complete. Cell 10 is assigned to Diane, has no predecessors, and requires one man-days of work:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 32 of 45 Tasks 10 and 11 are to be completed by Stu. In order for Stu to run the simulation, he must first set up the account with the company that provides the simulation tools, and then he must run the simulations. It is estimated that it will take one man-day of Stu s time to do the paperwork, setup the account, and establish communications with the host computer. Modify task 11 to reflect these settings: Since Stu only works on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the one man-day task required a duration three days to complete. Stu cannot run simulations until item 11 is complete, so item 11 is a predecessor to item 12. When Stu runs the simulations, it is estimated that he will run five simulations and that it will take approximately two man-days to complete. For these man days, we must pay for both Stu s time and the computer time. The resources required for this task are Stu s time, the computer time, and the five simulations. Two screen captures are shown to show the spreadsheet and the Gantt chart:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 33 of 45 We are now done with the techniques used to enter tasks. I will fill in the rest of the task information. My completed project is shown below using several screen captures:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 34 of 45

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 35 of 45 7. Printing Your Gantt Chart When printing a Gantt chart, the portion of the spreadsheet printed is the portion displayed on your screen. Remember that the portion of the spreadsheet displayed on the screen was dependent on the placement of the window split. We will start with the window shown below: Select File and then Print Preview to see how the Chart will print: Click here to view multiple pages.

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 36 of 45 We see that all of the spreadsheet information will be printed. The status line at the bottom of the Project tells us that 4 pages will be printed. To see all four pages, click on the multiple pages button shown above: To print the displayed portion of the spreadsheet and the Gant chart will require four pages and we will need to cut and paste the pages together after they have printed. It is not unusual for a large project to require several pages. When all of the pages are assembled, they may occupy a large wall. It is possible to fit an entire project onto a specified number of pages. Click the Page Setup button: Fit to specified number of pages. The indicated option allows us to fit the chart to a specified number of pages. I will select a single page (1 page wide by 1 page tall):

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 37 of 45 Click the OK button: We get the warning message that the printed project may be too small to read. This is most likely correct. Click the OK button:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 38 of 45 You can print this document as shown or choose another layout. This particular project might printer better as two pages wide by one page tall: You can print the document if you wish. I will close the view and return to the project. To show the effect of the split, we will move the split as shown below:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 39 of 45 The split was moved so that only the task name in the spreadsheet is visible. When we use the print preview we see that only the visible portion of the spreadsheet will be printed: The effect of the window split becomes apparent. One last thing that we notice in the print preview is that there is a large amount of unused space in the Gantt chart portion of the printout. This is because, by default, the Gantt chart will print using the current date, which is 27 January 2000 for my screen capture. To fix this problem we can specify specific dates for the printout. We cannot change this in the preview screen so click the Cancel button:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 40 of 45 Select File and then Print from the menus: Specify dates here. The Timescale portion of the dialog box allow us to specify the dates for the Gantt chart. Select dates February 1 to February 28 and click the Preview button: Dates 2/1/00 to 2/28/00 specified. Select the multiple pages button to view the entire printout:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 41 of 45 You can now print the document in one of several different ways. If you do not wish to print the chart, click the Close button to return to the project. 8. Project Costs We will show three quick ways of showing the costs associated with a project. The first method is to display the costs of each task on the spreadsheet. To display this information we will add a cost column and a work column to the spreadsheet. Before we add a column we must select where we would like the new column added. Click the LEFT mouse button on the text Start as shown below: Click the RIGHT mouse button anywhere on the highlighted area and then select Insert Column:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 42 of 45 Click on the down triangle as shown to see the list of columns we can add: Scroll down the list until you see the item Work and then select the item: Click the OK button to add the column:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 43 of 45 The numbers displayed in the Work column are man-hours. This column is useful to display when you are having trouble using effort driven tasks and cannot figure out why the Duration numbers change when you change the resources or modify the resource s schedule. Notice in the highlighted column above that the duration of the task is 30 minutes and the work is 2 hours. This is because there are four people attending the meeting. Each person has to spend 30 minutes at the meeting so the total work required at the meeting is 2 man-hours. The Work column is very useful to add if you are having trouble with the duration column and trying to make your tasks end at a specified date. Use the same technique to add the column named Cost: The Cost column gives us the cost for the entire project, the costs for summary tasks, and the costs for individual tasks. A second way to view costs is to create a budget report. Select View and then Reports from the menus:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 44 of 45 Select Costs and then click the Select button: Select Cash Flow and then click the Select button: This report gives us a breakdown of the costs per task for every week of the project. Notice that the mouse pointer has been replaced by a magnifying glass, indicating that if we click the mouse button, we will zoom in on a portion of the report. Click the Close button twice to return to the project. The last method we will look at to display project costs is to select Project and then Project Information from the menus:

Using MS Project Personal Computer Fundamentals 45 of 45 Click the Statistics button: This report gives us the bottom line costs of the project. If gives us the total cost of the project ($20,600) and the actual costs used thus far. The actual costs are zero because the project starts on 2/1/00 and the present date is 1/28/00. 9. Tracking Progress of a Project