Objectives

Microsoft Project is a software program for Project Management. This software will assist the Project Manager when he is creating, tracking and reporting about his projects. Via the graphical (MS Windows) user-interface it offers lots of presentation possibilities for the different project data and it is easy to learn and to use.

3 main tasks can be distinguished within the usage of Microsoft Project :

• Project creation : definition of tasks and subtasks of the project, specification of resources that will be used for each of the tasks, identification of relations between the tasks and registration of date/time information. Using these data Microsoft Project will calculate a schedule for the project. In this way the Project Manager knows when each task will be finisched, how tasks will be executed by the different resources and what is the cost of each task. Then the Project Manager can modify all data elements in order to reduce the time needed to perform the project or to reduce the cos
• Tracking of the project: by registering real data about start-date and end-date, costs, resource usage,... Microsoft Project will inform you about the differences between your original plan and reality. This information will be used by the Project Manager to update the project by assigning more or other resources, changing date constraints,... .
• Reporting about the project : different customizable standard reports and self-made reports will help the Project Manager in each phase of the project to pass clear project information to different persons.

After this training the course participants are able to manage independently their projects in MS Project.

Main topics

• What is MS Project?
• Planning (project creation)
• Tracking
• Reporting
• Different views
• The different objects in MS Project
• Tasks
• Task definition
• Task information
• Duration
• Milestones
• Constraints
• Working with summary tasks and subtasks
• Relations between tasks
• Types of relaties
• Lags and Leads
• Recurring tasks
• Outlining
• Resources
• Resource definition
• Resource information
• Type
• Maximal units
• Costs
• ...
• Changing the standard settings
• Changing the currency
• Changing the date format
• Calenders
• Types of calendars (project - task - resource)
• Changing an existing calendar
• Creation of a new calendar
• Assigning a calendar
• Resource assignment
• How to assign resources to a task
• Effort Driven Scheduling
• Scheduling
• Project information
• Scheduled from Start Date
• Scheduled from Finish Date
• Use of deadlines
• Identification of overallocations
• How to resolve overallocations
• Manual
• Automatic
• Critical Path
• Project tracking
• Storing baselines
• Storing actual information
• Comparing actual information with the baseline
• Working with an interim plan
• Updating the project
• Reschedule the project
• Reports
• Page setup
• Display, customize and print predefined reports
• Create your own projects
• Working with multiple projects
• Insert subprojects
• Manipulating the inserted subproject
• Working with a resource pool
• Workgroup functions
• Using e-mail to communicate within a team
• Informing resources about task assignments
• Accepting a task assignment
• Requesting the task status
• Sending a status message to the project manager
• Updating a project with the task status information of the resource
• Microsoft Project Server (or Project Central)
• Activities of the Project manager
• Activities of the Project administrator
• Activities of the people resources
• Extra's
• Working with the Organizer
• Working with groups, sort by en filters
• Spelling check
• Customizing the different views
• Inserting pictures and other objects
• Printing views
• How to create your own tables and views