Hello and welcome to our course on Microsoft Project 2013, the award winning project management
software for your desktop.
My name is Toby and I’m going to be your instructor on this course.
Let me talk first about who this course is for.
I hope that anybody who wants to learn how to use Microsoft Project 2013 will get a lot
out of this course.
But when I was planning the course, I had three particular groups of people in mind.
First of all, those people who’ve never used project management software before.
One word of warning for everybody including that first group though, I am going to assume
that you’re familiar with the basic language of projects and basic principles like a schedule.
You may even be familiar with terms such as critical path, resources and overallocation.
Now even if you are familiar with these terms, I’ll need to explain them with particular
reference to Microsoft Project as we work through the course.
But if you know nothing about project management at all, you may find some aspects of this
course a bit of a struggle and it would be a good idea to get some background reading
in first on project management in general.
The second group of people are people who’ve used a very old version of Microsoft Project,
a version before the Ribbon was introduced.
Microsoft Project has changed a lot in the two or three versions.
Although some of the fundamental principles are exactly the same as they were 15 years
ago, some principles have changed a bit and there are many, many new editions to what
you can do and the tools that are available in Microsoft Project.
The third group of people are the people who have used one of the more recent versions
of Project and for them I’ll be focusing on the specific changes in this version.
Not only are there some changes to the aspects of the interface such as the Ribbon, but there
are some functional changes as well.
Now let me talk about the structure of the course.
I’ve arranged the course into a number of units which are in turn grouped into chapters,
and I believe that this forms a logical sequence for learning Project pretty much from scratch.
If you’ve used Microsoft Project before, particularly a recent version, you may feel
that you can skip some of these sections or go through them quickly.
That’s entirely your choice.
I would warn you that even things that you may think you’re familiar with; fairly basic
things like using online Help or using the Ribbon have changed in this version.
However if you’re happy that you can cope with minor changes or you can check the online
Help yourself for these kinds of change, then it’s entirely your choice whether you want
to skip forward so that you get into the nitty-gritty of scheduling projects and using Microsoft
Project more quickly.
If you’re starting from scratch I suggest that you don’t skip the early sections even
if they appear to be on topics that you’re quite familiar with because the way that Microsoft
Project works is subtly different in many cases from other desktop products, and it’s
worth knowing some of the tools and tricks of the trade which will help you much later
on when we get into the more advanced use of Microsoft Project.
Another important point to bear in mind with this course is that we do not cover the Server
products associated with Microsoft Project.
I will mention one or two features of them from time to time but they’re not covered
in any level of detail on this course, and also that we’re not covering the programming
of Microsoft Project on this course, the use of Project VBA.
We are primarily only looking at the desktop project management product itself and there
is plenty to learn in a course like this one on that basic desktop Project to get you really
started and to build you up to a really good level of skill in Microsoft Project.
And talking about those desktop Project products, there are basically two of them.
There is a Project Standard and a Project Professional.
Now there are quite a lot of differences in them when you look at the Server side of things.
But fundamentally, virtually everything on this course can be done using Project Standard.
I’m actually going to be using Project Professional on the course and I will point out the one
or two things you can do in Project Professional that you can’t do in Project Standard, but
there really are only one or two of them that affect this course.
If you have Project Standard that’s absolutely not a problem, you’re going to be able to
do this course absolutely fine with Project Standard.
Now as part of this course you should have a whole set of exercise files.
The file names will be similar to these.
There will be about this many with about these names.
The actual list may vary.
It does change a little over time.
But make sure you know where those files are.
They should be available on your device.
And from time to time I will be referring to these and I’ll be asking you to make
your own versions of these or to use the versions you’re provided with.
So make sure you know where that set of files is kept.
Now in Project 2013, Microsoft has tried to make the product usable with a touch screen.
Now to be fair, there were certain things we’re able to do in the previous version
associated with Project 2010 where you could use a touch screen for certain things.
But to have general usage of a product like this with touch really, Project 2013 is the
first version.
I’m going to incorporate coverage of some of the gestures and techniques to use with
a touch screen while I’m going through the course but it would be an extremely tedious
job if I did everything on the course twice, once with keyboard and mouse and once with
touch screen.
So I’m really going to use touch screen from time to time, explain what I’ve done,
go through the main gestures, and try to use touch in a number of places as an example.
But there really isn’t time to do everything twice and I think both people that are using
touch and those who don’t use touch would be equally frustrated if I did do everything
twice.
Having said that, the PC that I am recording this course on is a touch screen PC.
I’m also using hand gestures in front of the screen, but for a course that you’re
going to follow on screen, me using hand gestures in front of the screen isn’t really going
to work.
So I am only going to cover mouse mode as I’ll call it as one option and touch mode
as the other during the course.
But if you’ve got a touch screen device, I think that you’re going to find that you
can do just about everything in Microsoft Project that you need to.
Although I would warn you that in some cases the accuracy of touch can be an issue and
to some extent if you’ve got nice thin fingers you’re better off than somebody like me
who has rather fat fingers I’m afraid.
The next thing to mention is that I am running Project 2013 here on Windows 8.
If you’re using Windows 7, there will be some differences; not an awful lot, but you
will notice one or two differences in places.
I’ll try to point those out as we go along because I am also testing what I’m doing
on Windows 7 as well.
And something that’s equally important is that the resolution on which I’m recording
this is a 4:3 aspect ratio resolution.
It’s not widescreen.
You may well have one of the widescreen resolutions on your device.
Also depending on the resolution of your device, you may see different amounts of things on
the screen.
This can be extreme as things like seeing different content on the Ribbon.
I’m currently looking at the start screen for Project Professional 2013.
If you are able to see that start screen, and I’ll talk about that in just a moment,
you may look at yours and you may look at mine and you may think, well, they look completely
different.
Well, there can be substantial difference partly because of the screen resolution and
partly because of themes, windows, backgrounds, and so on.
Some of which we’re going to talk about during the course.
But as long as you can see something on the left that says Project and list that says
Recent and an Open other projects thing there, and then these boxes in the middle or some
variant on these boxes in the middle then I’m sure you’ll be fine.
And the ways in which these things are different I will explain as we go through the early
stages of the course.
Now I mentioned just now that I’d talk about seeing this start screen.
If you already have Microsoft Project 2013 installed, either the Standard version of
the Professional version and you can start it up either from one of the tiles on the
start screen or Windows 8 or from the start menu on Windows 7 and you can actually see
this screen, then you can actually finish following this section because the rest of
this section is going to be devoted to those people who haven’t got Project 2013 installed.
I’m not actually going to show you how to install it, but I am going to talk about how
to get hold of a copy of it and point you in the right direction in terms of where to
get the instructions to install it.
But if it’s already installed and running on your machine, you can move on to the next
section now; if not, read on.
So for the rest of this section I’m talking to those of you who maybe don’t have yet
Project installed.
And the first place I’m going to direct you is to part of microsoft.com, to this particular
page.
Now given that I may well have recorded this course some time before you watch it, the
page itself may have changed.
But one thing’s for certain, Microsoft will still have an equivalent page there.
You’re looking for the requirements for Project Professional 2013.
You may well need to do a search, either a Google or a search within microsoft.com to
find it but you’ll find a page that gives you those system requirements.
Now the system requirements from point of view of Project come into approximately two
categories.
One of them is the hardware requirements.
You need a device that satisfies this minimum hardware specification.
You can sometimes make Project work on lower specked devices but it almost invariably leads
to a headache and this isn’t a particularly high specification for modern devices anyway.
So make sure you’ve got a device that satisfies that hardware requirement.
And then the other key requirement is the operating system requirement.
And as far as desktop operating systems are concerned, you need Windows 7 or Windows 8.
If you have XP, if you have Vista, then I’m afraid that’s no good.
You’re going to have to upgrade your desktop operating system in order to run Microsoft
Project on your desktop.
Now there are some other requirements here.
There are requirements for graphics including a minimum screen resolution.
There are list of supported browsers and also some details of the touch requirements if
you intend to use touch with Project 2013.
So you need to take note of those as well.
So once you’ve established that the device you’re planning to use will be able to run
Project, the next question is how to get yourself a copy of Project.
Now, of course, you can buy a copy.
You could buy it from Microsoft.
You could use your favorite online store; maybe your local computer store will have
Project Professional or Project Standard in stock.
But the good news is at the time of recording this it is possible to get a trial version
of Microsoft Project Professional from Microsoft.
Now the particular offer and the terms of the offer do tend to vary but at the time
of recording, you could get a 60-day free trial from Microsoft and that includes a guided
element where it will actually give you some supporting help and information throughout
the 60-day trial which I think you might find very useful.
And depending on how much time you have available, you may well find that a 60 trial is plenty
of time to work your way through this course and to make sure that you’re comfortable
about buying Project, if indeed that’s what you intend to do.
There’s a page there which gives you access today to the Project Professional 2013 60-day
trial.
You may, well, need to do another Google or you may need to do a search within microsoft.com
at some future date if this actual page isn’t here.
But if there is a Project trial version available, you should be able to find it without too
much trouble.
One other thing to be aware of is that there are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft
Project available.
Now you would generally be best advised to install the 64-bit version if you’re device
will support it, but one or two things to warn you about.
One of them is that if you have Microsoft Office 2013 32-bit installed, I believe you’ll
have trouble installing Microsoft Project 64-bit.
And also if you do try to install the 64-bit version, there are one or two other scenarios
where you can run into trouble.
Having said that, I’m not going to try and list what will and won’t work here.
That’s somewhat outside the scope of what I do.
I’ll leave that between you and Microsoft.
But if you download a trial version, you’re given the option of either 32 or 64.
If you download the 64-bit version, try to install that and if it doesn’t work, I’m
afraid you’ll have to download the 32-bit.
If you have a bought version and normally with bought versions they include both.
So if you try 64 and if it doesn’t work, then try the 32.
In terms of the functionality what you can do with them they’re the same.
The only real significant difference is in the performance.
This course is actually being run with a 32-bit version of Project Professional 2013 running
on Windows 8.
So when you have acquired your copy of Project 2013, you have installed it and preferably
you have activated it as well, you will finish up able to start it from the start screen
in Windows 8 or the start menu in Windows 7 and you will get to the point that we saw
earlier on where you have the start screen.
And this is our starting point for using Microsoft Project 2013.
But just before we open it up and start to use it, I’d like to just spend a little
bit of time talking what’s new in Project 2013, particularly for the benefit of those
who’ve used Project before, and that’s what we’re going to cover in the next section
so please join me for that.