Dear all, welcome to this new tutorial dedicated to Microsoft Project! In
just 14 minutes we are going to see everything you need to know to
start using it, even if you see it for the first time.
Microsoft Project is one of the best project management products available.
Once you define working times, holidays, people, resources and deadlines
Project helps you getting the best solutions to respect the deadlines,
reduce the expenses and reach milestones.
Project runs on Windows 10 and 11 and is available as a cloud subscription
plan or a perpetual license on its own, since it is not within any Office
or Microsoft bundle.
When opening Project this shows several options to start working. You can
reopen any existing project (in a .MPP format) or pick any ready template
offered by Microsoft under New.
To learn how to use Project let's start from a new Blank Project. This
opens the main workspace showing the Ribbon on top - with all the tools
needed to work - the project Timeline and the Gantt Chart at the bottom,
with the task list on the Task Sheet on the left and the graphic chart on
the right.
First of all define all the tasks by typing their name and at least two
between Duration, Start and Finish date. Each task is represented as a bar
well placed on the gantt chart and kept updated according to the Task Sheet
content.
Use your mouse wheel while holding down the CTRL key to zoom in and out on
the chart in order to show quarters, weeks, days or hours.
The timeline above is also very useful, showing the portion visible on the
chart within two green lines through the total project duration, defined by
the start date of the first task until the Finish date of the last task. If
you are not able to see it just go to View, Timeline.
You can click on these green lines to move through time or drag these to
adjust the zoom. You can also add the main tasks on it by right-clicking on
these and going to Add to Timeline. In the same way you can right-click
on the timeline and use Remove from timeline to remove these.
Let's see how to manage and edit tasks. Double-click on any task bar to
edit its appearance on its borders, style and color. Whereas go to Gantt
Chart Format, Style to change the appearance of all the task bars
all at once.
Click and drag any bar to move it in time day per day and change its Start
and Finish dates. Drag the right edge to adjust its duration by moving its
Finish date. The Task Sheet will show the effect of your modifications.
By default Project takes all Mondays up to Fridays as working days (shown
as white columns), considering Saturdays and Sundays nonworking days (shown
as grey columns). This means that if you move or extend any task towards
the weekends it simply extends in order to cover its full duration,
expressed in working days.
To manage working days and holidays go to Project, Change Working Time.
First of all go to Options... to set the default options for your project,
such as when the new week starts, when the working day starts and the ends, the
hours per day and week and so on. You can check your calendar status by
selecting any working day.
At the bottom, under Exceptions, add extra holidays or special working days
following different hours than default, adding recurrence if necessary.
On Work Weeks you define the working and nonworking rules for each week on
your project. Double-click on Default to check and edit the general work
week. For each day of the week you can follow the rules defined within the
project Options just seen, turn it to a nonworking day or keep it as a
working day with the same or different hours.
Below Default you can add special periods where the weeks follow special
rules superimposed over the Default ones.
When you go to OK the Gantt Chart gets updated according to your new
working days and hours.
Moreover you can right-click on any task and go to Split Task to split any
task and add gaps on it, without changing its total duration.
You can also add its percentage of completion by dragging from its
left edge.
If you double-click on any Task Name you open the Task Information panel,
very useful to check and adjust all the task properties in detail. Under
Notes you can add some comments and description and on Advanced you can
specify any strict deadline for such task. This is shown as a green arrow
that brings visible red warnings on the left when the task overcomes it.
To remove any task right-click on it and go to Delete Task. Choose
Inactivate Task if you want to exclude the task from the project without
removing it.
All these task are Manually Scheduled tasks whose duration, Start and
Finish dates must be adjusted manually and without any automation
and they are suggested on task
where you prefer to be more in control. If you switch to Auto Scheduled you
give to Project the possibility to manage these for you according to the
constraint Type and Date you specify under the Advanced tab on Task
Information. You can manage the task in order to finish it as soon as
possible or not earlier or later than any date.
You can still move and edit Auto Scheduled task as you want. If you do not
respect any constraint Project will show warnings with possible options.
You can also make multiple task dependent by using the links. If you click
and drag vertically from any task and release your click on a second task
you create a Finish-to-Start link. This means that the second task starts
when the previous one (also called Predecessor) finishes. This way you can
drop multiple links to several tasks and help Project understand what comes
next in the schedule.
The Predecessors column shows the dependence of the current task by showing
the row number of its Predecessor. To manage these links open the Task
Information under the Predecessors tab. In this case you can change the
link Type and add Lags if necessary. In this case remember to use h for
hours, d for days and w for weeks.
The Finish-to-Start link is used the most, but you can switch to
Start-to-start to start the current task when the Predecessor starts;
Finish-to-Finish to finish it when the previous one finishes and Start-to-
Finish to finish the current task when the previous starts.
You can still move and edit tasks with links, however, errors may occur if
you do not respect the constraints. In particular if you see Manually
Scheduled tasks with dashed contours you can right-click on these and go to
Respect Links to correct the error automatically or open the Task Inspector
to see what's wrong and get the best solutions suggested by Project.
To remove any link applied select the task and go to Task, Unlink Tasks.
Links get removed also in case you delete any related task but not in case
you simply inactivate it.
Besides the tasks you can also include Summaries and Milestones from the
Insert section of the Task tab.
The Summary is a group of task collected together. Define its name in
bold, its Task Mode and all its tasks inside. You can also include any
existing task by selecting its row and dragging it within the summary.
On the Gantt Chart the summary is shown as a thick container as much long
as its inner tasks spread in time. Only in case of Manually Scheduled
summaries you may need to adjust its duration if any task is not contained
any longer.
Whereas the Milestones represent important goals falling on certain dates
shown in bold. You can manage the Milestones and the Summaries just like
the tasks, setting properties and adding links if necessary.
Once all task are defined you can switch to the Team Planner to assign
these to your team members. You can add any colleague by going to Resource,
Add Resources. Then double-click on the new entry and add name, email,
group, a custom working time (for example to include part-time jobs) and
any declared holiday under Exceptions.
Under Cost you can include any wage and overtime rate expressed per hour
(h), per week (w) or per month (mo).
At this point you can drag and drop any unassigned task to the right
person, always respecting their time placement in the schedule and the
holidays of your team members. If you drag an Auto Scheduled task this is
adjusted according to the working time and the holidays of each person; if
it is Manually Scheduled you may need to correct assignments on your own
with the help of the Inspector above.
All these people appear on the Task Sheet under the Resource column and
next to each task in bold color. You can also double-click on the bars and
go to Bar Text to change the content of this note.
Switch to Resource Sheet to keep your cost under control. Beside your
collaborators salaries you can also include materials or cost with their
amount. Then you can return to the task sheet list right-click
and go to Assign Resources..., to associate any resource to the
specific task definining units and get a complete preview
on the total cost of such task.
Open the Task Usage view to get a complete overview on how much working
time and how many units each task requires from resources. From the Format
tab above you can also enable Cost rows and see how this is distributed day
by day.
As you work on your projects you may need new columns if necessary or change
the kind of table shown by going to View, Tables. You can also sort the
task list or apply very useful highlighting and filtering on it.
To extract any chart or graph from the actual project status go to Report
above and then to New Report, selecting the right format. As you build
reports the latest one is always shown on the Report view, but you can find
the complete list under Report, Recent.
We won't see in detail how to customize these reports. Consider that you
can set data and options on the right and adjust appearance with the green
tabs on top.
Please check out our Excel tutorial to learn more about how to edit charts!
To save your Project made, go to File and then to Save As, setting
destination folder and file name in a .MPP file format. This way you can
retrieve your project and edit it again if you need.
You can also combine multiple projects together.
If you go to Project, Subproject you can
browse for your .MPP file to import it within your current project as an
Auto Scheduled Summary. This is also linked to the original file, so it
gets updated if such file is modified.
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