Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is a project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
Microsoft Project was the company’s third Microsoft Windows-based application, and within a couple of years of its introduction it became the dominant PC-based project management software.[1]
It is part of the Microsoft Office family but has never been included in any of the Office suites. It is available currently in two editions, Standard and Professional. Microsoft Project’s proprietary file format is .mpp.
Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server are the cornerstones of the Microsoft Office enterprise project management (EPM) product.
Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost, equal to the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level. Resource definitions (people, equipment and materials) can be shared between projects using a shared resource pool. Each resource can have its own calendar, which defines what days and shifts a resource is available. Resource rates are used to calculate resource assignment costs which are rolled up and summarized at the resource level. Each resource can be assigned to multiple tasks in multiple plans and each task can be assigned multiple resources, and the application schedules task work based on the resource availability as defined in the resource calendars. All resources can be defined in label without limit. Therefore, it cannot determine how many finished products can be produced with a given amount of raw materials. This makes Microsoft Project unsuitable for solving problems of available materials constrained production. Additional software is necessary to manage a complex facility that produces physical goods.
The application creates critical path schedules, and critical chain and event chain methodology third-party add-ons also are available. Schedules can be resource leveled, and chains are visualized in a Gantt chart. Additionally, Microsoft Project can recognize different classes of users. These different classes of users can have differing access levels to projects, views, and other data. Custom objects such as calendars, views, tables, filters, and fields are stored in an enterprise global which is shared by all users.
Ms-Project Training Course Outline
1. GETTING TO KNOW MICROSOFT PROJECTUSING THE TOOLBARS
USING THE CALENDAR VIEW
USING THE GANTT CHART VIEW
2). DEFINING THE PROJECT
UNDERSTANDING PROJECT INFORMATION
UNDERSTANDING THE PROJECT CALENDAR
CHOOSING YOUR CALENDAR FOR THE PROJECT
UNDERSTANDING THE STATISTICS WINDOW
UNDERSTANDING FILE PROPERTIES
USING SAVE AND SAVE AS
3). TASKS
ENTERING TASKS
ENTERING A TASK DURATION
ESTIMATING DURATIONS
UNDERSTANDING MILESTONES AND PHASES
USING RECURRING TASKS
USING RECURRING TASKS CONTINUED
EDITING TASKS
CHANGING TASK PRIORITY
INSERTING A TASK
DELETING TASKS
MOVING TASKS
4). TASK LINKAGES
CREATING A LOGICAL SEQUENCE
USING THE GENERAL TAB
UNDERSTANDING TASK PREDECESSORS
UNDERSTANDING TASK RESOURCES
UNDERSTANDING ADVANCED TASK OPTIONS
UNDERSTANDING TASK CONSTRAINTS
UNDERSTANDING TASK TYPES
USING TASK NOTES
OUTLINING A TASK
UNDERSTANDING SUMMARY TASKS
UNDERSTANDING LINKAGE TYPES
USING A FINISH TO START RELATIONSHIP
USING A START TO START RELATIONSHIP
UNDERSTANDING SIMPLE LINKAGE
SPOTTING LINKAGES ON A GANTT CHART
UNDERSTANDING LAG AND LEAD TIME
UNDERSTANDING LEAD TIME ON THE GANTT CHART
UNDERSTANDING LAG TIME ON THE GANTT CHART
UNDERSTANDING THE TYPES OF CONSTRAINTS
5). RESOURCES
USING THE RESOURCE SHEET VIEW
ENTERING RESOURCES
UNDERSTANDING UNITS
UNDERSTANDING RATES
UNDERSTANDING ACCRUE AT
ASSIGNING A CALENDAR TO A GROUP OF RESOURCES
ASSIGNING A RESOURCE TO A TASK
ASSIGNING RESOURCES (CONTINUED)
ASSIGNING A RESOURCE CALENDAR
REMOVING A RESOURCE
REPLACING RESOURCES
REMOVING A CALENDAR
6). NETWORK DIAGRAM VIEW
UNDERSTANDING THE NETWORK DIAGRAM VIEW
EXAMINING A NETWORK DIAGRAM
UNDERSTANDING SUMMARY TASKS IN NETWORK DESIGN VIEW
CHANGING TASK LINKAGES
7). SHORTENING YOUR PROJECT
SETTING THE CRITICAL PATH
USING THE CRITICAL PATH VIEW
FILTERING FOR CRITICAL TASKS ONLY
SHORTENING THE PROJECT
8). OVERALLOCATIONS
USING THE RESOURCE USAGE VIEW
USING THE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TOOLBAR
USING THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION VIEW
USING THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION GRAPH
9). RESOLVING OVERALLOCATIONS
DELAYING TASKS MANUALLY
LEVELING RESOURCES
LEVELING RESOURCES CONTINUED
USING THE LEVELING GANTT VIEW
DECREASING WORK TIME
SPLITTING TASKS
VIEWING SLACK IN A TABLE VIEW
VIEWING SLACK IN A GANTT VIEW
REASSIGNING RESOURCES
INCREASING WORKING HOURS
ASSIGNING OVERTIME TO A TASK
CONTOURING RESOURCES
10). PRINTING PROJECT REPORTS
USING PRINT PREVIEW
USING THE REPORT GENERATOR
USING THE PROJECT SUMMARY REPORT