Microsoft Project Essentials

Detailed Course Content (2 days)

Understanding Microsoft Project

• Understand how Project differs from a spreadsheet
• Understand how Project calculates a schedule
• Identify the main elements of a project schedule
• Understand manually scheduled vs automatically scheduled tasks
• Understand why Start and Finish dates should normally be calculated rather than manually entered
• Create, open and save Project files

Work with Views and Tables

• Understand the difference between a view and a table
• Change built-in Project views
• Change built-in tables
• Use combination/split views
• Identify useful views and tables for different purposes

Set Up a Project

• Set the project start date
• Schedule a project from a start date
• Schedule a project from a finish date
• Review default start and finish times
• Set hours per day, hours per week and days per month
• Review scheduling options
• Understand the effect of changing scheduling settings after data has been entered
• Check and correct the setup of an existing project

Work with Project Calendars

• Understand base, project, task and resource calendars
• Modify standard working days and times
• Add non-working time and exceptions
• Create additional base calendars
• Work with 24-hour and shift calendars
• Set recurring RDOs and other working patterns
• Understand how calendars interact
• Troubleshoot scheduling problems caused by incorrect calendars

Enter and Organise Tasks

• Enter tasks
• Create summary tasks and subtasks
• Insert milestones
• Enter task durations
• Understand elapsed vs working duration

Link Tasks and Build Scheduling Logic

• Understand task dependencies
• Create Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish and Start-to-Finish relationships
• Enter and select predecessors
• Add lag and lead time
• Enter lag/lead as working time, elapsed time or percentage
• Understand how dependencies drive calculated dates
• Inactivate and reactivate tasks
• Use inactive tasks to retain deferred or incomplete scope

Work with Constraints and Deadlines

• Understand flexible, semi-flexible and inflexible constraints
• Understand how manually entering Start/Finish dates can create constraints
• Apply constraints where appropriate
• Add and display deadlines
• Understand deadlines vs constraints
• Identify and correct inappropriate constraints
• Troubleshoot tasks that won’t move as expected

Analyse the Critical Path

• Understand the critical path
• Identify critical tasks
• Understand total slack (float) and free slack
• View critical tasks on the Gantt Chart
• Use the Detail Gantt and Schedule table
• Identify negative slack and possible scheduling problems
• Understand how changes can alter the critical path

Work with Resources

• Understand Work, Material and Cost resources
• Enter work resources
• Use named vs generic resources
• Set resource availability and Max Units
• Set individual resource calendars
• Work with shifts and RDOs
• Enter material and cost resources
• Assign resources to tasks

Understand Work, Duration and Units

• Understand the relationship between Work, Duration and Units
• Understand effort-driven scheduling
• Understand Fixed Units, Fixed Work and Fixed Duration tasks
• Select an appropriate task type
• Understand what happens when resources are added or removed
• Distinguish labour effort from elapsed task duration
• Apply Work/Duration concepts to shutdown scheduling

View and Adjust Resource Work

• Use Task Form
• Use Task Usage
• Use Resource Usage
• View timephased Work
• Understand work contours
• Adjust the distribution of work where required

Identify and Resolve Resource Overallocations

• Identify overallocated resources
• Use Resource Usage and Resource Graph
• Use Team Planner where available
• Resolve overallocations manually
• Add/change resources, working time, Work or Duration
• Understand the impact on the critical path

Use Resource Levelling

• Understand what resource levelling does
• Level a resource, selected tasks or the project
• Understand levelling options
• Understand task Priority
• Understand levelling order
• Level within available slack
• Review levelling changes
• Clear levelling

Work with Costs

• Enter resource rates
• Enter material costs
• Enter Cost resources
• Add Fixed Costs
• View basic project costs

Baseline a Project

• Understand the purpose of a baseline
• Set a baseline
• View baseline information
• Display baseline information on a Gantt Chart
• Understand when a baseline should and shouldn’t be changed

Update and Track Progress

• Set and understand the Status Date
• Mark tasks on track
• Enter % Complete
• Enter Actual Start and Actual Finish
• Enter Actual Work and Remaining Work where appropriate
• Update incomplete work
• Understand how actuals affect the remaining schedule

Compare Actual Progress with the Baseline

• Use Tracking Gantt
• Use the Tracking table
• Use the Variance table
• Identify Start and Finish variance
• Identify slipping tasks
• Review schedule performance against the baseline
• Understand the effect of delays on the critical path

Find and Analyse Project Information

• Use built-in Highlight, Filter, Group and Sort options
• Use AutoFilter
• Identify critical, late, incomplete and milestone tasks
• Use built-in project reports
• View basic Dashboard, Resource, Cost and In Progress reports

Present and Print Project Information

• Adjust the timescale and zoom
• Display non-working time
• Use the Timeline for high-level communication
• Preview and print views
• Select the required print timeframe
• Adjust page setup and legends
• Export/share useful project information

Printable course information

View Calendar

Pre-requisites

• General computer and Windows skills
• Familiarity with Microsoft Office applications is useful
• No previous Microsoft Project experience required