Watch our video on working with deadlines in Microsoft Project:
The Dynamic schedules are schedules that are built without any constraints on the tasks. Project managers will often try to create a deadline for a task by setting a task’s start date or finish date. But entering the start and finish date sets a date constraint on the task. The concept of Dynamic schedules allows to start or finish task on a certain date but to retain the flexibility of the schedule.
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1. Right Click on a column where you want the Deadline column to appear
2. Select Insert Column
3. Type “Deadline” to name the column
4. Scroll down to the desired task
5. Click the Deadline cell on the selected task
6. Pick a date using the drop-down calendar or manually type a date
Hope this helps. Please contact us with questions.
Watch our video about baselines and interim plans in Microsoft Project:
Many users are confused by what's a Baseline and what's an
Interim Plan. In terms of Microsoft Project, the Baseline is a snapshot of
your project information. At the same time the Interim Plans is also a
snapshot. But the difference is what goes into this snapshot. Baselines
comprise the following items: "start" and "finish dates", "duration", "work' and all
the custom information. Inside the Interim Plans, we have "start" and "finish dates" only.
If your project is standard and it is necessary to compare the "duration", "work cost" and "dates", you need to use the Baselines. If your project is small, you don’t track any cost and work information, you just compare the dates along the lifecycle of your project, you might be fine with Interim Plans. If your project is large and multilayered, you probably might use the combination of baselines and interim plans.
To set the Baseline:
1 1. Click on Set
Baseline button on the ribbon.
2. Click Set
Baseline.
3 3.In an opened window, choose the option: set Baseline. You can save up to ten baselines.
4 4. Under For,
do one of the following:
-To set the baseline for all project data,
click Entire Project.
-To set the baseline for only the tasks that you selected,
click Selected tasks.
5 5.Under Roll
up baselines, select how you want baseline data to be rolled up:
-To all summary tasks.
-From subtasks into selected summary task(s).
6. Press OK.
To set the Interim Plan:
1. Click Set
Baseline button on the ribbon.
2. Click Set
Baseline.
3. In opened window, choose an option: set Interim Plan. You can save up to ten
interim plans.
4 4. In the Copy
box, click the "start" and "finish" or baseline values that you want to save.
5 5. In the Into
box, click the name of the interim plan into which you want to copy the values.
6 6. Click Entire project or Selected tasks.
7 7. Press OK.
Hope this helps. Please contact us should any questions arise.
Watch our video on Project Summary Tasks best practices in Microsoft Project:
In Microsoft Project, Summary Tasks are used to logically group tasks into sections or blocks. Summary Tasks can have multiple levels of the subtasks and they can have other summary tasks as subtasks.
There are several recommendations that you need to follow while using Summary Tasks. We identify four recommendations:
1. If you use the manually scheduled tasks, you need to select your summary task along with your tasks and click on Respect Links that will automatically recalculate all the dates for your tasks.
2. Never assign resources to summary tasks.
3. Do not put any constraints on a summary task. If you need to put a constraint, put it on the task. You can use Deadline field in Microsoft Project and use it for milestones.
4. Do not link summary tasks. Instead, use links between tasks or between tasks and milestones.
Hope this helps. Please contact us should any questions arise.
Watch our video about quick check for project plan quality before publish in Microsoft Project:
Recommendations for quick optimization check that you can do
before publishing project plan to Microsoft Project Online or Microsoft Project
Server:
Check if you have any tasks without predecessors
or successors. Use standard filters that are available in Project Professional.
Right-click to show predecessors and successors. Tasks where they predecessor are
empty.
Check if every task has assigned resource. Use
filter, select Blank. Tasks without Resource Name should be linked. The
only exception if that tasks are Milestones.
Check if task is not Milestone. Use filter, select NO.
Hope this helps. Please contact us with questions.
Watch our video about the latest date to start project in Microsoft Project:
By default, Microsoft Project Professional schedules all tasks as soon as possible, so all the default schedules start from the Start Dates. To know what is the latest date you can start your project, ask Project Professional to calculate it:
Go to Project Information
Find Schedule From option
Select Project Finish Date from the drop down
In the Finish Date box, enter the date that you want to schedule from
Click OK
System automatically will change all the tasks to As Late As Possible Constraint Type and will change the dates.
Project management tip: Never start from recommended date but couple days before, so in case of any unexpected delays you will be able to deliver project on time. Create links between tasks, then Project will schedule your project in the best possible way.
Hope this helps. Please contact us with questions.
Watch our video about adding view and tables to global template in Microsoft Project:
Global template is a special project template that is associated with every project file that you create. Copying view, table or other elements to the Global template makes it available to all your projects. To do that you need to make sure that checkbox Automatically Add New Views, Tabled, Filters and Groups to the Global is set.
Go to the File
Select Options
Go to Advanced
Find Display section
Put the checkbox Automatically Add New Views, Tabled, Filters and Groups to the Global
Hope this helps. Please contact us if you have any questions.
