- Microsoft® Office Project 2007 Inside Out
- SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
- A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
- Your All-in-One Resource
- Acknowledgments
- About the CD
- Conventions and Features Used in This Book
- I. Project Fundamentals
- 1. Introducing Microsoft Office Project 2007
- 2. Understanding Projects and Project Management
- II. Developing the Project Plan
- 3. Starting a New Project
- Focusing the Project Vision
- Creating a New Project Plan
- Entering Tasks
- Sequencing and Organizing Tasks
- Organizing Tasks into an Outline
- Setting Up Your Work Breakdown Structure
- Adding Supplementary Information to Tasks
- 4. Viewing Project Information
- 5. Scheduling Tasks
- 6. Setting Up Resources in the Project
- Understanding the Impact of Resources in the Project Plan
- Adding Resources to the Project
- Removing a Resource from the Project
- Identifying Tentative, Generic, or Budget Resources
- Setting When Resources Are Available for Work
- Adding Detailed Resource Information
- 7. Assigning Resources to Tasks
- 8. Planning Resource and Task Costs
- 9. Checking and Adjusting the Project Plan
- Working with the Critical Path and Critical Tasks
- Bringing in the Project Finish Date
- Reducing Project Costs
- Balancing Resource Workloads
- Changing Project Scope
- Reviewing the Impact of Changes
- Obtaining Buyoff on the Project Plan
- 3. Starting a New Project
- III. Tracking Progress
- 10. Setting a Baseline and Updating Progress
- 11. Responding to Changes in Your Project
- IV. Reporting and Analyzing Project Information
- 12. Reporting Project Information
- Establishing Your Communications Plan
- Using Views to Report Project Information
- Generating Text and Visual Reports
- Running Reports for Your Requirements
- Summarizing with Overview Reports
- Focusing on Tasks with Schedule Progress Reports
- Using the Unstarted Tasks Report
- Using the Tasks Starting Soon Report
- Using the Tasks In Progress Report
- Using the Completed Tasks Report
- Using the Should Have Started Tasks Report
- Using the Slipping Tasks Report
- Using the Baseline Report in Visio
- Using the Baseline Work Report in Excel
- Using the Task Status Report in Visio
- Using the Budget Work Report in Excel
- Analyzing Budget Status with Cost Reports
- Using the Cash Flow Report
- Using the Cash Flow Report in Excel
- Using the Cash Flow Report in Visio
- Using the Baseline Cost Report in Excel
- Using the Budget Report
- Using the Budget Cost Report in Excel
- Using the Resource Cost Summary Report in Excel
- Using the Overbudget Tasks Report
- Using the Overbudget Resources Report
- Using the Earned Value Report
- Using the Earned Value Over Time Report in Excel
- Evaluating Resource Allocation with Assignment Reports
- Using the Who Does What Report
- Using the Who Does What When Report
- Using the To-Do List
- Using the Overallocated Resources Report
- Using the Resource Availability Report in Visio
- Using the Resource Work Availability Report in Excel
- Using the Task Usage Report
- Using the Resource Usage Report
- Using the Resource Work Summary Report in Excel
- Using the Resource Remaining Work Report in Excel
- Using the Resource Status Report in Visio
- Revising a Built-In Report
- Building a Custom Report
- Saving Project Data Fields
- 13. Analyzing Progress Using Earned Value
- 12. Reporting Project Information
- V. Managing Multiple Projects
- 14. Managing Master Projects and Resource Pools
- 15. Exchanging Information Between Project Plans
- VI. Integrating Microsoft Project with Other Programs
- 16. Exchanging Information with Other Applications
- 17. Integrating Microsoft Project with Microsoft Excel
- Copying Between Microsoft Project and Excel
- Embedding Between Microsoft Project and Excel
- Linking Between Microsoft Project and Excel
- Importing and Exporting with Excel
- Producing a Visual Report of Project Data in Excel
- 18. Integrating Microsoft Project with Microsoft Outlook
- 19. Integrating Microsoft Project with Microsoft Visio
- VII. Managing Projects Across Your Enterprise
- 20. Understanding Enterprise Project Management
- 21. Administering Your Enterprise Project Management Solution
- Logging On and Off
- Managing Users and Permissions
- Administering the Enterprise Resource Pool
- Establishing the Enterprise Portfolio
- Standardizing Enterprise Project Elements
- Setting Up Team Member Work Pages
- Managing Pages, Views, and Reports
- Managing and Maintaining the Server
- 22. Managing Enterprise Projects and Resources
- Connecting to Your Project Server
- Working with Enterprise Projects
- Building Your Enterprise Project Team
- Finding Resources to Meet Your Needs
- Adding Enterprise Resources by Name
- Identifying Resource Attributes Using Custom Enterprise Fields
- Using Generic Resources as Placeholders
- Adding a Team Assignment Pool to Your Project Resource List
- Finding Enterprise Resources That Meet Specific Criteria
- Replacing an Existing Project Resource with an Enterprise Resource
- Matching an Existing Project Resource
- Matching and Replacing Generic Resources
- Proposing Tentative Resources
- Assigning Tasks to Enterprise Resources
- Finding Resources to Meet Your Needs
- Collaborating with Your Project Team
- Creating Proposals and Activity Plans
- 23. Participating on a Team Using Project Web Access
- Getting Started with Project Web Access
- Working on Your Assignments and Updates
- Submitting Text-Based Status Reports
- Logging Time Using Timesheets
- Setting Up E-Mail, Reminders, and Calendars
- Managing Resources in Project Web Access
- 24. Making Executive Decisions Using Project Web Access
- Getting Started with Project Web Access
- Viewing Project Portfolio Information
- Working with the Project Portfolio
- Working with Resource Information
- Analyzing and Reporting on Project Information
- Setting Your Alerts and Reminders
- VIII. Customizing and Managing Project Files
- 25. Customizing Your View of Project Information
- Customizing Views
- Customizing Tables
- Customizing Fields
- Working with Outline Codes
- Customizing Groups
- Customizing Filters
- Sharing Customized Elements Among Projects
- 26. Customizing the Microsoft Project Interface
- 27. Automating Your Work with Macros
- 28. Standardizing Projects Using Templates
- 29. Managing Project Files
- 25. Customizing Your View of Project Information
- A. Installing Microsoft Office Project 2007
- B. Online Resources for Microsoft Project
- C. Keyboard Shortcuts
- D. Index to Troubleshooting Topics
- E. About the Authors
- Index
- About the Author
- SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
We are often tempted to enter a finish date on a task or a Must Finish On constraint when we want a task to be completed by a certain date. But instead of a date constraint, we really want a reminder or target to move our schedule toward.
Instead of setting a date constraint in such situations, set a deadline instead. A deadline appears as an indicator on your Gantt Chart as a target or goal, but does not affect the scheduling of your tasks.
To set a deadline, follow these steps:
Select the task for which you want to set a deadline.
On the Standard toolbar, click Task Information and then click the Advanced tab.
In the Deadline box, enter or select the deadline date.
The deadline marker appears in the chart area of the Gantt Chart (see Figure 5-17). Repeat steps 1–3 to change or remove a deadline if necessary. If you’re removing a deadline, select the date and press the Delete key.
Note
You can use the Project Guide to help you set deadlines. On the Project Guide toolbar, click Tasks. In the Project Guide pane, click the Set Deadlines And Constrain Tasks link. Read the information under Set A Deadline and use the controls provided to set deadlines.
Adjust Your Schedule to Hit Your Deadlines
When you have deadline flags set up in your project plan, you can graphically see the differences between your deadlines and the scheduled finish dates.
So what do you do when you have a discrepancy between the two?
The first thought is that the project schedule might simply give you the sanity check you needed to see whether your deadlines are realistic. If you think the task durations, dependencies, and constraints are all exactly as they should be, then the deadline might just need to be adjusted.
If you still really want to try to hit that deadline, there are various techniques in modifying scope, refining the schedule, and changing resource allocations to make the adjustments necessary to schedule the finish date closer to the desired deadline.
Note
For more information about shortening the schedule for certain tasks or the project as a whole, see the section titled Bringing in the Project Finish Date in Chapter 9.
You can show deadlines in your task sheet as well, by adding the Deadline field as a column. Follow these steps:
Right-click the column heading to the right of where you want your new Deadline column to be inserted and then click Insert Column.
Or you can click the column heading and then click Insert, Column. The Column Definition dialog box appears.
In the Field Name box, click Deadline. You can type the first one or two letters to go straight to it in the list.
The Deadline field shows any deadline dates that are already set and shows "NA" for tasks without deadlines. You can enter deadlines directly in this field.
If the schedule for a task moves beyond its deadline date, either because of normal scheduling calculations or because of actual progress information entered, an alert appears in the Indicators field, specifying that the task is scheduled to finish later than its deadline (see Figure 5-18).
You can set deadlines for summary tasks as well as individual tasks. If the summary task’s deadline conflicts with the finish dates of any of the subtasks, the deadline indicator specifies a missed deadline among the subtasks. You can also set deadlines for milestone tasks.
Inside Out: A deadline might affect scheduling after all
There are two instances in which a deadline can indeed affect task scheduling. The first is if you enter a deadline that falls before the end of the task’s total slack. The total slack is recalculated using the deadline date rather than the task’s late finish date. If the total slack reaches 0, the task becomes critical.
The second instance is if you set a deadline on a task with an As Late As Possible constraint. Suppose the task is scheduled to finish on the deadline date. However, if any predecessors slip, the task could still finish beyond its deadline.
Note
For more information about the critical path, slack, and late finish dates, see the section titled Working with the Critical Path and Critical Tasks in Chapter 9.
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