Grouping is another feature you can use to help you focus on particular information. For example, when you want to review budget information, you can display the Budget Work and Budget Cost fields in a resource view and then group resources by the budget category to which you assign them. In 4-17, I’ve set up two budget categories—Cost and Work/Material—and grouped resources based on the budget category to which I assigned them so that I can compare budgeted work and costs to assignments I’ve made in the planning stage of a project.

Figure 4-17. When you group resources, Project displays yellow highlighting around each group.

Like filters, the groups available to you in any view depend on the type of view you select. You’ll find one set of groups for task-oriented views and another for resource-oriented views. To establish a grouping, select the view you want to use and on the Project menu, pont to Group By. From the submenu that appears, select the grouping you want to use. Or you can click Customize Groups By to display the Customize Group By dialog box (shown in 4-18), which you can use to create your own custom grouping.

Figure 4-18. Use this dialog box to create custom groups.

In this dialog box, you select the field by which you want to group and then select a sort order for items within the group. As you can see, you also can create groups within groups, but remember not to get too crazy here—having too many groups defeats the purpose of organizing information in a way that helps you find what you’re looking for.