Microsoft Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 are partners well-suited for one another. An Office Project 2007 plan is made up of tasks, and Office Outlook includes the Tasks list. Microsoft Project schedules when tasks should be started and finished; Outlook has its Calendar. You use Microsoft Project to set up resource information; Outlook has its Address Book listing information about people in your organization and beyond. You need to communicate project information with team members and other stakeholders; Outlook can send messages and files to these people.
When you use Microsoft Project and Outlook together, you can do the following:
Add tasks from your Outlook Tasks list to your Microsoft Project plan
Add resource information to your project plan from your Outlook address book
Send or route an entire project file to others
Publish a project file to an Exchange folder
Some of these techniques work only with Outlook. With other techniques, you can use any 32-bit Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI)–based e-mail system. These distinctions are made throughout the chapter.
You can bring tasks into your project plan from your Outlook Tasks list. You can also copy a task from your project plan and add it as a task in your Outlook To-Do List.
You might have started brainstorming tasks for a new project in your Outlook Tasks list, and you’re now ready to import them into Microsoft Project (see Figure 18-1).
To import Outlook tasks into your project plan, follow these steps:
In Microsoft Office Project 2007, open the project plan in which you want to import the Outlook tasks.
Click Tools, Import Outlook Tasks.
If a security alert appears, click Allow.
The Import Outlook Tasks dialog box appears (see Figure 18-2). Outlook does not necessarily need to be already running. However, at least one incomplete task must be present in your Outlook Tasks list. Any tasks marked complete in Outlook are not made available for import into Microsoft Project.
Select the check box for each task you want to import. Click the Select All button to select all tasks.
Items listed with the darker background are folders or summary tasks, and you might not want to import them. If the same tasks are saved in multiple folders, be careful to select just one instance of the task for import. Clear the check box for any Outlook tasks not relevant to your project plan.
After selecting the tasks you want, click OK.
The tasks you selected are appended after the last task in your project plan (see Figure 18-3).
The imported Outlook tasks have the following characteristics:
Any notes entered in Outlook become task notes. Double-click the Note icon in the indicator column to review the note.
Durations entered in Outlook are not copied into Microsoft Project. The imported Outlook tasks revert to the default estimated duration of 1 day.
The start date of all imported tasks adopts the project start date, with the ASAP constraint.
There are no links, predecessors, or assigned resources.
Although adding Outlook tasks to your project plan can help you track tasks necessary to your project, going the other direction—that is, adding key project tasks from your project plan to your Outlook Tasks list—can also be a big advantage. Adding such tasks can be helpful if there are certain tasks that you want to keep a closer eye on, for example, critical tasks or milestone tasks. Or, they might be tasks that you’re assigned to, and you’re tracking your own tasks in Outlook.
New in Project 2007 is the ability to send several tasks and some of their associated information to your Outlook Tasks list by using the new Set Reminder button on the Tracking toolbar. To do this, follow these steps:
Open the project plan that contains the tasks you want to track in Outlook.
Select the tasks you want to send to Outlook.
Drag to select multiple adjacent resources or hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple nonadjacent resources.
Show the Tracking toolbar by clicking View, Toolbars, Tracking.
On the Tracking toolbar, click Set Reminder.
If the Set Reminder button is not showing, click Toolbar Options at the far right edge of the Tracking toolbar and then click Add Or Remove Buttons. Point to Tracking and then click Set Reminder. The button is added to the Tracking toolbar and the Set Reminder dialog box appears.
Specify when you want the reminder to alert you. You can set the reminder for a number of minutes, hours, days, or other period of time before the start or finish date of the selected tasks.
Click OK.
The selected tasks are added to your Tasks list in Outlook. The start date, reminder time, and due date (finish date) are included.
Another way to add project tasks to Outlook is to use the Copy and Paste commands. However, you can only copy the task name, and you have to copy the tasks one at a time. To copy and paste a task name to your Outlook task list, follow these steps:
In your project plan, display a task view such as Gantt Chart.
Select the name of the task you want to copy to Outlook.
You can copy and paste only one task at a time from your project plan to Outlook. Also, it’s best to only select the task name. If you select multiple fields, the information is all pasted together in the task’s Subject field in Outlook.
On the Standard toolbar, click Copy.
Switch to Outlook and display the Tasks view or the To-Do List.
Click in the Subject entry box labeled Click Here To Add A New Task.
Click Edit, Paste.
The copied task from your project plan appears in the box (see Figure 18-4).
Press Enter.
The task is added to the Tasks list.
Repeat steps 2–7 for any additional tasks you want to copy to Outlook.
