Consider your scheduling style and your habits, and determine whether your default task mode should be manually scheduled or automatically scheduled tasks. If you’re fairly new to Microsoft Project, or if you have previously used Microsoft Excel to manage your projects, you might want to retain the manually scheduled task default.
However, if you’re an experienced Microsoft Project user, and if you like the way the scheduling engine automatically calculates and updates your schedule as you make changes, it would be most efficient for you to change the default task mode to automatic scheduling. You can change the default for new tasks added to an existing project plan, for new tasks in a newly created project plan, or for all new project plans.
Suppose you’ve been working on a project plan, and you find that you keep changing the task mode from manual to automatic (or automatic to manual) scheduling. You can change the default for new tasks to your preferred task mode. To do this, follow these steps:
On the Task tab, in the Tasks group, click Mode.
A drop-down menu appears, showing the choice of Auto Schedule or Manually Schedule for new tasks. The current default is highlighted.
Click the task mode you want new tasks to adopt.
The button in the lower-left corner of the Project 2010 status bar shows the new default mode for this project plan.
All new tasks are created in the task mode you select.
When you begin a new project plan, it’s a good time to decide whether your predominant task mode will be manual or automatic scheduling. To change the default task mode when you create a new project, follow these steps:
On the File tab, click New.
In the Available Templates window that appears, double-click Blank Project.
The new blank project appears, along with a pop-up notification near the status bar at the lower left of the screen. The notification indicates the default task mode; for example, “New tasks are created in Manually Scheduled mode.”
If you want to keep the task mode shown in the notification, you don’t need to do anything. (The notification disappears after a few seconds.)
If you want the other task mode, click the button on the status bar labeled New Tasks: Manually Scheduled or New Tasks: Auto Scheduled. In the menu that appears, click the task mode you want to use for new tasks in your new project.
You can change the task mode default for all new project plans. To do this, follow these steps:
On the File tab, click Options, and then click Schedule in the left pane.
In the box next to the section title labeled Scheduling Options For This Project, click All New Projects.
In the New Tasks Created box, choose how you want new tasks to be scheduled: Manually Scheduled or Auto Scheduled. (See Figure 5-7.)
Click OK.
Be sure to click Save on the File tab to save the settings you just changed for all new projects.
All tasks in any new project will be created in the selected task mode.
Troubleshooting: You changed the default task mode for new projects, but Project is still using the old task mode
When you change options that apply to all projects, those new options don’t take effect until you save the project file in which you changed the options.
Open the Options dialog box again, and change the options for all new projects. After clicking OK to close the Options dialog box, click Save on the File tab.
Now when you create a project, it should include the new options you set.
Whether a task is scheduled manually or automatically affects various aspects of scheduling; for example, setting durations, linking task dependencies, identifying start and finish dates, setting baselines, tracking progress, and more. The relevant chapters that cover these topics discuss the differences and how they can affect your task scheduling and overall project plan.
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