Computer E-Learning

Welcome to the Microsoft Project 2007 Essentials workshop. Project is the world’s premier spreadsheet software. You can use Project to analyze numbers, keep track of data, and graphically represent your information. With Project 2007, you can manage more data than ever, with increased worksheet and project sizes. Project also makes your job easier by providing an easy to use interface, and an array of powerful tools to help you turn your data into useable information – and better information leads to better decision making!

In this module, you will learn to open and close Project. You will also explore the Project interface, and be able to differentiate between cells, rows, columns, worksheets, and projects.

In this module, you will learn how to set a project up. You will explore the Project Guide, and then use the guide to get started. First you set a start date for your project, and then you define the working hours for the project. If there are common holidays, you add them to the project calendar, and then you define the time units for the project.

In this module, you start adding tasks to your project. There are some Project specific terms you should review. You can view some information about the task in the Gantt Chart view, but for more detailed information, the Task Information form is useful. Additionally, you can add notes to a task, and use indicators to quickly see important details of a task.

In this module, you continue working with your tasks. Once you have created your project, you can organize it into phases, by creating summary tasks and subtasks. You can use milestones to mark your progress through these phases. Recurring tasks make it easy to set up tasks that repeat on a regular basis through the life of your project. Since you rarely get things perfect the first time, you can change the order of tasks, or delete them altogether. And finally, you can split a task, so that work starts, then stops, and then starts again.

In this module, you start creating a schedule from your task list. You start by defining relationships between tasks. If you link tasks in error, it is easy to unlink them. You can further describe the relationships between tasks by adding lags (delays) or leads (overlaps). You can add constraints or deadlines to tasks to ensure you are warned if you are not progressing on schedule.

In this module, you start setting up the resources for you project. Resources are the people or equipment that perform the work on your tasks, as well as any material that is consumed to perform the task. Once a resource is created, it is available to be assigned to a task. By carefully setting up your resources, you can generate resource based cost information for your project. To accurately reflect a resource’s availability to your project, you can modify its calendar.

In this module, you will assign resources to tasks. In order to ensure the intended results, you need to understand Project’s scheduling engine. If you have planned that your task is to have more than one resource working on it, you can assign multiple resources to a task. If you have to change a resource assignment, it is important to understand the impact this has on your schedule.

In this module, you will see that one of the benefits of Project is the vast quantity of data you can get by entering just a few tasks and resources. Project views are an excellent source of this data. There are two types of views: Task views and Resource views. The Gantt Chart is the most popular view of your project, and it can be formatted using a wizard, manually, and by formatting the time scale.

In this module, you will examine the reports that come with Project. Each report provides you with analysis of the tasks, resources or costs of your project. You can use Project’s reports, or create reports that are sent to either Excel or Visio, where they can be edited or further analyzed. You can also take a picture of a view, for use in another application, or add graphical elements to your views.

In this module, we will look at how to put the finishing touches on your project. You should spell check your project to ensure that there are no errors. You can use the Page Setup dialog to set up headers and footers or control the appearance of the legend. You can print or email a project.

Although this workshop is coming to a close, we hope that your journey to improve your Project skills is just beginning. Please take a moment to review and update your action plan. This will be a key tool to guide your progress in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. We wish you the best of luck on the rest of your travels!