Day one: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
The essentials of project management
Before you begin to use Microsoft?? Project to manage your projects, you need a firm grounding in the essentials of project management. That's what this session is all about. You'll learn what tools the project management pros use, such as the GANTT chart, tracking GANTT, PERT analysis and many others. Find out why projects often fall short of expectations and the things you can do to avoid the same pitfalls. You'll also learn ...
What components make up a project such as resources, tasks and more
The differences among the various versions of Microsoft Project including Standard, Professional and Server versions
Installation tips and techniques
The function of each menu item and some time-saving shortcuts you can use when working with the Microsoft Project interface
How to get a jump on setting up your project by using the templates included with Microsoft Project
Planning the project
The most critical part of any project is a good, workable project plan. This session shows you how you can use Microsoft Project to develop a project plan quickly and efficiently and give your project an even greater probability of success. You'll learn how to create a task hierarchy and how to determine the duration of your tasks. You'll also find out ...
How to use the Wizard to start entering tasks even if you don't know start or end dates
How to manually enter, reorder and relate or link tasks and organize them into phases
The types of additional information fields that can be added to your project and how you can create custom information fields
How to add deadlines and constraints to your project tasks
How to add documents to your project
Assigning resources-people, equipment and materials
Project resources are the people and equipment that are used to get the tasks done. This session shows you how to assign your resources to your tasks in the most efficient way possible. The task of adding resources to your project can be extremely time consuming, but we'll show you several different methods to streamline this process and get the job done in a snap. You'll discover why it's important not to just start assigning resources to tasks, but instead create a resource pool before you begin to make assignments. You'll also learn ...
How to easily import resources from your company Address Book
A quick way to modify the working times for your resources
How to assign resources to tasks both with the Wizard and manually
The right way to enter resource costs for workers, equipment and materials
What to do when you need to add additional information entered in the project for your resources
Tracking and managing your project
Once you have all your project tasks and resources entered, you must now begin the process of tracking and managing your project. In this session, you'll learn what a project base line is and why you might need more than one base line for your project. You'll also find out what an interim plan is and how to create one. We'll show you how to update the status of your tasks so Microsoft?? Project can automatically reschedule remaining tasks and give you a way to measure progress. Also in this session ...
3 different ways to track the progress of each task
Find out how to accurately use the status date when updating project tasks
Discover what each status indicator means and how to use them to get a quick view of your overall project status
How to apply filters to zero in on only those tasks that are necessary to monitor
How to use the Project Guide: Edit Assignments View to quickly make changes to your project
Day two: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Views and reports
While getting information into Microsoft Project can be a little difficult to the untrained user, getting information out can be virtually impossible. In this session, you'll learn how to make sense out of all the different project views that are available and find out how to quickly generate clear and concise reports that contain exactly the information you want. Learn how to format the text, bar styles, time line and gridlines in your project. Plus ...
How to group, filter and sort data
An easy way to see more of your project information by using the Split View feature
How to compare the actual progress of your project against the base line
How to use the built-in reports and how to quickly create custom reports from your project data
What a critical path is and how to view your project's path to make sure you're on track
Integrating Project with other Office applications
One of the best features of Microsoft?? Project is its ability to integrate with other Microsoft Office applications. This session will show you how you can maximize the functionality of Microsoft Project by taking advantage of its smooth integration features. You'll learn how to quickly import tasks from Microsoft Outlook?? with a few simple mouse clicks. You'll also discover ...
How easy it is to import data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
How to connect to a Microsoft Access database and import table data into your project
An easy method of importing data from any ODBC data source such as Microsoft SQL Server
Export your project data to a variety of file types including spreadsheets, database tables, text files and more
How to save your project data as a Web page
Working with multiple projects
Most project managers have to deal with multiple projects, which can be a daunting task. But in this session, we'll show you how Microsoft Project can help you keep all your projects running smoothly. You'll learn how to create task dependencies between different projects, and how to enter lead or lag time for task links between projects. Also in this session ...
How to insert subprojects into a project file to consolidate your projects
How to create a shared resource pool between multiple projects
An easy way to view your subproject statistics without having to sift through the entire project status report
Why you might want to break down a large project into a master project with subprojects, and how to accomplish it
How to quickly view the critical path of multiple projects and make sure they're all on the right track
Understanding Project Server
In this informative session, you'll discover the tremendous collaborative features of Microsoft Project Server. You'll learn what the system requirements are to install it and what the client side requirements are to access the server. You'll find out how to centrally manage project tasks and resources so your data is always consistent and up to date. You'll also learn ...
How to set up user and administrative accounts on a Microsoft Project Server
The critical steps to configure Microsoft Project Server for your project
How to request progress information from other project team members
Important security techniques to protect your project information on a Microsoft Project Server
How to publish your project to a Microsoft Project Server