My Lecture in Punjab Educational Endowment Fund [PEEF] Lahore on 27 January 2013

1. www.mashahzad.com
MS Project Training
By Muhammad Aamer Shahzad.
1

2. www.mashahzad.com
2

3. Trainer’s Bio data
• Muhammad Aamer Shahzad
• MS Project Management
• M. Sc Economicss
• EXPERIENCE: 6 YEARS
• Allmed Solution, Islamabad, Pakistan
www.mashahzad.com
• Position: Territory Manager (Islamabad)
• Position: Marketing Coordinator
• Universal Research Group, Islamabad, Pakistan
• Position: Clinical Research Associates
• National Institute of Management Science (NIMS), Islamabad,
• Position: Lecturer
• Research Consultancy
• Areas of interests:
• Project Management, Management & Research 3
(Projects/Social), Proposal & Report Writing.

4. Contents
Brief Introduction to the MS Project 2007 Basics
Work Breakdown structure
Define and use of Critical Path Analysis
www.mashahzad.com
Macros of MS Project
How to Setting up the Base line
Updating the project progress data
4
Preparations of different reports

5. Contents
Exporting of project data to other software applications
Define and use of Network diagram
www.mashahzad.com
Printing options of MS Project
Brief Introduction to the MS Project 2010 with enhancing
capabilities from 2007
5

6. What is Project ?
• A project is an endeavor that helps to accomplish
some specific objective by utilizing definite
interconnected tasks and the effective utilization of
resources. (Agarwal, 2011).
www.mashahzad.com
• A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a
unique product, service, or result”. (Project
management Institute, 2008).
• In terms of scope, schedule and cost, a project has a
well-defined stated objective (James P. & Gido, 6
2009).

7. www.mashahzad.com
7

8. www.mashahzad.com
Project Planning 8

9. www.mashahzad.com
10 steps of project planning 9

10. Project management soft wares
• Project management software has a capacity to help plan,
organize, and manage resource pools and develop resource
estimate
• Number of Project management software available.
• All good project software packages contain the facility to create
www.mashahzad.com
Gantt Charts and PERT networks.
• The Gantt chart provides a quick overview of your plan and a way of
monitoring progress.
• A PERT chart is a project management tool used to schedule,
organize, and coordinate tasks within a project.
• The right type of tool should be selected only after your needs
are clearly identified. 10
• MS Project is one of them – 200 project management software

11. Brief Introduction to the MS
Project 2007 Basics
• Microsoft Project – developed and sold by Microsoft,
• Founded by Alan M. Boyd in 1984-5
• Designed to assist a project manager in developing a
plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress,
www.mashahzad.com
managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.
• Available on many corporate computing networks and is
also available for individual PCs
• creates critical path schedules, and critical chain and
event chain methodology
• Schedules can be resource leveled, and chains are
visualized in a Gantt chart. 11

12. Introduction
• Enables you to stay informed and control:
• Project work
• Schedules
• Finances
www.mashahzad.com
• Keep project teams aligned
• File format is .mpp.
•  Select the Start | Programs | MS Office |  MS
Project
12

13. www.mashahzad.com
First start Window 13
MS Project

14. Starting Microsoft Project
• Go to file, select new. This will open a screen for blank project click
ok.
• You can now enter your project information viz. start date, finish
date and also how would you like to schedule the project from
either start or finish date.
• Select Gantt Chart view from the view menu.
www.mashahzad.com
• You’ll have a spreadsheet where you can now enter information of
all the activities i.e. task name, duration, start date, end date,
predecessors and various other fields.
• You can enter required information in two ways, in spreadsheet or
when you double click on cell you get pop up window in which you
can enter all the information of that particular activity.
• For predecessor activity you need to write activity number.
• The Soft Ware itself will calculate start and end date.
14
• Now the Gantt Chart is complete.

15. www.mashahzad.com
15

16. Gantt Chart
www.mashahzad.com
16

17. Work Breakdown structure
• A work breakdown structure (WBS), is a division of deliverable
of a project into smaller components.
• Helps organize and define the total work scope of the project.
• Provides the necessary framework for detailed cost estimating
www.mashahzad.com
and controlling
• Providing guidance for schedule development and control.
17

18. WBS
• Select the “Information” column, right click and choose “Hide
Column”.
• Next select the “Task Name” column and from the “Insert”
www.mashahzad.com
menu select “Column”. The following pop-up will appear.
• Choose “WBS” as the “Field name”
18

19. Critical Path Analysis
• Critical Path Analysis (CPA) or the Critical Path Method (CPM)
helps you to plan all tasks that must be completed as part of a
project.
• Basis both for preparation of a schedule, and of resource
www.mashahzad.com
planning.
• Allow you to monitor achievement of project goals.
• Help you develop and test your plan to ensure that it is robust.
• CPA helps you to identify the minimum length of time needed
to complete a project 19

20. CPM…
• For finding CP list all the activities and enter early start, late
start, early finish and late finish info of all the activities.
• You can do this under insert/columns and selecting each
www.mashahzad.com
terms.
• Following screen shot demonstrates how to insert.
• MS Project automatically calculates Early Start, Early Finish,
Least Start and Least Finish based on the starting/ending dates
you have provided.
20

21. CPM
www.mashahzad.com
21

22. Macros of MS Project
• A recorded or programmed set of instructions that carry out a
specific action when initiated.
• Macros in Microsoft Project use Microsoft Visual Basic for
Applications (VBA).
• Macros are great tools that can be used to automate
www.mashahzad.com
repetitive tasks.
• Create a Macro
• complex calculations which need to be repeated for varied sets of
inputs,
• a particular action being performed over and over again on
different input, files, etc.
• Start Macro Recording 22
• Navigate to Tools --> Macro --> Record New Macro --> ok

23. Macros of MS Project
• Stopping Macro Recording
• Click on Tools --> Macro --> Stop Recorder.
• Running the Macro
www.mashahzad.com
• Navigate to Tools --> Macro --> Macros (or press Alt+F8).
• Select the macro which you created, and click on Run.
23

24. www.mashahzad.com
Macro in MS Project 24

25. Setting up the Base line
• Baseline is a benchmark of your project's status before work on the
project begins.
• When you save a baseline, Project copies the information from the
Start and Finish fields into the Baseline Start and Baseline Finish
fields.
www.mashahzad.com
• The baseline is used evaluate your project progress.
• Baselines measure five parameters—start dates, finish dates,
durations, costs, and work or labor estimates
• Select Tools |Tracking  | Save Baseline from the menu bar. 25
Ensure Entire Project option is selected—this is the default. Click OK.

26. Updating the project progress
data
• Update the baseline for the entire project.
• This simply replaces baseline values with the currently scheduled
values.
• Update the baseline for selected tasks.
• This does not affect the for other tasks or resource baseline
www.mashahzad.com
values in the project plan.
• Save a second or subsequent baseline.
• You can save up to 11 baselines in a single plan. The first one is
called Baseline, and the rest are Baseline 1 through Baseline 10.
• If you enter an actual finish date for a task, Project calculates
its percent complete to be 100%. 26

27. Updating the project progress
data
• To quickly update actual start and finish dates for multiple
tasks that have the same date, select each task that you want
to update, and then, on the Project tab, in the Status group,
click Update Project.
www.mashahzad.com
• The Update Project dialog appears. Click Update work as
complete through, type or select a date, and then next to For,
click Selected tasks. Click OK
27

28. Preparations of different
reports
• The Report Menu gives you access to preconceived reports,
which you can also Edit as per your convenience.
www.mashahzad.com
28

29. Exporting of project data to
other software applications
• You can export information from Microsoft Project to another
format using a wizard.
• Following is a list of formats you export to or import from.
• Microsoft Excel (as a workbook or PivotTable report)
www.mashahzad.com
• text-only (tab delimited)
• comma-separated values (CSV)
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• What do you want to do?
• Export project information
• Import project information
29

30. Export project information
On the File tab, click Save As. The Save As dialog box appears.
1. In the File name box, type Sharing, and then click Save.
2. To begin, you’ll copy some task names, durations, and start
and finish dates from Project to Word.
3. In the Entry table on the left side of the Gantt Chart view,
www.mashahzad.com
select from the name of task 5, Editorial, through task 13’s
finish date, Wed 9/19/12.
4. On the Task tab, in the Clipboard group, click Copy. Project
copies the selected range to the Clipboard.
5. Start Word (or a comparable word processor application),
create a new document, and then paste the Clipboard
contents into the new document.
• If you have Word 2010, your screen should look similar to the 30
following illustration.

31. MS Word 2010
www.mashahzad.com
31

32. For Excel
• Start Excel (or a comparable spreadsheet application) and
create a new document.
• Now you will copy resource cost details from Project to Excel.
• Switch back to Project.
www.mashahzad.com
• On the View tab, in the Resource Views group, click Resource
Sheet.
• The Resource Sheet view replaces the Gantt Chart view.
• On the View tab, in the Data group, click Tables and then click
Cost.
• This is the resource cost information you’d like to paste into
Excel.
32

33. www.mashahzad.com
33
Click the Select All button in the upper-left corner of the Cost table.
Project selects the entire table, although only cells that contain values will be copied.

34. www.mashahzad.com
34

35. For Excel…
• On the Task tab, in the Clipboard group, click Copy.
• Project copies the selected range to the Clipboard.
www.mashahzad.com
• Switch back to Excel and then paste the Clipboard contents
into the new document.
• In Excel, if necessary, widen any columns that don’t display the
data values and instead
• Display pound signs (##). If you have Excel 2010, your screen 35
should look similar to the following illustration.

36. www.mashahzad.com
36

37. For Excel…
• As with pasting into Word, note that pasting into Excel
generated the correct column headings, and the cell values
are the expected data types.
• Close Word and Excel, and then switch back to Project.
www.mashahzad.com
• The pasting of rich tabular data into Word or Excel does not
work the same way in all applications.
• If you were to paste the same data into Notepad, for example,
the result would be tab-delimited data and no column
headings. Feel free to experiment with this.
37

38. Import project information
• In Project, on the  File tab, click Options.
• The Project Options dialog box appears.
•  Click the Trust Center tab.
•  Click Trust Center Settings.
www.mashahzad.com
• The Trust Center dialog box appears.
•  Click the Legacy Formats tab.
• Under Legacy Formats,  click Prompt when loading files with
legacy or non-default file format.
38

39. www.mashahzad.com
39

40. …Import project information
• Click OK to close the Trust Center dialog box, and then click
OK again to close the Project Options dialog box.
• With this change to Project’s settings completed, you’re ready
www.mashahzad.com
to import an Excel workbook.
• Click the File tab, and then click Open.
• Navigate to the Chapter17 practice file folder.
• In the file type box (initially labeled Microsoft Project Files), 40
select Excel 97-2003 Workbook.

41. …Import project information
• Select the Sample Task List file, and then click Open.
• The Import Wizard appears. This wizard helps you import
structured data from a different format to Project.
www.mashahzad.com
• Click Next.
• The second page of the Import Wizard appears.
41

42. www.mashahzad.com
42

43. …Import project information
• The Import Wizard uses maps to organize the way that
structured data from another file format is imported into
Project. For this exercise, you will create a new map.
• Make sure that New map is selected, and then click Next.
• The Import Mode page of the Import Wizard appears.
www.mashahzad.com
• Make sure that As a new project is selected, and then click
Next.
• The Map Options page of the Import Wizard appears.
• Select the Tasks check box, and make sure that Import
includes headers is selected as well.
• Headers here refer to column headings.
43

44. www.mashahzad.com
44

45. …Import project information
• Click Next.
• The Task Mapping page of the Import Wizard appears. Here,
you identify the source worksheet within the Excel workbook
and specify how you want to map the data from the source
worksheet to Project fields.
www.mashahzad.com
• On the Source worksheet name list, select Tasks.
• “Tasks” is the name of the sheet in the Excel workbook.
Project analyzes the header row names from the worksheet
and suggests the Project field names that are probable
matches.
45

46. www.mashahzad.com
46

47. …Import project information
• Click Next.
• The final page of the Import Wizard appears. Here, you have
the option of saving the settings for the new import map,
which is useful when you anticipate importing similar data into
Project in the future. This time, you’ll skip this step.
www.mashahzad.com
• Click Finish.
• A confirmation dialog box appears because Project is now
attempting to open a non-default file format.
• Click Yes.
• Project imports the Excel data into a new Project plan. (The
dates you see on the timescale will differ from those shown
because Project uses the current date as the project start date 47
in the new file.)

48. …Import project information
www.mashahzad.com
• Unless you’ve changed the default scheduling setting for new
tasks, the task list is manually scheduled.
• This is a simple task list with just task names and durations.
The process for importing
• More complex structured data is similar, however.
• Close the new file without saving the changes. 48
• The Sharing project plan remains open in Project.

49. Define and use of Network
diagram
• Network Diagram is a standard way of representing project
activities and their relationships.
• A project network is a graph (flow chart) depicting the
sequence in which a project's terminal elements are to be
completed by showing terminal elements and their
www.mashahzad.com
dependencies.
• A network diagram is essentially a flow chart that includes all
of the project elements and how they relate to one another.
• It is easy to read and
• Not only depicts the sequence of activities in the project, but
also shows parallel activities and the links between each
activity. 49

50. Network diagram…
• Certain tasks are
dependent on one
another to complete
the project.
www.mashahzad.com
• Click on  View and
then  on Network
Diagram
50

51. www.mashahzad.com
51

52. Printing options of MS Project
• Printing a view or report in MS Project is very similar to
printing in other Office programs:
• Click File >  Print >  Print.
• Click  Page Setup; this link appears at the bottom of the
www.mashahzad.com
controls, to the left of the print preview.
• Make sure the Page tab is visible, and then under Scaling, click
Fit to and type or select 1 page wide by 2 tall.
• In the Page Setup dialog box, click the Legend tab.
• On the Legend tab are three alignment tabs. Click the Left tab.
• Here, you can see the text and field codes that appear in the
legend.
52

53. www.mashahzad.com
53

54. www.mashahzad.com
54

55. Printing…
• Project will print the project title and current date on the left
side of the legend. You also want to print the project plan’s
estimated cost value in the legend.
• Click at the end of the second line of text, and then press the
Enter key.
www.mashahzad.com
• Type Total Cost: followed by a space.
• In the Project fields box, click Cost from the drop-down list,
and then click Add.
• Project adds the cost code to the Left legend text.
• To conclude the page setup customization, you’ll specify what
columns from the table in the Gantt Chart view get printed.
55

56. www.mashahzad.com
56

57. Printing…
• To conclude the page setup customization, you’ll specify what
columns from the table in the Gantt Chart view get printed.
• Click the View tab.
• Click Print all sheet columns, and then click OK to close the
www.mashahzad.com
Page Setup dialog box.
• Project applies the changes you specified to the legend. To get
a closer look, zoom in on the legend.
• In the Print Preview screen, click the lower-left corner of the
page with the magnifying- glass pointer.
• Project zooms in to show the page at a legible resolution.
57

58. www.mashahzad.com
58

59. Printing…
• On the View tab, in the Split View group, click the Timeline check
box.
• Project displays the Timeline view.
www.mashahzad.com
• Click anywhere in the Timeline view.
• On the File tab, click Save & Send.
• This pane of the Backstage view includes options for several ways of
sharing or collaborating online.
• Under the File Types heading on the left side of the Save & Send
tab, click Create PDF/XPS Document. 59

60. www.mashahzad.com
60

61. www.mashahzad.com
61

62. Printing…
• Click Create PDF/XPS.
• The Browse dialog box appears. Use the file name and
location given in the dialog box.
www.mashahzad.com
• In the Save as type box, select either PDF Files or XPS Files
(depending on what format you want to see), and then click
OK.
• The Document Export Options dialog box appears. Use the
default settings.
•  Click OK. 62

63. MS Project 2007 --- 2010
• Word is now moving from Project 2007 to Project 2010.
• Microsoft Project 2010 is a powerful application that allows
you to plan, resource, manage and report on a project no
matter how large.
• In project 2010 you can create projects which can be managed
www.mashahzad.com
across continents via the Internet or intranet.
• User Friendly Applications.
• Major new features introduced in the 2010 edition.
• Different View
• Project 2010 offers a manual scheduling mode.
• Project Professional 2010 contains the Team Planner, a
resource scheduling view that lets users see at a glance what
their team members are working on and move tasks from one 63
person to another.

64. MS Project 2007 --- 2010…
• Synchronization with SharePoint lists
• Placeholder tasks let users create a plan by using task names
only. Users can enter any combination of start date, finish
date, and duration and fill in the rest later.
• Project 2010 now includes a timeline view.
www.mashahzad.com
• Enhanced copy and paste
• The compare projects feature in Project 2010 now includes
Gantt bars to help users see more clearly how one version of a
project differs from another version.
• Features similar to those in Microsoft Excel are available in
Project 2010.
• Creating subtasks and then rolling them up into summary
tasks is no longer restricted. 64

65. www.mashahzad.com
65