MPUG Certificate Program: Microsoft Project 2010 Features Expert

On July 7th I will present a webinar entitled "Creating and managing views, tables, sorting, and grouping" for the Microsoft Project User's Group. It should be a lot of fun and you will learn how to create your own analytical Views using Project 2010. These fill up very quickly, so don't debate - go for it!

Register here.

Creating a Phased Baseline in MS Project 2007

The Problem: Project work often starts before all of the tasks are known. If a project baseline is not set before incurring the actual work on tasks, then the baselines value is reduced as there will never be variance in start dates for those tasks.

The Solution: Baseline the project tasks in phases. First, highlight the tasks to be baselined, then from the Tools menu choose Tracking, Set Baseline…

Ensure that the selections are to “Set baseline”, For “Selected tasks” and finally ensure that all options under “Roll up baselines:” are checked. These last settings enable Project to capture the phased baseline. Finally, click on “OK” to set the phased baseline. (Click on the figure below to enlarge and examine details.)

When the tasks and schedule for the next phase is known, then the tasks in that phase are added to the existing baseline using the method just described.

The figure below depicts a project with a phased baseline and variance. The Star Variance and Finish Variance fields were inserted to illustrate the capture of variance data in phases. (Click on the figure below to enlarge and examine details.)

Thanks to all who asked for this information after my June webinar! Please check back for more answers to questions posed during and after Versatile’s “Essentials of Project”.

Don’t Forget Task Types!

Since presenting Versatile’s “Essentials of Microsoft Project 2007” webinar series in May and June, I have received many emails on Task Types and how to get to the Task Type table found in Project’s Help engine. I received so many that I though it would be worth this short blog revisiting the table. Regardless of the version of MS Project used, the software will react to data entry on each task based on the rules shown in this table. Please enjoy this screenshot direct taken from MS Project! (Click on it to enlarge.)

I will be answering the most frequent questions received in the “Essentials” Webinars over the next few weeks, so stay tuned and come back