www.it-ebooks.

info
www.it-ebooks.info
 Microsoft
Project 2013
The book that should have been in the box®

Bonnie Biafore

Beijing | Cambridge | Farnham | Köln | Sebastopol | Tokyo

www.it-ebooks.info
Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual
by Bonnie Biafore

Copyright © 2013 Bonnie Biafore. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc.,

1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use.
Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com). For
more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938
or [email protected].

April 2013: First Edition.

Revision History for the First Edition:

2013-04-09 First release
See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449357962 for release details.

The Missing Manual is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Missing
Manual logo, and “The book that should have been in the box” are trademarks of
O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to
distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations
appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media is aware of a trademark claim, the
designations are capitalized.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher
assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the
use of the information contained in it.

ISBN-13: 978-1-449-35796-2

[LSI]

www.it-ebooks.info
 Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Part One: Project Management: The Missing

Manual
Chapter 1: Projects: In the Beginning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
What’s So Special About Projects?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
What Is Project Management?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Why Manage Projects?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Picking the Right Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Gaining Support for a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Publicizing a Project and Its Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Chapter 2: Planning a Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Project Planning in a Nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Defining the Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Documenting How You’ll Run the Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Laying Out Project Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Part Two: Project Planning: More Than

Creating a Schedule
Chapter 3: Getting to Know Microsoft Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Launching Project 2013. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Getting Around Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Scheduling Manually or Automatically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 4: Creating a Simple Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Creating a Task List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Organizing Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Putting Tasks in the Right Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Switching Tasks to Auto Scheduled Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Assigning People and Other Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Saving Your Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

iii

www.it-ebooks.info
 Chapter 5: Setting Up a Project File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Creating a New Project File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Setting the Project Start Date. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Saving a New Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Opening a Project File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Setting Standard Workdays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Defining Work Times with Calendars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 6: Identifying the Work to Be Done.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Breaking Down Work into Manageable Chunks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Adding Tasks to Your Project File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Organizing Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Documenting Task Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Setting Up a Custom WBS Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Chapter 7: Building a Schedule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Estimating Task Work and Duration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Linking Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Scheduling Tasks to Accommodate Specific Dates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Chapter 8: Building a Team for Your Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Identifying Project Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Understanding Project’s Resource Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Adding Resources to Your Project File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Removing Resources from Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Defining When Work Resources Are Available. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Defining Costs for Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Using Generic or Tentative Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Adding More Resource Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Chapter 9: Assigning Resources to Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Assigning Work Resources to Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Assigning Material Resources to Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Assigning Cost Resources to Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Reviewing Resource Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Understanding Duration, Work, and Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Modifying Resource Assignments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Chapter 10: Setting Up a Project Budget. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Putting a Price Tag on Your Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Reviewing Cost Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Comparing Costs to Your Budget. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Setting the Project’s Fiscal Year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

iv Contents

www.it-ebooks.info
 Chapter 11: Reviewing and Fine-Tuning Your Plan.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Reviewing the Schedule and Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Project Tools for Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Making Sure Tasks Are Set Up Correctly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Building Reality into Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Balancing Workloads. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Shortening the Schedule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Reducing Project Costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Playing What-If Games. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Chapter 12: Saving the Project Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Obtaining Approval for the Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Storing Project Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Preserving the Original Plan in Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Part Three: Projects in Action

Chapter 13: Tracking Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Methods for Tracking Status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Preparing to Update Your Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Obtaining Status Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Updating Schedule Status in Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Updating Project Costs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

Chapter 14: Evaluating and Correcting Project Performance. . . . . . . . . . 429

Scheduled, Baseline, and Actual Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Is the Project on Time? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Is the Project Within Budget? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Earned Value Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Getting Back on Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Chapter 15: Managing Change.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Setting Up a Change-Management System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Managing Changes in Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Chapter 16: Reporting on Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

An Overview of Project’s Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Working with Graphical Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Working with Visual Reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
Printing Views to Report Project Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Contents v

www.it-ebooks.info
 Chapter 17: Closing a Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Obtaining Project Acceptance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Tying Up Loose Ends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Producing Project Closeout Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
What to Do with Project Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

Part Four: Project Power Tools

Chapter 18: Working on More Than One Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515
Managing Multiple Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Sharing Resources Among Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Chapter 19: Exchanging Data Between Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Copying Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
Importing and Exporting Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Integrating Project and Outlook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559

Chapter 20: Linking and Embedding.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Understanding Linking and Embedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Linking and Embedding Project Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
Linking and Embedding Data into Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
Working with Linked and Embedded Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Hyperlinking to Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Part Five: Customizing Project

Chapter 21: Viewing What You Want. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
Creating Your Own Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592
Changing Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Formatting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Filtering Through Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642
Grouping Project Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 656
Defining Your Own Fields. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

Chapter 22: Customizing the Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar. . . . . . . 683
Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684
Customizing the Ribbon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Sharing a Custom Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694

vi Contents

www.it-ebooks.info
 Chapter 23: Reusing Project Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Understanding the Types of Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
Storing Project Settings and Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
Sharing Custom Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701
Building Templates for Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707

Chapter 24: Saving Time with Macros.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

What You Can Do with Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715
Recording Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Running Macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Viewing and Editing Macro Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722
Learning More About Programming Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724

Part Six: Appendixes

Appendix A: Installing Project.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Installing Project on Your Computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728
Activating Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734
Maintaining and Repairing Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Appendix B: Getting Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737

In Search of Project Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .739
Microsoft Office Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742
Interactive and In-Depth Assistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Appendix C: Keyboard Shortcuts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

How to Use Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745
Project Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Note You can download one additional chapter—Chapter 25: Collaborating on Projects with SharePoint—from this book’s
Missing CD page at www.missingmanuals.com/cds. See page xxii for more about the Missing CD page.

Contents vii

www.it-ebooks.info
www.it-ebooks.info