Proj2003: How to maintain Plan/Act Start & Plan/Act Finish dates

D

David B

Would like straight forward way to view sheet containing these columns:
Plan Duration, Start, Finish dates
Actual Duration, Start, Finish dates.
Is it required to use baseline although I don't really want one?
Why is Proj so difficult to use?
 
R

Rod Gill

Hi,

Project has hundreds of columns of possible data. To make things simpler,
Project only shows around 7 or so columns at once. To show any combination
of columns you want:
Click View, Table:
Click New
Name your table and check the box that says Show in menu
Insert whatever columns you want and data alignment at the same time
OK

Now at any time you can swap from the standard Entry Table to your table via
the View, Table menu. Edit the data in any Table and the same columns in
other tables are updated at the same time. You never have to double-enter
data in Project.

Project is difficult to use if you don't understand how it works. Otherwise
it is as easy to use as Excel. However, in Excel you only need to know 5% of
the program to create a simple budget. In Word 5% creates a good letter. In
Project, you need to know 40% to be able to follow the life cycle of a
project and accurately create critical paths, track and report etc. It
definitely saves a lot of time and money getting training!

Baselines are important, firstly from a project management process point of
view, but secondly because when a task is 100% complete, start and actual
start are the same, finish and actual finish are the same. It is the
baseline dates that show when the Task was originally scheduled to happen.
--

Rod Gill
Project MVP
Visit www.msproject-systems.com for Project Companion Tools and more

NEW!! Project VBA Book now in stock: visit www.projectvbabook.com
 
D

davegb

Rod said:
Hi,

Project has hundreds of columns of possible data. To make things simpler,
Project only shows around 7 or so columns at once. To show any combination
of columns you want:
Click View, Table:
Click New
Name your table and check the box that says Show in menu
Insert whatever columns you want and data alignment at the same time
OK

Now at any time you can swap from the standard Entry Table to your table via
the View, Table menu. Edit the data in any Table and the same columns in
other tables are updated at the same time. You never have to double-enter
data in Project.

Project is difficult to use if you don't understand how it works. Otherwise
it is as easy to use as Excel. However, in Excel you only need to know 5% of
the program to create a simple budget. In Word 5% creates a good letter. In
Project, you need to know 40% to be able to follow the life cycle of a
project and accurately create critical paths, track and report etc. It
definitely saves a lot of time and money getting training!

Baselines are important, firstly from a project management process point of
view, but secondly because when a task is 100% complete, start and actual
start are the same, finish and actual finish are the same. It is the
baseline dates that show when the Task was originally scheduled to happen.
--

Rod Gill
Project MVP
Visit www.msproject-systems.com for Project Companion Tools and more

NEW!! Project VBA Book now in stock: visit www.projectvbabook.com

I agree with everything Rod said. Adding to that, there are 3 main
reasons why Project is so much more difficult to learn that Excel or
Word.

1. Scheduling is a complex task, and not very intuitive, particularly
when you are doing Critical Path Scheduling. If you don't understand
CPM, and you're creating a linked schedule, you've got problems.

2. Project is vertical, unlike the XL and Word, which are horizontal
applications. That is, I can use Scenario Manager in XL without knowing
a thing about arrays or the database functions. In Word, I can do an
index without knowing a thing about tables. In project, you have to
understand tasks and linking before you can do much with tracking, and
you have to know all that before you can do much with Resources. Most
major features build on more basic features.

3. Without some knowledge of Project Management, Project is very
limited. Like a wanting to do brain surgery without knowing anything
about human physiology!

Hope this helps in your world.
3.
 

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