New to Project 2003- Need to generate a status report

[galo]

I'm new to Project 2003 (3 days). I need to generate a weekly status report
for my projects and I am clueless. I've done the online training, but I'm
still at odds with the software. I'm working from projects that were handed
down to me, so I didn't enter the initial info. I basically need to start
generating status reports for a specific time period ( all tasks that fall
within the time period). I need real guidance, on what icons to click and
when.. thank you

 

[John]

I'm new to Project 2003 (3 days). I need to generate a weekly status report
for my projects and I am clueless. I've done the online training, but I'm
still at odds with the software. I'm working from projects that were handed
down to me, so I didn't enter the initial info. I basically need to start
generating status reports for a specific time period ( all tasks that fall
within the time period). I need real guidance, on what icons to click and
when.. thank you

galo,
Wow, 3 days in the fire! I don't know what "online training" you are
referring to but I suggest you also go to our MVP website at:
http://www.mvps.org/project/links.htm
and take a look at fellow MVP, Mike Glen's series on Project lessons and
techniques. Either way, the best training for Project, (in my opinion),
is a good dose of formal training (classroom) and tons and tons of hands
on work over a period of time.

With regard to your reports. There are many different kinds of reports
that can be obtained from Project. For example, there are reports on
completed tasks, uncompleted tasks, resource usage, cost, etc. For a
quick sampling of some of the built-in reports, go to View/Reports. Each
of the 5 major groups (plus a custom) has multiple individual reports
associated with it and each of those can be customized, to a degree. For
example, the 6 reports under the Current Activities group can each be
filtered using the Date Range filter. One of those reports may or may
not be what you need.

The built-in reports do have limitations. For example, they are intended
for hardcopy only (they cannot be exported for inclusion in another
application for presentation purposes). Formatting for the built-in
reports is limited and sometimes a better approach is to customize a
Project view and use that as the basis for a report. There are also
advanced features of Project (i.e. VBA) that facilitate generating
virtually any type of customized report in any format.

Hopefully this helps.
John
Project MVP

 

[galo]

Thank you John,

I bought a book last night and it has helped out. Thank you so much for the
link, I'll start using it today. I pinpointed the problem. I don't have a
baseline saved for the project. When I try to save the baseline, it saves it
with the current date. I need to save a baseline with a previous date. I went
under project information, statistics and under baseline there is N/A, so I'm
trying to figure that one out. Thank you .

 

[John]

Thank you John,

I bought a book last night and it has helped out. Thank you so much for the
link, I'll start using it today. I pinpointed the problem. I don't have a
baseline saved for the project. When I try to save the baseline, it saves it
with the current date. I need to save a baseline with a previous date. I went
under project information, statistics and under baseline there is N/A, so I'm
trying to figure that one out. Thank you .

galo,
You're welcome and good luck with your Project learning experience.

When a baseline is saved in Project, it isn't so much saved as of some
date, but rather saved with the exiting data. Saving a baseline simply
copies several of Project's dynamic fields (e.g. Start, Finish, Cost,
etc.) into a set of static fields (e.g. Baseline Start, Baseline Finish,
etc.). There are even provisions for saving multiple baselines. This is
useful in some circumstances but I tend to think some users use it as a
crutch, but that's just my humble opinion.

It will be rather difficult to save a baseline of previous data unless
you have a copy of the file with the previous data. For example, if the
user neglects to save a baseline and then proceeds to update the file
(e.g. the project starts and progress is entered), the project data
fields will most likely change. The only way to capture the original
baseline is to either save it on a copy of the original plan and start
again, or back out all the changes (a formidable task at best).

Not what you wanted to hear, but it is part of your learning experience.

John
Project MVP

 

[tonyzink]

Hi galo --

You say that you need some guidance for generating reports... can you
describe the type(s) of reports that you're being asked to generate?

If you can be more specific, then perhaps we can describe how you can
deliver the required reports.

Also... what version of MSProject are you using? Are you using it with
Project Server?

Good luck!

Tony Zink
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