Why do printing and reporting features suck so bad?

[novasource]

Microsoft's project and printing capabilities represent the state of
the art of...1989!

Are there any alternatives that can make meaningful reports and
printouts that aren't as embarrassingly unsophisticated?

 

[Rob Schneider]

You can chose another tool if are so embarrased. Clearly you have the
ability do do your own queries and reports against the Project database.
See the file projdb.htm with your copy of Project and go for it.

 

[Redneck David]

I think the reports are OK.

Maybe it's the user. GIGO

David

 

[John M.]

Besides providing a forum for you to vent after exploring the "reports"
feature, do you have specific views of information that you are looking for?
There are a lot of standard views (gantt, network diagram, resource graphs)
and quite a bit of flexibility in customizing the online views - groups,
filters, graphical indicators. It also comes with tools to analyze data in
Excel. So, we return to the question: "what are you specifically looking to
accomplish?"

John M.

 

[aren]

I'm looking for reporting features that have a little polish.

For example, how do I print a report of the entire project that 1.
preserves the indentation of tasks so that parenting is clear, 2. does
not include a Gantt chart, 3. wraps lines, 4. does not require an
export to HTML, and 5. does not require me to manually adjust column
widths in my work window (i.e., I don't have to screw up my GUI to get
the print to look right). It appears the Top Level Tasks Overview
Report can accomplish a portion of this, but it doesn't wrap lines, it
prints fields I do not need (e.g., Cost), and it doesn't indent (so the
report lacks critical visual cues to indicate parenting).

Separately, how do I tell Project to print out just the task name and
Gantt chart and constrain the width of the print to be no wider than a
legal sized paper in landscape mode (14" minus margins).

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

All of this is possible, whatever you think.
This being said, I'm very willing to answer a question, but this requires an
excerpt from a book.
I hope you find a volunteer who will be ready to explain all this.

By all means: look up how to make aview of your own, a table of your own..

Hope this helps,

 

[aren]

So you are saying that it is extraordinarily complicated to accomplish
my simple report?

 

[Trevor Rabey]

No, it's quite easy.
We do it every day.
But it does take a little bit of study, some practice and a systematic
approach.

Start by understanding what a Table is, what it consists of, how to make one
from scratch etc.
Similarly for Groups and Filters.
Now use these ingredients to make Views and Reports from scratch.

 

[Jan De Messemaeker]

Hi,

Nobody is born with the gift to make (even uncomplicated) reports.
Everything in the world has to be learned.

You define about 10 conditions to which your very special report has to
obey.
That is no longer obvious nor intuitive.

 

[aren]

I don't have to script Word to do a robust mail merge. I don't have to
custom program Excel to do advanced scenario optimization. I don't have
to reprogram Visual Studio 2005 to add items to the toolbox.

Why do I have to hack Project to do reasonable, essential reports that
should be included with the product?

I'm not arguing that it's not possible. I'm arguing that Project should
have included better reporting features that have actually evolved from
the Commodore 64 era and don't require custom programming.

 

[davegb]

I'm looking for reporting features that have a little polish.

For example, how do I print a report of the entire project that 1.
preserves the indentation of tasks so that parenting is clear, 2. does
not include a Gantt chart, 3. wraps lines, 4. does not require an
export to HTML, and 5. does not require me to manually adjust column
widths in my work window (i.e., I don't have to screw up my GUI to get
the print to look right). It appears the Top Level Tasks Overview
Report can accomplish a portion of this, but it doesn't wrap lines, it
prints fields I do not need (e.g., Cost), and it doesn't indent (so the
report lacks critical visual cues to indicate parenting).

Separately, how do I tell Project to print out just the task name and
Gantt chart and constrain the width of the print to be no wider than a
legal sized paper in landscape mode (14" minus margins).

I'll be in a small minority here, but I'm used to that. I agree with
you about Project's reporting capabilities. They are minimal at best,
and certainly not "polished". The reports it creates are often
somewhere between butt ugly and unreadable. Or both. Many of the views
are difficult to print at all without considerable cutting and pasting.


That said, you have a number of much better alternatives. You can
transfer Project data to Excel very easily, and use Excel's
considerable graphing and reporting features. You can save your project
data in Access format and use Access' report capabilities, which are
better than Project. And if Access' or Excel's capabilities aren't
enough, you can use Crystal Reports on data from either one.

Finally, there used to be, and probably still are, report creating
third party add-ons to Project.

It's like a good news/bad news joke. Project's reporting capabilities
are limted and best, but you have lot's of altermantives.

Hope this helps in your world.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi,

I think the reporting facilities available in Project are very widespread
and customizable. The developers of Project decided at some stage to give a
sample of the reports available in the View/Reports dialogs ( and these in
turn have a lot of customization available). Just because the developers
didn't produce a report design that just you would like is hardly a failure
of the package. If you don't want to investigate and learn the capabilities
of Project, then you'er on you own That said, I think there is still a
lot that could be done by the developers to improve output, but they don't
seem to listen to us

Mike Glen
Project MVP