Author: Ira Brown
Ira Brown is a leader in the field of project management and a recognized Microsoft Project expert, Project Widgets is well-known for offering add-on products for Microsoft Project and Project Online, as well as for creating custom solutions that meet their client's unique business requirements. This company continues to extend the scope and breadth of their offerings, thereby increasing the value they provide to customers, by creating Microsoft Project solutions that are tailored to an organization's unique needs. They even have several free, downloadable widgets available on their website that you can begin using right away.
Working with Microsoft Project Master Schedules and Subprojects
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Microsoft Project provides the ability to integrate individual projects into a single master schedule. A master project, which is often used to represent a program, provides numerous capabilities to users: View the master project and each of the subprojects it contains in a single schedule Perform consolidated project reporting across the master project Create interproject dependencies among the tasks in the master project In this webinar, Ira Brown will demonstrate the fundamentals of creating and using master schedules in Microsoft Project. You will learn how to create interproject dependencies and how to configure your master project properly so that you can specify how linked tasks are updated across subprojects. And finally, you will learn how to use graphical indicators to highlight the status of critical activities across the program. Presenter Info: Ira Brown, the founder and president of Project Widgets, is a leader in the field of project management, and is a recognized Microsoft Project expert. Project Widgets is well-known for offering add-on products for Microsoft Project and Project Online, as well as for creating custom solutions that meet their clients’ unique business requirements. This company continues to extend the scope and breadth of their offerings, thereby increasing the value they provide to customers by creating Microsoft Project solutions that are tailored to an organization’s unique needs. They even have several free, downloadable widgets available on their website that you can begin using right away Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Mastering Project Integration: Creating Master Projects in Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project provides the ability to integrate individual projects into a single master project. A master project, which is often used to represent a program, provides numerous capabilities to users, including the following: This article will provide a high-level overview of how to create a master project. To create a master project, you can insert one or more projects into blank project file. For example, a software development master project might have subprojects for the development, testing, and training portions of this effort. The following instructions relate to this method. Before beginning, you will need to identify separate Microsoft Project files for each project that is to become a subproject. For the master project, we will create new, blank project. 4. In the Insert Project dialog that displays, select the subproject to be inserted and click Insert. Note that if you want to insert a subproject in a read-only format, you must first click the arrow on the Insert button, and then click Insert Read-Only. Inserting a project as read-only creates a link between two projects, but prevents users from updating a subproject from within the master project. 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to insert additional sub-projects into your master project. Interested in learning more? I dive deeper into this topic in my on-demand webinar, Working with Microsoft Project Master Schedules and Subprojects. I’ll show you how to create interproject dependencies and how to configure your master project properly so that you can specify how linked tasks are updated across subprojects in this PMI® PDU eligible session.
Using Custom Fields and Graphical Indicators to Analyze the Quality of Your Schedule
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: This webinar will teach you how to create custom calculated fields and graphical indicators in Microsoft Project that will help you identify and resolve quality issues with your schedule. You will learn how to create customizable indicators that identify problems with your schedule such as tasks that have not been baselined, summary tasks that have dependencies, summary tasks that have resources assigned, and tasks that are in need of being updated. These techniques can be applied to standalone Microsoft Project, Project Online and Project Server. Presenter Info: Ira Brown, the founder and president of Project Widgets, is a leader in the field of project management, and is a recognized Microsoft Project expert. Project Widgets is well-known for offering add-on products for Microsoft Project and Project Online, as well as for creating custom solutions that meet their clients’ unique business requirements. This company continues to extend the scope and breadth of their offerings, thereby increasing the value they provide to customers by creating Microsoft Project solutions that are tailored to an organization’s unique needs. They even have several free, downloadable widgets available on their website that you can begin using right away Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Enhancing Project Schedule Quality with Custom Graphical Indicators in Microsoft Project
Project managers are responsible for building and updating quality project schedules. When building these schedules, it’s important to ensure they are free of potential scheduling issues. Issues can be such as the following: This article will introduce you to the creation of customizable graphical indicators that quickly and easily identify problems such as those noted above within your schedule. These techniques can be applied to standalone Microsoft Project, Project Online, and Project Server. Using a Graphical Indicator to Identify Tasks that Have Not Been Baselined The following steps show you how to create a custom Flag field, which will allow you to identify all tasks in your project that have not yet been baselined. 1. Open a project in Microsoft Project, right-click in the heading of any column, and from the dropdown list, click Custom Fields. 2. In the Custom Fields dialog, a. Select the Task button, and from the adjacent dropdown list, select Flag. b. Use the Rename… button to name your Flag field, “Tasks Not Yet Baselined.” c. In the Custom attributes section, click Formula… d. Complete the Formula dialog as follows, and click OK. e. In the Custom Fields dialog, Click Graphical Indicators… f. Complete the Graphical Indicators dialog as follows: g. Next, select the Summary rows option, and select/set the same options as in the previous step. h. Click OK in the Custom Fields dialog. 3. Add a new column in your project called “Tasks Not Yet Baselined.” All tasks that meet the criteria you’ve established, that is [Baseline Start] = ProjDateValue(“NA”), will have a red flag in the Tasks Not Yet Baselined column: Interested in Learning More? I dive deeper into this topic in my PMI® PDU eligible on-demand webinar, Using Custom Fields and Graphical Indicators to Analyze the Quality of Your Schedule. We cover how to effectively use custom fields and graphical indicators to ensure the quality of your project schedule.
Where There’s a Widget, There’s a Way: Unleashing the Power of Microsoft Project! – By Project Widgets
Project Widgets is pleased to showcase several “widgets” that extend the power of Microsoft Project. These products address real world challenges faced by many industries by providing the following capabilities:
Where There’s a Widget, There’s a Way: Unleashing the Power of Microsoft Project
Project Widgets has created powerful, easy to use “widgets” that extend the capabilities of Microsoft Project and make the overall project and portfolio management process more intuitive and streamlined. Most importantly, these solutions have been designed to build integrity and governance into your project plans, thereby providing a solid foundation for significant decision-making that these uncertain times demand. This article will provide a brief overview of some of the widgets currently available. These Project Widgets products, all of which work with Project Online and Project Server, will allow you to take project management with Microsoft Project to the next level! Scenario Builder Widget As we prepare for an ever-changing future, the need for reliable “what-if” scenarios has never been more critical. Project Widgets has focused on this problem for a long time, and we have created a tool that leverages Microsoft Project to create trustworthy scenario plans that support key business decisions. The Scenario Builder Widget allows leaders to make confident portfolio decisions by better understanding the downstream impact of the available options. The Scenario Builder Widget allows you to create unlimited scenario versions of a project. As the Scenario Builder Widget has been seamlessly integrated with OnePager Pro by Chronicle Graphics, you can create visually stunning reports that compare different scenarios to each other, as well as to the active project on which they are based. Project Initiation Widget It is often challenging to ensure that project managers create schedules that follow organizational standards and best practices. To solve this problem, Project Widgets’ Project Initiation Widget automates the new project creation process, ensuring uniformity across your enterprise by leveraging existing project templates and enforcing a standard naming convention. The Project Initiation Widget’s user interface is template-driven and dynamic. Types and quantities of tasks included in a new project are determined by the user’s response to prompts. You can even create multiple projects for an entire program at the same time! The Project Initiation Widget is integrated with MasterLink from Matan and will automatically create links between projects upon their creation based upon your template configuration. This eliminates the need to manually create inter-project dependencies between projects! Project Details Portal The Project Details Portal provides an intuitive, modern user interface that enables you to capture critical project information that can then be used for reporting purposes throughout the life of a project. This includes: Project Metadata Objectives and Assumptions Risks, Issues, and Actions Project Status Key Decisions Stakeholders The Project Details Portal stores this information in a central repository that is integrated with Project Online or Project Server. SnapIt! SnapIt! allows you to create “snapshots” of important project information across your portfolio. This information includes schedule-related information such as key task and milestone dates, as well as information captured in our Project Details Portal such as metadata, key assumptions, and risks. Similar in concept to saving a project baseline, SnapIt! provides the ability to capture unlimited snapshots as a centralized function of your PMO. SnapIt! will automatically highlight variances of key tasks and milestones from one reporting period to another so that nothing slips through the cracks! Interested in Learning More? I dive deeper into these widgets and their capabilities in my on-demand MPUG session, Where There’s a Widget, There’s a Way: Unleashing the Power of Microsoft Project. It’s part of MPUG’s Vendor Showcase 2020. The above article is a sponsored contribution. We thank Project Widgets for being a community sponsor of MPUG.
Beyond Macros Revisited: Automating Microsoft Project for Non-Techies Part 2
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Due to the positive response to our previous session regarding the use of macros in Microsoft Project, Ira Brown, a recognized Microsoft Project expert, will build on his last demonstration to show you even more exciting ways that macros can be used to automate this application. This session, which is geared toward the Microsoft Project business user rather than a technical programmer, will provide practical, real-world illustrations for solving the common challenges a user faces when working with Microsoft Project. Topics include: • Recording and editing basic macros • Assigning a macro to a button in the ribbon • Creating automated printing routines • Rounding a task’s Duration to the nearest complete day • Using automation to import resource rates from a Microsoft Excel file • Distributing your macros and custom ribbon to others Receive a copy of the presentation materials and all of the sample macros created during this webinar by contacting the presenter. Watch Part 1 on-demand Presenter Info: Ira Brown, the founder and president of Project Widgets, is a leader in the field of project management, and is a recognized Microsoft Project expert. Project Widgets is well-known for offering add-on products for Microsoft Project and Project Online, as well as for creating custom solutions that meet their clients’ unique business requirements. This company continues to extend the scope and breadth of their offerings, thereby increasing the value they provide to customers by creating Microsoft Project solutions that are tailored to an organization’s unique needs. They even have several free, downloadable widgets available on their website that you can begin using right away. Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Beyond Macros Revisited: Automating Microsoft Project for Non-Techies
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Ira Brown, a recognized Microsoft Project expert, will deliver this fun and informative presentation that will provide you with an understanding of the automation capabilities of Microsoft Project. The session, which is geared toward the Microsoft Project business user rather than a technical programmer, will provide practical, real-world illustrations for solving the common challenges a user faces when working with Microsoft Project. Topics include: • Recording and editing basic macros • Assigning a macro to a button in the ribbon • Creating a “zoom in/zoom out” macro to adjust text size in your project • Creating automation to count the number of displayed tasks after a filter has been applied • Creating automation to increase or decrease the work for a task by a specific percentage • Creating a project status report in Microsoft Word • Distributing your macros and custom ribbon to others Receive a copy of the presentation materials and all of the sample macros created during this webinar by contacting the presenter. Watch Part 2 On-Demand Presenter Info: Ira Brown, the founder and president of Project Widgets, is a leader in the field of project management, and is a recognized Microsoft Project expert. Project Widgets is well-known for offering add-on products for Microsoft Project and Project Online, as well as for creating custom solutions that meet their clients’ unique business requirements. This company continues to extend the scope and breadth of their offerings, thereby increasing the value they provide to customers by creating Microsoft Project solutions that are tailored to an organization’s unique needs. They even have several free, downloadable widgets available on their website that you can begin using right away. Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]