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Your Personal Assistant: Highlight Tasks Due this Week

Sai Prasad 10 Comments 0 like Articles

In this article, I will focus on a very simple tip – How to highlight the tasks due this week every time the project plan is opened.

Looks very simple and it is indeed, very simple!

  1. Click View tab. Click Macros dropdown and select Visual Basic
    highlight tasks_1
  2. In the editor, double click your current project on the left panel.
  3. Now change the object and procedure to “Project” and “Open”.
    highlight tasks_2
  4. This will include a private sub-routine which will be invoked when the file is opened
    highlight tasks_3
  5. Within this sub-routine, include the below script
    highlight tasks_4
  6. Close the editor, and close the project
  7. Open the project file, and Project will highlight the incomplete tasks that should be completed by this week.highlight tasks_5

 

 

Written by Sai Prasad
B Sai Prasad, PMP®, PMI-SP®, MVP Project, Senior Manager - Learning & Development, has been with service provider Cognizant Technology Solutions India Pvt. Ltd since 2001 where he was named winner of the company's Global Trainer of the Year award. He has spent 13,000-plus hours in mentoring, coaching, training 9000-plus practitioners on project management topics ranging from project management concepts, project risk management, project scheduling, Microsoft Office Project® to software estimation techniques. He is a Champion of Project Management from PMI India and also Associate Champion Advisory Committee, PMI India. He is awarded the Champion of the Quarter (Q4 – 2012) and Delivery Excellence Award (2011-2012, 2012-2013) from PMI India. He's also the editor of the project management book, Forecast Scheduling with Project 2010. He is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) in Project 2010.
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10 Comments

  1. Claudio Boselli – This filter is available in Project 2013 and not in earlier versions.

  2. Fred – Project 2013 supports predefined filtered values constrants and this is used in this filter definition. Embedded the screenshot of “Tasks Due This Week” filter definition

  3. Tasks Due This Week filter definition – http://i.imgur.com/fHzhZVL.png

  4. Tim – Good thought. Care should be taken by user to applying the “Tasks Due This Week” filter before closing the file otherwise the last applied filter will be used the next time the file is opened

  5. I applied the tip and it works. Thanks.

  6. Fred and Hirish – In Project 2010 you need create a few custom fields and filter to make this work. Here are the steps
    1. Find the week start of the current date: In Gantt Chart, insert the Date1. Right click the column and choose Custom Fields. See this screenshot to rename and apply the formula. http://i.imgur.com/kSUNHhq.png
    2. Find the week end of the current date: In Gantt Chart, insert the Date2. Right click the column and choose Custom Fields. See this screenshot to rename and apply the formula. http://i.imgur.com/X3Or1YY.png
    3. Create a filter “Tasks Due This Week”. In View ribbon, select Filter dropdown and click New Filter. In Filter Definition dialog box, enter the formula to check if the current finish date is between Date1 and Date2. See this screenshot for details http://i.imgur.com/oT93UUB.png

  7. Sai, I assume that for the “week end” calculated field, you can replace the “7” with any number and the macro would still function. (i.e. you can use this to make a 2-week look ahead, 30-day look ahead, etc)

  8. Sai, one additional question? How would the macro need to be changed to support using the Baseline Start/Finish vs the Early Start/Finish? Folks might want to highlight those actions that need greatest emphasis to attempt to get back on track if behind schedule.

  9. Devin – yes, you can replace 7 by 14 for two wee!s forecast or 30 for 30 days forecast.

  10. Devin – Project includes a filter “Slipping Tasks”. This checks if finish is past the baseline finish. So, you can change filter name in this macro to ” Slipping Tasks”

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