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Project 2003 Trial Issues Microsoft Project

Project 2003 Trial Issues Microsoft Project

Project 2003 Trial Issues

Posted: 10 Dec 2005 10:23 PM PST

Because you already turned it off when using the trial version?

Other than being curious is there a reason to know this?


KSHenderson31 wrote: 

Master project calendar

Posted: 10 Dec 2005 08:13 PM PST

Jan, So why if my Master plan has a 7 hr day (both Tools/option/Calendar
and Proj Calendar) and the inserted Project has a 8 hour day. And
subproject has a 5 day task it appears as 5.71 days in the Master?

I can see 40/7 = 5.71 which the master project is doing??

Cheers - Phil

Jan De Messemaeker wrote: 

project status date and status lines

Posted: 10 Dec 2005 04:42 PM PST

bilgepump,
The Status Date line sticks to the closest greater timescale graduation. So,
if your timescale is in days, it'll stick on midnight. But if you up
the scale (from 15mn to 15mn for example) you'll have what you want.

Gérard Ducouret

"bilgepump" <microsoft.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:com... 
spot 
than 

New to Project

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 07:56 PM PST

In article <com>,
"Ryan" <microsoft.com> wrote:
 
Ryan,
I personally think you would be better off keeping the discussion in the
public newsgroup. If you and I correspond directly, you will get my
opinion only and I'll tell you that I am a minimalist when it comes to
recommending software applications (heck, I think Project 4.x has all
the functionality that 90% of the Project user community needs).

I don't use Server but I know it has a lot of whistles and bells for
enterprise project management. But from what I understand, (and that may
not be much), it is also not trivial to set up and implement properly.

Whether your company should get the full n Project Server installed
or whether a more modest version would be fully adequate has a lot to do
with the details of what you want to do with project management and how
large your deployment base will be. For example, the "needs" you mention
(setup projects, e-mail alerts and have the ability for users to update)
are rather modest, and can be implemented with a basic installation of
Project 2000 or 2003 Standard. However, if the specifics behind your
modest description really get into full enterprise wide interaction of
Project users, then maybe the Server version would be better in the long
run.

Here's what I suggest. We have a separate newsgroup for Server
(microsoft.public.project.server). If there is more detail to your needs
than you expressed in your original post, why not post a more complete
"specification" back to this newsgroup and to the server newsgroup
(normally we don't like to see duplicate posts, but in this case it may
be appropriate). I won't guarantee you will get more or better responses
but at least it will give the newsgroup an opportunity to better help
you with your decision.

John
Project MVP
 

ProjectServer PROD and SANDBOX DBs

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 02:43 PM PST

Teh editsite tool from Microsoft will let you setup just such a configuation.
It is call hosted or muliple instances of Project Server. The follow link
will get you more information about editsite.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA011653601033.aspx

--
Ray McCoppin

Vist http://www.randsmanagement.com
SQL Reporting Services Gantt Charts


"ABG" wrote:
 

Formatting sub group bar styles

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 12:31 PM PST

Hi wobble-head,

Try selecting the tasks you want to change and thenFormat/Bar.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on :)

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

wobble-head wrote: 

Enterprise Options - For Resources Greyed Out - Disabled

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 12:00 PM PST

pectrap --

In the future, please post your Project Server questions to the
microsoft.public.project.server newsgroup, as this newsgroup is devoted to
the Microsoft Project desktop application only. To answer your question,
you must create a Project Server login account in Microsoft Project
Professional, and use this account to log into Project Server. Refer to the
following FAQ's for the directions:

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared%20Doents/CreateAdministratorLoginAccount.htm

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared%20Doents/CreatePMLoginAccount.htm

Hope this helps.

--
Dale A. Howard [MVP]
Enterprise Project Trainer/Consultant
http://www.msprojectexperts.com
http://www.projectserverexperts.com
"We wrote the book on Project Server"


"pectrap" <microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Handling Existing Project with Deadlines and NO Start Date?

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 11:25 AM PST

In article <googlegroups.com>,
"com" <com> wrote:
 

Chris,
I tend to agree with Rod and I don't understand why it would take 2
hours to update what should be a fairly simple spreadsheet. Maybe the
spreadsheet is overly complex for what you need.

Nonetheless, if you want to give Project a try, here are some thoughts.
Note, these aren't revelations, they are just what poured out of my head
as I wrote (whoa, that might be dangerous :-)
1. You mention that the contractors have given you a flat rate price.
The word "rate" implies a time-based cost, yet in your other post I got
the impression you received a fixed price bid. Which is it?
2. It is a little difficult to lay out a schedule plan if the
contractors are vague with their timeline. For example, they have given
you a price (I'll assume the answer to item 1 above is "fixed price")
and the total hours (per book I assume). You also know the sequence of
tasks involved but the contractors apparently did not break out the
total hours into performance pieces. That may or may not be a problem.
If the bid is fixed price, as I said before, the number of hours is
more-or-less irrelevant.
3. You have a deadline for each book. That and the start date define the
duration. If you want to track progress, I suggest you ask the
contractors for their duration estimates for each part of the writing
process. They should have a better idea than anybody. If you can't get
it out of them, (often with this type of thing the performer is
unwilling to commit to timeline), you will need to make your best
guestimate. Remember you can always update the duration data as the plan
progresses - that's a normal part of project management.
4. If you like, after you set up the schedule, you can set a baseline.
That will give you a comparison point between your original plan and the
current plan. You can read more about baselines in the help file.
5. You also mentioned that the contractors may work off-hours. In that
case you may want to set up the schedule to include weekends as working
time but I suggest you don't for the following reason. Unless you are
going to update progress on an off-day the fact that contractor A did
his editing on Friday night or Sunday afternoon is of little importance
when you come in to work on Monday morning and update the plan.
6. With a fixed price project you can show the bid in the Fixed Cost
field as I suggested previously, but it would be for reference only -
not relevant to tracking progress. The same is true with work hours
although it might be nice to track those as calibration for future jobs.
7. I would set up the tasks as Fixed Duration based on estimates per
performance task (i.e. write, edit, etc.). Link the tasks in logical
sequence. Project will use the durations and links to establish the
Start and Finish dates for each performance task. Do NOT enter Start and
Finish dates directly - that's Project's job and if you do it manually,
constraints will be set that prevent the plan from being dynamic.
8. If you know which contractor is going to work on which book/task,
assign them as a resource. However, unless you want to track their hours
(for reference only), do NOT enter a value in the Work field for each
task. As I said, its irrelevant based on the type of bid.
9. Track progress by entering values in the % Complete field. Just
remember though that if the duration is changed as better information is
obtained, you will have to adjust the duration. For example, if a
particular task (e.g. edit) was estimated at 2 days and it is 50%
complete, a slip of 1 day (i.e. duration now 3 days) will cause Project
to change the % complete to 33%. You will need to manually put it back
to 50% because you can't change history (unless of course you have one
of those Stargate thingies). Now, if the original declaration of being
50% complete was just flat wrong, then sure, fix the error (I assume you
are not under any formal certified earned value contractual requirement).

Whww! I filled my buffer. Hopefully this gives you some ideas. If you
have more specific questions, post again.

John
Project MVP

% complete should be on a given day in the Future

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 11:23 AM PST

One thing to remember is that % Complete refers to duration. Projecting an
expected percent complete at some point in the future doesn't provide alol
that much in terms of useful managment information. Projecting % Work
Complete is a better indicator of whether you're one time or not and that's
where EV comes in. The SPI is telling you how your progress is going
according to plan - an SPI of .9 as of today means you're getting work done
at 90% of the rate you thought you were going to. Form that you can compute
the Estimates At Completion and come up with a projected completion date and
projected budget. Exporting the EV data to Excel, plotting S-curves there,
and using regression ysis on the performance curves to extrapolate to
completion is a good tool to look into.
--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs

"colin" <microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Critical Path breaks when linking two tasks with different calendars

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 08:43 AM PST

Steve and Gerard,

Thanks for the help. I understand that the Paint Walls task now has
slack and, therefore, is no longer on the critical path. I intented my
comment about the critical path "breaking" to mean that the CP that
Project calculates is no longer valid--it starts after the Paint Trim
task--because it does not reflect the path with the longest project
duration. It appears as a segment of a longer path.

Perhaps my comments about adding the dummy task was misleading. I
don't want to force a specific critical path by including the dummy
task. I used it only to troubleshoot the problem.

The problem I am asking for help is...If all paths in my project
originate and terminate with Start and Finish tasks, respectively, I
should have a critical path beginning at Start and ending at Finish,
which indicates the path of longest duration. However, I have a
three-task path, hanging like an orphan on the end of an existing path.
Why does this happen? My initial post asked if this was the result of
using the different calendars.

One more thing: I certainly did not suggest that this was a bug in
Project. I simply wanted to know how to accomplish something according
to the way Project is designed.

Regards,
Keith O'Connor

Pct Complete

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 08:15 AM PST

Gerard problem solved thanks for your help

"Gérard Ducouret" wrote:
 

Suppressing the printing of task numbers...

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 07:34 AM PST

Thank you very much Gerard that did the trick!

"Gérard Ducouret" wrote:
 

Default Tasks Constraint

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 07:04 AM PST

In article <com>,
Big_Bad_Yellow_Eskimo <microsoft.com>
wrote:
 

Big_Bad,
It's a good sign when you can laugh at yourself. That puts you in the
same group as the rest of us.

You're welcome.
John 

Setting up a dynamic date filter

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 06:46 AM PST

In article <com>,
"Zel Hilliar" <microsoft.com> wrote:
 
Zel,
Ok, I think I understand now. You would like the filter to be
automatically applied on file open, correct? There are various ways to
do that, some easy and some more advanced.

Let's start with the easy. This method won't apply the filter
automatically but it will provide a quick convenient way to apply the
filter once the file is open. You could of course just set up the filter
as I suggested and go to Project/Filtered For and apply your filter
immediately after opening the file. You could also add the filter
selection box to a toolbar (I have mine on a customized "Formatting"
toolbar along with the view selection box and the view table selection
box). You could also set up an autofilter and set a custom filter for
the Finish field. It could test for a formula based date in a spare date
field. For example the Date1 field could be customized with the formula:
ProjDateSub(now(),"2d")

A little more advanced approach will give you exactly (what I assume)
you want but it will require the use of VBA. If you want to try it, do
the following:
1. Open the file you want to have filtered
2. Go to Tools/Macros/Visual Basic Editor
3. Hit the Project Explorer icon
4. In the Explorer pane on the left look for "VBAProject (your file name)
5. Open the folder (if necessary) until you see "ThisProject (your file
name). Double click on that icon - it will open the code pane on the
right.
6. Paste the following code in the code pane:
Private Sub Project_Open(ByVal pj As MSProject.Project)
Dim TwoDaysAgo As Date
TwoDaysAgo = DateSubtract(Now, "2d")
FilterEdit Name:="ShortList", taskfilter:=True, Create:=True, _
OverwriteExisting:=True, FieldName:="finish", _
test:="is less than or equal to", Value:=TwoDaysAgo, _
ShowInMenu:=False, showsummarytasks:=False
FilterApply Name:="ShortList"
End Sub
7. Go to File/Save [your file name]. That will save the "auto-open" code
with your file.
8. Whenever anyone opens the file, the filter will be applied. Note:
depending on your macro security setting, (Tools/Macro/Security) you may
or may not get a warning message about enabling macros when the file is
opened.

Hope this helps.
John
Project MVP 

How do I use flat rate contractors as resources?

Posted: 08 Dec 2005 04:56 PM PST

There are a couple ways to do this. John has offered one way that works.
I'd prefer to do it like this. In the resource list enter the Writer as a
resource. He's not paid by time so his Standard Rate is 0 and OT Rate is 0.
But set his Cost per Use to the rate you pay him for each chapter. Make
each chapter a separate task. When you assign the writer to it, his cost
per use will be assessed to the task

--
Steve House [MVP]
MS Project Trainer & Consultant
Visit http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm for the FAQs


"Chris" <microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Consolidated project data missing in custom group

Posted: 08 Dec 2005 03:57 PM PST

In article <com>,
"fudgieknuckles" <microsoft.com> wrote:
 
fugieknuckles,
As I said, it isn't real clear how you were doing the goruping. I guess
I need more information about your file because when I try it on a
sample file it works fine. Just for a test this is what I did.
1. I created a file with several tasks
2. I arbitrarily put Prod 1, Prod 2 or Prod 3 in Text4 for each task
3. In the Cost1 field I gave each prod its own value (i.e. $10 for prod
1, $20 for prod 2, etc.)
4. I customized Cost1 by rolling up the sum
5. Finally I grouped the file first by text4 and then by Cost1

Each group showed the correct rollup sum of cost from Cost1.

Now, how is your file different?

John
Project MVP