Microsoft Project: Learn Project Management Basics!

1. Learn Microsoft Project Basics: Hi, Welcome to Microsoft Project. Learn the project management basic. So are you starting out in Microsoft Project and this is perfect for you. Here's what you will learn from this course. Great project plans from scratch use project calendar and project tasks. Fixed resource called fixed plan optimization and so much more. So master Microsoft Project now and see you inside. 2. What is Microsoft Project: Hi, This is Bryan Hall and we will be talking about Microsoft project. So first things first, what is Microsoft Project four? So it is perfect as a scheduling tool with three main components in mind. We have tests, resources, and costs. Then you can run reports to see how your project is going so far. Contrary to popular belief, it's not for project managers only. But if you need scheduling and tracking, then this is perfect for you to be able to get Microsoft Project. It's very easy to do so it just goes straight to the Microsoft website and you can search for Microsoft Project and it will lead you straight to this page. Now, let's go over the different pricing options that we have for Microsoft project. So I had it open right now over here. When we talk about Microsoft Project, pretty much you have two solutions or two options in mind. We have the web version or the desktop client. And personally speaking, the desktop client has a lot more options as compared to the web version. So my recommendation is pretty much since there is a one-month trial, you can just go for this one. For example, for project plan tree because it allows you to have the desktop client version right away, free for one month. And then let's say your project is a short-term project. You can just try it out and then see if Microsoft Project is perfect for you. And then if you have assessed it and then based on your results, if it's a good fit, then you can just up to extend the specific plan. That's perfect for you. But if not, then at least you don't need to pay out any amount. You could just try it out free for one month and then just have a look at Microsoft project. So for this class, we will be covering the desktop version so that I can give you a better overview on what are the possibilities of Microsoft Project. So throughout our class right now, what we will be covering is we will be creating a project plan for a book launch. So when we say book launch, pretty much what we're covering is pretty much all of the tests that would take from book creation until the very end off our finished products of making sure that our book is ready for launch. So there's gonna be a lot of things that we're gonna be covering over here, but this is a quick preview of what we are after. And pretty much that we have the different dates in mind, right? The resources to cost us well, set up, we can have an idea on how to track our project as we go from planning to execution. So be excited for this because we will create this from scratch. And then pretty much our finished product would look something like this. 3. The Project Interface: Now let's go over the project interface briefly. So what I have right now is I've opened Microsoft Project and I started a new project from scratch. And what we have on top is our timeline over here. And then for the majority of the space that we have, this is pretty much the view that we are in right now. So when our view for this one, the default one is the Gantt chart view, as you can see on the left side over here. And don't worry if you don't understand what a Gantt chart. If right now, as we go through the project, as we start filling up things over here, the Gantt chart would make sense for you. Then different views as well are available inside Microsoft Project. You just right-click over here and there's quite a number of few, so there are a couple over here that we will be using a swell as we set up our project so you can change the views as well over here. Now, let's go through the different tabs. On the top over here we have our tasks tab. Over here we have the Resource tab, and then we have the reports, and then we have the project, let's say for project information. And then we have the View tab as well over here and pretty much help and the formatting options. So don't worry about the details right now, because as we go through the different topics of Microsoft project, we will be jumping from one tab to another. But at least right now, you have a high level view of the different options inside Microsoft Project. 4. Project Management Phases: So before we go into Microsoft Project, you need to have a basic understanding of the different phases when it comes to project management. So pretty much over here, what I have are five phases of project management. And we start first with initiation. So pretty much over here you define the goal and the feasibility of the project during this phase, no Microsoft Project, it's needed because what you're doing over here is simply assessing, is this project a goal or not? Do you push through with it? And then pretty much once you decide to push through, then you jump over to the second one, which is the planning phase. During planning, you pretty much break it down to different tasks. You go into the details and then you set the scope and budget of the project. So over here, microsoft Project is now involved because you want to keep track of everything and then you have a central place, right, when it comes to tracking costs as well and your timeline of the project. Next one is execution. So execution is where you now start to work on the project after you have planned the different steps or tasks. So now you track your tasks, progress, right? And then resource management as well, scheduling and also resourcing conflicts because that could happen as well over the course of a project. And then we have fourth one is performance monitoring. You now assess is the project on track as compared to our original plan? And is it still on budget? Because now you have your baselines and then now you start to think that, okay, How are we doing so far as opposed to or as compared to our original plan? And pretty much all of this, you have Microsoft Project involved because there are a lot of tools inside that helps you to assess if your project is still on track or not, or if you need to do something else, like for example, adding more resources to the project. Now you have the closing phase. So closing phase is pretty much assessing what has happened throughout the course of the project. And then having or listing out the different lessons that you have learned from running the project so that the next time around when you start another project or a similar one, right? Then pretty much you would have that knowledge or foresight to be able to avoid the issues that you have encountered. 5. Create a new Project Plan: So what I have right now is a new project plan, a blank one that we will be working from scratch for our book launch. So when starting with a new project, what's very important is to be able to set the start date right away. So to be able to do that, we just go over to project and then we go to properties and then we have our project information. So I'll select that right now. And then for our start date, let's set it to a couple of months from now, let's say the 15th of December. So what I'll do is let me just open this and I'll jump over to December 15. If you notice for our end date or finished date, it's disabled because this will be calculated automatically as we go along. This the cool thing with Microsoft Project, because as we start adding our tasks and at the time it takes or duration to finish a task, then the finish date over here will be calculated automatically by Microsoft project. So once we're good, we're going to be clicking. Okay, As for the other options like the calendar, don't worry about that. We will be going through this in detail as well. Now let's click Okay. And now if I just scroll over, over here, right, then pretty much you could see a swell on the timeline. It's now being represented for our start date as the 15th of December over here. 6. Create a Project Calendar: Now let's talk about creating a project calendar. So once we have set up the start date, the next step for us is to set our calendar. So you might be wondering, why would I need to work with a project calendar is because let's say we want to input the holidays or if there are specific days, right? If your staff or resources would not be working. And then this is also where you can set the working, ours as well, because it would differ from one project to another. And that would really have an effect on your project when it comes to calculating your start date until the end date as well. So that's really important. So to be able to create a project calendar, this is very straightforward. We just go over to project and then we have properties over here, right? And then let's select the change working time bottom. So you have our calendar over here. You could see multiple options. If I select the calendar's, we have three calendars by default that you can select and use over here we have standard, we have the night shift and 24 hours calendar over here. So let's just go over quickly on what each calendar like the definition of this one. So for example, for the standard you could see, right, for Saturdays and Sundays, there are non-working day. She could see the legend as well on the left over here, right? And then you have your exceptions as well that you can set. So for example, we have holidays, we can add them over here. Now for the working times, we have them set as well over here, eight AM to 12 PM, then you have a lunch break and then 01:00 PM to 05:00 PM. Now let's jump over to night shifts. So for night shift, you have your working hours over here, pretty much your typical night shift, right. And then you have your day off or non-working days over here. Okay. And then this jump over to 24 hours, like it's literally nonstop of working from 12 midnight to 12 midnight. And then pretty much all of the days of the week as well are considered working day. So pretty much we have this tree calendar's over here. So what we want to do is because the default calendar is usually it's for the perfect scenario. But in our case there are going to be holidays, they're going to be day off or slow for our staff. So the best course of action is to be able to create our own calendar and then use one of these as a starting point. Let's say in our case, we will be using the standard calendar and then we want to create a new candidate are based on this. And then we can start adding our holidays. So I'll select right now standard over here, alright, on our dropdown. And then let's select Create new calendar, right? And then over here for our name, let's say, let's type in book launch over here. Okay, so right now it's selected over here. It's making a copy of the standard calendar that looks good on our end, I'll select OK. And now we have book launch on our drop-down. Right? Now we have four calendars and let's select book launch to modify this. Now what I'll do right now is let's add a couple of holidays based on the standard calendar over here. And let's say at school for Christmas. Okay. And then let's go for December 25, right now. Let me just change this over here. And then let's say, let's add another Boxing Day, for example, on the 26th of December. So we can also go over here, let's say scroll over to Canada. I'll select this. And then I'll just type in Boxing Day over here. And what will be populated is the 26th of December. If you notice a swell on over here, right. We have the color right. To show you that there's the exception day over here on the 26th as well, right? And what we will do next, because it's gonna be weird if for example, we're running a long-term project, let's say it's spans across a couple of years, and then we don t want to add Christmas every year. Let's say it's going to be running for three years. We don't want to add tree. Christmas day's over here because it's prone to error and it's also cumbersome as a result. So the cool thing over here is we can also make this recurring nets, say for a specific holiday or a specific day off as well. So what I'll do right now is let's double-click on any holiday over here. Or you can also select details over here to change them. And then what I'll do right now is let's say let's set this to yearly for the recurrence pattern on the 25th of December, right? And then let's say, let's add this to 50 occurrences. So it's gonna be running for the next 50 years. And that's pretty fine with me. Even if my project only spent a couple of years, then this is good because I don't need to worry or think about or be concerned on when is this going to end? Now, let's select, Okay. And what I'll do is I'll also change this as well, the Boxing Day, let's just select this, go to Details. And let's change this to yearly as well. And I'll select 50 over here too. Now, if I jump over to, let's say another year, Let's just try it out on another December and you could see us well, 2526, both of them are marked as exception days because we have set our current over here. So now we're pretty confident that were covered on the holidays. We only have two right now and let's go for okay, once you have finished creating the calendar, what we will do next is let's go over to project information over here, because we have only created the calendar, but we need to make sure that we need to attach this to our specific project. So what I'll do right now is I'll go to Calendar and you can see the options for the drop-down. We have the newly created book launch calendar, and I'll select this so that this is going to be applied to our project file. And then let's select OK, and there you have it. 7. Creating Project Tasks: Let's talk about creating project tasks. So pretty much we're going into detailed steps right now on what's needed to be able to complete the project. So pretty much when we start creating project tasks, we need to be aware of the two modes when adding tests. So over here at the bottom, you can see right now over here, right? Once we select this, there's gonna be two modes that we can use for scheduling concerns. So we have manually scheduled and auto scheduled. For Manually Scheduled. This is perfect if your project hasn't started yet and you don't have complete information on all of your test. So for example, if you have a specific tasks that you're unsure on how long that would take than having it's set in manually scheduled would be perfect until you have the complete or as much as complete information as you possibly could, then it's best to switch to auto scheduled. So we switch to this one once we are about to start our project. So right now, let's keep this at Manually Scheduled. So if I select anywhere on the project, you could see at the bottom that it's new tests manually scheduled, which means that any new tests that we will be adding to the project, it's going to be set at manually scheduled by default. So let's keep this at the beginning. Now, when it comes to adding tests, there are a couple of best practices that you need to keep in mind. Then the most important one is to use the format of verb and action. The combination of verb, an action when it comes to naming your tests, It's a more descriptive way when it comes to naming your tasks and it's a lot easier to understand them. And then when it comes to duration, it defaults to days when it comes to adding tests. So what I'll do right now is, let's say I'll just type in plan out book topic as our first test. And if I typing over here right, for a duration, let's say it's a duration of three days. If I said a tree or typing three over here, right? And then move on to the next test. It will default to days, but you can also change them as well, Let's say two hours or Let's say it's just type in hours over here, right? Then you can also set it to that as well. But right now, what I'll do is I can also type in three D, right? And this is going to be converted to three days over here. Now, let's jump over to the next test. I'll just add maybe around four to five tests manually over here with duration. So we're starting out as a very simple project over here. So I'll type in create table of contents over here, right? I'm just thinking on What else do we need when it comes to completing our book from start to finish? So let's say let's work on the cover. We would need something like that, right, for our book cover over here. And let's say it takes around five days, okay, and then I'll jump over to populating the book contents. So now we're working on the main components are the pages of our book, Let's say it's five days. And then lastly, let's say we need proofreading just to make sure that everything looks good for our entire book over here, right? And they'll type in five days as well. And if you can see on the left side, you see the task mode over here and you have the icon of a pin with a question mark. So this once over here, it represents as being manually scheduled over here. So right now, you could also see the initial duration with our Gantt chart over here to the right. And you could see, for example, this one is three days, right? And you can see it starting on the 15th of December, if you remember, this is our start date that we have set for the project and you have three days. So you could see that on the five-day duration tasks as well, we have a longer bar over here. So that's really cool because now we can see it quickly being represented on our Gantt chart over here. And you could just have a quick idea as well on how long or how short each task would take, thanks to the length of the bars over here. Now, once we change this to auto scheduled later, as you will see, right, then this is where Microsoft Project will start to work its magic because all it's following right now over here with our manually scheduled tests, it's just following our project start date. It's fairly straightforward. Project start date, three days, three days, five days, five days. Nothing fancy happening right now. But once we jump over to auto scheduled, then that's where all of this test are. Things will start falling into place. 8. Placeholder Text and Task Types: Let's talk about adding placeholder text and working through the different tasks types as well. Because there are a couple of tests that we can also add over here to give more structure to our project right now. And then when it comes to using placeholder texts, because when it comes to planning of our tasks, it's not expected of us to have like perfect information or to complete picture right away from day one of planning. There are times where we're not sure first, like what other tasks would be needed, or even the duration of the tasks. We are not sure at the moment. So for example, let's say for book contents, that population of book contents, we're not sure if it's going to take five days or would it be enough or would it take longer to say ten days and we need to consult somebody else regarding this. So what I can do right now, Let's see if I need to ask John for consultation. I'll just remove five days and I can type in as John over here. So you can see it has changed to ask John and then I need to consult with him first, whether it's five or ten or even 15 days. And then that's the time we're in. I'll be able to populate the duration field of population, of book contents. So the cool thing over here is you can also add this placeholder text as well as needed, but it's only possible if it's manually scheduled. Because when it comes to automatically scheduled, right, it's going to need duration to be able to plot out automatically for you, for your entire project. Now, once we have placeholder texts, we'll get back to this in later once we have the information, right? And what we can do right now is let's work on summary tasks and subtasks. So when we say summary tasks, It's like grouping them together. It's like you have your summary tests on the top right, and then you have subtasks underneath so that you can have a level of organization of your project. It makes it easier to group different tasks together. So for example, let's say we want to add different phases to our project. Let's say we have planning phase, content phase, and then the cleanup phase. So what I'll do over here is I'll click over here. You can just right-click and then select, insert tests. Okay, and then I'll type in, I'm just close this and I'll just type in over here. Let me just remove this over here and I'll type in planning phase. Okay, so once we're good, so let's say for our content phase is going to be for these three tabs over here. So let me just click over here, right-click and select Insert tasks and they'll type in content face. Okay, so fairly straightforward, right? And then over here for proofreading, that's going to be for our cleanup face. I'll just right-click again over here for this test. Select, insert tests. And then let's just type in CLI or cleanup phase. Okay, so we have our tree faces, but don't worry, data will still make some changes over here to make it more visible on our different phases. Now, we can also add recurring tasks. So for example, if you have, let's say, a weekly meeting. So we can simply add a recurring tasks over here so that it's easy for us to have like multiple tasks, right? Being set up week per week depending on how long the project with tick. So to be able to add our recurring tasks, what I'll do is let's just select the first task over here. And then I'll go over to tests over here. And let's select, Insert recurring tasks, right? And then we have our recurring tasks over here, insert recurring tasks. And once we select this, what will be our task name? Now, what I'll do is, let's say, let's give this a name of weekly catch up over here. And for our duration, well, one day, that doesn't sound feasible. So what I'll do is let's change this to one hour. And this is going to be a recurring meeting every Tuesday. So weakly sounds good over here, right. And then let's select Tuesday so that it occurs every week on a Tuesday. Now for do you Rachel recurrence, it's going to be setting straight directly from our start date. That sounds good over here and buy we don't have the end date right now. So let's just set this as it is. Now. Let's select Okay Over here. And now you have your weekly catch up over here and we have one hour. You could see swell on our chart. It's set on a Tuesday over here, right? Really cool. And if we have one RS swell S represented on our Gantt chart. So another reason as well why we had to go through over here, because over here when it comes to setting recurring tasks, there's no direct options. So what I did was go to Tasks over here. And it's selective recurring tasks from our option. And it's very straightforward to set one up. Okay, now, let me just close this as well, okay, and then you can also expand this as well as needed. Now when it comes to our next task, we can also add milestone task. For example, a milestone task has a duration of 0, so no work is being done here. And it's represented by a diamond shape. So for example, let's say at the top over here, let's say we have our start milestone task. I'll select this text over here, right-click and select Insert tests over here. And let's say I'll just type in Start book plan. For our duration. It's going to be 0. Okay? So you could see, right, 0 days, no work's being done. And you could see a diamond over here for our milestone tasks over here. And at the very end to right-click, select, insert tests over here. And let's just type in and book plan. Same thing, 0 days to signify that this is a milestone tests. And you could see as well that we have our milestone diamond over here. So don't worry first about the dates, right? It sounds a bit weird. It looks weird, right? Having both dates as the 15th of December, but later, we will make this work together. So it's now starting to take shape. 9. Create Work Breakdown Structure: Now let's talk about creating a work breakdown structure. So to be able to do this, we will be utilizing both summary tasks and subtasks so that we can have hierarchy when it comes to our list of tasks. But before we start doing this, we need to be able to update our placeholder texts verse with detailed information. So you can remember over here, we have our duration. We're not sure yet, so we needed to ask John and then let's say we have already discussed this and determine that. Okay. It's not five days. It's going to take us eight days to populate the book contents. So what I'll do is let me just update this right now. I'm highlighting this and I'll type in eight days over here. And we have all of our tasks durations as completed or field up. Okay, so once we're done with the placeholder texts, what we are going to do now is we need to start changing the type of scheduling or the test mode of our tests from manually scheduled to auto scheduled. So you would think at first, maybe I just need to go down over here and select Auto Scheduled, but it doesn't work that way because over here for this selection, we're only changing, right? The scheduling of new tests, which means that it's not gonna be affecting the schedule or the test mode of the current tests that we have already populated. So which means with doing this, what we need to do is I'll just hold the Shift key and let's highlight everything. This is the way that we can change this from manually scheduled to auto scheduled. So I've selected all of our tasks right now. And under tests over here, I'll jump over to tests and select Auto Scheduled. So let me select this right now. You can see the icons have changed as well right now to auto scheduled over here. And you can see the dates as well. The start and end dates are now populated. So that's really cool because based on the days we have populated for the duration, project was able to calculate automatically right, from the 15th, for example, he's gonna take three days, then it's going to end on the 19th because it's able to determine a swell that okay. Since based on our calendar, there are two non-working days on the weekends. Right. So Thursday, Friday, and Monday. This are the three working days, so it's going to end on the 19th, which is Monday. So that's really cool. So pretty much all of the calculations that are done behind the scenes because if the auto scheduled, this is something that there's no need for you to manually like plot out against different days because it's prone to human error and there's gonna be a lot of manual work. So this is where Microsoft Projects shines the most. So the next part right now, right, it's to be able to start grouping them together based on our faces. So this is where we want our structure and hierarchy to start, like taking shape. So to be able to do this, we need to indent our sub-tests so that it would look visible. There's gotta be like a indentation that you would see under the face, the summary tasks. And then underneath that would be our sub-tests. So what I'm doing right now is let me just highlight this. So for example, we have our planning phase. You have this test. Under the planning phase, what we need to do is go to tests and then go to under schedule. And you would see the indent icon over here. And I'll select this so you can see right, it was pushed to the right for our planning out the book topic under the planning phase. So now we have this face over here. Okay, So now we're having our hierarchy. And let's say for our content face as well. What I'll do is I'll just highlight this tree tasks over here, because this tree would fall under the content face. Same thing, go to test schedule and then select indent over here. And now we have our content face, and then we have our cleanup phase as well. I'll select proofreading, right? And then same thing as well, and I'll select the indent icon over here. And now you have our cleanup phase. Now, if you have a quick look, what's really cool about it as well for the planning phase, you can see that the duration was based on the subtasks underneath, because this sub-tests over here, right? I'm highlighting this right now. The planning out of the book topic. It takes three days. So the planning phase is also three days. So that's really cool. And this is done automatically for you by microsoft Project. Now, if we jump over to content face, because right now everything is starting on the same start date. We have three days, we have five days, we have eight days. So the content phase project determined that it's going to take eight days as well, pretty much whatever the longest duration tasks, that's the duration as well for this specific face end, he could see it represented as well over here in our Gantt chart on the right for the duration of the face as well. So everything's automatically plotted out for you. Okay? And then let's say for the cleanup phase, same thing as well because proofreading is five days, so we have five days as well for the cleanup phase. So if you notice as well, when we were creating the faces as well over here, there were no durations that we specified. Everything is now calculated automatically, which is really cool by Microsoft Project. 10. Define Task Relationships: Now let's talk about defining tasks, relationships, because when it comes to relationships, they're going to be crucial when it comes to linking from one task to another. Because our current setup right now, to be honest, it's not that practical or feasible because what we have, if you've noticed on our start dates, it's like we're saying that okay, for all of our tasks over here, the sub-tests, they're all starting on the same date, which means that okay, on day one of our project, we're expecting all of our tasks to be done all at the same time. And pretty much it's not practical to expect this from day one. So this is where relationships would come into play because we want to make sure that, for example, Let's say we have one test after it's completed, then that's the only time we can start the next test. So it's gonna be, let's say Don in sequential order. There are quite a number of relationship types when it comes to working in Microsoft project. And I'll go over this one by one as we go along as needed so that we can just see them in action. So let's say in simple terms, we want our test to be done in a sequential order. So let's see on our content face right now, we have our tree sub tasks over here, creation of table of contents, designing the cover, and then we want to populate the book contents. And let's say this tree tasks right now, you want them to be done in sequential order. To be able to do this, let's just highlight the three tests as I've done right now. And I'll jump over to task and then under schedule. And then let's select the link icon over here. Once I select this, you can see our Gantt chart as well. It updated on the right side. You could see that the table of contents tabs over here, right? And then you have your arrow as well being shown as well that once this finishes, jump over to the next test, okay, And then once the book cover has finished, jump over to the next test as well. So that's really cool. And if you notice as well, the start and finish dates have updated automatically based on D linking that we have just made our relationships. And if you notice as well on the predecessors, right, we have 89 over here because it's simply represents that, okay, after Table of Contents, which just number eight over here, right? It's going to be dependent, or number nine is going to be dependent on number eight finishing first before this one would start and then nine, okay, is the predecessor of ten over here, right? So it's dependent on aswell to finish. And that's really cool because the dates right now have updated automatically. You can see over here, right for Monday and over here the 19th. And then once it has finished than 20th, right. Would be the start date for D, the signing off the book cover and so forth. So that's the really nice thing when it comes to being automatically scheduled for our tests because project would just do the heavy lifting for you. Now, we can also link the summer tests because right now what we have is we have linked this tree sub-tests over here. And for our planning phase and proofread face as well, or the cleanup phase over here, right there still starting on the 15th. So we can also link them together. So what I'll do is I'll hold the control key. I'll select the three phases that we have. Planning phase, content face, and cleanup phase. And let's see what's going to happen once we go to task schedule. And they'll select link over here and add the relationship between our faces. Now, what we have right now is we have a sequential picture right now of all of our tests. So you can see the planning phase over here. Once it has finished, then that's the time only the content phase would start over here. And all of the dates have updated automatically, which is really nice. And if you jump over to the content face, you could see it ending here. It's ending on the 11th of January over here, and that's the time on the 12th of January that the cleanup phase would start. So no manual calculation is just Microsoft project doing the update and calculations for you. And another thing to take note of is because we have set up our calendar or schedule for no work on weekends. And also like specific holidays that we have on the 25th of December and the 26th of December, then pretty much all of these are factored in as well over here inside our scheduled or our timeline over here. So that's really cool because if you notice as well, right over here, you might be wondering, hold on. Why is there a gap as well over here, right when it comes to the book cover, like on the 30th of December and then the second of January because it's the weekend before we start the populating of book contents. You can see the gap over here because it has determined based on our calendar, no work can be scheduled over here. So this is going to be the next working day off the team. And if you notice as well, if you jump over to the designing of the book cover, if you notice that we have holiday schedule over here because the 26. So let's just jump over to a calendar over here. Right? So let's jump over to December. So if you notice a swell, right. The 23rd is our start date and it's going to be five days for depopulating off the book cover, right? 23. But this one, remember that we have marked this as a holiday, so no work can be done. So day one, day two, 345. So you can see December 30 over here, right? This is a five, so that's the end date of the test. So you could see that Microsoft Project was able to integrate the holiday as well to the counting or calculating the end dates so that everything is like there's no need for you to just manually plan this out because there's a lot of manual work involved and Microsoft Project would handle this for you. So next thing, we can also add outline numbers to our test. So when we say outline numbers, this is what we refer to the test with the outline numbers instead of the test name, because it's a lot easier to refer to a specific task when discussing with your team or with discussing with other, like another person. To be able to do that, we go over to Gantt chart format and then let's just tick outline number. And you could see as well the automatic population of the outline number. So we have 123 and then 3.142 sub-tests. And then this is pretty much just updated automatically as you add more tests or asks you delete other tasks as well. So that's the really nice thing about it. Now, to be able to add a project summary task as well, it's very easy to do that, right? When we say project summary task, you could think of this as a task 0, pretty much just the overall test showing you the start and end date. So what I'll do is same thing, Gantt chart format and they're showing hide and I'll tick the project summary tests. And you could see this added right now at the top over here, book launch, right, for the project. And then we have 24 days, then the start date, right, 15th of December until the 18th of January, right, on the end date. So that's the really nice thing as well. You can just simply add this additional functionality to your project with the Gantt chart format. 11. Tying Up Loose Ends: So let's work on tying up some loose ends, are doing some cleanup work just to make sure that our project is all set up and compete. So what I'll do first is let's just delete this blank row over here. I'll just right-click and select Delete test over here, just make things a little more compact. And for our book plan tasks over here, if you notice as well. For the milestone tests, it's still on the 15th of December because we haven't linked to the previous test, so we need to do that. So what I'll do is let me just select these two together. I'll go to Test Schedule a link, right, so that this date over here will automatically update based on the proofreading tests. And you can see the start and finish date. Now, it's the same with our end date of the project. So that's really cool. So now everything is calculated automatically. Now if we have a look at our recurring tasks of weekly catch up, It's pretty weird, right? Because we only have one weekly catch up, which is on the 20th of December. That's the pretty much the first meeting over here. But we want this to be recurring right across the duration of the project. So let me just double-click on this and let's just have a quick look. It's ending on the 21st of December, but if you have a quick look, right, it should be January 18th. So what I'll do is let's just update this manually to our end date, which is this one based on what's calculated by Microsoft Project. Once we're happy, I'll select, Okay, Right. And you could see the additional weekly ketchups being added automatically. That's the really nice thing as well, because it knows it's a recurring meeting over here. And based on the start and end date, it's able to fill in the rest for you. And you could also see on the right on the different weekly catch ups that are spread across the Gantt chart. 12. Add Resources to Project Plan: Let's talk about adding resources to the project plan because right now for our test, we don't have resources assigned to them because we need somebody to execute or work on our tests. And this is where resources come in. And the cool thing is because for each resource there's going to be an astro shaded costs to the work that the resource will be doing. So that's also where Microsoft Project will be able to automatically calculate the cost of the entire project. So that's the really cool part as well. So to be able to start, we need to go to the resource sheet view, which is accessible very quickly over here on the right. So I'll just right-click on our views and I can just select resource sheet over here. Now, this is where we start adding our resources. So what I'll do is let's just add our first resource, which is the cover designer, so that you can have a quick overview on what our repopulating over here. Now, let's say for the standard rate, let me just expand this a bit over here. For our standard rate, Let's say he costs or she costs around a $100 per hour. So it's up to you. You can pretty much named a resource by the role, or you can also add the actual names over here, so whichever works best for you. But right now, what we will be focusing, since we don't have actual names, I will just add the roles that I need for us to be able to complete our project over here. So the main fields that we will be working with would be the resource name over here and then the type. So if I check type right now, there's gonna be a couple of options. Work, which is pretty much the person or people resource. And then we have the material if you are using materials over here and costs which we will be using in a short while. Now, let's keep this at work because this is a person. Initials pretty much just base on the resource name can be generated automatically. And then this one is the max units. So 100%, it's like we're saying, what is the percent of allocation of this resource to the project? So let's say this person can work a 100%. So let's keep it at that standard rate, which is $100 per hour. So we just set this right now. And then four daughters, it just depends on your use case as well. So what I'll do is let's just add a couple more simple resources and their costs for the standard rate. So what I'll do is let's say let's go for a writer. So we need this. And let's say we have three writers working on the project. So I'll make this to 300 per cent. So that would denote tree writers working for our writers. Let's say they cause at $50 per hour. So I'm just update that. Then next is we need a proofreader. So let me just add that over here. Then a 100% that looks good. And then for the cost, let's say that around $75 per hour and are less like work resource to see we have the author doing the work over here, right? And then 100% looks good. And then let's make it $200 per hour. Now, let's say we want to add the travel costs as well because there's gonna be some travel cost for some of our writers, for example. So I could just add over here travel on, typing it down right now. And I'll select costs over here. If you notice costs, There's no rates being shown over here because the numbers are not assigned over here, right? Because it needs to be assigned to a task level, meaning that you can just assign travel to different tests. They would have different costs as well depending on the specific test. So it's not going to be done or calculated over here in the resource sheet. So we will be doing this as well for the travel costs in a short while, while it'd be update our tests in the Gantt chart view. 13. Creating a Resource Calendar: So let's talk about creating a resource calendar. So resource calendars, they are different from project calendars because project is pretty much for the entire project. But for the resource calendars, you could think of it as working on a project calendar, but customizing it for a specific resource. Okay, so it's like we're building on top of our project cat in there. So to start things off, let's say for our writers, let's say they have a specific work schedule where in they are unable to work or dare and available pretty much to work on Mondays. So to be able to do this, it's very easy. So we just need to go to our resource sheet. Then let's have a look at our writers over here and you can just double-click on them. Now we have our resource information over here, and to be able to change the working time, I'll just select this one right now, change working time. Now our base calendar right now is a book launch. So which means we will be working right, based on the book launch canon there. And then we can just add whatever exceptions, for example, that we have for this specific resource. So take note that we are simply updating this for our writers. So you could see over here resource calendar for writer. Now to be able to update this right now, it's very easy, let's say on Monday. So I'll just select any Monday over here right now. And I can just add, let's say they off over here, right? If I press Enter. Okay. So we have a Monday over here on the 18th of July. But to be able to make this recurring because it's going to be every Monday. So what I'll do is let's go to Details. And let's say our recurrence pattern, if you notice this is, this interface is a bit familiar to you by now. So let's make it recurring every Monday, so I'll select weekly. And let me select Monday over here. It's just placed this as 100 occurrences for the recurrence over here. Now we're happy with this one. So it's gonna be pretty much ending after 100 weeks. And that's perfectly fine because we just want every Monday to be like a day off for them. So if you notice once we jump over to different months as well, you can see all of the Mondays, right, having that exception they as well over here. So that's really cool. So if you just jump over here and if you notice a swell, 26 is also non-working. Because if you recall from what we did with our project calendar, with our book launch project calendar, we have placed there that 26th of December is a nun working day because it's a holiday. And you could also see it being reflected over here. So that's really cool. So which means we now have our resource calendar over here. Once we're happy, we click Okay, and now we have set it up for our writers resource calendar. 14. Assign Resources to Tasks: So now that we have our resources all set up over here in a resource sheet, Let's go over to our Gantt chart view so that we can start assigning the resources to our tests. So now it's like linking everything together so that everything would fall into place. So I'll just right-click over here. Let's select Gantt chart over here. And now we start adding our resource names to our tests. So for example, let's see on our weekly catch ups, it's going to be the writers and the otter together over here. So what we'll do is we can just either type it out or we can just open the drop-down and alphabetic order and the rider over here. And I'll just do that for every single weekly catch up right now. Okay, so let me just do that. So it's very easy to add resources over here because once you have them in the resource sheet, you could just have them accessible quickly on the drop-down over here and just tick them as well. So you can see on the right as well, on the weekly catch ups right now, you can see the author and writer is also shown on the view of our Gantt chart too. So now we're happy with this one. Okay, we're done with the weekly recurring tasks. And what we'll do is let's just continue doing or populating. Let me just expand this a bit so they can see the task name. And let's continue to populate on the different resource names for our tests as well. So let's say for the planning out of the book topic, what we will need is the topic, let's say we need to cover designer and otter together over here. Okay, and then let's jump onto our next task, creating a table of contents. Let's say it's just the order that's in charge for this designing of the book cover. Let's update this for the cover designer and the otter to get her right, Let's tick them. Okay, and then for the populating of book contents, Let's say it's just a writer's, okay, and then the proofreading, let's say it's just a proofreader over here and we're good to go. So it's fairly straightforward when it comes to assigning of the resource name. So let me just expand this a bit so that you can have a look. And if you scroll to the right, you can see the resource names as well, like who's in charge of which tasks, right? It's also displayed visually over here. So that's the cool thing. Now, let's say we want to add a travel costs to our specific tasks. So for example, let's say on the planning out of the book topic, the cover designer needs to fly over or write a plane right? To be able to meet physically together and plan it out. So let's say for this test, we would want to add that travel costs. So to be able to do this, I'll just double-click on this test and I'll go over to Resources. And over here, you can just assign that resource over here, the cost. Now we can add travel as well over here. And our cost, let's say it's a thousand dollars over here to fly over. Now, let's go for okay. So let's just scroll over to see the travel costs, just to see if it did reflect over here. So you could see this travel cost of one task and dollars. It's now added as well over here. So it's fairly easy as well to add the cost because let's say for it to travel costs, it's going to be assigned as well to, let's say, a different task over here, for example, than it costs $2 thousand, then you can do that as well using the same steps that we have done. Because for that specific cost, it's not really fixed across different tasks. So you could just assign a different monetary value to it across different tasks altogether. So now that we have all of the resources assigned over here, okay, if you notice as well, let's say, let's just jump over to writer just to have a quick look. Because if you remember, we have our resource calendar, we're in, our writers are unavailable to work on Mondays. So if we jump over here, okay, if we check out the schedule, let's say, let's just jump over to January because right now what we have is January tree until January 13th. So if I say like this, right, this is day one because it's eight days as what we have populated on our duration for the population of book contents task, day one to day tree for non-working day, non-working day. And this is based on the resource calendar. They're unavailable to work, right? They 5678. And if you check right now, than Microsoft Project was able to correctly calculate that, it is on the 13th of January. So that's really cool because it's able to take into account both the project calendar and the resource calendar. Because if I were to do this manually, I would pretty much quickly forget that. Okay. I need to skip Monday, so I need to skip this holiday or I need to skip specific non-working days and came because there's just a lot of things to juggle. But once you have them set up at the very beginning, right correctly, then project with just do everything for you automatically. 15. Resolve Resource Conflicts: So let's talk about resolving resource conflicts because when you work with Microsoft Project or pretty much any project plan, you will encounter resource conflicts quite often. But the cool thing with Microsoft Project is you don't need to be scared of it because Microsoft Project will help you a lot when it comes to resolving this. So what do we mean by resource conflicts? So for example, right now, if you notice over here, our weekly catch ups are still manually scheduled. So let's change this quickly so that we can see some conflicts in action. So what I'll do is let me just highlight the weekly catch ups right now. And I'll go over to tests on their tests over here and I'll select Auto schedule. Okay? So right now, once we have this Auto Scheduled, you could see that there are quite a number of conflicts that you can see over here. So when we say conflicts, it's pretty much by definition, you have over-allocated resources based on this specific schedule. So you could see on the left side over here we have the red icon. So that's pretty much the representation of this scheduling conflicts. Now to be able to view the conflict. So for example, you could notice over here, right, for our otter, they have the Week be catch-up, and then they also have the Create Table of Contents tasks over here. But to be able to understand this in finer detail, it's very easy to just go to a different view so that we can have this conflict in action. So I'll right-click on our views right now. And let's just select the resource usage few over here. And if we just scroll over to the right, Let's just change the date to around our start date, which is the 15th of December ticket. See, there's work the duration of work being done eight hours. Eight hours over here. And if we just scroll over here for order for our specific resource, you can see that there's over-allocation of nine hours because he has won our work when it comes to the weekly catch up on this specific day, alright? And then there's also eight hours of work when it comes to creating the table of contents. So let me just expand this a bit, right, so you can see the entire task name. But that's the really cool thing because if you just scroll over, right, There's also another over allocation for the order, and you could see it being marked as this specific icon over here. So that's a resource conflicts. So that's the really nice thing because there's no need for you to do the balancing act, just making sure that nobody is overwork, right? Like for example, if we have set it up as eight working hours per day, then Microsoft Project will be able to point out for you that if you have over-allocated resources to specific days, okay, so once we're like, Well, not exactly happy, but we have determined the root cost. Now it is time to fix this resource conflicts. So to be able to do that, let's just go over here to our Gantt chart and let's see what we can do its best to that project. Do this work for you when it comes to resolving the conflicts? And this is called leveling. So this is pretty much just reallocating automatically Microsoft Projects calculations. So to be able to do this, we just go over to resource and then we select level. So once we do this, Microsoft Project will do the heavy lifting for you. Okay, so let's select that right now and you can see the dates get updated as well to make sure that our ADA is not overwork for that specific day. And the cool thing with this one is you only need to use manual fixing as a last resort. Because right now as we have selected level, if you notice on the left side as well, there are no more red icons over here, so no more resource conflicts. So pretty much what Microsoft Project has done is they have just adjusted the start and finish dates so that to make sure that it's just eight hours of work for our order because he or she is already over-allocated on that specific day. If you're not happy on the leveling or auto allocation that's being done by Microsoft Project. And then that's the time you can jump in and then do the manual adjustments to the schedules are our resources. 16. Optimize the Project Plan: Okay, So our project plan right now is starting to take shape. And what we want to do is to optimize this further. So there are a couple of things that we can tweak as well with our relationships or scheduling and have a look. Okay, for right now, we have 56 days as the duration of the entire project. So let's see if there's a couple of things that we can modify over here. So first thing is what we can do is we look for tasks that can be done simultaneously because right now we have everything in sequential order, pretty much you can start one task. We're not finishing the previous tests because of the linking that we have done a while ago. So for example, let's say on the design book cover, design book cover and the populate book contents. Let's say this could be done together at the same time. So we don't need to wait for the book cover to finish, to start writing the book contents so we can change that. So what I'll do right now is let's just scroll over, over here, right? That's it. If you scroll to a different position right now, you could just right-click on that specific tests and then select scroll to tests so that it can be focused right now on now review pretty quickly. Okay, and then let's say, let's just double-click on this relationship right now. And what we have by default because of the linking that we have done before, it's finished to start. So he's just seeing that okay, after detach finishes, then the next test would start. Okay, so pretty simple, and it's the default relationship type. But right now, what we're doing is going to be Start to start. So what this means is simply they can both start at the same time, right? So it's the saying that with the previous tests, right? Once it starts, then the next task can also start at the same time. So if I go for o k over here, let's see what's going to happen. So if you notice right now, this two tests design a book cover. You can see the relationship, right? D now have the same start date. They're now starting on the 23rd of December for the designing of the book cover and populating off book contents. So that's really cool because now our duration has now shortened to around 22 days. Okay, so that's really cool because you can now start making tweaks Based on what you think could optimize or make project faster, finished faster from our originally planned date. Okay, so that's one of the tweaks that we could do. So now let's try to think of other possible tweaks. So there's also what we call as lag time or adding lag times or lead times. Because for example, lag times are pretty useful if no resources are needed, but you need to delay moving from one task to another. So, for example, let's say you've painted walls for a specific room. And let's say the painting takes three days or for your resources, for your papers to compete, but it needs one day to dry before you could move onto your next test. What do you want to do is not typed in three plus 14 days for the painters because that would mean that your painters would be working for four days. So that would also be four days of cost to the project. So what you can do is pretty much just type in three days for the resource to work. And then you can add a lag time of one day, meaning that, okay, this is just one day of weighting wherein no resources are used and pretty much no additional cost is added to the project. So that's where lifetime for the lead time. It's the opposite, meaning that, okay, For the lead time, let's say if a specific test has finished halfway through, then the other tests can immediately begin, meaning that it's halfway through, then the next task can just start simultaneously with it. Because over here, what we have done is pretty much both tests have started at the same time. But for example, let's say we want our creating a table of contents. Once we have work halfway over here, right? Like 50% of the test, then we can add the lead time of 50% over here so that the designing of the book cover can start immediately halfway here. So to be able to do that, okay, let's go over to the relationship. I'll double-click on this. And now we can update the lag time. So to be able to add a lead time. So just don't confuse the two terms, right? But the setting of the lead time is also done here to the lag time. So instead of adding, let's say it's the paint example that I did a while ago. We can just add lag time of one day to initiate that delay. Instead of a lead time, we can just type in negative 50%, meaning that once we're done halfway with decree of table of contents task than the designing of the book cover, which is the next test. Can you immediately start? So that's the cool thing over here because it's in-person page, meaning that there's no need for us to just calculate, like okay, you said 145 days. He said two days before. Is it three days before? You could just go for a percentage as well? So the project, we'll just calculate this for you. Now. Let's go for okay, and see what's going to happen. Now the cool thing is since we have placed 50 per cent over here, right, for our lead time, that's negative 50. You can see that our design, a book cover now has moved earlier, but it's not starting at the same date as our table of contents tests, so it's 50 per cent. So that's the really nice thing. And you could see also the day's over here to start date and that's 20. Alright? And InDesign book cover is 21st and the book contents of the populate book contents is also the 21st because we have set this to tests to start simultaneously. So that's the really nice thing. Once you make changes as well, there's also the possibility of resource conflicts. So if you recall from a while ago, very easy to resolve because you can see the red icon over here. We just go over again to resource and we can just simply click Level o. And project would just resolve the resource conflicts for you. So these are the optimizations that we have done as well for our project. And you could see that it's now 22 days as compared to the 26 days that we had from a while ago. 17. Adding Additional Resources: So let's say we're pressed on time and we need to be able to add additional resources to specific tasks. So for example, right now we have 22 days, but let's say our target time needs to be shorter than 22 days. So to be able to do that, it's very easy to add resources as well, additional manpower to specific tests. So for example, let's say on proofreading, five days were thinking maybe somebody else can help over here and the order is a good fit for this test. So what I'll do right now is I'll just select the Resource dropped down and I'll tick the author as well over here. So now we have two resources, and you could see the yellow exclamation point over here. So what do you want to take effect? So what we want to do is reduce the duration but keep the same amount of work, meaning that we can now split the word between the two resources over here. So I'll select that. And you could see from five days, it is now reduced to 2.5 days. That's calculated automatically by project because we are saying that okay, both of them can just continue to work together when it comes to working on the specific tests. Okay, so that's the really nice thing. And now what we need to do as well is we need to update our weekly catch up because the end date has also updated from all of the changes that we have done, right? This is on the 9th of January, so we can just update this as well for our weekly catch up. Let me just double-click on this and then just change this to match our end date of the 9th of January. And you can see right as well for the duration of the project with the optimizations that we have done and then the additional resource assignments that we have done. It's now shorter to 16 days off duration for the project. 18. Cost of the Project: Okay, so now that we're done with setting up our project and k, So give yourself a pat on the back as well with working from scratch. And this is what we have right now and now we are able to check the cost of our projects. So this is based on the calculations that project has done because we have also placed in the rates of our resources. And then based on the assignments over here, then project is able to calculate this for you to be able to view. This is very easy. We just go over to View. We go over to tables over here, and let's select Cost. Now, you have all of the total cost per test over here so that you can have an idea as well that money well-spent, or are there additional changes that we need to work with over here? So for example, let's say the weekly catch up, okay, That's a bit too expensive than maybe it's just better to set it bi-weekly, for example, then you can also change that as well. So this also gives you a good glimpse on how expensive each test would be. So I think can make adjustments as well. So is it a good idea, for example, to assign this resource to this task, but he or she won't be as effective and it's just a waste of money spent over here, then you just make changes based on this as well. So it's very easy to view the cost and project has calculated everything for you. 19. Setting a Baseline: So let's talk about setting baselines in Microsoft project. So when we talk about baselines, this is pretty crucial when it comes to tracking the progress of your plan. The baseline is a snapshot to compare when the work actually starts. So it's just checking out. Okay, once we do our actual work, how is it fairing against the plan that we have created over here inside Microsoft Project? So some people, what they do is they pretty much set baselines for every project phase so you can do it as well. So to be able to do that very easy. You go over to project over here, right? And then under schedule, we can select set baseline. So I'll select this one right now. And if you notice, that's just check the drop-down. Pretty much. You can set 11 baselines over here. So you just plan accordingly. So once we're pretty happy with this one, right, Let's just select, okay, when it comes to setting the baseline. And once we have set this, right, Nothing really has happened because you can't really see, okay, How did it take effect? So to be able to check if the baseline is set, we can just simply go to the same menu. So let's go back again to project, schedule, set baseline, and let's select this. And you can just see that when is it less safe for this specific baselines. So I could just simply check that over here. So let's just go for Cancel. And another way as well to check the baseline that you have set is to be able to go to project information over here under the Project tab. So let's select this. Okay, and then let's just jump over to Statistics. And then over here, you can simply see two rows of baselines that's over here. So once the project is in progress, then you will be able to see on how your fairing against this Snapchats so far. So pretty much you have the cost as well, right? And the actual work done for the number of hours. And it's really cool to see that, okay, How the planning like capabilities are planning skills so that you can make adjustments to be more on track or more next spot on when it comes to the actual numbers, once your project starts.