Hi,

in may cases you will have more than one Microsoft Project file for the same Project. Usually this is called versioning! And, after some time you will want to know where are the differences between two versions of your Project! I’ll show you how can you do it in MS PROJECT 2013!

First I will create two Versions of one Project.

First Version will look like this:

I will also create Resources for this Project:

and I will assign them to Tasks:

I’ll save this Project as Version 1:

Now suppose that after some time, you find that your Project does not need Task 2 any more, but it needs Task 5! And suppose that Task 3 will have 5 days Duration. And suppose that Mary Left the Company, but Angela join the Team! And, suppose that all your Resources should work on all Tasks! Finally, suppose that your Project will Start at Monday 02.09.2013!

This will look like:

I’ll save this Project as Version 2 (don’t expect picture for that :-P)

Now I am going to close and reopen MS PROJECT 2013! And I will open Second Version, and I’ll get the data shown in Picture above! What I want is to compare those Versions:

and then:

and finally, I’ll choose Entry Table (default) for comparison:

after creating the Report I’ll get:

You can see legend on the Left side of the screen:

• ? Different name in previous version
• + Only in current project
• – Only in previous project
• blank Common to both Versions!

You can see on the upper part of the Screen next Columns:

• Task Mode Current
• Task Mode Previous
• Task Mode Differences
• Duration Current
• Duration Previous
• Duration Differences
• Start Current
• Start Previous
• Start Differences
• Finish Current
• Finish Previous
• Finish Differences
• Predecessor Current
• Predecessor Previous

You can choose to see only Items with differences, and Column with differences, as well:

and:

and you will get:

Finally, you can save this Report, as common file! Why should you do that? Well, the Reason is very simple. Each time when you change anything in project file, and you want to compare that file with another, you will get new Report, based on actual data. But if you want to examine differences before you change your project file (differences in the past!), you can save your report, for example like Comparison Report 01082013, then next time like Comparison Report 01092013, etc.

Nice thing isn’t it!?