Nenad Trajkovski was born in Zagreb in 1963. year. After completion of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Nenad has started on the development and implementation of enterprise systems (ERP) in companies of various areas (banks, card houses, production companies, auto industry, wholesale businesses, oil companies, and others). He has extensive experience in working with business processes, people and knowledge in information technology and financial accounting activities. Currently, Nenad works as a consultant for the implementation of business systems, and as Project Manager. He is trainer for Project Management and Risk Management in Microsoft Innovation Center in Varaždin. At WinDays08 conference he has been declared as the best speaker, and his session as the best one. He was among TOP 10 speakers in the Microsoft Sinergija 2009 and at the Microsoft Vzija 2009. Shared first place as the best lecturer at KulenDays 2009 and the PMI Forum 2009 in Zagreb. Regular speaker at the Microsoft Community. On WinDays10 conference Nenad was among the top three speakers; at the conference Microsoft Vision 9 in Skopje between the top 5 speakers as well as on Microsoft Synergy 11 which was held in Belgrade. Certified Accountant, PMP (Project Manager Professional), PMI – RMP (Risk Manager Professional), MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional), MCTS – Microsoft Project 2010 (Microsoft Certified Technical PRofessional). and MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer).
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Nenad Trajkovski 
Hi Nenad, thanks for your time and experience.
I have a question:
I have to tasks A and B.
Task B starts with 1 day of delay of the start of task A (Start Start +1 day).
But task B cant finish until task A is finished. How i can do that?
Regards from Chile
Hi Nenad, It’s me Moises again. First of all thank you with the solution for my last problem.
I have a new problem with MS Project:
I don’t know how to manage 2 type of cost for 1 person, I mean, I have 1 employee with 100USD cost per hour but I need to give him 200USD more each day of work for food. I can manage 100 USD/hour, but I don’t know how to manage 200USD/day in a new column or something.
Thank you.
I wrote about this at 06/23/2017
Hi Nenad
I have a problem, and i hope you can help me, im a follower of your blog.
I have some task on project and resources, but I want the resources to be placed in task in phases I mean for example:
I have the task painting, but I want George to paint in 5 phases, from day 1 to day 4 and stop for 3 days, and I want Mary to paint in those 3 days, then she stops and George starts again, but sometimes i want Mary and George paint at the same time. That is possible?.
Thank you.
Regards.
See my post from 5/23/2017
On MS project is I run the Late task report a couple of things happen… It does not pick all the task that are late, or the subtasks. when I clear the filter then the task that are late now show with a status label of future task
Well,
be s kind and send me your mpp file.
Hi, I just write a reply but on a 2013 post. I supos it’s better to ask directly here. The original post is: https://ntrajkovski.com/2013/10/25/complete-vs-work-complete-in-ms-project-2013/#comment-13342 and my message:
I know the post is really old, but I have doubts what you exposed.
I will explain what I’m doing:
Project configuration:
1- Create a blank project 2013 file.
2- Go to options, schedule, select fixed units, auto scheduled tasks.
3- Go to options, advanced, Physical % complete.
Task creation
1. Create a resource with a 100$ rate.
2. Create a task with 40 hours work (instead duration).
3. Assign my resource.
4. Follow your steps to assign the 4, 4, 8, 8, 8 hours as actual work to the task.
Ok, doing all of that I get different %, instead of 50% and 38, I’m getting 83% and 80%.
But what I’m worried about, is that I’m trying to do the Earned Value Management, and for me, the task is completed after do only 32 hours. How can I do to update the task as 100% but without changing work hours automatically? Because I want to know that my team is more efficient than expected.
Thanks in advance for your help,
See my Post at Monday, 01/30/2017
Hi Nenad,
is there any automatic way that the max. units of a generic resource are getting completely used during the ‘level all’ function?
In my scenario, the generic resource has different amounts of max. unit available during the next few weeks (CW1-3: 140%, CW 4-5: 240% etc.). The tasks are all effort driven as the work is fix (Task1: 40hrs, Task2: 64hrs etc.) The generic resource is assigned to all of them. No duration and no end/start date is given. The project start date is set. The tasks are ‘auto-scheduled’ (overallocation is shown before leveling is conducted).
I noticed that the generic resource is only used with 100% (default value) instead of the 140% or 240% (depending on the time when the task be processed). I also read one of your articles https://ntrajkovski.com/2015/04/21/maximal-units-and-default-values-in-ms-project-2013/, which described that the max. units can only be manually adjusted per task. Is that the only option?
Thanks and please keep that great page of yours going.
Best regards,
TW
Please read my post at Tuesday 02/07/2017
This should be anew post, question: Max units field in Assign Resources are always in %? I want to use QTY instead of %, like we have 10 cranes available, and how many cranes are needed per task instead of using %.
By the way I’m using Project 2013.
Mind Blowing SITE. The beauty of this SITE is with Author (Ninad T) and his response to queries. Explanation with excellent screenshots. You are doing a great job and giving great advice. – Prem
Would you please give an example with “Leveling Can Adjust Individual Assignments on a Task” and an other example with “Level Resources with the Proposed Booking Type” in ms project 2013 resource leveling option dialog box.
Regards
Hi Nenad,
first of all ı really appreciate your wordpress group. it is totally has got very good microsoft project topics. it makes me helpful)). Of course ı have questions and ı am sure you are going to help me.
I have been managing my projects in microsoft project programme as a multiple projects. all ı have projects linked with master project. question is where am ı entering actual datas to our projects ? is it multirproject files or sample project ?
let me explain very clearly ;
For example I have got two projects which names project A, project B. I shared reource pools to these two projects. after that ı created master project which has our projects, and ı save it. after ı set baseline master projects. for first month ı entered actual datas in master project files( for two projects). I guess when ı entered actual datas in master projects, other shared projects also were entered same time.
So is that right way ?
or ı should entered actual data every single project ?
ı am thinking first option is right way, and ı am doing like this. However ı ve got questions in my head ?
I’ll be glad if you can help me
It doesn’t matter where are you put Actuals. I prefer to put in a each Single Project, not in the master, because it is easier, there is less chance to make a mistake, and you can have several PM’s for each project
Hello Nenad
First of all thank you for all your helps. I learn many things thanks to you
I ve question for you.
We work from Monday to Saturday on our projects
Saturday pay rates is 2 times of weekday pay rates.
Our projects are so long. it includes many Saturday.
we ve many people resources on our projects as well.
How can ı enter saturday pay rates for our all people resources.
I know entering multiple pay rates for resources. But.
considering many Saturdays and many resources entering one by one is very long process
do you know short way of this
thank you for your answer in advance
It is impossilble
4 days 11/14/15 2:00 PM 11/18/15 1:00 PM
sir why my tasks starts after midday?
I failed to understand this issue
Please give me further information.
what else is needed sir… working starts with 8:00am and ends at 5:00pm this is my first activity in the project.
friday is offday.
I am using 2013 MSP.
I can’t tell. Send me an mpp file to nenadtrajk@gmail.com
Hi Nenad,
I had sent a project file to your gmail address. One of my students was entering costs in the tasks which is seen in the Task form. But in the cost summary there is a negative number (!). Can you have a look please ?
He put negative amount in fixed costs Field!
Awesome site and great articles. Keep up the good work….
Hi Nenad!
I have searched a lot regarding the new budgeting feature in MS Project 2010 (Budget Cost/Budget Work only to be assigned to the summary task) but I can not understand why to use it. I always use the baseline as my approved budget to measure against. If I get a change request to the project that changes the budget then a new baseline is added. Help me clarify if I’m missing something vital or if on the right path here?
I think that Budget resources is useless, and you are right. Use Baseline!
Hi Nenad
Where can we post a question to you?
Thanks
Anna.
Nenadtrajk@gmail.com
Hi Nenad, I Carlos Altamirano from Ecuador, South America.
First of all I want to thank you very much for your always useful and concise work your are doing with your excellent blog.
I have a problem importing resources excel files into project 2013, it’s simply doesn’t work; even that I have exported the resource sheet and then try to import the same sheet, do you have any ideas?
The import wizard works with tasks, but doesn´t work with resources.
Thanks and best regards,
Carlos
I wrote a Blog about that today, 2/27/2015
Nenad, I’ve already read it. Thank’s so much
Excellent blog Nenad, it has been very useful to me.
Nenad, I would like to thank you for helping all these people the way you do. It is very generous of you to share your time and experience this way.
I have some contacts on the Microsoft development team for Project and I contacted them about this behavior. They confirmed that it is a bug and was not previously reported. So they are working on a solution.
I know. Thank you
Hi Nenad,
Great job, thank you for giving us valuable lessons on Project.
I was wondering whether I can add as a column in the Task sheet view, the summary task so I can see where each task belongs.
Efthimios
You see summary Task in a row not in a column. Hope this helpS
Hi Nenad – Love the blog, thank you!
Hope you can help with my problem. 🙂
I have a master project file with several sub-projects inserted. My problem arises when I try to create an all up timeline in this master file, by inserting tasks from the sub-projects. The task-Id’s are duplicated when a new Sub-Project is inserted. i.e. the ID number starts back at 1 for each Sub-Project. This seems to be causing the issue when I (for example) try to insert tasks of anything but the first project inserted.
Thanks
When you insert several Subrpojects to Master PRoject ID is Id from each of SubProjects, and yes, it goes from 1 to n for each Project!
Hi Nenad,
We would like to introduce you our add-ins for Microsoft Project. If you would like to review one of our apps, in exchange for any product, please contact us.
We are Power2Plan an international software company offering product extensions to Microsoft planning products, Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server/Online.
Our applications are the most efficient, trusted and scalable extensions on the market today. Used by many companies, it helps businesses to meet deadlines, reduce costs and meet high quality standards.
The applications offers state of the art 1-click deployment technologies and a build-in license management service supporting our customer needs for ease-of –use, from desktop to enterprise.
Applications like: 3 Point Estimation which helps the project team in evaluating the factors, positive or negative ones, brings an increased accuracy and a better evaluation, in order to prepare for many variables. Also, brings useful information about the tasks risk factors that project manager estimate. You can see more information about the product here.
Or Outlook Integration through which, the Project Manager can send the tasks to the resources directly from Microsoft Project, and receive updates automatically as well.
You can buy the products from our web shop.
We are also offering Custom development for Project Server/Online, Microsoft Project, SharePoint & Workflows, Microsoft .net Framework, XML, #C, Microsoft SQL Server.
Best,
Lavinia Lung
I would love to review your product!
Hello,
I would like to present you our new book Planning and Controlling with Microsoft Project 2013, a new book that provides the professional involved with construction work guidelines for carrying out planning and control with Microsoft Project 2013. A book that teaches skills covering from basic software recognition to more complex abilities such as creating a list of tasks.
The author, Rosaldo de Jesus Nôcera, has more than twenty books of plans of work and management of projects released in Brazil, the great part adopted by Brazilian academic education. Besides being a plans of work and Microsoft Projects specialist, he is also one of the few engineering professionals with three certifications from Project Management Institute (PMI) and the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) by Microsoft.
If you interesting, please send a email for me, and we can discuss more about this.
Thank You.
Natalia
RJN Books
Brazil
Hello Nenad,
In the nested projects in master project situation – how can I assign a certain amount of hours per week day for one resource (staff member) per specific task in a variety of sub-projects? Let’s say I have Tom working on Project 1 and Project 2, and on Wednesday April 2, I want him to work 5 hours on Project 1 and 3 hours on Project 2. Thank you so much for your help!
You should assign them to specific Task, not to a Project as whole
Nenad, Great work. I just wanted to confirm that dependencies between Subprojects can not be “mapped” (Predessessor/Successor) in MS Project… I am sure it cant be done as Subprojects are seperate “links” within the main body of the Master Schedule and Subprojects keep their line/task numbers which are seperate to the main “Master Schedule”… but if it can be done happy to know how…
Warm Regards
Bob Panic
Master Scheduler, Solution Architect & Planner
+61 424 102 603
bobpanic@hotmail.com
http://www.rockstarconsultinggroup.com
You want to link Tasks under different projects in Master schedule?
Hi,
I need to indicate f.e 5000 m2 of work needs to be done by worker, i pay 5$ per m2 (not per hour). How can I get thus result in budget and indicate all that info (about the volume of work) in ms project?
You should use workaround. For Task assign Material Resource with 5000 m2 with 5$ per m2. And then assign resource with 0$ per hour!
Thank you!
Hi Nenad,
Thank you for a good an informative blog. I have one problem I do not know how to solve. While I can define that a ressource should spend 20 % of his/hers time to do a task, this does not help me in a situation where my resources are assiged many projects, and where I would like to define that 20 % of the work should be done by one of the ressources. I know that a workaround would be to split the 20% into a single task, but I so hope there is a better solution. I use Work/remaining Work and have my tasks defined to fixed Work. I also use leveling to plan.
What exactly you want to do! To have your Resource to be available 20% on each Task on every Project, or something else? Please, provide a little bit more information!
Regards,
Nenad
Hi Sorry if I my intentions where not clear. An example: I know a task takes 10 hours (work), I have 2 persons that are going to work on the task A and B. I know that A should only do the 2 hours of Work while B does the rest. Are there any way to define that type of split within the Work of a task?
Well it is easy!
1. Define Resource pool. for example John is Resource with 100% units in Resource sheet
2. In Project A, Task A is, for example 1 day, e.g. 8 hours
3. In Project B Task A is, for example 1 day, e.g. 8 hours
4. You can assign John to Task A Project A 25%, and the rest 75% to Task A Project B
Does it help?
Regards,
Nenad
Your reply did not really help. I’ve tried to modify your approach.
1. Define Resource pool. for example John and Mary is Resources with 100% units in Resource sheet
2. In Project A, Task A is, for example 3 day, e.g. 24 hours
3. In Project B Task A is, for example 1 day, e.g. 8 hours
Though both John and Mary both work on project A task A, John has to work one day, while Mary do the rest. Is there a way to do this without splitting project A task A into two tasks? that is to mark the amount of work that has to be completed by one ressource assigned to a task.
Oh I got it now! I will write a post next week about it. Tell me something. Your Rask A is fixed duration or fixed work?
I will write a post about this. Please answer this: If in PROJECT A in Task A which is 3 days duration e.g. 24 hours, you want John to work 8 hours, nad Mary 16, or you want John to work 8 hours and Mary 24?
You just nailed it with your post. Thank you ever-so-much
Dear Nenad,
I have a doubt in MS Project updation and tracking of material resources. For example, i have budgeted quantity of cement as 100bags but in actual site construction the quantity consumed is 150bags. Where should i update the material resources and how can i find the variances of material resources.
Regards,
Sunil
See my Blog Post: https://ntrajkovski.com/2014/08/25/actuals-and-variances-with-material-resources-in-ms-project-2013/
Hello Nenad,
compliments for your blog.
I would like to import from ms excel to ms project the weekly availability of resources in my project. I’ll try to explain it better:
my excel file has on the rows of the first column the resource names, and on columns the hours corresponding to their weekly availability. So without having to do it manually could I set up ms project in this way: the resource ‘A’ is available 8 hours in week 1, 5 hours in week 2, 7 hours in week 3 and so on… ? Is there a quick way to do it?
Thank you
As far as I know you can not do it with excel 😦
I am brand new to Project and I am working on creating a new project using the Resource Pool. I tried to save the Resource Pool file to my one drive (through file explorer) but then when I went to create a new project, the ResPool file was not in the ‘share resources’ drop down. As soon as I moved it onto my physical drive, it became available. Is it not possible to put the Resource Pool file on the One Drive?
NO, you can not put Resource Pool in One Drive!
Great Blog Nenad.
I have a quick reply to Andrew’s question. (pasted below)
Hi Nenad – allow me to provide an example of my problem. If the task % completion is 15% as of a finish date of October 21/14 and the finish date were to change to Nov 3/14, the % complete would drop. I do not want the % complete to decrease as the work complete is the same. Basically I want to finish date to be mutually exclusive of the % complete. So no relationship between the two. We are changing task finish dates for a 1500 line item project and it is cumbersome to change the finish date and then readjust the % complete for each task again.
This is a job for % Work Complete, not % Complete. % Complete is Duration based and % Work Complete is based on the Work. If you use % Work Complete, and Fixed Work (for the task), then you will get what you want.
Dear Nenad,
I have been wondering if I could use different standard rates for the same resource in different projects. The point is to use a resource pool to control the assignation of such resource to different projects, but at the same time being able of using different rates for this resource in each project.
Imagine that I had two different projects with two different Engineer Price/Hour (because in one I negotiated better than in the other) and I want to assign the same resource to both projects. Is it possible to manage this with Ms Project? How?
Kind Regards,
Lázaro.
Up to five of them! You should use different tables (from A to E). If you need any further assistance, let me know!
Hallo Nenad,
thank you for sharing your expereices with us. I had a question and hope you can help me. Can you make a comparsion between MS Project and Powerproject and show what advantages has MS Project over Powerproject?
I didn’t use Powerproject ever, so I can’t help you 😦
Hi Nenad – been following your blog for a while. Keep up the great work. Alot of knowledge which helps me day to day. I have a question. I am modifying the finish date for a task and do not want the “% complete” to be affected. Is there a way to change the finish date of a task without the “% complete” value being impacted? Should I change it to change it to “% work complete”?
Well, if you put ANY value in a FINISH DATE, it means that Task is 100% completed, and teher is no way that you can avoid that!
Hi Nenad – allow me to provide an example of my problem. If the task % completion is 15% as of a finish date of October 21/14 and the finish date were to change to Nov 3/14, the % complete would drop. I do not want the % complete to decrease as the work complete is the same. Basically I want to finish date to be mutually exclusive of the % complete. So no relationship between the two. We are changing task finish dates for a 1500 line item project and it is cumbersome to change the finish date and then readjust the % complete for each task again.
Hi Nenad – allow me to give you an example of my problem. A task with a finish date of May 5/14 has a % complete of 25%. When the finish date is changed to May 30/14 the % complete automatically adjusts to 20%. I would like the finish date modification to be independent of the % complete. So when I change the finish date, the % complete does not change. Is there a way to change the relationship logic between finish date and % complete?
No, there is no way to do that!
Read this: https://ntrajkovski.com/2014/04/30/complete-vs-finish-date-in-ms-project-2013/
Hello Nenad,
I’m new to Ms Project 2013 and I came across your blog and found it very informative and useful. I just stated a new job in a medium size software company (60 ppl). They just recently started using MS Project and no one can really give me an advise on its functionalities 😦 So I’m doing my studying online after work. So I figured out how to create the projects, I figured out how to create a Master project with subprojects. My challenge is how to show the resource allocation (important: over allocation) amongst these linked projects. When I go to Resource Usage view it looks kind of messy. My manager wants to see a report that shows all the resources with their assigned tasks on a weekly/monthly basis. Can this be done in MS Project? As of right now, the company doesn’t have a set structure and there is no actual resource calendar to see where the resources are and which project they are delivering on a given week. Maybe there is a different PM tool I need to look into? I would really appreciate your opinion and possible solution. Thank you in advance!
Best wishes,
Natalja
Use Resource Poolm and you will have all information you need. You can then Modifiy this View as you like. Let me know if I can assist!
I think it will be better to create lag or lead by changing the connection type
Lag is plus and lead is negative
This is better than the mso or mfo
You can do that, as well. Id depends of the situation you have in your Project
Hi Nenad,
Thank you very much for your blog. Step by step I am mastering MS Project because of you.
I would like to know a very simple question that I face frequently:
Which is the best way in MS Project to reflect that a certain task duration has been actually longer, however the work and resources remain constants?. In other words, that the resource for example has been occupied in a different project during some time and it was not planified. Some options come to my mind:
1 – Modify resource calendar and make those days he was in other project as holidays.
2 – Use a different project file for the other project he was busy with and link it with my first project (breaking the initial taks in two task: before and after he was involved in other project task and link the 3 tasks)
3 – Break the task
I do not like any of these solutions, however I would use option 3 (however I do not like breaking tasks) because 2 is not possible in my case. Do you know any other solution or can you tell me which is the best practice solution?
Thank you very much,
Lázaro.
Hi,
well it depends. IF your work is constant, and resources are constant, but duration is longer, peak units (number of hours per day per resources) will decrease. On the other hand, if your resource is occcupied in another project, make exception for that reource, and duration will increase autimaticaly (Option 1). This is the best option from my point of view. Do not use two or more tasks, and do not break the task to two of them.
Hi Nenad,
I am new to project management and MS Project 2013. Your blog has been quite helpful, so thank you very much.
I have made a resource pool and I am currently building a master project board, my team is currently working on about 30 projects. My question is, on the Resource Usage Board it list all of the tasks that a certain resource is working on but is there also a way to see which project the task is linked to? Many of the tasks are identical among the projects so I would like to know exactly which project that the resource is working.
Thanks for your help and keep up the great blog.
Chip
Of course you can! Insert Project field in your grid!
Okay! Follow up question. In the drop down for the Project field, which one do I choose out of the plethora of options? Or is this a manual one I need to create with the name of each Project and just check the corresponding Project for the task?
Thanks,
Chip
The field has name: Project
Dear Nenad,
Thank you VERY much for your very informative blog! I enjoy reading your posts and visit the site often. I would appreciate if you could answer my question regarding managing exceptions for resources with over 100% availability (I’m a Project 2010 user).
MS Project allows creating resources with over 100% maximum availability. For example, a resource Tester with max availability of 300% means that this is a group of 3 people.
Let’s say that I have assigned this resource to a task. At a later time I found out that one of the people in this group will be unable to work on a 2 specific dates due to medical appointments.
Under normal circumstances, I would edit a resource calendar and specify these dates as an exception (non-working time). However, doing this for the Tester resource takes makes all 3 people unavailable for the dates of exception. One way of preventing this problem (rather than resolving it) is to specify 3 individual resources with 100% max availability each. However, it sort of defeats the convenience of using group resource (with over 100%). I was unable to find the answer to this problem so far anywhere and would appreciate it if you could provide some suggestions.
Did you read my Blog Post about that?
Pozdrav.
Imam slijedeći problem: zbog financiranja moram znati unaprijed kada i koliko se mi pojave troškovi u projektu (to je još za vrijeme izrade ponude). Iz kalkulacije imam budget za recimo “razvoj”, “materijal”, “proizvodnju”, “montažu”: Neka napomenem da se resoursi ne pojavljuju samo odjedanput već se i prekrivaju (recimo da za jedan task trebam i “razvoj” i “montažu” i slično). Kako to napravim? Jos moram napomenut da recimo za task “proizvodnja” nije eksaktno definirano na koliko strojeva ili koliko radnih smjena ce biti u nekoj vremenskoj periodi. Treba mi da prejudiciram visinu i interval troskova zbog financiranja, nista drugo.
(to mogu napraviti u excelu – rucno, ali to se mi ne svidja).
Zahvaljujem se vam unaprijed.
Nenad
What is the best way to output reports to excel without the “h” hours beside the numbers. Maybe I am missing something here.
Regards
Joff
Hi,
what do you want to export? From which table? How do you do it?
Hi Nenad,
Thank you for your posts. They are really helpful. I have a quick questions. I have MS Project 2013 stand alone and im tracking all my resource information using Resource sheet. I would like to generate a report where we can see all the non-working/holidays for all resources on the project in one report. For example, Resource 1 – OOO from X – Y date, Resource 2 – OOO from A-B date. A report in calendar view would be great. Is it possible? Thanks for your time and help in advance.
You should use Macro! VB! That is the only way
Hi Nenad
I would like to use some parts of your blog on resourcing as handouts for my students. These will be acknowledged to you. Let me know if you are happy with this…..Regards, Ash
Go ahaed. You have my Permission!
Thanks for your precious posts in MS Project.
However, what about compiling all those posts in a PDF book with organized chapters and sections in order to save the time taken in searching for specific topics ?
Thanks
Well, you got the point. I’m going to write the book! Thanks!
Thanks for response
I hope it will be freely accessed :))
I am sorry, but what about applying a “portfolio theme” to your wordpress page ?
It will be great in classifying and organizing the nearly irrelevant consecutive posts.
I found tens of portfolio themes that will exhibit your work in neat way.
Just suggestion I found useful temporarily at present.
Hi Nenad,
Hope this comment finds you. Get better with your arm, hope it does not hurt or scratch to much!?
I am setting up a project in MS Project Profession 2010, and are reading your blog with big interest. I am trying to differentiate my task as “documents” to be written and “Configuration” that needs to be done. Other “types” will be added such as “Meetings” and “Workshops”.
As type is already taken in MS Project, how is it possible to differentiate the above tasks?
Cheers,
Robert Bruhn
Hi Robert,
I did not understand your problem. What do you mean by Document and Configuration. Document and Configuration are Tasks that all should be done. Only difference is that Document should be written, and configuration should be “done”. but for both Tasks you need Resources and Time. So, please, give me more information.
Regards,
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
When looking at the Gantt chart with all my tasks it is hard to tell the difference between the tasks. Some as you described are for writing a document, some are for “doing” and others are workshops. It would be nice if I can highlight or categorise the tasks.
For now I have highlighted all document creation tasks with a yellow background and the “doing” tasks with Green background, workshop tasks have a blue background. This is only visible in the Gantt chart but not in Task usage and Task sheet and Team planner and Tracking Gantt.
I could also just add a prefix to each task name such as: “Document – Quality checklist” and “Workshop – Accounts Payable Requirements gathering”
Is there a standard MS Project way of categorising the tasks? The categories I need are: Document, configuration, Meeting and Workshop.
Cheers,
Robert Bruhn
You can always use custom field! I’ll write a post about that next week!
Dear Nenad,
Today it’s real tough for me to manage my projects (2010)
hope you’ll find the solution for my head break
1. my question is weather i can share the resources between multiple projects
2. If do,can i get the resource tasks (i.e. pending tasks, completed tasks and ongoing tasks) of all projects in a single sheet of particular resource.
Please provide me the solution in your window it will be so help full.
Best regards,
Chaitanya
Hi Chaitanya! I wrote a post today about that. Let me know if it was helpful!
Thanks for taking the time to reply and for your insights.
Nenad,
I am working with a small company that is putting off acquiring an ERP system. The company’s key constraint is it’s engineering department. Today, it has no means of looking at its man loading to understand the total demand for it’s staff. Consequently almost everything is late.
The company uses a rudimentary PDM system with an embedded work flow to track engineering activities. The department is work 30 – 40 small projects at one time. Most project are executed with 2 -4 people, last 4 weeks or less and have 6 of less tasks. I am considering using MS Project as a way of tracking work and forecasting workloads. I would create a project for each engineering activity.
A few questions:
1) Based on what I have read, I will need to use MS Project Server to make this work. Is this true?
2) I will have to create an individual project that shares a common resource table in order to use the embedded resource analysis tool in MS Project. Is this true?
3) What version will I need to accomplish my goal? The company currently uses MS Project 2007?
4) I want to map data from the PDM work flow and or File Maker to MS Project that facilitate the creation of MS Project tasks and durations. Have you had look using VB to map data into MS Project?
5) Have you heard of the use of Project for this purpose? If so, are you aware of any best practices or lessons learned?
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
1) You can use MS PROJECT SERVER if you can afford it. Or You can use PROJECT PROFESSIONAL with RESORCE POOL (max resource in pool is 50)
2) If you use only MS PROJECT PRO, than answer is YES!
3) MS PROJECT 2013 is best!
4) You can make your own workflows in MS PROJECT SERVER!
5) I heard about this but I didn’t use that!
Your blog is a great help to me daily! I just want to let you know.
I’m a PM at a construction company and new challenges are thrown my way all the time. Your blog has pulled me out of some tough situations.
Thanks so much and keep it up!
Good morning, Sir.
I have a slight problem with my project. For some tasks the cost of one resource for tasks is 0$. We have the resource standard rate is 75$/hr for that resource in Resource Center section.
When I tried to create new sample task such as “paint the wall “with the same resource, we assign 1 day of work, and the cost is show up for 600$.
So what is the reason for the missing cost-tasks? and How can we fix it?
When you have a standard rate for the Resource you can not for some task make different cost (or 0$)! Whar you can do is make a different cost rate (for example, Table B with 0$), and that will fix your problem!
Hello Nenad,
i have a question regarding highlighting tasks. Suppose we have a construction project and different task owners, that means lets say 3 task owners who are responsible for their tasks (for example: project owner, project control and architect). To show the responsibilities in the gantt table you could built a user-defined text field called “responsible” with a look-up-table. In the coulumn “responsible” you could choose for every task the corresponding task owner.
Is there a way to do that graphically too, like automaticallyhighlighting the tasks in the gantt table with different coulours (background colours or/and font colours) corresponding with their task owner (for example all tasks with architekt are blue, all tasks with project control are green)? Maybe using a filter or a formula?
thanks for considering my question.
Volker
Hi Nenad, I am new student in project management. I am so happy to find you i cyberspace – MS Project professor.
Today I have had 4 hours with MS Project 2010 taught by a norwegian project manager. It was just enough to know what MS Project is. So I have to learn by my selv. I will be your student for the next several months, mostly just reading your lectures and not able to ask you yes. A faithful student
You can ask me whenever you need something.
Regards
Hello,
short question: You have 2 tasks which own different task calenders (STandard 5day and 7day calender). They are connected FS and have a lag, lets say 5 days. Which calender does the lag use? Seems like that MS Project uses for the lag the calender of the successor. Correct? Is there any setting under options to define this for the whole project (like in primavera)? What is the idea behind it of MS Project (i suppose there is one)?
Thanks a lot.
Volker
I will publish a Post for this today! This is default, and as far as I know you can not change it!
Could an interface or program be built to connect a data base containing basic project information with MS Project? If so, how much effort? How reliable? Would not be loading templates, only would be loading basic project information. Also, would you be willing to have a teleconference for some Q/A?
Hi. I was wondering if MS Project Server would enable us to manage around 400 to 500 unrelated projects at one time? We need to query certain tasks on these projects. Could we query a specific task among the 500 unrelated projects? For example, one task might be assigned to a Division or Section. Also, how could we easily find the right project number in the sea of projects?
Yes you can. And a project number can be used via Lookup toble and a custom field if you like this way!
Very good, Thank you. Another question, can a set of data related to a project number such as project description, length, PCN, etc. be automatically uploaded from another data base into MS Project? If so, could it be made to work somewhat seemlessly so that each time you open MS Project, it would contain the new project numbers? Or would new project numbers need to be set up in MS Project? We are constantly creating new project numbers or pushing them out to a holding tank or moving to different bid openings. The project numbers and related project data need to be shared with a cost estimating program. So we need one source for the basic project information to share with other programs.
Hmmm, importing from another database in MS PROJECT is not Recomended! Databases provided are explained here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc973099(v=office.14).aspx
So, be very careful to protect PRoject Server for crashing, by using the Report Database only!
Regards,
How can I report the following?
imagine two objectives that could be cover with a stacked bar:
in the x line would be calendar (hours, days, weeks, whatever) and in y would be the resources names (John, Robert, etc), finally the stacked bar for each resource would show in which tasks are working the resources (with task name or colors to distinguish between the tasks) – this to know as to when the work resources are available and in which tasks are the resources working so that a next task can be assigned or to move an efficient resource to a other task.
Hi Nenad,
I am looking for a way to have a resource team have a set number of hours they can work in a month, so that every time a resource is assigned to a task it subtracts away from the monthly available hours. Is there any way to set this up in MS Project 2013?
Thanks,
Ivan
You should use a custom field and write a macro!
Yes, someone else suggested exporting to Excel and analysing it there. The thing that puzzles me is this seems such a fundamental question to project management (in general) that I can’t believe that there is not a solution. My boss is always asking ‘is bill late’ and I can only guestimate an answer, I can show him.
Or use Project Server 🙂
Good morning Nenad,
just a little question: i am working on a Project plan and i will use several technicians as resources. But how to set up a Team of them to avoid overload? E.g. Network Team: 3x People Tick, Trick and Track, rollout Team Tic, Tac and Toe. They are external and internal workers so there will be no AD assignment. Any idea? ( I am using Project Pro 2013)
Regards,
Dieter
you can use generic resources like Network team with 300% units, and rollout team as well!
Hi Nenad, Yes I understand how to do it for a task, it is working out if a resource is late that I am struggling with. On the resource sheet (rather than the task sheet) I can add ‘Actual Work’. And that includes all of the work tracked on that resource. But I can’t find out ‘expected work up to today’ that would then allow me add a new field with the calculation in that I want.
I have been trying to do it via cost by using Schedule variance (sv), but that only included cost up to today (or the status date). It does not include any tracked days to the right of today.
Maybe to try VBA Script? don’t ask me how, but that might be a solution!
Hi, You have some great Project info here that I have not seen anywhere else. So I have a MS Project 2010 question for you:
How late is Bill?
I have a project plan that I am tracking, and I can easily see what tasks are late/on time/early.
However, how do I do this for resources? Or to put it another way: “Is Bill late?”
Let me give an example:
I set up a simple project. My resource, Bill, has 5 tasks of 5 days each. We are about half way through the project so, in theory task 1 and 2 and half of task 3 should be done. Tasks 4 and 5 should not have not been started yet.
However in reality Bill has actually done 2 days on each task since the tasks are not dependant on each other, just assigned to bill sequentially.
I can manually add this up to 10 days of booked time. And since we know 12 days of the project have passed, I can see that Bill is 2 days late on what I expected, or running at 83% of plan (10 days / 12 days).
But how do I get MS Project to do this for me?
I can go to the resource sheet and see that Bill had 10 days of ‘Actual work’. But no-where can I find the value ‘Days since start of project’, or some other laps time equivalent.
Is there any way to get this data? Is there any other way to work out how late Bill is?
This question has been vexing me for ages so I hope you can shed some light on it.
Thanks
Kevin
You can do it with puitting Actual start an Actual Finish date for the task, and then compare that with previous saved Baseline, or you can make a custom field(s) to calculate how late are Tasks!
Good morning,
Your blog is a very help full please for me to search information about real help for MS Project.
I would like to ask You a question. I know that You have already solution 😉
I’m using Project Pro 2013 (for a 10 projects) and I’m connecting them into SharePoint (foundation). For me it is excellent: I use MS project, see all projects, tasks, have one resource pool ….
But for a workers which are using SharePoint as a place to see what they need to do (that kind of task they have) it is a problem. Imagine one person (Sysadmin). Each week he need to go to each project in SharePoint and check task for him. A really nightmare in to go for each subtask inside projects to see todolist.
The question is (maybe) for a SharePoint ….
1) How worker (which is working in 10 projects) can see all task for him in a project’s.
2) Or it will be enough how to see all task for one project – without going inside for all of subtasks.
Thank You in advance for Your help.
Hmmmm…. I will suggest to use Project Server! what do you think?
I know that this should be so, but I have no chance;-(
The only thing I was able to convince management to buy MS Project 2013 for me as a project manager.
Hello Nenad
Thanks a lot for your efforts, really helpful. do you have these topic in a book like PDF file. please help
Hi Adel,
I’am wrting a book “MS PROJECT 2013 Tips and Tricks” and it will be available (I hope), before summer this year!
Good morning, Sir.
I would like to ask for your instruction on configuring and setting dashboard, and reporting services for BI center. I tried to follow some instructions from Microsoft website, but couldn’t understand all of it. If you know some resources or websites that give us detail instructions or step-by-step configuration with explanation, I will really appreciate it.
Sincerely,
The best solution is to buy a book: Implementing and Administering Microsoft PRoject Server 2010 Second Edition FOR IMPLEMENTERS AND ADMINISTRATIONS By Gary L. Chefetz & Dale A. Howard-
You will find anything you need in this book!
Regards,
Nenad
Hello Nenad, I had that book already, but there are some options within the instructions that they presented in the book that I couldn’t understand. For examples, the account that I have to set up for the excel services so all of my students can create the reports using BI center.
Dear Nenad Trajkovski
your database on MS projects really kick minds off and your tenacity quite remarkable, i do would like to have some classes you might help me out. If you do have any videos of the lectures on start till the end of the projects with multiple advises will be so beneficial in the professional way and it will be so encouraging to the trainees of project management to really kick start off …..
if do: mail me the website or any posts to my mail…..g.ch.chakravarthi@gmail.com
Regards …
Hello Nedad, thanks a lot for the info you are displaying here. I’m not sure if the following can be adchieved with MSproject2010. As some other department (dispatch) of my company is using a tool just for scheduling multiple resources I was wondering if msproject is able to deliver some kind of report showing only dates a resources should work on a certain task. For example if resource A is planned on task A for a duration of 10 days I do not want the report showing dates the resource doesn’t work (like weekends, holidays, execptions recorded in the resource calender etc…). Would this be possible, and if so, can I export this report to excel? This would make the live of dispatch much easier as the do not understand the way msproject works.
you can use “who does what” report, or “who dose what when”, or “Resource usage” Report! You can not pput them in Excel! You can try with some Visual Reports as well!
A word of praise. It’s not all too easy to find project management exercises revolving around Project 2010 on the net… a job well done!
Hello Nenad, You are amazing at what you do, I’m a project planner/scheduler for about 5 years now but i still had a lot to learn from your blog. Please keep up the good work.
Hi Nenad!
Thank you for your great blog – it’s really helpful!!
I can’t solve this problem:
“The task Distribute Boxes will be scheduled according to the task, when the computers are to be disconnected. Boxes will be distributed 5 days before the first computer is disconnected. Enter a task relationship to reflect this.”
On the Gantt-chard in the solution I can see the “link-arrow” pointing backwards. I have tried “Start-to-start! -5 days on the Computer-task, but it didn’t work out.
Best wishes from Denmark!
Can you give me the mpp file, because it works fine with me!
Hi Nenad!
Thanks for getting back to me. I solved the problem last night – it was just a stupid mistake that was the trouble 🙂
Best wishes – Frank
What type of resource is a software application, e.g., Solidworks?
It can be Material or Cost Resource, depends of your needs!
Can you help me on recurring tasks problem:
Assume a recurring task “A” is defined: weekly, every monday, duration 1h.
If no actuals are reported in the timesheet for “A 1”, will “A 1” be visible in th enext week timesheet as well in parallel to “A 2” or will just “A 2” be visible?
Thanks a lot for any help!
I am on Vacation till 09/03/2012. I will give you the answer after that. Regards
Hi Nenad,
After spending hours trying to resolve a very obscure Calendar issue within MS Project, I am thankful to say that your blog very quickly lead me to identifying the casue of the issue and resolving it! I shall be referring back to it again. Thanks!
Hello Mr. Nenad,
Firstly thank you soooo much for this blog.
Could you share with us making a study of approval workflow?
Thanks, Recep
I will do it till the end of the year!
Thank you Mr. Nenad
I’d really like your writing on this subject.
And I continue to follow you.
Hello Nenad!
Finally found some spare time to check your blog. I am pleasantly surprised with what I see. A lot of useful and detailed information. Keep up the good work.
Regards … Vladimir
Thank you my old friend! Glad to hear that!
Hi Nenad,
Thank you so much for writing this blog. Excellent work.
I was reading this article – How to apply Overtime, and Double time rates in MS PROJECT 2010.
After calculating the costing for work and overtime work, I baselined the task and then did tried to do the actuals in the task usage sheet. I did this to check the actual cost and actual overtime cost.
I was able to enter the actual work (hrs) for each day and was not able to do actual overtime work (hrs). Would you be able to assist as how to feed the actual overtime work in the task usage sheet.
Hi,
Please, find answers here: https://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/how-to-track-actual-overtime-work-in-ms-project-2010/
If you have any further question, do not hesisate to contact me.
Regards,
Hi Nenad,
I really find your plog very informative about MS project,i actually copied all the posts in my pc..I hope you can help me with this..Is there any way I can remove or costmize the Colour Key at the bottom of the page and insert a table shows the originator and reviewer and the approver and the date. Also I want to show the project title which is too long for the allocated space.
thanks
Hi Nenad, i’m thinking of leveling up my career from project engineer into project manager and it was inspired to read your blog. Hope i can dive into your blog. Thanks, jesie
Hello Nenad,
I read your blog about entering costs by task to track cost to budget variances. The project I am working on is for software implementation. My project gives me a budget by application so for example I have $50,000 to buy and implement AutoCAD across multiple locations. Can I set up a budget for the summary task called AutoCAD Implementation and then track costs by task against the overall project budget of $50,000? I am not new to MS Project but I am new to MS Project 2010. Thanks!
Hello Randy! Budgeted Resources can be assigned only to PROJECT SUMMARY TASK, but not to Summary Task. If you want to assign Budget to your Sumarry Task you should use custom fields.
Please read these posts:
https://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/setting-up-the-project-budget/
https://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/creating-own-budget-in-ms-project-2010part-1/
https://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/creating-own-budget-in-ms-project-2010part-2/
If it does not help, let me know. You can always send me an e-mail to nenadtrajk@gmail.com
Thanks
Hello
Do you have any idea about Sharepoint 2010 & Project 2010 integration ? because I could get over an error that
Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
Could not get the application proxy object
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: Could not get the application proxy object
Source Error:
[No relevant source lines]
Source File: c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.0.cs Line: 0
Stack Trace:
[InvalidOperationException: Could not get the application proxy object]
Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.InternalGetProxy(Guid siteUid) +460
Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.InternalGetRoutingContext(String address, String& endpointUri, Guid siteUid) +140
Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.GetRoutingContext(String address, String& endpointUri, Guid siteUid) +31
Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.AuthenticationHelper.AuthenticateUserByName(String userName, Guid siteId) +123
Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.AuthenticateUserForPWA(Boolean needToValidateUser, String username, Guid siteId) +398
Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.AuthenticateUserForPWA(Boolean newCookie) +907
Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.GetContext(Boolean isWebServiceCall, Boolean newCookie, Guid siteId, Nullable`1 zone, Boolean useCache) +695
Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.GetContext(Boolean isWebServiceCall, Boolean newCookie, Guid siteId, Nullable`1 zone) +92
Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJBaseWebPartPage..ctor() +253
ASP.DEFAULT_ASPX__1514027361..ctor() in c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.0.cs:0
__ASP.FastObjectFactory_app_web_default_aspx__1514027361_bxuqorsx.Create_ASP_DEFAULT_ASPX__1514027361() in c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.1.cs:0
System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath virtualPath, Type requiredBaseType, HttpContext context, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean noAssert) +138
System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory.GetHandlerHelper(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath virtualPath, String physicalPath) +50
System.Web.MaterializeHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +425
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +263
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.5448; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.5456
Thanks
Everything works fine here! I thik you sholud ask your administrator, because I think that is problem for him. Sorry I couldn’t help!
hi,
loved your posts on the wedding project, with all the the nice tips in it.
would like to download the sample file, but alas the link is returning a 404 massage.
please send it for review….
thank you
Nimmy fisher
Here is the link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35142216/The%20wedding.mpp
many congrats for getting MVP honour;
trying my best to reach the same level, good luck;
Hello Nenad
I have a strange problem with Project 2010 In my network diagram, all of the summary and milestone tasks have Start and Finish of 1/1/84, while the detail tasks have the right dates. The dates for the summaries and milestones are correct everywhere else – Task Information shows the right dates. The project does have a start date
Günter de Vincent
Hello Guenter!
I tryed to simulate your situation, but everything work fine here. Would you be so kind and send me your project file (mpp) if you wish so I can examine what is happening! My email iz nenadtrajk@gmail.com
Nenad Trajkovski
Nenad, I just sent you an email on this same subject. A co-worker noticed this behavior as well. It was the first time I had ever encountered it. I am guessing it is a bug. Because I seem to recall that Microsoft set the system start date for all MSP plans as 1/1/84 (which roughly coincides with the date in which the first version of Project For DOS that was issued).
But I checked all kinds of things like Options, Constrainst, Calculations both Auto and Manual, Predecessors, and more and nothing came back to change the wrong date being displayed in the Network view.
Yes. It ia Bug. I saw that!
Pozdrav
Hvala na odličnim člancima povezanim s Project Management i MS Project.
Imao bih samo primjedbu na kategoriziranje članaka pošto primjećujem da svi članci spadaju pod sve kategorije te mi je osobno teško pratiti sadržaj.
Hvala na komplimetnima i primjedbi. Ubuduće ću svaki članak staviti u svoju kategoriju!
Hello.This post was extremely interesting, particularly since I was searching for thoughts on this topic last Saturday.