How to create Project for Web

Posted on November 6, 2019 by

Hi,

as I promised, from today I’m starting with Project for web, the brand new Microsoft Product.

Before my first screenshot you should be aware of two crucial things:

  1. Since this is Project for web, obviously you should have Office 365 subscription with license for it
  2. This Product is perfect, from my point of view. BUT! It doesn’t have everything (every single feature and possibility) like you have in desktop client, or Project Server!. Why? Because it is growing. Do not think about this product as final version. Not at all. It is just beginning of a great journey.

Now, let’s start. You can create new Project very easy. Login into your Office365 account and click here:

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or, you can find it here:

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and then:

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This will bring you to next page:

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Finally you will get:

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and you fill get:

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You can change Project name (instead of Untitled Project I will put “My First Project Web Project). As you can see, I am, by default Project Manager at this Project. Let’s say that I want Anita to be a PM for this Project:

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For Project Manager you can choose a person who is active user on your O365 tenant, and it should have some license assign to it (it cannot be unlicensed user).

Last, but not least you can determine the Start date of your Project. For now, there is no possibility to put Finish date, and then calculate Start date, like you can do in MS PROJECT desktop, for example. I will put 11/04/2019 and I will get

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Now I can start. As you can see there are three Tabs:

  1. Grid tab which you can see on the picture above
  2. Board Tab:

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It looks familiar? You bet it does! It is Planner!

3. Timeline Tab:

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If you click on home Icon:

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you will get:

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In Created by me you can see all your Projects, in Shared with me, you can se all Project which someone shared with you, and in Recent Tab, you can see the newest Projects.

If you click on specific Project you will land to the site of this particular Project!

In the next Blog Post I will show you how you can create Tasks, but for the end of this Post I have to show you how can you delete Project:

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and:

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If you confirm that you want to delete a Project it will gone. No backup, no restore. Be aware of this!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Project for Web, PRoject Management | Tagged | Leave a comment

The new Microsoft Project is HERE!

Posted on October 29, 2019 by

Dear Blog readers!

Do you think that Project as a product is Complicated? That you have learn a lot before you can use it even in the simplest way?

If you do, I have the great news for all of you.

The new Microsoft Project is here. Reimagined and redesigned, Project is better than ever and powerfully simple. Experience project management on a whole new level.

Read about it here: https://aka.ms/newMicrosoftProject

I will start to write my post about it and how to use it very soon.

But, before I do, let’s wait for Microsoft Ignite to finish (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite). Let’s Microsoft make a big announcement, and then I will start with posts.

Until then, enjoy!

Regards

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Scrum and Sheets with MS PROJECT Online

Posted on October 28, 2019 by

Hi,

in my previous post (https://ntrajkovski.com/2019/10/15/how-to-implement-scrum-with-ms-project-step-by-step/) I’ve created Task board, and I assign Tasks to two of five defined Sprints:

I’ve modified column for each and sprint:

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OK! We have board. Let me explain different Views for Scrum.

On the top of Sprint Tab we have different options:

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Let’s start with the Task Board:

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If I choose it I will get:

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As you can see, all Task are here, no matter if they are in the sprints or not. You can see for each Task is it (in my example) in Not Stated, Doing, QA or Done status.

If I choose Task Boars sheet, I will get:

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Here I can also see all Tasks, but I can see Sprint in which if particular Task (if any), Work in hours, what is it Board status, Resources, etc. Her I can also change those- For example, let’s say that Task 1 is Done, and Task 9 is in Sprint 3:

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Now, back to the Sprint Board(s):

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and:

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So, with Task Board sheet you can very easy manage each and every Task, without jumping from board to board.

Now, let me show you planning Tab:

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With Sprint Planning board I will get:

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Here, I can see all defined Tasks, and their Sprints. With Sprint Planning sheet, I will get:

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This is very similar to Task Board Sheet. It has one more column: Show on Board.If I choose: No for particular Task it will not be seen in any board like:

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and:

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or:

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or:

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If you ask me WHY someone will want to hide some Tasks, my answer will be: “We are in planning”. So, we are not sure that we will do this Task, so no one can put it in some sprint by accident. And therefore, it should not be used like I did, but it should be used (from my point of View), to tasks which are not in the particular sprint.

Finally, Sprint Tab:

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In this post you have seen Boards for Sprint(s), so I am going to show you Current Sprint Sheet:

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This sheet is exactly the same as Sprint planning sheet, but it shows only Tasks for current Sprint, and it does not show any hidden Tasks (Task 2, in my example).

To conclude you can manage Sprint projects in many different and efficient ways.

Regards!

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How to implement Scrum with MS PROJECT – step by step!

Posted on October 15, 2019 by

Hi,

today I am going to explain the process of implementing Scrum with MS PROJECT. Just to be aware, this can only be done if you have Project online version, and not if you have desktop version like Project 2013/2016/2019.

When you open Project choose Sprint Project:

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and you will get this:

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As you can see, this is Sprint Planning board with all sprints. Let’s say that we want to have five sprints, and each of them should be 3 weeks long. To do that, follow next steps (After you click on Sprint Tab):

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I set Star Date for the first sprint (now it is Monday, 14.10.2019), then I put 3w as duration (length) for all sprints, then I add another 3 weeks long sprint (at the bottom of the screen) twice, and I’ve got:

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When I click on OK, I’ve finally got:

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Now I will add some Tasks, and move them to Sprints:

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As you can see I have some Tasks in Sprint1, Sprint2, no Tasks for Sprint3,  Sprint4 and Sprint5, and some Tasks which are in my board, but they are not in Sprint yet.

This is – overall planning. No, I want to manage each sprint! Let’s say that I’m interested in Sprint 1:

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I can choose this Sprint as Current, or just by it’s name (Sprint1), and I will get:

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Let’s say that I am not happy with this board. I want columns like:

  • Not Started
  • Doing
  • QA
  • Done

I will right click on each column which I want to rename or delete and do it like:

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at the end I will have what I want:

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Now I can move each and every Task where I want, and how I want. Be aware of this. When you change your Sprint board, you change it for each and every Sprint. So, do not expect that have different Sprint Boards for different sprints. And that is OK, because it doesn’t make a sense that you have different views on the Sprint Backlog for various Sprints.

And, yes this is great.

This was all about Boards (Sprint and Sprint Planning). And this is not all what you can do. It is much more there, and I will cover that in my next Posts.

Until then, stay tuned!

Regards!

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Water-Agile-Fall and MS PROJECT 2019!

Posted on October 1, 2019 by

Hi,

today I’m going to show you how to manage Water-Agile-Fall projects with MS PROJECT 2019! But first thing first. what is Water-Agile-Fall, anyway. It is mixed Waterfall with Agile in which you first prepare fixed project plan, and then conduct the work in sprints. And, therefore, MS PROJECT is the BEST tool for it? Why? Because there are various great tools in the market, but they cover Agile OR Waterfall projects, not both of those two types. For example, you can use Microsoft planner for Agile project, or Trello, but you can not manage waterfall projects (dependencies, and similar thins which characterize waterfall project with this tools)! Be aware that you can manage Water-Agile-Fall Projects only with Microsoft Project online version, NOT with regular desktop version.

OK! Now, first let’s create Waterfall Project:

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As you can see, I have Tasks, dependencies, Resources, and assignments. Now, I want to  put Tasks to sprints. To do that I will open sprint planning board:

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and:

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and I will get:

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I will right click on No Sprint label:

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After I click on Manage Sprints I will get:

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As you can see, I’m defining Finish date of the Sprint 1, and defining start date, and sprint duration for Sprint 2. Do not look ate the dates, because this is just an example, so I randomly picked dates and duration. Finally I will get:

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Now I will put some Task to Sprint 1, and Sprint 2:

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If you conduct those tasks according to Scrum, Task is done or not done (it cannot be partial done to finish the sprint.) If it is not done 100% till the end of the sprint, it should be moved to the next sprint. So, let’s say that Task 1 is done:

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and I will get:

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If I look at the Gantt Chart View, I will get:

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And – that is it! Of course you, and only you are responsible to choose will you manage Water-Agile-Fall project like in my example or you will use some other techniques. The purpose of this Blog Post is to make you aware that you can do it. How will you do it it’s up to you!

Regards.

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT 2019 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

How to manage external dependencies between Projects with MS PROJECT 2019

Posted on September 10, 2019 by

Hi,

lot of my Blog readers are asking how to link Tasks between two or more different Projects, and how to manage them.

I will show you how to do it with MS PROJECT 2019!

As usual, first I will create two simple Projects, and I will save them to my Desktop as Project1.mpp, and Project2.mpp:

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and:

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To make a connection between Tasks among different Project, you should save them first. Let’s say that Task 3 from Project 1 should be predecessor to Task 4 from Project 2, and Task 1 from Project 1 should be Predecessor to Task 6 from Project 2. To get that you should double click to Task 4 (and Task 6 accordingly) from Project 2 and:

image As you can see you should write in the ID column: Project name from which you wish a have predecessor, then backslash then Task ID form this Project (and in my example this is third Task from Project 1). When you click on OK button you will get:

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To connect Task 1 from Project with  Task 6 from Project 2, you should do the same thing, and you will get:

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The final result is:

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Light gray Task are external Tasks.

OK! That was a part about creating dependencies. Now, how to manage them in the easiest way?

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You can see that you can, and should, use this option to see all external predecessors (and successors) on one screen only. Let’s say that you want to “break” connections between Task 6 from Project 2 and Task 1 from Project 1. You can do it easy, like this:

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So, you should first select external predecessor, and then delete the link, and you will get:

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External Task is gone!

Finally, if you look at the Project 1, Task 4 from Project 2 is successor  of Task 3 form Project 1:

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To conclude, when you manage multiple Projects and they are “connected”, use this feature to handle your external successors and predecessors in a right way.

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, MICROSOFT PROJECT 2019 | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Leveling Gantt view and Leveling Delay field in MS PROJECT 2019

Posted on August 27, 2019 by

Hi,

today I will explain Leveling Gantt view and Leveling Delay field in MS PROJECT 2019, which are rarely used.

I will crate a simple Project with two resources and they both are going to be overallocated:

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As you can see John and Mary are both overallocated. Notice this:

  • Task 1: Start date 27.08, Finish date 28.08
  • Task 2: Start date 29.08, Finish date 30.08
  • Task 3: Start date 27.08, Finish date 27.08
  • Task 4: Start date 28.08, Finish date 30.08

Now, I will Level all resources like this:

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and I will get:

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Notice that, after leveling, Start and finish dates are:

  • Task 1: Start date 28.08, Finish date 29.08 e.g. Task is moved 1 day
  • Task 2: Start date 02.09, Finish date 03.09 e.g. Task is moved 3 days
  • Task 3: Start date 27.08, Finish date 27.08 e.g. Task is not moved
  • Task 4: Start date 28.08, Finish date 30.08 e.g. Task is not moved

I will now use Leveling Gantt:

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and:

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Finally I will get:

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As you can see Leveling Delay field for Task 1 is 1 eday, and for Task 2 3 edays. Notice that delay is expressed in elapsed days!

On the right part of this view you can see original values – before leveling (marked yellow), and new values (blue lines ) – after levelling.

This view is very useful. Why? Because after leveling maybe the result will not be what you wanted or expected, and you can compare those two (old and new) values here.

Regards!

Posted in MS PROJECT 2019, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged , | Leave a comment