Nenad Trajkovski

Departments and Projects in MS PROJECT 2010 – Part 1

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

today I am gong to show how are Departments connected with Projects in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010!

First let me show you Departments in my Company:

and than:

and I will get:

Now I am going to show my Resources:

and I will get:

I have:

One Administrator
Two Executive Managers
Two Portfolio Managers
Two Project Managers
Two Resource Managers
Two Team Leads
Five Team Members

I gave them descriptive names for easier Tracking my future Posts!

I will now say that Project Manager 1 can access to all projects, and Project Manager 2 can access only to Projects which belongs to SIR (Infrastructure), and SEC (E-commerce) Departments:

and:

As you can see, I didn’t choose any Department, so Project Manager 1 will see Projects from all Departments!

For Project Manager 2, I will fill Department field with:

OK!

Now I will say (on the Same way), that:

Team Member 1 is member of SPIG Department
Team Member 2 is member of SPIG Department
Team Member 3 is member of SIR Department
Team Member 4 is member of SIR Department
Team Member 5 is member of SEC Department

I am going to use MS PROJECT PROFESSIONAL 2010 for that!

and I will get (notice that I am adding Enterprise field in a View)added:

and I will now fill it:

After I fill them all, I will have:

I’m going to save this to the Enterprise (PROJECT SERVER 2010)!

OK!

What is next? I’ll show you that Project Manager 1 can Access all Projects, and all Resources, but Project Manager 2 can not, or he can?

For that, read my next Post 🙂

Regards

How to make modified Calendar default for future Projects in MS PROJECT 2013!

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

here is the question from my Blog reader: “Is there a way to change the default calendar so that every new project is created with the predefined working time?”

Let me show you how can you accomplish that!

I will open a brand new Project ins MS PROJECT 2013, and I will say that Default Start Time is 08:00, and default End Time is 16:00. Click on the File Tab, and then:

and then:

OK!

Now I am going to modify the Calendar! I will say that new year is recurring holiday at 01.01. every year. My Company give as day off at 02.01 every year, and at (for example) 01.02 every year. We will use same procedure for each of these holydays, so I will show you how to do it on New Year:

I will do the same thing for other Holidays, as I mentioned:

I will change working time from 08:00 to 16:00 with no break:

Now I am going to save this Project as a Template:

and then:

The name of this Template is My Project 2013 Template! I will get:

Here I can choose which Values is not going to be saved in my template! I will choose all of them, and I will click Save button!

Now I am going to Crate a brand new Project form my Template:

and I will get:

I will add the Task with 5 days Duration:

As you can see this task will start on Tuesday, 29.1.2013, and it will be Finished at Tuesday 5.2.2013. Why?

Because I set 01.02. (Friday) as non working day, so task will be performed at Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday!

And one important thing. When you save your Project created from Template, save it as a Project (.mpp file), not as a Template again!

Easy, isn’t it?

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2013, MS - Calendars, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2013 | 8 Comments

Slack (or Float) types in Microsoft Project 2013, Part 2

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

Let us continue with Slack story in MS PROJECT 2013.

First I will create a new Project with Task List:

Because picture is too big I will show you the Gant Chart:

Now, again I will apply the Detail Gant View:

and:

and I will get:

OK. Let me explain!

Task 1, and Task 2¨are on the Critical Path. On the Critical path if any Activity (Task) is late, the whole Project is late, so in the Critical Path, slack is ZERO!

I will now show you the Free Slack, and the Total Slack fields!

Task 1, and Task 2 are on the Critical Path, so the Free Slack, and Total Slack are zero
Task 3 is predecessor of Task 4 and it has Free Slack zero days (because free slack is amount of time that Task can be late without making late his successor), but Total slack is 10 days, because if Task 3 is late 10 days, the Project will still finish on time!
Task 4 has 10 days of Total Slack, and free slack, because it has no Successor!
Task 5 has 9 days of Free slack (because Task 6 should start after Task 4, and Task 6 are finished). It has 18 days of Total Slack, and that is obvious, because if it is late up to 18 day, the Project will still be on time!
Task 6 has 9 days of Total Slack, and free slack, because it has no Successor!
Task 7 is predecessor of Task 6 and it has Free Slack zero days (because free slack is amount of time that Task can be late without making late his successor), but Total slack is 9 days, because if Task 7 is late 9 days, the Project will still finish on time!
Task 8 is the same as Task 7

OK. Can Float be negative? Yes it can!

Here is the example:

Now I will put a hard constraint to the Task 3, so it Must Start on January 10, 2013:

and I will get the Warning:

and then:

Finally I will get:

As you can see, because Task 2, and Task 3 has Finish to Start Relationship, and Task 3 must begin one day before Task 2 is finished it has –Slack 1day (negative slack).

Regards,

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2013, PMI, Project Management | 1 Comment

Slack (or Float) types in Microsoft Project 2013, Part 1

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

Today I am going to explain slack, or float in MS PROJECT 2013.

There are two types of slack in MS PROJECT 2013:

Free slack:
The free slack of an activity is the time this activity can be delayed without impact on the following activity.
Total slack:
The total slack of an activity is the time this activity can be delayed without impact on the finish date of the project.

First, let me show you that on this pictures:

Here is the example:

As you can see, The Critical Path is: Prepare Outline –> Create Slides –> Add Artwork to Slides –> Review & Spell Check. Tasks Crate Artwork, and Write Speakers Notes are not on the Critical path and they have a Slack!

Task Crate Artwork has Free slack = 22 – 12 = 10 days
Task Write Speakers Notes has Free slack = 22 – 3 = 19 days

If Create Artwork Task is late more than 10 days, Task Add Artwork will be late, as well.
If Write Speakers Notes Task is late more than 19 days, Task Add Artwork will be late, as well.

Now I am going to put those Tasks into MS PROJECT 2013.

As you can see, My Project will take 25 days!

Now I will apply Detail Gant View:

and then:

and I will get (I will show two pictures because it doesn’t fit on the screen):

and:

You can see that Tasks Create artwork, and Write Speakers Notes are not on the Critical path and you can see their Free Slack (10 an 19 days)!

Now I will add two new field in my Detail Gant View: Free slack, and Total Slack:

As you can see my calculation is correct.

Slack can be positive, zero, or negative!

Total slack can be different from free slack, of course!

Do you want an example? Read my next post!

Regards,

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010, MS PROJECT 2013, PMI, Project Management | 1 Comment

Overtime, Costs, and Fixed Duration in MS PROJECT 2013

Posted on December 24, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I got this issue from my Blog Reader:

“OK. I am entering in hours in overtime work field as the instructions note but when I view the cost table, only the regular hours are calculated in the cost. This task is fixed duration for the entire month. The reason is that as overtime is added more volume is processed and the schedule does not change. We are measuring/planning resource cost per task for each month.How do I get a total cost for regular and overtime hours spent on this task?”

As far as I understand, overtime hours are added to Actual hours! Let me try! With MS PROJECT 2013.

Now I will add a new Resource:

I will assign Resource to the Task:

Now double click on the Task and:

Now let’ see the Cost Table:

Task has ! month duration = 20 days = 20 * 8 hours per day = 160 hours, and because it is all Standard time ($100/hour) = 160 * $100 = $1600!

Now the overtime!

Click anywhere at the bottom part of the screen, and then:

and here it is:

Now, let suppose that I enter 40 hours as Ovt. work:

and I will get:

The Task is now splinted, but will end sooner! Why, because the Resource will work 1 month (e.g. 160 hours, but 40 of them will be overtime! So this 40 hours does not mean that the Resource will work 40 hours more! NO! It will work 160 hours!)

Let us see a Cost Table:

160 hours = 120 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) + 40 hours (Over time) * $200 (Overtime rate) = $12000 + $8000 = $20.000. Everything is fine!

Well let’s suppose that I want that my Resource work 200 hours (160 Regular + 40 Overtime):

There is no splitting! Now, let us see Cost Table:

200 hours = 160 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) + 40 hours (Over time) * $200 (Overtime rate) = $16000 + $8000 = $24.000. Everything is fine!

Now let’s put some Actual Via Resource Usage View:

The Cost Table:

10 hours = 8 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) + 2 hours (Over time) * $200 (Overtime rate) = $800 + $400 = $1.200. Everything is fine!

Now I will put 8 hours instead of 10:

8 hours = 8 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) = $800. Everything is fine!

And finally, I will put 16 hours instead of 10:

Now Be Careful!!! Initially work was 10 hours for this Task (8 hours regular and 2 hours overtime) When I put 16 instead of 10 MS PROJECT will calculate:

16 hours = 14 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) + 2 hours (Over time) * $200 (Overtime rate) = $1400 + $400 = $1.800. Everything is fine!

What if you want to put some actual overtime work instead (for example 8 hours of actual and 8 hours of overtime work)? Piece od cake:

and then I will put 16 hours of Actual Work and 8 hours of Actual Overtime work:

16 hours = 8 hours (Standard time) * $100 (Standard rate) + 8 hours (Over time) * $200 (Overtime rate) = $800 + $1.600 = $2.400. Everything is fine!

I wish you a Mary Christmas!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft Project 2013, PRoject Management | Tagged MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2013, Ovetime in MS PROJECT 2013 | Leave a comment

How to get percentage of costs in MS PROJECT 2010 or 2013!

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

my Blog reader have a problem! He want to know how much money did he spend and, he wants that in percentage of Baseline in MS PROJECT 2010. He had sent me his mpp file!

Here it is:

I will show Resources:

You can see that some of them are over allocated, but this is not relevant for our story!

I am going to save the plan as a Baseline:

and then:

Let’s take a look at the Cost Table:

Now I am going to create Custom field:

and then:

Now I will choose that I want Formula for this field:

and then:

and I will create this formula:

Now I will change the Cost Table:

and then:

and finally:

Now I have this my custom field in the Cost Table:

Now I will enter some actual data:

and:

and I will get:

And for the end, few tips!

The custom field and the cost Table should be make available for all projects! To get that you should use organizer!
If the Baseline is not set, you will get an #ERROR in this Custom field
If you are using Baseline1, Baseline2, etc, you should make another Custom field(s) or use IIF function!

I hope this is helpful to my friend!

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT - Budget | 4 Comments

Network diagram and diagonal lines in MS PROJECT 2010, and 2013!

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

I have one question from my Blog Post reader, about Network Diagram in MS PROJECT 2010:

“Hi! I´m from Argentina and I was reading your blog, It´s really interesting and was really helpful for me. Thanks very much! I have a question, in the network diagram What represent the diagonal crossing an activity? in some cases there are double diagonal crossed in the activity, what does it means?. Thanks very much!!”

Piece of cake! Firs I will make a brand new Project with 3 Tasks:

Now I am going to show the Network Diagram:

and I will get:

Everything looks just “fine”.

Now I am going to tell that my Task 1 is finished 100%, and Task 2 is finished 50%, and Task 3 is just as it is:

and I will get::

Now, back to the Network Diagram:

As you can see, Task 1 is finished and it has two diagonal lines, Task 2 is partially finished, and it has one diagonal line, and Task 3 is not started yet, so it has no diagonal line at all. Because the whole project is Started but not finished it ha only one diagonal line!

Now i will make all tree Tasks finished and I will get:

Back to the Network Diagram:

Since the Project is Finished, all Task, and The Project, has two diagonal lines.

Simple, isn’t it?

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2010, PMI | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010 | 1 Comment

How to get the right name for a PROJECT SUBPROJECT in MS PROJECT?

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

again, one question from my Blog Reader: “Please assist. When I insert a subproject (Title: Primary Heat Exchanger) into my Master Schedule, it inserts the project but doesn’t give it the same saved name in the Master Schedule. Why does this happen?”

Where is the Problem in MS PROJECT 2010? Let us see. First I will Create a Project with one Task:

Now I am going to see the Project Summary Task:

and I will change the name to, for example: “Blog Sample Subproject”:

Now I am going to save My Project with:name “My Subproject”:

and then:

OK!

Now I will create Master Project with one Task:

and I will add a Subproject:

and I will get:

Very simple!

I suggest that you always has your Project Summary Task visible. To do that you should:

and then:

Now, wheneve you open a new project you will have something like this:

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, PMI, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010 | 4 Comments

Units and Peak Units in MS PROJECT 2010! What are they?

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi,

I got this comment from one of my Blog readers: “I’ve seen there is a bug on calculation of USE!
there are 2 conditions of fault:

a) fixed work,,, you change duration… nothing happens to resource % use
b) fixed Duration … you change work … nothing happens to resource % use BUT is not deeply true!!!

if you goes to “resource diagram” the % is recalculated,
I think something is missing in the code.
It’s a pity because for me the automatic calculation of use% was very useful!!!!”

Is this a Bug in MS PROJECT 2010 or MS PROJECT 2013? No, it is not. But it is confusing thing. Let me explain it to you!

First I will add one simple Task in My Project:

and I will add two Resources , as well:

Now I will assign both Resources to the Task:

and I will set up Detailed View:

and then:

and I will get:

Now suppose that my Task is Fixed Duration:

As you remember from my Previous Post, the Relation between Units, Duration and Task is: DURATION * UNITS = WORK

Now suppose that I change hours for John from 40 to 60, and for Mary from 40 to 20:

and I will get:

So let us look at the Magic Formula: DURATION * UNITS = WORK.

For John: 5 days (5 days * 8 hours per day) is 40 hours * 100% = 40 hours
For Mary 5 days (5 days * 8 hours per day) is 40 hours * 100% = 40 hours

Where is the Catch? It seems like a bug. It should be:

For John: 5 days (5 days * 8 hours per day) is 40 hours * Units% = 60 hours, so Units% = 60/40 = 1,5 e.g.. 150%
For Mary 5 days (5 days * 8 hours per day) is 40 hours * Units% = 20 hours, so Units% = 20/40 = 0,5 e.g.. 50%

Now I will use a Task Usage View:

and I will get:

I will add new Column: Peak!

and I will get:

So the Magic formula is: DURATION * (Peak) UNITS = WORK.

The same thing is if you use Fixed Work Task Type!

If you want some further and Detailed description please read this article:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2010/04/29/assignment-units-in-project-2010.aspx

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, Microsoft Project 2013, MS PROJECT 2010, PMI | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, MS PROJECT, Project Management | Leave a comment

Finish date and the problem in MS PROJECT 2010! Or not?

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Nenad Trajkovski

Hi guys,

I have a question from one of my Blog readers: “Is it possible to see Finish Variance in working days instead of calendar days? e.g. If i completed my task on Monday, instead of Friday, i want to see variance of 1 working day”.

Piece of Cake in MS PROJECT 2010, and MS PROJECT 2013 as well!

First I will create a Project with one Task!

Resources for this Task are irrelevant, so I will skip that part.

I am going to save The Baseline for this Project:

and then:

OK!

Now, suppose that this Task was started as Scheduled, but Finished on Monday instead on Friday! I will now put those Information in MS PROJECT 2010:

and then:

That’s it. Now I will check the Variance Table:

and I will get:

As you can see Baseline Start, and Start (Actual) are the same, but Baseline Finish, and Finish (Actual), are different.

Finish Variance is not just Finish – Baseline Finish, because in that case it will be 3 days, instead of one!

The formula is: Finish Var. = Finish – Baseline Finish – Non working days, and in my example it is (12.11.2011-09.11.2012) – 2 (Saturday and Sunday) = 3-2=1

It works!

In my next two Post I will answer to another two questions of my Blog Readers.

Effort driven Tasks, because one of my Blog reader is confused about this and how Work (hours) are changed in effort driven Tasks
What happens with %units when you have fixed work/fixed duration Task, and change duration/work! My blog reader thinks that there is a Bug, but there is not a bug.

Regards!

Posted in MICROSOFT PROJECT, Microsoft PRoject 2010, MS PROJECT 2010, PRoject Management | Tagged Microsoft Project 2010, MS PROJECT, MS PROJECT 2010 | 1 Comment

Nenad Trajkovski

Departments and Projects in MS PROJECT 2010 – Part 1

How to make modified Calendar default for future Projects in MS PROJECT 2013!

Slack (or Float) types in Microsoft Project 2013, Part 2

Slack (or Float) types in Microsoft Project 2013, Part 1

Overtime, Costs, and Fixed Duration in MS PROJECT 2013

How to get percentage of costs in MS PROJECT 2010 or 2013!

Network diagram and diagonal lines in MS PROJECT 2010, and 2013!

How to get the right name for a PROJECT SUBPROJECT in MS PROJECT?

Units and Peak Units in MS PROJECT 2010! What are they?

Finish date and the problem in MS PROJECT 2010! Or not?

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories