The purpose of this article is to detail how to use the project plan on it’s own or in conjunction with Microsoft Project to share plans with collaerators in you projects without additional software.
The Excel Data Pane
How To Use/Setup
Adding a new Task Line
Add your Task Name, set Completion status – 0% to 100%. Add a Resource Name and any Notes for the resource.
Colour coding
The Colour for the Gannt Chart is driven by the Code in Column A
If the work is set to 100% complete, then the Colour will change to Blue regardless of the type you have set.
It is easy to set the colours to any corporate colours you, like and I encourage you to do so. Point at a coloured cell on the Gantt chart pane chose conditional formatting and change the colours as you wish.
Inserting a new Line
To preserve the formulas which drive the Gantt chart select a complete row line and use the commands Copy
Then use insert Copied cells
Changing the Dates on the Gannt charts
Find an appropriate start date form your plan, choose the Monday before the plan and insert the date here. The chart will have a new start date
I have been known to use this with the project teams so they can change to focus to this weeks tasks
Searches
There is a very simple embedded macro in the sheet, enter a search criteria and press enter will use the filter in place function to highlight the items searched for. The best use case for this is searching for a resource.
Lets say we want to look at Cat’s assignments
Type cat in the search box and press enter
All of Cats tasks are returned. Notice also that all the deliverables she is helping build are also returned in order to give context to the search. For anyone who has spent time with MSP and gone through the process of writing out extensive lines of text on every task line so that collaborators can work on a single line, you are welcome.
The Microsoft Project pane
Simple Setup in MSP
Step 1 create a special view of the Gantt Chart.
Standard Out of the Box Gantt Chart
Choose Gantt Save View and Add a View name (mine was DHR Gantt)
Step 2 Add a couple of new columns to into view in the order indicated
Add Code (using a spare text field mine is Text1)
Add % Complete
Add Notes (this shows the full notes which means you can write a good level of detail)
Step 3 change the default date field to simple date format (this is because the default date in MSP is different to every other date in Microsoft land and when ‘cut and paste’ excel treats it as Text).
That’s it, simple
Creating an Excel version of your plan 6 easy steps
Step 1 In MSP be in your special Gantt View
Step 2 Highlight the data you want to take to excel from Code to Notes
Step 3 In excel navigate to the top of the excel pane (normally cell A12) and
Step 4 Paste
Step 5 Excel will add a duplicate header, to delete it highlight the new unwanted row and
Step 6 Delete the row