Author: raywhite

Progress lines in Microsoft Project help see where tasks are behind schedule.  They’re hideous to look at, but serve a useful purpose.  This post shows how to add progress lines to a Microsoft Project file.  Buckle up; this may get rough.  🙂

 

Start by adding a few tasks to a new project:

1. Add Task 1, with 10 hours duration
2. Add Task 2, with 20 hours
3. Add Task 3, with 30 hours

The tasks and Gantt bar should look like this.  At this point, we have no progress lines, just simple task bars in the Gantt chart.

 

 

Add a Project Status date:

1. Choose Project, Project Information
2. Enter a ‘Status date’ for when you would like to check task status (the status date progress line will be red)
3. Click OK

 

Add progress lines:

1. Choose Tools, Tracking, Progress Lines
2. Click ‘Always display current progress line’
3. Click ‘At project status date’
4. Click ‘Display selected progress lines’
5. Click in the list and choose the dropdown arrow
6. Select a date for a progress line (these lines will be black)
7. Click OK

You should now have two progress lines on your Gantt chart, and things may have gotten a little ugly.  As you move the task bars, the progress lines will update.  Tasks before the progress line will cause the line to go leftward (that’s the ugly part).  What good are they?  Backward facing lines are those tasks you need to move forward.  They need to be rearranged to meet your current project plan.  The image below is an example.  Notice how the lines go backwards to tasks that are behind schedule.

 

 

–ray

Here, we’ll be showing how to display critical path tasks in Microsoft Project.  The critical path is the sequence of tasks that take the longest to reach the project goal.  The steps below can be used to display your project’s critical path.  Follow these, and you’ll know which tasks threaten the final completion date of the project.   Create tasks to display the critical path: Enter three tasks Make the second task twice as long (in duration) as the first task Link the first task to the last task Link the second task to the last task At this point, the tasks should look like this.  Both the first and second tasks link to the last one. Two tasks, links to final task   Group the tasks by critical path: Choose Project, Group By, Critical Or, choose ‘Critical’ from the ‘Group By’ dropdown in the toobar After choosing this menu item the tasks will be grouped differently.  All the tasks that are not in the critical path will be displayed first (in the in ‘Critical: No’ group).  All the tasks in the critical path will be in the second group (‘Critical: Yes’). Tasks grouped by ‘Critical’   Format the Gantt column: Right-click in the Gantt column Choose Gantt Chart Wizard Click Next Click the ‘Critical path’ option Click Finish Click Format It Click Edit Wizard After formatting the Gantt column, the task bars in the critical path will turn red. Critical path task bars are red   –ray

Ever wonder how to reduce your Microsoft Project file from thousands of tasks down to a manageable few hundred, without deleting any?  Have you tried filtering?  This post discusses the steps to filter tasks in Microsoft Project.

Filtering is the act of reducing the number of visible tasks so that you only see what you are interested in.  All the tasks will still exist in the MPP file, but you will only see tasks that correspond to your filter criteria.  Follow these steps to filter tasks in Microsoft Project.

Create some tasks to filter by:

1. Enter three tasks
2. Set the durations to 10 hours, 20 hours, and 0 hours
3. The results should look like the image below

 

 

 

Set up a new filter to show long tasks only:

1. Choose Project, Filtered, More Filters…
2. Click New
3. Enter the name “Long tasks” (without the quotes)
4. Click ‘Show in menu’
5. Click in the ‘Field Name’ column, and choose ‘Duration
6. Click in the ‘Test’ column and choose ‘is greater than’
7. Click in the ‘Values(s)’ column and enter 10
8. Click OK to save the new filter
9. Nothing should change in your view

 

Activate your task filter:

1. Choose Project, Filtered, Long Tasks (the new filter you created)
2. Your view should now look like this image (hiding all the short tasks)
3. Choose Project, Filtered, All Tasks to remove the filtering and show all tasks

 

 

 

–ray