Best Practices for Integration of Microsoft Project and Excel
Introduction This article discusses Project and Excel integration points, specifically in the following areas: How to import data from Excel to Project Importing an initial last list How to export data from Project to Excel Exporting a to-do list for resources Exporting time-phased data for reporting Why Bother with Excel? First things first! My view […]
Viewing Timephased data in Visual Reports #MSProject #Excel
I recently ran an MPUG session integrating Project with Excel. Part of the presentation was using the Visual Reports feature and exporting the data to Excel, and I had one of those questions which caught me out (though it shouldn’t have, I’d just had a long day!). So this post answers the question that was […]
Nested IFs and Risks Lists
When it comes to Risks and Issues, I find that many of my customers wish to transfer their existing Risks and Issues Matrix, often held in Excel , directly into the pre-existing SharePoint lists on the project site. Excel is an excellent tool, managing risks is complex, and so consequently the spreadsheet can become a […]
Earned Value Shenanigans
I’m currently helping manage a multiyear schedule and the client wishes to plot Planned Value vs Earned Value charts each month as a way of tracking “progress”. This is a typical scenario in engineering projects, and is even mandatory in some publically funded projects which exceed a certain financial value. I inherited the project schedule, […]
Hard and Soft Dependencies
Most problems (or opportunities of course) arise from customer queries; really, if it wasn’t for you guys keeping me on my toes I would just spend everyday cycling…. Some days I combine Project and Project Server with cycling…. Anyway, I digress; one of my customers wanted a way to differentiate between mandatory and discretionary (or […]
A small formula for my friends in Finland
So, you know who you are, and I said I’d write this up… For everyone else, this is a simple formula with graphical indicators to show the “Deadline cushion” between a deadline date and the Finish date of a task. Also, I’ll include the “deadline cushion” visually in the Gantt chart (as well as the […]
Exporting tasks from Project into your Outlook calendar
This is something that in the past I have done manually, but due to a discussion on a Web2.0 application somewhere I had the idea that it would be possible to semi automate this. <Update 8th October 2014 – this is now available as a fully fledged and supported add-in to Project – see here> […]