Microsoft Project: MS Project 2021 2019 2016 Complete_8 PDUs

Before talking about the Critical Path Method, I would like to mention the types of task links. We can link the tasks in 4 ways.

• Finish-to-Start (FS)
• Start-to-Start (SS)
• Finish-to-Finish (FF)
• Start-to-Finish (SF) 

Now, let’s look at the details of these link types

Before starting the Critical Path Method, you need to get familiar with these certain terms. These are the most common terms in MS Project:

• Predecessor
• Successor
• Lag and
• Lead 

You will need to know some additional terms as well, but we will learn these terms when we talk about the Critical Path Method. For now, let’s talk about the definitions of these four terms. 

As each term has an abbreviation, Critical Path Method can also be abbreviated as CPM. In this lecture, we will learn the Critical Path Method Calculations.

When we open Microsoft Project, we will see the Start Screen. We will learn the functions of these buttons step by step in the future. For now, we will talk about the locations of the buttons and their functions. 

In this lecture, we will talk about Project Workspace and Backstage View. Since we will constantly work on these pages, it will benefit you if you know which button is where.

We will talk about Touch Mode in this lecture. As you know, touch screen devices are very popular nowadays. Since some users find touch screen more useful, different software adapts to touch screen as well as using the traditional Mouse. Microsoft Project is one of this software, too. In fact, this property is adapted to most of the Microsoft Office programs. 

Before starting to create our project plan on Microsoft Project, we should make the necessary settings. To do this, we will use the Options menu. 

In this lecture, we will look at the General options. We can make the most general settings of Microsoft Project here. 

In our previous lectures, we have seen the General settings. In this lecture, we will talk about the Display settings. 

In this lecture, we will talk about Proofing settings.

In this lecture, we will talk about the Save option.

In this lecture, we will look at the settings under Language, Add Ins, and Trust Center groups. Advanced, Customize Ribbon and Quick Access Toolbar groups will be covered in the future lectures. 

In this lecture, we will start our Intermediate level lectures. We want to create a schedule for a new project. The first thing to do is, we need to set our calendar. There are few different ways to set the calendar in Microsoft Project. These settings should match each other, otherwise we may encounter some problems. We will see what happens if these settings do not match each other in the following lectures.

In the previous lecture, we did our Schedule settings under the Options menu. Unfortunately, we are not done with Schedule settings yet. The settings under the Options menu were the default settings. Now we should do the settings specific to our project, which are going to be used for the calculations. In this lecture, we will do the Scheduling settings that we will see when we click on the Change Working Time button.

In our previous lectures, we have seen the settings we need to do before starting to create the project plan of a project. In this lecture, we will talk about our project, which is an imaginary project. Then, in the following lectures we will talk about how to create new tasks in Microsoft Project. We will create our new tasks according to our imaginary project.

In this lecture, we will learn how to create a work breakdown structure.

In the previous lecture, we have constructed our Work Breakdown Structure in Microsoft Project. Now we are ready to enter our activities. Here, I would like to remind you that, creating a Work Breakdown Structure is not a must in MS Project. I mean, you may directly start to enter your activities without creating any WBS. But, in order to create a more understandable project plan, you will need to group your activities. Since creating a Work Breakdown Structure is the best way to group your activities, by creating a Work Breakdown Structure, your project plan will be more understandable. This is why, I recommend you to create your Work Breakdown Structure first.

OK, now let’s turn back to our “Setting Up Tasks” lecture. In this lecture, we will only enter the name of the activities. In the future lectures, we will see how to make Microsoft Project to calculate the durations by itself.   

In the previous lecture, we have entered our activities. Now it is time to set up their dependencies.

In order to do this, there are several methods again. In this lecture, I will teach you all of these methods. After learning all of them, just do which ever seems easier to you. 

In the previous lecture, we have established the relationships between activities. Now it is time to enter their man-hours. 

As we said before in the lectures, we will make Microsoft Project to calculate the durations automatically. As the first step for that, we need to enter the man-hours of each activity.

In the previous lecture, we have entered the work hours needed for each activity. In this lecture, we will set up the resources of our project.

In this lecture, we start to define our resources. First, we will define the material resources.

In this lecture, we will learn how to define a Work resource.

In this lecture, we will learn how to define a Generic resource.

In this lecture, we will learn how to change working time of a resource.

In this lecture, we will learn how to create a resource calendar.

Some resources may be available from one date to another date. Or some others may partially be available for some time. In such cases, we need to determine the Resource Availability. In this lecture, we will learn how to do it. 

In the previous lectures we have determined the resources of our project. Now, it is time to assign these resources to our activities.

In the previous lecture we have assigned the work resources of the activities. Now, it is time to assign the material resources.

In the previous lectures we have assigned the resources of the activities. Now, we will look at the task usage sheet.

In the previous lecture we have assigned the material resources of the activities. Since we are done with our resources, we will introduce a couple of simple milestones into our project.