Ultimate Microsoft Project & Planner: 4-Course Bundle

Familiarize yourself with the project interface—title bar, ribbons, backstage area, and contextual ribbons—to navigate the Gantt chart and timeline view, manage tasks and durations, and use the quick access toolbar.

Discover how the project ribbon tabs group commands by task, resource, report, and more, with contextual Gantt and Timeline ribbons and backstage options for opening, saving, and customizing projects.

Customize the quick access toolbar in Microsoft Project by adding frequently used commands, showing and hiding it, organizing commands with add, remove, separators, and showing command labels.

Master keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Project to move around quickly and save time. Use Alt key tips, hover screen tip, and familiar shortcuts for copy, paste, save, and view navigation.

Switch between views in project to display the Gantt chart and timeline. Use the view tab, details pane, and status bar to inspect tasks, durations, dates, predecessors, and resources.

Learn how to switch between tables in a project view, load entry, summary, and costs tables, and quickly switch using the tables dropdown and hovering over the corner square.

Practice opening a blank project, exploring ribbons, and using alt-key shortcuts to switch views and the Gantt chart; add commands to the quick access toolbar and switch views and tables.

Set project plan options to tailor general settings, calendars, scheduling, save preferences, and legacy file handling for Microsoft Project.

Create, save, open, and close project files with templates or a blank project. Finish date is calculated automatically; set start dates and calendars, and reopen files from the backstage area.

Define and customize project calendars to reflect working times, create new calendars, and adjust work weeks, including night shift, Christmas week, and part-time calendars.

define non-working time in the project calendar, including public holidays and renovations, and set recurring exceptions such as monthly meetings with a defined start and end.

Set the project calendar from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a 1-hour lunch, eight-hour days, forty hours per week, and apply these defaults to all new projects.

Open product launch map, set standard calendar to 9 a.m.–1 p.m. and 2 p.m.–6 p.m., add a part-time Mon–Fri calendar 9 a.m.–1 p.m., sync with project options, save and close.

Explore the difference between automatic and manually scheduled tasks, adjust project options to default to auto scheduling, and observe how auto scheduling updates dates, durations, and task dependencies.

Learn how auto scheduled tasks adapt dates and timelines by entering duration, linking predecessors, and letting the project automatically compute start and finish dates for a streamlined schedule.

Explore manually scheduled tasks in Microsoft Project and how they differ from automatically scheduled tasks. Set exact dates, use predecessors, and interpret teal task visuals and pushpin in task mode.

Add milestone tasks to mark key project points with zero duration, such as approvals. Insert, rename, set predecessors, and interpret the milestone diamond icon in the schedule.

Create summary tasks to structure a project by grouping subtasks into phases like preparation, recording, documentation, and go live, with collapsible groups and automatic or manual scheduling.

Master structuring a project with summary and sub tasks using indent and outdent, and import tasks from Word by copy-pasting, then convert milestones to zero-duration milestones and adjust dates.

Learn to reorganize project structures by indenting or outdenting tasks, and moving sections with cut and paste to arrange summary tasks and sub tasks; blue shading shows recently changed fields.

Learn how to delete tasks in a Microsoft Project schedule, including single tasks, summary tasks with sub tasks, and using outdent, the cross icon, and undo (control z).

Create and apply work breakdown structure (WBS) codes to uniquely identify project tasks, then define a WBS code mask and insert a WBS column to ensure unique codes for tasks.

Practice Microsoft Project skills by creating a new project from the business plan Excel file, setting the start date, adding tasks and milestones, and building summary and subtask structures.

Master linking tasks and managing dependencies in Microsoft Project, including finish-to-start links, using the link chain, scroll to task, and predecessors methods; adjust link types in the details pane.

Learn to add lag time and overlap time to a project schedule, reflecting delays and overlaps between tasks using finish-to-start predecessors.

Manage task deadlines with date constraints, including the default start as soon as possible. Apply must start on or start no earlier than using the task details form.

View tasks and links in a Gantt chart by using the predecessors column and task path to highlight driving predecessors, with time scale options and gridline tweaks.

Create task dependencies using the predecessors column, add lag and lead time, and practice filtering to identify milestone tasks within a Gantt chart schedule.

Learn how resources influence a project plan by exploring work, material, and cost resources, their calendars, rates, and how adding resources can shorten tasks and affect end dates.

Create a work resource in the resource sheet by name or skill, set max units and calendars (including part-time), and see how availability affects task scheduling and timeline views.

Define material resources as tangible items consumed by a project and assigned by quantity, not by time, with a per-unit cost. Examples include sandwiches, pens, paper, whiteboards, and catering.

Discover how to set and calculate resource costs in MS Project by configuring standard and overtime rates, material costs, cost per use, and pro-rated accrual timing.

Create a cost resource for non-time expenses like airfare, set accrual to start, assign to tasks in the Gantt chart, and review costs in the resource usage view.

Sort resources by type and name to keep an alphabetized list while renumbering resources, then disable automatic resource creation to prevent duplicates and use the resource pool prompts.

Assign resources to tasks via the Gantt chart; copy down or use the assign resources dialog or task form to set units and costs for work, material, and cost resources.

Learn to use the team planner in project professional to assign resources, manage unscheduled and unassigned tasks, and identify over allocations with visual swim lanes and the red highlighting.

Identify over allocations in project resource planning by examining unassigned tasks, team planner indicators, and resource usage view; then fix or reschedule tasks to balance workloads.

Explore how effort driven scheduling alters task duration when adding or removing resources, illustrated with real-world resource over allocations and Gantt chart adjustments.

Practice adding resources from the resource sheet into the plan, assign them to tasks, and resolve resource overallocations using multiple methods, including rescheduling via the task inspector.

Customize project views by adding, removing, and rearranging columns—such as percentage work complete and baseline duration—in Gantt and summary tables, then save as a named view like TRP Gantt.

Customize table columns in Microsoft Project by wrapping text, adjusting width, and using field settings to align data and apply fonts and colors, while tracking task completion progress.

Turn on timeline view to see a high level overview of the project, add tasks and milestones to the timeline, and customize bars or call outs while tracking percent complete.

Learn how to add a secondary timeline in MS Project, customize its date range, add tasks and milestones as bars or callouts, drag and drop items, and manage timeline display.

Sort, group, and filter tasks and resources in the Gantt chart view to organize large projects. Hide summary tasks, create custom groups, and filter by milestones and incomplete tasks.

Add the cost and percentage work complete columns to the Gantt grid, move the cost column, enable timeline view, add a secondary timeline, then sort, group, and filter tasks.

Identify the critical path as the longest sequence whose delay affects the project finish date, and view it in the Gantt chart with red bars and its slack (float).

Set and clear a baseline by taking snapshots of a project’s start and finish dates, durations, work and cost estimates, and compare planned values with actual progress.

View the critical path tasks in the Gantt chart, filter to show only critical tasks, and clear the filter; then take a project snapshot as a baseline and clear it.

Use the task inspector to identify issues like over allocated resources and scheduling conflicts, then resolve by moving tasks to the next available date or assigning another resource.

Delay a task to fix resource overallocations using leveling delay in the leveling Gantt view, with predecessors guiding sequencing and elapsed time (E days) including weekends.

Discover how to view and manage inactive tasks in the project summary view, inactivate tasks to reduce costs and work hours, and reactivate them later without deleting.

Add notes to tasks and resources in Microsoft Project using formatting options, and learn how to view, edit, and delete notes in task and resource sheets.

practice applying a five-day delay with leveling Gantt, deactivate and reactivate tasks, and add formatted notes in Microsoft Project to manage costs and overallocations.

Configure scheduling and calculation options to track progress, enable split in progress tasks, and use the tracking table to monitor remaining work and incomplete tasks.

Set a status date to report progress, mark tasks on track, and update actuals and percentages to reflect progress and earned value calculations.

Set a status date in the project, mark tasks on track using that date, and update task details such as percentage complete, actual duration, and actual start date.