<font color="#00FFFF">Hello there, and welcome to this video! Let's discover all the tips and</font> <font color="#00FFFF">features you need to learn to start using Microsoft Project Professional</font> <font color="#00FFFF">2016 quickly and easily!</font> <font color="#FFFF00">Leave us feedback in the video description to improve our following guides</font> <font color="#FFFF00">for Microsoft Office!</font> Microsoft Project is used to organize tasks, duties, appointments and also resources in the best and easiest way, in both private and business environments. In this video we will cover the very basic features to start. When you open Project a welcome screen appears, showing ready templates with different topics you can start from. Furthermore, on the left, you can directly open projects made in the past. In order to understand how to use Microsoft Project, let's start from a blank document, by clicking on Blank Project. At this point, the general workspace opens. This is divided in two main sides: on the left you have a quick table that will contain the full list of the tasks to be done; and on the right you have the Gantt Chart, which is used to check the job spread over the timeline above, indicating one day per column. First, you have to define the tasks to be completed on the left. Under Task Name, give a name to your task, and define when it starts under Start, and when it should finish under Finish. Once created, the new task appears on the Gantt Chart as a colored rectangle. The length depicts the entire duration of the task. You can customize its appearance by double-clicking on it. Also, use the bar in the bottom right corner to modify the zoom on the Gantt chart. In case you make as mistake and you want to remove a task from the list, just right-click on it and go to Delete Task. You can extend or shorten the time duration of the task directly on the Gantt Chart as well, by clicking and dragging from its edges, or move the time period by clicking and dragging it. On the left, under Duration, you can see the total number of working days (d) required between the Start and the Finish date. By default, the working days are counted from Monday to Friday, with no holidays in between. You can set up the working days and the holidays by going to the Project tab on top, and then to Change Working Time. Below, under Exceptions, add all holidays and non-working days you need. Apply these changes by pressing the OK button. Inside the Gantt Chart, all non working days and holidays are indicated by dark grey columns. Also, if you right-click on a task bar, and go to Split Task, you can split a task in multiple parts. This will have an impact on the Start and the Finish dates, but not on the Duration time. The several bars will become independent, changing length according to the working days under Duration. If you hover on the far left side of the bar, you will be able to adjust the percentage of completion of the task, indicated by a thin dark line on the bar itself. Notice that this follows the working days only. Besides the tasks list and the Gantt chart, you also have a timeline at the very top. This does not list all the tasks you have, but just the ones you prefer to show off. To add tasks to the timeline, just right-click on a task and go to Add to Timeline. To remove it, right-click on it from the timeline and go to Remove from Timeline. You can check all the information related to one task by double-clicking on it. Inside the Task Information panel you can adjust percentage, priority, duration and dates under General; you can add custom comments under Notes, and you can also specify the final Deadline for each task under Advanced. This should be the date you must take into account, and this is indicated as a down green arrow on the Gantt chart. If you edit your task and you go over the Deadline, Project will warn you under the information column on the left. In case you have tasks that are dependent, for example when one can't start if another is not finished yet, you can use the links. To create a link, you have to first select all the tasks that are dependent. Just hold CTRL down, and select all the tasks in the correct order. Then just click on Link the Selected Tasks. In the Gantt chart, all Links are indicated through arrows, indicating the type of dependence. By default you create Finish-to-Start links, which means that the following task must not start until the preceding one (or Predecessor) is finished. These Links are quite useful, since Project will automatically organize your tasks in order to respect this dependence. On the left, the Predecessors column indicates the row number the task is dependent on. If it is 3, such task is dependent on the third row task in the list. If you go to Predecessors on the Task Information panel, you can check all the links related to the task. Under Type, you can also change the kind of link: choose Start-to-Start to make it start when the Predecessor starts; choose Finish-to-Finish to make it finish when its Predecessor finishes; or choose Start-to-Finish to make the task finish when the Predecessor starts. Always check the Gantt chart for a quick representation. Consider that the Start and Finish dates of the tasks may change depending on the link chosen. You can still move and edit tasks as you like, but do respect the time dependence given from the links in order not to get any errors. In case you make any bad or conflicting entries, task bars may have dashed contours. Inside Project you have two kinds of tasks. So far we have seen the Manually Scheduled tasks, indicated by a pin symbol under the Task Mode column. You can also choose an Auto Scheduled task, indicated by a blue rectangular symbol. Separate from the other tasks, the Auto Scheduled tasks may be fully edited and organized by Project according to the several fixed constraints, such as work load, deadlines and holidays. Indeed, the way to edit them is identical to the Manually Scheduled Tasks. In the Task Information panel of the Auto Scheduled Task, under Advanced, you can set the same options as seen, plus other new details, such as Constraint type, date, and Task type, that are specific for the Auto Scheduled tasks. In case you have tasks that are not yet defined, you can simply add them in your task list, and leave them off by going to Inactivate above. In this way, these won't interfere at all with the management of the other tasks. Besides tasks, you can also add and use Summaries and Milestones. You can find these under the Task tab, in the Insert section. The Summary is a collection of several tasks grouped together. Create a new Summary, rename it, and set it Manually or Auto under Task Mode. With the Summary open, add all the tasks that it must contain, or simply select existing ones from the far left, right-click and use Cut and then Paste to add these inside the Summary. Close the Summary to add new tasks outside of it. In the Gantt chart, the Summary is a simple container, long enough to contain the earliest Start and the latest Finish date of all its task. Just in case the Summary is defined as Manually Scheduled you are able to modify its duration directly. Just include all the relevant tasks in the time, or it will show errors indicated by a red colored bar. a single point, with a label indicating its day and month. To save your Project document, just go to File and then to Save As. Choose Browse to save inside your computer. Project documents are saved with a .mpp file format. You can also include multiple projects inside one, especially if you want to take care of multiple projects at the same time. If you go to the Project tab, and then to Subproject, you can browse for your Project file to import it into the current one. This will show up as an Auto Scheduled Summary. This is a live link: if the imported projects are edited, you will see all the changes that are affected. Project Professional is also very useful to organize tasks inside a business team, composed by Resources, these are people that are going to perform the different tasks listed inside the plan. In the bottom right corner, click on Team Planner. This workspace lets you add the Resources and assign their respective tasks. On top, under the Resource tab, click on Add Resources to add people. You can import from your own Address Book, or add manually by using Work Resource.... Then, double-click on the new row to define the Resource Name, Email, Group, telephone number, their availability under Resource Availability, and other options. If you go to Change Working Time... you can add non working days and holidays to the specific Resource. Click OK to apply all. Additionally, under Unassigned Tasks, you have all the tasks that must still be assigned to your team. You may drag and drop a task to the correct Resource row, matching the correct time placement by observing the timeline above. In case you have a task split in several parts, you can assign it by moving the last part, and even assign different parts to different Resources. When you come back to the Gantt Chart workspace, you will see the Resource names assigned to each task. While assigning tasks, Project highlights bad entries through a thin red contour. For example when a task starts on a non-working time, or when you assign too many tasks to a single Resource, making it overallocated. In case a Resource is overallocated, you have to distribute the daily working hours in the correct way. If you go to the Task Usage workspace, you can check day by day the total working hours per Resource for each single task listed. By default, each Resource can work a maximum eight hours per working day in total: if you assign more than this amount, the Resource will be overallocated, as the red icon on the far left suggests. In this case, you have to spread the working hours through different Resources or tasks in order to reach maximum eight hours. You can change the hours by selecting the cell and typing inside. For complex projects, the Auto Scheduled tasks are managed automatically, depending on the constraints inserted. You can also assign a single task to multiple Resources. Inside the Task Usage workspace, if you right-click on a task, and go to Assign Resources... you can add other Resources to work on a single task. Just select the Resource to add and then go to Assign. This will make it easier to distribute the working hours on each task. Inside Project, you have the possibility to make quick Reports on your project plan. If you go to the Report tab, you can create a new sheet through the New Report button. These Reports are used to see and quantify the distribution of the work to be done, the load of each single Resource and additional information through descriptions, charts and tables that you can add and edit through all the design tools on top. All these Reports are saved inside the Report workspace, in the bottom right corner, and listed under the Recent button on top. <font color="#00FFFF">Thanks for watching this video! Subscribe to us for more amazing free</font> <font color="#00FFFF">video guides for Microsoft Office!</font>
