Microsoft Project

Lesson 10: Additional Features 201

11. We’ll go ahead and save the master project under the name Construction Master
(again, the second word not required, but helpful in our case), in the same folder
(Lesson 10).
12. You’ll probably see at least one, possibly two dialog boxes asking if we want to save
changes to the subproject(s). We can click Yes, or Yes to All to save time.
13. If we want to have the first detail task of each subproject linked, so they have, say a
start-to-start relationship, we can link them, or any other tasks in the two, exactly the
same way we link tasks in a solo project. We’ll start by expanding the first (Residential)
subproject so we can see its Task 2, Receive notice to proceed and sign contract. We’ll
then click on the task name.

(We notice the subprojects also get numbers in the ID column of the Gantt Chart, so we do need
to be careful which row we click in.)
14. Now comes the only slightly-tricky part of the operation. We’ll collapse the first
subproject (or just scroll down, if you don’t mind), click the twister or expander arrow
next to the name of the Residential subproject, find its second task, and Ctrl-click it.
(This is, as was mentioned, how we could link any two tasks in a regular project
anyway.)
15. If we do this correctly, the Link Tasks button in the Task tab, Schedule group,
should now be available, and all we have to do is give it a click.

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202 Lesson 10: Additional Features

16. Not only do we see the connection arrow “falling” from the other project, we also
might note a light blue highlight on the tasks of this one—indicating a schedule shift.
The link changed the timeline on the second subproject, which in real life might involve
some further work.
17. Regardless, we can now double-click the Finalize… task in the Residential project,
and go to the Predecessors tab in the Task Information box.
18. The Type column holds the dropdown for the relationship to the previous task, and
we’ll change it to Start-to-Start.

19. After which, we’ll OK out of the box.
From this point on, whenever we save, the program will usually bring up the dialog box we saw
earlier, which allows us to say Yes to All as far as saving all the projects represented here—the
master and the subprojects. We would normally do so.
The last point to understand is that if we were to either make a change to a subproject here, or to
the subproject file itself, of any kind, and save, both ends of the connection would show the
change.
20. So if we change the duration of the task we linked (which, by the way, may now
have a different ID number!), adding or taking off one day, for example, we may still
have to click the alert diamond and give the reason for the change. But once having

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Lesson 10: Additional Features 203
done it, if we save the master project and open the subproject file, we’ll see the change
there, too.

And it would work the other way ‘round—the two files are of the same type, and this allows
changes to be a two-way street.
21. We can save and close all our files now.

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204
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Index 205

INDEX

B
Baseline............................................................................................. 4, 90, 103, 104, 105, 132, 133, 143, 144, 145, 146, 181
C
Chart .......4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 24, 49, 67, 80, 93, 98, 144, 146, 147, 151, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160, 171, 173, 174,

175, 178, 201, 203
Cost.................................................................................................................................................................... 11, 67, 68, 70, 82, 167
D
Duration..................................................................................................................................................16, 21, 51, 84, 85, 105, 141
E
Excel....................5, 17, 47, 49, 69, 111, 112, 114, 115, 127, 130, 143, 166, 179, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186, 187, 190
F
Field ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 174, 176
Filter ........................................................................................................................................................................117, 130, 151, 154
G
Gantt chart...15, 32, 33, 47, 56, 58, 64, 69, 82, 83, 86, 88, 108, 109, 115, 118, 124, 125, 126, 129, 134, 140, 143,

145, 147, 151, 154, 170, 196
L
Link ............................................................................................................................................................ 3, 54, 55, 56, 61, 177, 203
M
Mark on Track ......................................................................................................................................................119, 120, 122, 126
Milestone............................................................................................................................................................................................... 61
N
Network Diagram................................................................................................................................. 4, 148, 149, 155, 156, 158
O
Options........................................................................................................................................3, 8, 18, 19, 63, 87, 106, 140, 189
Organizer................................................................................................................................................. 5, 184, 185, 191, 192, 193
P
Path ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4, 90, 92, 93
Plan ................................................................................................................................................................... 4, 33, 51, 90, 108, 109
R
Report............................................................ 4, 5, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 178, 179, 180, 181, 193
S
Statistics ...............................................................................................................................................................4, 91, 103, 104, 106
Status date ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 35
Subproject...........................................................................................................................................................................................201

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206 Index
T
Table .................................................................................................................................................. 3, 68, 114, 151, 171, 175, 189
Task3, 4, 14, 15, 16, 46, 49, 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 80, 81, 82, 84, 87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98,

100, 114, 115, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 129, 132, 134, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 147,
151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 170, 189, 192, 196, 201, 203, 204
Template .............................................................................................................. 3, 5, 28, 30, 31, 184, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199
Timeline......................................................................................................4, 30, 148, 149, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 166, 201
V
Views ................... 3, 4, 14, 15, 17, 24, 25, 69, 75, 80, 93, 97, 145, 146, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 192, 193

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207

Frequently Used Shortcuts

Navigate Views and Windows

In order to… Press
Activate the Control menu ALT+SPACEBAR
Activate the entry bar to edit text in a field F2
Activate the menu bar F10 or ALT
Activate the project control menu ALT+HYPHEN
Activate the split bar SHIFT+F6
Close the program window ALT+F4
Display all filtered tasks or all filtered resources F3
Display the Field Settings dialog box ALT+F3
Open a new window SHIFT+F11
Reduce a selection to a single field SHIFT+BACKSPACE
Reset sort order to ID order and turn off SHIFT+F3
grouping
Select a drawing object F6
Display task information SHIFT+F2
Display resource information SHIFT+F2
Display assignment information SHIFT+F2
Turn on or off the Add To Selection mode SHIFT+F8
Turn on or off Auto Calculate CTRL+F9
Turn on or off the Extend Selection mode F8
Move left, right, up, or down to view different ALT+Arrow keys
pages in the Print Preview window

Outline a Project

In order to… Press
Hide subtasks ALT+SHIFT+HYPHEN or ALT+SHIFT+MINUS SIGN
(minus sign on the numeric keypad)
Indent the selected task ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW
Show subtasks ALT+SHIFT+ = or ALT+SHIFT+PLUS SIGN (plus sign
on the numeric keypad)
Show all tasks ALT+SHIFT+* (asterisk on the numeric keypad)
Outdent the selected task ALT+SHIFT+LEFT ARROW

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208

Move in a view

In order to… Press
Move to the beginning of a project (timescale) ALT+HOME
Move to the end of a project (timescale) ALT+END
Move the timescale left ALT+LEFT ARROW
Move the timescale right ALT+RIGHT ARROW
Move to the first field in a row HOME or CTRL+LEFT ARROW
Move to the first row CTRL+UP ARROW
Move to the first field of the first row CTRL+HOME
Move to the last field in a row END or CTRL+RIGHT ARROW
Move to the last field of the last row CTRL+END
Move to the last row CTRL+DOWN ARROW

Use a timescale

In order to… Press
Move the timescale left one page ALT+PAGE UP
Move the timescale right one page ALT+PAGE DOWN
Move the timescale to beginning of the project ALT+HOME
Move the timescale to end of the project ALT+END
Scroll the timescale left ALT+LEFT ARROW
Scroll the timescale right ALT+RIGHT ARROW
Show smaller time units CTRL+ / (slash on the numeric keypad)
Show larger time units CTRL+* (asterisk on the numeric keypad)

Move in the Side Pane

In order to… Press
Move focus between the side pane and the view CTRL+TAB or CTRL+SHIFT+TAB
on the right side
Select different controls in the side pane if the TAB
focus is in the side pane
Select or clear check boxes and option buttons if SPACEBAR
focus is in the side pane

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