Microsoft Project 2010 Review
New features
The new features in Microsoft Project 2010 make our project work easier.
THE RIBBON
The main change is the Ribbon. The Ribbon helps you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. The Ribbon is organised into tabs which open different sections of the Ribbon. Commands are organized in logical groups.
You can now create your own tab/s and add your desired groups and commands.
THE BACKSTAGE VIEW
The Backstage View is located under the File tab. This view has options for saving, opening, closing, printing and information. Here you also have options for send your project file as attachment connect to a SharePoint server and create PDF or XPS files from your project file.
Great new features I like!
TIMELINE
Another new feature is the Timeline. You can slide the timeline forward and back in order to see the chart area fully or partly. It lets you quickly copy the timeline into an email, presentation or any other document with formatting retained. This is a quick way of sharing your project information with stakeholders. You can customize the Timeline to show the tasks and subtasks. You can also change the date format on the Timeline.
To see a video about the Timeline, click the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEo9ODCCVyM&feature=related
TEAM PLANNER
The Team Planner will visually show you the mix of resources and assignments. You can very easily prevent and solve overallocations. You can drag and drop tasks to reschedule them. If you hover over a task, the screen tip displays the details about it, such as % complete, start and finish date, duration, task mode and constraints.
OVERALLOCATION ICON
One of the new great features is the ability to show over-allocated resources in the Gantt Chart. The Indicators field displays a little red person next to the over-allocated task. This makes Project Managers life less complicated in finding over-allocations very quickly and easily.
Removed features
PROJECT GUIDE
The Project Guide used to display easy-to-follow instructions in order to help you set up a new project from scratch. This was a great feature for those individuals who did not have the time to attend a Microsoft Project course and for those who did never use Ms Project before. This feature was removed form Project 2010.
PERT ANALYSIS
The Pert Analysis feature did allow you to estimate task durations using a Weighted Average formula. This let you create what if analysis of tasks and project duration, meaning it let you see how long a project will take if you are either optimistic or pessimistic in your time estimates. This feature was removed from Project 2010.
COPY PICTURE TO OFFICE WIZARD
This feature allowed you to take a copy / snapshot of the current project file and paste it into a Word, PowerPoint or Visio document. It created also a table with the basic information about your project file such as the name of the Project Manager, project duration, etc. This feature is no longer available in Project 2010.
Add-ins and sample macros were removed as well.
Features that do not work
The main feature that does not work in Microsoft Project 2010 is the Custom reports. You create a new table that includes the fields you want. You save that table, then you create a report based on that table. The report will not show the customized table but the table you have on display at that point in time.
The solution?
You have to install the Service Pack 1 (SP1). This service pack includes fixes for improvements in stability, performance and security. The main improvements are:
- Project Professional synchronizes automatically scheduled tasks with SharePoint task lists
- Manually scheduled tasks support time-phased edits in the timesheet views and usage views in Project Web Application and in Project 2010
- Custom Reports will display the custom table
Sometimes you type / update the list of project tasks and suddenly the Gantt Chart's table does not display any tasks.
The solution?
Close Microsoft Project software and launch it again. Problem solved.
