Microsoft Project is one of the most commonly and frequently used project management software across the software industry. It is also popular project management software that is used in managing civil engineering projects.
Microsoft Project has a number of features that are available for tracking the progress of a project. The Gantt charts are used to track the progress of the tasks that has been created under a specific project. A project can have a major milestone as a major task. Under the major task or the major milestone, the project manager can have all the sub-tasks grouped under it. The tasks that are grouped under a major task should be tasks that are related to each other and also result in the accomplishment of the major task, under which it has been grouped.
Once all the tasks have been created, the planned duration in terms of number of hours has to be assigned against the tasks. Once the hours has been assigned to the tasks, the Gantt chart will start showing the hours assigned for each task in the form of bars. Once the tasks get assigned to the resources, the resources will start consuming the hours associated with the task. When the Gantt chart is again created, after some progress has been made, it will show the planned number of hours and actual number of hours that has been consumed for the task.
Using Microsoft Project, the project management team will be able to perform the task of resource leveling. Resource leveling is the process of identifying the amount of load; each and every resource has been taking. Once the quantum of load for each and every resource has been identified and during the process if the project manager finds that a particular resource has been overloaded, then that extra load will be spread across the remaining resources. This is one of the main features of Microsoft Project and helps to track the progress that is being made in the project.
Additionally, the project manager can also get reports on a daily basis using the reporting option built in the Microsoft Project. The data that is available in the Microsoft Project can be exported to other Microsoft products like Excel and Access. By exporting to Access, the data is available as a backup for the entire set of data that is available in Project. Microsoft Project has the capability to communicate with other project management products available in the project management space.
Louisa Coan is writing on behalf of JB Consulting, who deliver computer training throughout England and Wales and offer powerpoint courses and excel courses in london
Article Source: Using Microsoft Project