Project 2002 Upgrade

• Platform:   Windows XP / 98 / NT / 2000 / Me / NT 4
• Media: CD-ROM
• Item Quantity: 1

Inexperienced users can rely on the Project Guide to make sure you cover the four key areas: tasks, resources, tracking, and reporting. The wizards that take you through each step are friendly and helpful but there are plenty of options for advanced project managers. Adding more information to a project or seeing details about a specific task is simple and intuitive and there are all the options you're likely to need. For example, you can set working hours for individual resources, entire teams, specific tasks or the entire project.

The interface is clear too. You can work in a variety of views and edit your projects in whichever view you prefer as well. You can group project information in a variety of ways so you can see tasks in the order that matters to you. And the range of reports includes tasks that should have started or have definitely slipped as well as the usual list of what's in progress. The Resource Availability Graph makes it very easy to see when a resource is allocated to too many tasks to get everything done and you can right-click on the graph to see how much work they've done so far, when they are available and how much they've cost so far.

The smart tags help you avoid problems by reminding you of related issues; if you assign an additional resource, the smart tag suggests that you'll want to either shorten the time the task will take or increase the amount of work involved, and if you change resources you get a reminder to decide how this affects the schedule or let Project automatically update everyone's schedule. You can ignore the smart tags or turn them off, but they help you find the more advanced features and use them for more consistent results.

Project allows for less disciplined projects as well as fully detailed ones; you can put in an estimated duration and clearly see that it's only an estimate when you look back at it. If the plan keeps changing you can save up to eleven versions to look back at for comparison as well as comparing the plan to the actual progress being made.

You can take data back and forth between Project and Excel easily; start lists of tasks in Excel and turn them into projects. For true collaboration with other Project users you'll need to invest in Project Server, which works even better with the enterprise tools in Project Professional. There are tools for experienced managers like resource levelling, but you don't need to know a lot about project management to stay on top of work with Project. Just remember, it won't actually run the project for you.--Mary Branscombe

Manufacturer's Description
Discover how the newest version of the world's leading project management software - Microsoft Project 2002 - can help you create and track project plans, manage schedules and resources, and analyze project information more efficiently than ever before. With more intuitive tools, Microsoft Project Standard enables you to get started faster and stay informed, so that projects stay on track and within budget. Get productive immediately by using the new Project Guide. Its step-by-step, interactive instructions guide you through building a new project, managing tasks and resources, tracking your project, and reporting project information. Get tighter integration with and smoother transitions between Microsoft Project and other Microsoft programs. For example, you can import task lists created in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook directly into Microsoft Project. Use helpful new wizards to simplify the process of setting up and tracking project schedules. Plus, get more of the convenient features in Office, such as the keyboard shortcuts, text wrapping, and column adjustments. Enhanced Help provides timely and relevant assistance as you work. New smart tags let you know when resource reassignments and other changes affect the project schedule, along with other helpful options. Manage your projects by using a new wizard to select and customize your preferred mode for tracking projects. Use new options to adjust the way Microsoft Project calculates actual results and remaining work based on the status date of a project. Now you can better track the progress of your projects, monitor the variances between project estimates and actual results, and maintain historical records. Save and store more than 10 full baselines over the course of any project. Assigning the best resource to your tasks is easy. Use improved searching and filtering capabilities and new graphs to identify the appropriate resources for your projects. Better understand your projects by using improved grouping and information displays within the Network Diagram and usage views. Display three time scales in Gantt Chart and usage views, and print column totals in usage views. Now you can customize Microsoft Project with greater flexibility - thanks to a new Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based file format, an extended object model, improved support for COM add-ins, and an enhanced OLE database provider.

• Software > Business & Office > Office Applications > Presentation
• Software > Business & Office > Planning & Project Management
• Software > Microsoft > Business & Office > Planning & Project Management