Microsoft Project: 7 - Task and Resource Information dialogs, Working Hours and Calendars

By now you should be up and running with the basics of Microsoft Project. We will now start to look into the more detailed and sophisticated aspects of Project concerning the manipulation of Information and Calendars.

Detailed Information

In many instances, double-clicking on a field, Gantt bar, calendar date, network diagram task, links, column headings, etc, will provide either a drop-down menu or a dialog box of information.

Task Information

Double-click on a task, right-click on a task and select Task Information …, select Project > Task Information…, Shift+F2, or click the Information tool button.

A tabbed Task Information dialog box will appear where information on the selected task can be added or edited. Selecting a summary will give a dialog for Summary Task Information. Pre-selecting multiple tasks will invoke a Multiple Task Information dialog that will be blank, and data entered will be applied to all the selected tasks. In this way, you can make global changes, provided there is a field in Task Information dialog. Choose the appropriate tab for the type of information to view or enter.

NOTE. Although you can enter new data in the fields shown, in the main you should treat this as Project allowing you to look at information on what you have selected. Resist the temptation to change data until you know the consequences of your actions. For example, entering Start or Finish dates is generally not a good idea, as this action will create Constraints which will limit the flexibility of your project. As you have seen, the Start date is defined by the Finish date of its predecessor, and the Finish date is calculated by Project based on the Duration you have estimated. Let Project do what it is designed to do - calculate dates to show you what is possible.

In the General tab, you have the options of viewing or entering %Complete (for tracking progress) and Priority (for telling Project which task gets overallocated resources when levelling). If you don’t want the task bar to appear in the Gantt chart, you may select that action. Selecting "Roll up Gantt bar to summary" will overlay the task bar on its summary task. Selecting both these actions will show only the summary with the task bar superimposed on its bar – useful for showing milestones in a high level report.

Details of Predecessors and Resources can be viewed, entered or edited in the appropriate tab, whose appearance is similar to the familiar Entry Form of a split screen.

Advanced Tab

The Advanced tab allows the viewing, entering or editing of a Deadline, Constraint type and date, Task Type, the Effort Driven setting, and applying a Calendar and WBS code. Here is the place to create a constraint as a deliberate act – use the pick lists to select the Constraint type: and Constraint Date:. More of these in later months.

Notes

A note can be attached to a task by selecting the Notes tab in the Task Information dialog box, or Project > Task Notes…, or Right-click on a task and select Task Notes, or click on the Attach Notes tool button.

The Task Information dialog box will appear with the Notes tab already selected. The white area is a simple word processor in which text can be entered, edited or formatted and objects (like a chart, diagram, picture, etc) pasted.

Once a note has been written, a Notes indicator will appear in the indicator field for that task.

Hovering the mouse pointer over the indicator will reveal the beginning of the note. Task notes can be entered and edited from any view that shows the task name. There are separate note fields for resources that can be accessed from most views that show resources.

Resource information and notes can be entered and edited in a similar way to that for Task Information. To activate, double-click the name of a resource shown in the Resource Sheet view or any view that shows resource names with the exception of the Gantt chart view.

The Resource Information dialog allows the viewing, entering or editing of resource availability, working times and cost rates which I’ll cover in a later lesson. There is also a Notes tab which is identical in layout and operation to that for Task Notes, though this is for resource information like listing qualifications, etc.

In the General tab, you can enter Workgroup details like an Email address used for communicating within a Workgroup. You can identify the Resource type as a Material resource or Work Resource (usually meaning human!). You can use the Group and Code fields for whatever purpose you chose: eg management, programmers, bricklayers, or pay code, employee number, etc, allowing you to sort or filter using these fields. You can also indicate the Availability of the resource (a sort of resource contour). This will allow for arrivals and departures from the project for individual resources and to allow the Units available to be changed for a pool type of resource or if a resource has a part time role. Enter the date (use the drop-down calendar) and change the Units appropriately

If you plan to change the working hours from Project’s default, it is essential to set them up correctly, ideally before entering any task data. It is worth, therefore going into a little more detail. The settings can be seen and changed in Tools > Options (where all Project’s defaults are set – more another day) and select the Calendar tab.

The values for the working week or day affect the way project views your entries in the duration field. If, in the task Duration field, you type in 1 week, Project looks to the setting you've made to define the number of hours (and thus man-hours) that a week contains. Similarly for the working day. Equally, if you don't specify a time, a task starts at the default setting of 08:00, and if you schedule from the finish, tasks will end at the default of 17:00, both leaving the Duration to determine the other date. So, set these times first. Remember that it is best to do this before entering any data as changes to Tools > Options generally apply to the future entry of data and not what has already been entered. Hence, it's a good idea to set the defaults in a "New Project" template (more another day).

To schedule your project working time properly, you must also change the values in Tools > Change Working Time.

Project calls the default working time the Standard (Project Calendar). This is set to working from Monday to Friday, 0800 hrs to 1700 hrs, 40 hours a week. So, to define a working day, select all the days in the calendar week by click and dragging across the calendar headings (M,T,W,Th F) so they are all highlighted. (Doing this will also highlight every working day in every year throughout from 1984 to 2049.) Now on the right hand side, click in the working hours setting and change the figures to meet your working day requirements. 

To make a weekday nonworking (eg a national holiday): select the day(s) concerned and then the Nonworking time box. To change a default nonworking day (Saturdays and Sundays) into a working day select the day(s) concerned and then the Nondefault working time box. To change working hours for individual day(s), select and then click and edit the From: and To: fields. Note that a night shift has to be set in one day, ie from midnight to cease work and then from start work to midnight.

In the Resource Information dialog, click the Working Time tab and you will see a Change Working Time dialog, identical to the Standard calendar you have just set up, with the Resource’s name already applied. Make appropriate changes and click on OK. Note that the Options… button will go to Tools> Options > Calendar tab so that equivalence can be checked.

Task Calendars (Project 2000+)

Task calendars were introduced into Project 2000. If one or more tasks are to be scheduled only on certain days or within certain hours (for example, scheduling equipment maintenance after hours) a task calendar can be assigned to those tasks. Create a New calendar and then assign the calendar to a task by picking the calendar name in the Calendar field on the Advanced tab of the Task Information dialog box. An indicator is used to flag those tasks that have a task calendar.

Recurring Tasks

Recurring tasks, typically meetings, can be selected from Insert > Recurring Task… to open the Recurring Task Information dialog. The Frequency of the meeting and its Duration can be specified precisely. (Note that the Duration of the Recurring Task's summary task measures from the start of the first meeting to the end of the last meeting, and thus has little relevance.) Beware of assigning resources to Recurring Tasks as it may cause overallocations that become difficult to resolve and could well extend the end date of the project. For short meetings it might be best to accept the absence of the resource at a meeting, or perhaps assign at zero units.