The Project Network pug - mpug. · PDF file3 Cincinnati Chapter Launches 4 Ask Brian: MSP Questions & Answers 5 Critical Correction 6 Microsoft Project 2000 Certifications ... Microsoft

The Newsletter of the Microsoft Project Users Group–Global Volume 4, Issue 4–2000

In This Issue:2 From the Executive Director

3 Cincinnati Chapter Launches

4 Ask Brian: MSP Questions & Answers

5 Critical Correction

6 Microsoft Project 2000 Certifications

7 Tracking Your Project’s Progress in MSP

8 Finding the Missing Link

10 Where is My Critical Path?

12 MPUG at Project World

13 Setting a Resource Pool as Read-Only

14 Times Sure Have Changed

15 Nationwide Microsoft Project Users Meeting

15 Upcoming MPUG Events Calendar

16 How to Join MPUG-Global

The Washington, D.C. area is one of the nation’s

fastest growing technology areas. In addition to the

technology boom generating new projects, nearly

every major project that involves the U.S. Government

has some part of it managed in the D.C. area. The D.C.

area now also has an MPUG chapter that is focused on

improving the effectiveness of project scheduling and

management in the region.

The D.C. chapter was created to provide regional

Microsoft Project users with a forum for learning, review,

and discussion of the practical application of Microsoft

Project as it is employed for the management and control

of projects. This forum is open to all Project Managers,

Program Managers and practitioners without regard to

industry focus or boundary.

In addition, the Washington D.C. Chapter will provide an

opportunity for sharing and examination of topics close-

Washington, D.C. Chapter LaunchesBy Bill Lynch, Washington D.C. Metro Chapter President

ly related to the application of MS Project including, but

not limited to MS Project Best Practices, interface and

add-on products, user modifications and alternate MS

Project templates.

The founding members of the D.C. MPUG will work to

keep the forums productive by reaching out to the myri-

ad of local and national MS Project experts and project

management professionals. The inaugural chapter meet-

ing was held at Gestalt Systems in the Tysons Corner area

on January 11th, 2001, and featured a presentation on

Project 2000 and Project Central by Kelvin Murray of

Pcubed, Inc. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled

for April 12th. For more details, please check out the

“Events” section of the MPUG website at www.mpug.org.

The D.C. chapter is sponsored locally by ProChain

Solutions, Gestalt Systems, and Pcubed. If you are inter-

ested in supporting the chapter as a local corporate

sponsor, or serving as an officer, e-mail Bill Lynch at

[email protected].

pugThe Project Network

White House South Lawn

▼

CO-SPONSORS

MPUG-Global co-sponsored by:

▼2

From the Executive Director

Greetings,

The momentum I described in the

last issue continued to propel us

through this final quarter – with

several more milestones now secure-

ly under the MPUG-Global belt.

Of most significance, (and relief!)

however, is the addition of a much-

needed third team member to the

MPUG-Globastaff. It is my great pleas-

ure to welcome Bryan Mangum as

the Communications Director for

MPUG-Global who joined us on

October 23. Bryan serves as the chief

liaison between MPUG and its chap-

ters and is responsible for all chapter

launches. Also, as new editor of The

Project Network, Bryan has spent the

last month entrenched in the pro-

duction of this newsletter issue. Feel

free to introduce yourself to Bryan at

[email protected].

Also of note, the Annual Membership Renewal Campaign

has begun. In keeping with the new process that was

launched last January, MPUG-Global membership is on

the calendar year, with those joining in mid-year paying

a pro-rated fee. This helps streamline

MPUG-Global operations by enabling

all members to be invoiced for 2001

renewal at the same time, as well as

helps both individual and corporate

members better incorporate the

MPUG member dues into their annu-

al budgets. In December, all mem-

bers received an invoice to renew for

2001. Please remit a check or renew

through the new online payment sys-

tem at https://www.mpug.org/secure/invoice.asp.

Contact Kirk Vantine at [email protected] for any

membership questions.

As we close out 2000, I would also like to recognize how

far we have come over the last year.

• First, membership has increased 70% since last year

– we now number over 1450 members from around

the world.

• Second, the number of chapter officers and sponsors

has also nearly doubled with more than 100 volun-

teers in the field managing existing chapters. This

does not include the dozen or so individuals who

Christine Buonocore

Bryan Mangum

Kirk Vantine

Continued on next page

MPUG-Global Office3923 Ranchero Drive

Ann Arbor, MI 48108

Phone: 734.741.0841

Fax: 734.741.1343

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.mpug.org

MPUG-Global Board of DirectorsPresident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanne Dorle

Vice President . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tim Grenis

Secretary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joseph Hughes

Executive Director . . . . . .Christine Buonocore

Communications Director . . . . .Bryan Mangum

Information Systems Director . . . . .Kirk Vantine

Consultant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .David Myers

Consultant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Stopar

The Project Network NewsletterEditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bryan Mangum

Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bryan Mangum

Editorial content:

Letters, articles and case studies are welcome!

Please send materials to the Bryan Mangum at

[email protected] or call 734.741.0841.

Entries may be edited for clarity and length.

Advertising:

Advertising is open to any authorized Microsoft

Project Consultant or Service Provider. Rates are

available upon request. For more information,

contact Bryan Mangum at [email protected]

or call 734.741.0841.

The MPUG-Global newsletter is a quarterly

publication dedicated to inform, serve and

entertain its membership. The information

published herein is believed to be reliable;

however, the editor and other individuals

associated with this periodical assume no

responsibility for inaccuracies or omissions.

Publication of advertisements in this newslet-

ter does not necessarily constitute an endorse-

ment by MPUG. Signed columns are the opin-

ion of its writer(s), and not necessarily the

opinion of its publishers.

▼3

have volunteered to spearhead new chapters.

• Five new chapters celebrated inaugurations in 2000

including Western New York, Dallas/Ft. Worth,

Southeast Louisiana, Chicago, and Cincinnati – in

that order. New York City and Washington, DC

received their charters in 4th quarter and are plan-

ning launches for early 2001.

• The new MPUG-Global web site was launched the

first week in October to e-cheers from MPUG mem-

bers, chapters and supporters alike. An “Officers

Only” section was published a month later to help

support our volunteers.

• The new MPUG-Global logo and the redesigned

Project Network newsletter were equally praised.

• Co-sponsor, Microsoft Corporation, and its local dis-

trict officers have stepped up support of MPUG-

Global and its chapters. In 2000, MPUG-Global

sported booths at Project World in Boston and

Anaheim, PMI Connections in Houston, and

Comdex in Las Vegas – courtesy of the Microsoft

Project team in Redmond. We also celebrated the

first-ever nationwide users group meeting in

Houston – also hosted by the MSP team. Moreover,

the Microsoft district offices provided MPUG chap-

ters with speakers, venue, catering, publicity, soft-

ware and other freebies to help support the local

Executive Director (cont.)meetings and networking opportunities.

• Most importantly, co-sponsor and founder Pcubed

continued to provide funding for the staff and oper-

ational expenses to keep MPUG humming, along

with technical support and MSP expertise for mem-

bers. Without this support, MPUG could not operate.

Many thanks again to our co-sponsors and volunteers for

helping MPUG-Global through another tremendously

successful year! With a new look, a new team, and

increased support from our sponsors and chapters,

MPUG-Global is well poised to support our members

and further provide value in the coming year.

Bryan, Kirk, and I are here to serve you. If you have any

comments or suggestions to make MPUG more valuable to

you and fellow members in 2001, please drop us an

e-mail or call the MPUG office. We are in the planning

stages now for 2001 and would love to hear your ideas.

Best regards,

Christine Buonocore

Executive Director

(734) 741.0841

[email protected]

MPUG’s newest chapter got off to a great start on November 9th in Cincinnati. Despite tornado warnings

in the area that evening, turnout was strong. In addition to presentations by chapter president Lynn

Frock and MPUG-Global executive director

Christine Buonocore, attendees were treated to an

overview of Project Central by technology special-

ist Melinda Curtis of Microsoft. The interactive

Q&A session which followed got the audience

involved and was the highlight of the evening.

Cincinnati Chapter Launches

▼

▼

(L to R) Christine Buonocore, executive director, MPUG-

Global; Lynn Frock, chapter president; Chas Eddingfield,

chapter vice president; Bryan Mangum, communications

director, MPUG-Global; Melinda Curtis, Microsoft

Corporation; Bob Mendlein, chapter treasurer

Cincinnati MPUG members

at inaugural meeting

Melinda Curtis of Microsoft presents

on Project Central

▼4

?Q: I know the new num-bering system for Prioritygives me more control . . .but I really liked theHigh, Higher, Highestsystem in MSP 98.

A: An often requested “fix” for

Project 2000 is how to get the old

text-based priority from Project 98 to

show up in Project 2000. In 2000, the

priority field is now a number from 0

to 1000. This new system gives a

much more granular control over rel-

ative task priorities, but many people

grew used to the 98 system. Even

more importantly many executives

grew used to it and now that 2000 is

installed, some project managers are

feeling the pinch from execs that want

to see priority in text rather than a

number.

Luckily, Project 2000’s new custom

field formula feature will let you cre-

ate a “dummy” priority field that will

display the old 98 priorities based on

the value of the real priority field.

Simply insert a custom text field

(Text1, for example). Then right click

on it and select Customize from the

menu. In this next dialog, click on the

Formula button. Then you have a

choice. You can paste in this formula:

IIf([Priority]=1000,”Do Not Level”,

IIf([Priority]=900,”Highest”,

IIf([Priority]=800,”Very High”,

IIf([Priority]=700,”Higher”,

IIf([Priority]=600,”High”,

IIf([Priority]=500,”Medium”,

IIf([Priority]=400,”Low”,

IIf([Priority]=300,”Lower”,

IIf([Priority]=200,”Very Low”,

IIf([Priority]=100,”Lowest”,

“NA”))))))))))

This formula will insert the 98 text-

based priority value, but only if the

Priority field equals exactly the conver-

sion values between the two versions.

The exact conversion is as follows:

2000 Value 98 Value

1000 Do Not Level

900 Highest

800 Very High

700 Higher

600 High

500 Medium

400 Low

300 Lower

200 Very Low

100 Lowest

The above formula will only insert a

value into the text field if the Priority

exactly equals one of the listed con-

version values. For example, if Priority

was 950, the Text1 field would equal

NA, but if the Priority field was 900,

then the Text1 field would be

“Highest.”

Now this next formula will be a little

more forgiving. It will, for example,

make Text1 equal “Do Not Level” if

the Priority field is greater than 900. If

Priority is greater than 800 but less

than 901 then Text1 will equal

“Highest.” Any Priority less than 101

would get the value “Lowest” in Text1.

This is a more realistic value.

IIf([Priority]>900,”Do Not Level”,

IIf([Priority]>800,”Highest”,

IIf ([Priority] >700,”Very High”,

IIf([Priority]>600,“Higher”,

IIf([Priority]>500,“High”,

IIf ([Priority]>400, “Medium”,

IIf([Priority]>300,“Low”,

IIf([Priority]>200,“Lower”,

IIf([Priority]>100,”Very Low”,

IIf([Priority]>0,”Lowest”,

”NA”))))))))))

Both of these formulas are good

examples of what you can do with the

new custom field functionality in

Project 2000. They can both be cus-

tomized to have your own text insert-

ed instead of the Project 98 standards.

Make the formula your own.

Ask Brian

Continued on next page

Brian Kennemer, the author of Ask

Brian, is an MS Project MVP and

Program Manager for Pacific Edge

Software. Along with penning this

column, Brian is a frequent con-

tributor to MPUG-Global and

Microsoft Project, having volun-

teered his time for presentations at

both the Mid-Atlantic and

Southeast Michigan chapters.

Ask Brian covers topics appearing

in the Microsoft Project Support

Newsgroup, www.mpug.org/news-

groups.htm, which is a location on

the Internet where people with

questions about MSP can interact

and seek solutions.

The MPUG-Global Mission

To provide the installed user base of Microsoft® Project with a forum to exchange ideas,

support and experience, in an effort to better understand and utilize all Microsoft Project-

related products. MPUG-Global is an independent user group formed with the support and

recognition of Microsoft®. We will actively seek out organizations—both nationally and

internationally—and collaborate with them to encourage the appropriate exchange of

information to MPUG membership for all levels of Microsoft Project experience.

▼5

Another great use of the new custom

field functionality is the Graphical

Indicators functionality. I personally

think this is one of the coolest new

features of Project 2000. For example,

you could further customize Text1 to

show a graphic instead of the text-

based values that your formula cre-

ates. From the Customize Fields dia-

log, just click the Graphical Indicators

button. Below is an example of how

you might create the criteria for show-

ing graphics in place of certain values.

In this example, the field will now dis-

play a colored ball rather than a text

value. This can be very valuable for

communicating information quickly.

Ask Brian (cont.)

▼

“Critical” Correction

In the previous issue (Vol. 4, Issue 3), a small sub-routine was inad-

vertently omitted from the macro described in the article “How Critical

Is ‘Critical’?” The InsertField routine follows. The complete macro is

available in the members-only section of the MPUG-Global web site,

www.mpug.org.

Sub InsertField(FieldName As String, Column As Integer,

FieldTitle As String)

‘Inserts a field in the current table...

Dim ThisTable As String

ThisTable = ActiveProject.CurrentTable

TableEdit Name:=ThisTable, TaskTable:=True,

NewFieldName:=FieldName, _

Width:=6, Align:=pjCenter, LockFirstColumn:=True,

ColumnPosition:=Column,

Title:=FieldTitle

TableApply ThisTable

End Sub

▼

updating project information, resource

management, and developing cus-

tomized planning solutions.

Second, identify MOUS certified prepara-

tion material using the on-line search

engine at www.mous.net. MOUS-certi-

fied books, CBT, and courseware are produced and pub-

lished by MOUS-independent vendors and independent-

ly reviewed for coverage of Project 2000 Certification

testing objectives.

Third, locate a “Project-ready” MOUS Authorized Testing

Center using the on-line search engine at

www.mous.net, and contact the center to arrange an

exam time. Finally, bring two forms of identification to

the testing center on the exam day and carefully read the

examination instructions before you begin the exam

(which will have a maximum allowed time of 60 min-

utes). If you require certain accommodations to com-

plete the examination process, please give the testing

center ample notice of your requirements.

For additional information regarding the MOUS program

and Project 2000 Certification, visit www.mous.net, or

contact [email protected].

▼6

T he Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) Program

would like to extend its thanks to MPUG-Global

members for their support and participation as beta-

testers in the development of the Microsoft Project 2000

certification exams. Core-level and expert-level examina-

tions are currently available through MOUS Authorized

Testing Centers.

For those who have thus far resisted the call

of an hour of tooth-pulling fun, consider that

Project 2000 Certification is the definitive

industry credential on Project 2000—indica-

tive of abilities to enhance team productivity,

increase data flow and communication, and extend proj-

ect management for organizations of every size using

Project 2000.

So, how do you certify? The process is simple. First,

determine which certification is right for you. Core-level

Project 2000 certification is appropriate for those who

manage small projects (up to 200 tasks) in the course of

their regular responsibilities as construction engineers,

LAN managers, webmasters, programmers, data analysts,

etc. Expert-level certification is more appropriate for

managers in larger organizations responsible for com-

plex projects involving multi-project management,

Microsoft Project 2000 CertificationsBy Bob Hunt, Exam Development Manager, MOUS Certification Program

▼

▼7

As you go forward on building and optimizing your

project plan in Microsoft Project, you change and

refine your project file on a daily basis. When you may

make changes to reflect work that you complete or to mod-

ify tasks currently in progress, the importance of tracking

your project’s progress is essential. Some ways to do this

include:

• Viewing actual versus baseline information

• Setting an interim project plan

• Reporting your project’s progress

Viewing actual versus baseline informationAfter you finish creating your newly built baseline project

plan, you probably can’t wait to see your handiwork. At such

a relatively early stage in the project, however, you really

don’t have anything to see. Down the road, after you make a

few changes and get past a couple of milestones, what you

can see at that point is probably quite a different story.

To view a comparison of your actual performance with

your baseline, all you need to do is click the Tracking Gantt

view icon at the left of the project window. This view

enables you to see current performance as Project meas-

ures it against your forecasts (your baseline). Microsoft

Project also offers a number of reports that will come in

very handy when you are tracking your project’s progress.

Setting an interim planAs you achieve different milestones in your project, you

may want to save additional snapshots of how the work is

progressing. Project enables you to do so through the use

of what it calls interim plans. Interim plans provide

you with good, periodic benchmarks to measure against

the original baseline plan to determine whether your proj-

ect schedule is staying on track.

You can save an interim plan by following these steps:

1. From the Project menu bar, choose

Tools➠ Tracking➠ Save Baseline. The Save Baseline

dialog box will appear.

2. Select the Save Interim Plan radio button. The

Copy and Into text boxes become accessible in order

to take a snapshot (copy) of your baseline plan to cre-

ate an interim plan. You use these text boxes to speci-

fy what elements of your project you’re copying, as

well as to where you’re copying them.

3. Accept the default Copy and Into drop-down list

box values, or select the desired values. Normally,

you can accept the default settings. If you want to base

the interim plan on the baseline settings, however, you

can select Baseline Start/Finish in the Copy text box.

4. Make sure that the Entire Project radio button is

selected, in order to create an interim (snapshot)

Tracking Your Project’sProgress In Microsoft Project

By Greg Mandanis, eProjectSchedulers.com

plan of the entire project. The other option is

Selected Tasks, which you would use only if you were

not creating an interim plan of the entire project.

5. Click OK. Project saves the interim plan.

By periodically saving interim plans during the various

phases of your project, you obtain a series of snapshots of

all your tasks’ start and finish dates at certain points in

time, which you can then compare with your baseline proj-

ect to see if you are on or off schedule.

Reporting your project’s progressBuilding the baseline is unquestionably a big step toward

managing a successful software project. Tracking actual

project progress against the baseline, however, continues

throughout the life of the project. Sound difficult? Actually,

the process is quite simple. Microsoft Project puts valuable

tracking information on your project’s progress right at

your fingertips.

There are a number of ways to measure your software pro-

ject’s success using Microsoft Project.

To view your project’s progress lines on your Gantt

Chart:

1. Select the Gantt Chart icon from the View Bar.

2. Click Tracking➠ Progress Lines.

3. Click Dates and Intervals tab.

To view your project’s baseline estimates:

1. Select the Tracking Gantt icon from the View Bar.

2. From the View menu, choose Table➠ More Tables.

3. From the Tables list, click Baseline.

4. Click Apply.

To compare your project’s baseline estimates against

actual progress:

1. Select the Tracking Gantt icon from the View Bar.

2. Choose Table➠ Variance from the View menu.

3. You can verify if your project’s actual task start

and finish dates are on schedule by dragging the

divider bar to the right in order to view the vari-

ance fields.

Project also offers too many types of reports to detail here.

You can print any of Project’s tracking information at any

time that you want. Just follow these general steps to print

any report in Project:

1. Choose View➠ Reports from the Project menu bar.

2. Select the category of report by clicking on the

desired icon that you want to print and then click

the Select button. Project displays the reports

available in the category you select.

3. Select the report icon you want to print and then

click Select button.

Project pulls together all the information necessary for the

report and then displays a Print Preview version of the

report. You can then use the controls in the Print Preview

view to examine the report, or you can click Print to actu-

ally print it to your printer.

▼

Finding The Missing LinkBy Bob Collins, Member of the MPUG Denver Chapter

Unlike some other similar applications, MS Project

allows the user to define tasks that do not have a

preceding task, and tasks that do not have a suc-

ceeding task, even tasks that have neither. While this

might allow flexibility in the way we build our project

work breakdown structures, it often means that tasks

that should actually be linked get overlooked when

manually scanning for proper connectivity. As a conse-

quence, the forward and backward passes of the

scheduling algorithm produce erroneous results that

might escape detection.

To be sure, tasks that may legitimately be started at the

beginning of

the project

will be

appropriate-

ly scheduled

if not driven

by preceding

t a s k s .

S i m i l a r l y,

those that

need not be

f i n i s h e d

before the

end of the

project will

also be properly scheduled if there are no links to any

succeeding tasks. The accidental omission of links can,

however, lead to alarming results. For example, if the

task Pour concrete were to be defined without a pre-

ceding link, it would be scheduled to start at the begin-

ning of the project, even before the forms were built.

Or if a succeeding link were to be omitted from the

same task, the concrete might be scheduled to be

poured just before the end of the project – probably

not what is intended. On a project with several hun-

dred tasks, such omissions can easily happen and pos-

sibly go undetected.

An automated procedure is presented here that scans

a work breakdown structure for tasks that are not

appropriately linked. It is based on the premise that

only one task in a project may exist that does not have

a preceding task, that task being a milestone called

Project Start. All tasks that may start coincident with

the project’s start, which might otherwise not have a

preceding link, must be connected to the Project Start

milestone. Similarly, only one task may exist that is not

linked to a succeeding task, that being the Project

Finish milestone.

The illustrations below depict a simple model with three

tasks unlinked at their starts, three unlinked at their finish-

es, and one with no links at all. The procedure presented

here would flag those tasks as needing to be properly con-

nected, a condition that would be remedied by the addi-

tion of Project Start and Project Finish milestones and

appropriate linking.

The linkages that would satisfy the requirements of this

procedure may be made manually or with the assistance of

other VBA procedures which could insert the Project Start

and Project Finish

milestones and

effect the proper

linkages. Once

the linkages are

made, the simple

model shown

above would be

as depicted in the

illustration below.

The procedure

that follows inves-

tigates each task

in a project to see

if linkages are

completed. If there is a link missing (either preceding or

succeeding), a message will be displayed (see the illustra-

tion attached to the VBA coding below) identifying the task

and which link needs to be effected. In a project model

that has been carelessly put together, these messages can

be numerous and somewhat irritating, so an option is pro-

vided to “Don’t tell me about this again”. Once all the tasks

have been investigated, a message is displayed requesting

that the user insert the missing linkages and run the pro-

cedure again or, if there are no missing links, will inform

the user to that effect.

Sub MissingLinks()

‘Checks each task in the project for the presence of atleast‘one preceding link and at least one succeeding link

Dim MissingPPorSS As BooleanDim DontTellMeAgain As BooleanDim InputForm As MissingLinkMsgBoxDim TheseTasks As Tasks, ThisTask As Task

‘Make sure we’re dealing with a real schedule...‘ “WeGotProblems” is a simple utility which

Continued on next page

▼8

▼9

‘ (a) checks to see if there is a project open, and‘ (b) if there is a project open, checks to see if it has‘ valid tasks.

If WeGotProblems Then Exit Sub

‘Switch to Gantt View...

If Not ActiveProject.CurrentView = “Gantt Chart” ThenViewApply Name:=”Gantt Chart”

DontTellMeAgain = FalseSet TheseTasks = ActiveProject.Tasks

For Each ThisTask In TheseTasks‘...for each task in the project...

If Not ThisTask Is Nothing Then‘...that isn’t a blank line...

If Not ThisTask.Recurring Then‘...that isn’t a recurring task

If Not ThisTask.Summary Then‘...that is not a summary task...

If Not ThisTask.Milestone Then‘...that isn’t a milestone...

If ThisTask.Predecessors = vbNullStringThen

‘...that has no preceding link...If Not DontTellMeAgain Then‘...if the user wants to know...

Set InputForm = NewMissingLinkMsgBox

‘...then go ahead - tell him/her...

InputForm.MissingLinkMessage.Caption = _“The task: “”” & ThisTask.Name &

“””” & vbCrLf & _“(ID # “ & ThisTask.UniqueID & “)”

& vbCrLf & “ has no preceding links”InputForm.ShowDontTellMeAgain =

InputForm.DontTellMeCheckBoxMissingPPorSS = True

End IfEnd If

‘...and for each task...

If ThisTask.Successors= vbNullString Then ‘...that has nosucceeding link...

If Not DontTellMeAgainThen ‘...if the user wants to know...

Set InputForm =New MissingLinkMsgBox ‘...then goahead - tell him/her...

InputForm.MissingLinkMessage.Caption = _“The task: “”” & ThisTask.Name &

“””” & vbCrLf & _“(ID # “ & ThisTask.UniqueID & “)”

& vbCrLf & “ has no succeeding links”InputForm.ShowDontTellMeAgain =

InputForm.DontTellMeCheckBoxMissingPPorSS = True

End IfEnd If

End IfEnd If

End IfEnd If

Next ThisTask

‘If there are missing links, tell the user to fix the model...If MissingPPorSS Then

MsgBox “Link all tasks, then test again...”, _buttons:=vbCritical, Title:=”Fix Connections”End

ElseMsgBox “All tasks seem to be appropriately linked”, _buttons:=vbInformation, Title:=”no Disconnects”

End IfEnd Sub

The following code pertains to theMissingLinkMessageBox:

Private Sub MissingLinkMessage_Click()‘The caption of this message is generated at run time‘in the MissingLinks procedureEnd Sub

Private SubDontTellMeCheckBox_Click()End Sub

Private SubOKButton_ClickUnload MeEnd Sub

▼

▼10

Where Is My Critical Path?By Eric Uyttewaal, International Institute for Learning, Inc.

T he Critical Path Method (CPM) is a beautiful prod-

uct of human logic. By highlighting tasks that are

most likely to affect the project end date, CPM

helps project managers meet deadlines. But often the

enthusiasm for CPM wanes when the theory is applied

in practice.

Put simply, the CPM works by making a forward pass

through the entire schedule determining the early

start and finish dates. The earliest finish date for the

last task or milestone in the network establishes the

earliest project end date. The CPM then uses a back-

ward pass to calculate the late start and finish dates.

The difference between the late date and the early date

of a task is the amount of total slack (total float) on a

task. Critical tasks have zero slack. Typically you see

that one of the chains of tasks in the network drives

the project end date, this is the Critical Path.

CPM with Project 2000MS Project calculates the Critical Path continuously and

can even highlight it in red if you run the

GanttChartWizard. By default the wizard highlights those

tasks red that have no slack, and it colors the bars of

those critical tasks red. Many times the result has been

disappointing for me when the Critical Path showed up

as a partial and fragmented path. MS Project did not

seem to find a path that started at the project start date

and ran all the way to the project finish date. CPM has

run its course, is what I first thought, but then I realized

that without CPM there is not much else! So I went

searching for the path and here are my findings. So far I

have found four reasons why your critical path may show

up fragmented and as a partial path.

The path will be fragmented if any of the following sit-

uations occur in your schedule:

Special Resource Availability

Consider the task to Move an office, that must take

place during a weekend. If the resources for the task

Move are entered to work only on the weekend, then

the task Move is delayed until the next weekend caus-

ing slack to appear on its predecessors. The result is

that tasks prior to the move are not viewed as “critical”

and the critical path becomes disjointed.

Constraint Dates

Schedule constraints can break the Critical Path. For

example, typically business meetings, presentations,

and other gatherings, which are to occur on a specific

date, are entered with schedule constraints. But as

fixed dates are entered into the schedule, slack is often

created on the predecessors of tasks with schedule

constraints. The Critical Path can start to look disjoint-

ed. In the illustration only the task Meeting will be

indicated as critical.

Elapsed Duration Tasks

An elapsed duration is measured in calendar-days, not

business-days. An elapsed duration task can end during

non-working time. For example, carpet cannot be laid

until after the paint is dry. If Drying of Paint’s elapsed

duration finishes on a Saturday, the task Lay Carpet is

Continued on next page

▼11

scheduled to start on the following Monday. This cre-

ates one day of slack on Drying of Paint and its prede-

cessors, because the paint also dries on Sunday; the

Critical Path is broken. Elapsed duration tasks have

slack if its successors are tasks that start on the next

regular business-day.

Resource Leveling

In this situation some resources are overloaded.

Logically, we then level the workloads to make the

schedule feasible. In some instances, however, the

over-allocations cannot be solved in any other way

than by delaying some tasks. But as soon as a task is

delayed, slack can be created on the tasks that com-

peted for the same resource and the Critical Path

evaporates before your eyes. You can easily check if

this is the case by displaying the task field “Leveling

Delay”. All tasks that were resource leveled have a

non-zero number in this field.If you have encoun-

tered fragmented critical paths and did not under-

stand why they were fragmented, you can check if

your Critical Path is jeopardized by one of the previ-

ous four causes. Realize that each situation may be in

your schedule more than once!

Still Can’t Find It?If you still cannot find your Critical Path, I offer to

find it for you. You will have to send me your sched-

ule (.MPP-file), and I will highlight your (most)

Critical Path and send it back. The reason that I make

this offer is that I am not totally convinced that this

list of four causes is complete, and therefore I would

like to do more research. Please e-mail me at eric.uyt-

[email protected], and be sure to mention that you

send this file to me after reading this article (men-

tion something like “MPUG - The Project Network”),

because I receive many other schedules for certifica-

tion purposes in our certification curriculum. If I

find new causes, I promise to follow up with anoth-

er article on this topic.

Where Is My Critical Path?(continued from page 10)

▼

▼12

Visit our web site to learn about our overall professional approach to providing project management solutions, including consulting, companion and custom software, training, web hosting and staffing.

Read about ProjectCommander™, the Five-Star rated, premier companion software for MicrosoftProject, that is now available for Project 2000! See how it can make the new project manager good, and theexperienced project manager outstanding.

Learn about all six courses in the Microsoft Project 2000 training series and the dozens of other ProjectManagement courses that are offered in our four regional training centers or available for delivery at your site.

Call us to discuss customization of Microsoft Project and Project Central tomeet your specific needs.

Microsoft Project 2000 Support by Project Management Expertswww.projectassistants .com is just a c l ick away

Call us today! 800.642.9259 1409 Foulk Road, Suite 200, Wilmington, DE 198031409 Foulk Road, Suite 200, Wilmington, DE 19803

MPUG-Global participated in the Exhibition Hall at Project

World in Anaheim, California, from December 6-7

thanks to the generous support of our co-sponsor

Microsoft Corp. who covered all expenses and arrangements.

MPUG-Global was part of the Microsoft booth, along with the

Microsoft Project theatre, demo stations, and the MOUS

(Microsoft Office User Specialist) station.

Approximately 200 people collected informa-

tion about MPUG-Global membership and

surfed the MPUG web site. MPUG members

from coast-to-coast including California, Texas,

Georgia, Ohio, and New York stopped by to

say hello and show their support. About 10

new folks volunteered to serve on a chapter

board, sponsor a chapter or support MPUG-

Global through advertising or publicity.

MPUG at Project World

(L to R) The eLabor team sponsors a

number of MPUG chapters. Jim

Patterson on the left is the organizer

of the San Diego Chapter.▼

(L to R) Jerome Mendell, member; NYC

Chapter; Greg Kratochwill, Program Director;

DFW Chapter; Christine Buonocore, Executive

Director, MPUG-Global.

(L to R) Corinne Barr, MOUS; Ying Wang, Jim Fong, Rich

Murphy, Jorg Bott, Microsoft Project Team from Redmond, WA.

Jim Fong, with Microsoft Project

Team in Redmond, delivering

demo at Project World.

Pcubed, founder and co-sponsor of MPUG-Global, shows its sup-

port in force with 5 members of the LA Metro Chapter. (L to R)

Steve Kerler, Christine Buonocore, Beverly Barnett, Jerome

Chemit, David Burke, Biron Crusenberry, Kirk Vantine.

▼13

Setting a Project 2000 Resource Pool as Read-OnlyBy Oliver Mahnes, Pcubed

The default setting with Project 2000 assumes

that Project Managers have read-write access

to a Resource Pool. Indeed, without such priv-

ilege a Project Manager wouldn’t be able to

update new assignments to a Resource Pool.

However, in a large Project 2000 group using a

centralized Project Plan Repository (i.e. SQL

Server/Oracle database) and a Resource Pool

shared among cross-functional areas, this setting

lacks security. Any Project Manager can add, mod-

ify, and delete resources, or worse can delete the

pool itself.

An alternative is to grant Project Managers read-

only rights to the pool, while a Project

Management Office (PMO) is given read-write.

One way to implement this solution is to save the

pool on a network share and set-up rights

through file/folder permissions. The pool is then

administered by the PMO, which is responsible for

linking projects to the pool, updating the pool on

a regular basis (e.g., weekly), and managing the

resource allocation process.

Updating the pool itself is a three-step process.

1. Open the Resource Pool.

2. Select option 3 in the Open Dialog Box (Open

resource pool read-write and all other sharer files

into a new master project file).

3. Save and close the Resource Pool. Updates will be

copied from Project 2000 plans to the pool.

▼

▼14

Times Sure Have ChangedThe following poem was received by MPUG-Global

in an e-mail. The author is unknown.

A computer was something you saw on tv

In science fiction shows of note.

A window was something you hated to clean

And RAM was the male of a goat.

Meg was the name of my favorite girl,

And gig was a job for the nights.

Now, they all mean totally different things -

And that really mega bytes

An application was filled out when you got a job

A program was a tv show.

A cursor was one using profanity

A keyboard was a piano.

A token ring was your friends on a Saturday night,

Compile was in the back of your car.

PALs were the buddies you counted on most

All your streaming was behind the bar.

Memory was something you lost in old age

A CD was a bank account

If you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy, my friend

You hoped no one ever found out!!!

Compress was just something you did to the trash,

Not something you did to a file.

And if you unzipped in a public place

Why, you’d be in jail awhile!!

Log on was just adding wood to the fire

Hard drive was a trip on the road.

A mouse pad was someplace a small rodent lived

And backup was in your commode.

Cut? You did that with your old pocket knife

And paste was what you did with glue.

A web was a spider’s flimsy home.

And a virus was merely the flu .

I think that I’ll stick to my pad and my paper

And the memory here in my head.

I hear no one’s been killed in a computer crash

But when it happens they wish they were dead.

▼15

Nationwide Microsoft ProjectUsers Meeting

The Redmond-

based Microsoft

Project Team host-

ed a Nationwide User

Group Meeting and

10th Anniversary

Celebration of Micro-

soft Project on

September 13 in

Houston, TX. About

60 attendees partici-

pated in the business

meeting and celebrat-

ed at the reception afterwards. MPUG-Global had an

exhibit table and generated interest from prospective

members across the country.

The business meeting included presentations by Steve

Balmer, president of Microsoft Corp. (video welcome);

Todd Warren, general manager of Microsoft Project;

Charlie Schloff, Ford Motor Company; Jerry Cripe,

OnSemiconductor Corp.; Brent Mason, Nivo; and Kris

Tibbetts, product manager with the MS Project Team.

Matt Piazza, founder of the Dallas/Fort

Worth Chapter, and Gary Smith, chief

liaison for the Houston Chapter, help

staff the MPUG-Global booth.

▼

Upcoming MPUG Events CalendarJANUARY

10 SE Michigan Chapter Meeting

11 Washington DC Metro Chapter Launch

18 SE Louisiana Chapter Meeting

23 Atlanta Chapter Meeting

24 Western New York Chapter Meeting

31 New York City Chapter Launch

FEBRUARY

1 Cincinnati Chapter Meeting

15 Houston Chapter Meeting

19 Sydney, Australia Chapter Meeting

20 Chicago Chapter Meeting

MARCH

1 Los Angeles Metro Chapter Meeting

Meeting dates are subject to change. Please refer tothe MPUG-Global website, www.mpug.org, for moredetails or to make a reservation. Additionally, you maycontact the MPUG-Global office at (734) 741-0841.

PRSRT STD

U.S Postage

PAIDNaples, FL

Permit #293

MPUG - Global

3923 Ranchero Drive

Ann Arbor, MI 48108

1. Apply on-line: Select the "Join MPUG" (a

secure link) from the Table of Contents

of our Web site at www.mpug.org. Fill

out the application as requested and

select "Submit Form".

2. Request an MPUG membership appli-

cation via e-mail: [email protected].

3. Request an MPUG membership appli-

cation via phone (734) 741-0841, or

fax (734) 741-1343

How to JoinThere are three easy ways for you to apply

for Individual, Corporate or Student

membership.

pug

MPUG-Global is a member of:

MPUG-GlobalMembership Categories

INDIVIDUAL – For a single named user of

Microsoft Project. Member will receive

regular copies of The Project Network

and be able to attend user group meet-

ings ($75 U.S./year).

CORPORATE – Membership allows up to

10 named people from your company to

attend user meetings and receive The

Project Network ($295 U.S./year).

STUDENT – For a single named individ-

ual who is currently a full-time student

at an accredited institution. Proof of cur-

rent enrollment must be provided ($35

U.S./year).

“Microsoft ProjectPremier Partner”

PcubedEvery Project Successful!

We are a 300 person International program management firm with offices in the UK, US,Europe, Asia, Pacific Rim, and South America. We are growing at 100% per year and mov-ing rapidly towards IPO. We specialize in delivering client programs and projects with qual-ity results on time and on budget. Companies are turning to us for help with scoping, defin-ing and implementing complex programs and projects. Our experience includes businesschange, product/service development, and IT development programs in the e-commerce,IT, telecommunications, automotive, pharmaceutical and financial service sectors.

Our continued expansion requires highly motivated Program/Project Analysts andLeaders from a wide variety of educational and professional backgrounds with vary-ing years of experience. We are looking for creative professionals who thrive on imple-menting business change and enjoy working in a dynamic, informal and fun environment.

Requirements:• Excellent interpersonal and presentation (oral and written) skills.• 1-10+ years experience in Project Management or related field with a proven

track record of successfully delivering projects on time in a team environment.• Familiarity with project planning/scheduling with a working knowledge of high-

end PM tools desirable.• Bachelor or Master’s degree in Engineering, Business, Project/Program

Management, Computer Science or equivalent experience preferred.• Flexible with respect to business-related travel or potential relocation.

We put enthusiasm, teamwork, initiative, knowledge sharing, support, training and person-al development at the heart of our success. Visit our web-site at ww.pcubed.com.

Qualified candidates should e-mail their resume to the following: For opportunities in theUS or Canada, contact [email protected], in the UK, [email protected], for Germany or France, contact [email protected], and forAsia [email protected]. Please reference: MPUG2001.

PROGRAM/PROJECT MANAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES