Excel Template Wbs with Predecessors - DOC

							CEE 474 – Project Management                  Microsoft Project   Fall 2008


                               Microsoft Project 2007
A. SETTING UP THE VIEW




1. Click File, Save As, “Build a House.”

2. Click on the “X” to close the “Tasks” window.




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CEE 474 – Project Management            Microsoft Project   Fall 2008

3. Click on View, View Bar.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                 Microsoft Project                                   Fall 2008

4. Right –Click above the columns and select Insert Column and scroll down to columns you would like to
add. To remove a column, right-click on it and select Hide Column. Modify the screen until you get the
columns shown.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                    Microsoft Project                                      Fall 2008


B. SETTING UP THE GENERAL PROJECT INFORMATION

4. Click on Project, Project Information.

5. Fill in the screen as shown. To enter the finish date you have to select Schedule from: Project Finish Date.
The click OK.




Go to Tools, Options, Calculation, and ensure that the Calculation Mode is set to “Automatic.”

6. Each resource (subcontractor) can have its own calendar.

We’re going to add a Framers calendar to use for all the interior/not very weather dependent activities.

Go to Tools, Change Working Time, Create New Calendar. We want to make a copy of the Standard
calendar and call it “Framers.”




Go month to month and click on specific days that you want to designate as a holiday and then click a line in
the “Exceptions” window and type the holiday name and then click in the dates column.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                    Microsoft Project                                     Fall 2008




7. Now we are going to create a copy of the Framers calendar and call it “Site Work.” It will have the same
holidays plus non-work days added for anticipated adverse weather.




Add the following non-work “Weather” days.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                     Microsoft Project                                      Fall 2008




After you have added all the non-work days click “OK.” Start EXCEL and open “GBA Resource List.XLS”
from the course website: http://sdmines.sdsmt.edu/sdsmt/directory/courses/2008fa/cee474/574M001

8. In Project, click on “Resource Sheet” (on the task list on the left side of the screen) and then highlight and
click copy the “Resource Names” from the “GBA Resource List.XLS” file. Paste the name list into the column
“Resource Name.” Then change the calendar to the calendar shown for each resource.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                      Microsoft Project                                       Fall 2008

9. Click on Gantt Chart. We’re ready to start adding tasks. We need to add some “hammock” tasks first. First
add a task called “Housing Project” under “Task Name” that will capture the entire project duration. Then we
will add a task called “Building 100.” After adding Building 100, click the indent button,       , to make it a
subset of Project. See below.




Open the spreadsheet “GBA TASKLIST 1”. This spreadsheet is a template that we can directly open into
Project, but we are just going to cut and paste out of it. First copy just the names of the 38 tasks under the
heading “Name.” Pasted into Project just under “Building 100.” It will look like this:




You will notice that the Work Breakdown Structure for all the added activities are the same as that for the
building itself and have WBS numbers starting at 1.2. We want to indent all of these so that they are under
Building 100.

Now highlight all the activities by clicking the first activity (1.2) and SHIFT-CLICKING the last activity. Then
click the    . This will change the WBS so th0061t the added activities now all begin with 1.1.1 and go through
1.1.38. See Below.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                       Microsoft Project                                         Fall 2008




Now copy the durations and resource names into Project from GBA TASKLIST1.xls. Make sure you that
copy beginning with 1.1.1 and that you copy the durations into the column listed “Duration” and NOT
into the column called “Total Slack.” If the dates show up as ###### just double click between the column
headers to automatically adjust the column width.




10. Adding Relationships: Now we’ll add relationships to the schedule. We’ll start off assuming tasks are
related finish-to-start, with tasks in order. To add this relationship easily, highlight all the housing activities

from 1.1.1 to 1.1.38 and click the Link button,           . This will cause a great change in your schedule. To see


the task bar in the bar chart window, click the button



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CEE 474 – Project Management                     Microsoft Project                                      Fall 2008

11. You will notice that the beginning of the project is now the first part of August, so we’re behind schedule.

12. Adding a Second Building, Building 200. Highlight activities 1.1 “Building 100” through 1.1.38, “Final
Inspect” and click “Copy.” Now go to the bottom of the task list and click paste. This will show activity 1.1.39
as building 100 and all the activities for it beginning at 1.1.39.1 to 1.1.39.38.




We need to show that activity is really “1.2. Building 200.” Click on 1.1.39 and click the OUTDENT button
and then change the activity name.




13. Add Building 300. Now add Building 300 just like we did for Building 200. It will be under WBS 1.3.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                    Microsoft Project                                     Fall 2008

14. Add Relationships between Buildings. This schedule will work wonderfully if, and only if, we have three
independent crews. For this project, we will assume that there is only one crew for each of the trades and that
they will complete their task for Building 100 then move to Building 200 and then to Building 300. They won’t
be able to start their task until all the predecessors are complete.

Right click on the Task Name and select, “Sort By.” Sort by “Name” and make sure to click off the check mark
for “Keep outline structure.”




The tasks with the same names are now sorted together in the order 1.1., 1.2. and 1.3. See below.




Now go through for each of the tasks (but not the “Buildings 100” Building 200”, & Building 300” tasks) and
link them. All 38 of them. You can insert a column titled “Predecessors” if you would like to keep track of the
relationships as they are added.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                    Microsoft Project                                      Fall 2008




Now sort the activities back to WBS order.

If you will notice on WBS 1, Housing Project, the early start date is June 19, 2008 and the late finish is May 8,
2009. Now go to Project, Project Information, and change the information back to what we began with at the
beginning of the project and have it Schedule from: Project Start Date.




It now shows Early Start for 1. Housing Project, as Monday, October 1, 2008 and Late Finish as August 24,
2009.

15. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THE FOLLOWING AND IT SHOULD WORK, IT DID LAST
YEAR, BUT IT DOESN’T WORK ON MY INSTALLATION OF PROJECT. MICROSOFT PROJECT
IS NOT A VERY GOOD SCHEDULING SOFTWARE WITH NUMEROUS BUGS!!!

Add a Finish No Later Constraint to make the project finish by July 4, 2008. Go to the last activity, 1.3.38,
“Final Inspection” and double-click the activity add a “Finish No Later Than” of July 4, 2008.




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CEE 474 – Project Management                  Microsoft Project           Fall 2008


The following window pops up..




And then you will get this one (select as shown):




DO THE SAME FOR THE FINAL INSPECTION ACTIVITY OF BUILDINGS 100 AND 200.

You will now see that the project is 37 days behind schedule.




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