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Chapter 2 - Microsoft Project Demystified
Introduction
The Building Blocks: Tasks, Resources, and Assignments
Tasks
Resources
Assignments

Where Does Your Data Go? The Flow of Information Within Microsoft Project
Data Central: The Microsoft Project Database
View the Right Set of Project Information
Data Lost and Found
You Can't Delete a Field
Views Just Display Project Data
You Can Delete Data
Microsoft Project Creates Some Data by Itself

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Introduction
When we encounter something new, our minds open with questions: What makes it work? What does it do? How can I use it?
What are the possibilities?
In this chapter, we’ll see how Microsoft Project is able to perform its magic on your data. We’ll look behind the scenes at the
gears, levers, pipes, and containers that make up Microsoft Project. Once you see how it all works together, you’ll be better
able to take advantage of the program’s many capabilities.

The Building Blocks: Tasks, Resources, and Assignments
Nearly every action you take within Microsoft Project does something to or for tasks, resources, and assignments. These three
components are the building blocks of any project. You can manipulate these essential components easily in Microsoft Project,
finding the configuration that suits your needs.

Tasks
The actual work that needs to be accomplished to meet your project goals can be broken into tasks. For example, painting
museum walls and hanging clocks are tasks that, when combined with other tasks, result in the completion of a clockwork
exhibit. But putting on a clockwork exhibit is the goal of that set of tasks — it is not a task itself.
The scope of a project consists of all its tasks and all its goals. Cutting scope, for instance, often means eliminating some goals
and the tasks needed to fulfill those goals.

Resources
A resource is usually a person, but it can also be a piece of equipment, materials, services, or even a room — whatever is
required to complete a task. The amount of resources you have can affect the project scope and the time it takes to complete
a project. If, for instance, half of your team comes down with the flu, you may decide to cut the scope so that the project can
be accomplished by the remaining team members and meet its original deadline. Alternatively, you may decide to maintain
the original scope and push out the project deadline.

Assignments
When you assign a resource to work on a task, you have made an assignment. Assignments directly affect the amount of time
required to complete a task and, indirectly, the total project time. When your deadlines change and you have to complete a
project in less time than you had planned, you can assign more resources to a task. Essentially, you make new assignments so
that it takes less time to complete the individual task. With shorter task lengths, your overall project length will shorten, too.

Where Does Your Data Go? The Flow of Information
Within Microsoft Project
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Before information can flow within Microsoft Project, there must be an exchange of information between you and the Microsoft
Project interface — what you see on your computer screen. Microsoft Project communicates with you through its interface: all
the various charts, graphs, and sheets; the menus and toolbars that appear around the edges; and the dialog boxes that

surface from time to time. You, in turn, use the interface to communicate with Microsoft Project.

Let’s take a closer look now behind the interface, at the inner mechanisms that store and act on your data after you enter it.
Let’s suppose you have entered a task and assigned someone to work on it. (Don’t worry about how that’s done just now. The
specifics on entering tasks and assigning resources are discussed in later chapters.)

Data Central: The Microsoft Project Database
The data you enter in the Microsoft Project interface travels to Microsoft Project’s database. A database is nothing more than a
special container for storing data in a very orderly way, as you might if you compiled a table that listed construction tasks in
one column, the resources for those tasks in another, and the task cost in the last column.
In a database, a column is called a field, such as the Task Name field. Each field stores a particular kind of information.

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View the Right Set of Project Information
If Microsoft Project’s only skill were to store your data out of sight in its database, it wouldn’t be very useful as a project
management aid. You need to be able to see your project data and add to it, delete it, or modify it as circumstances dictate.
Microsoft Project has the tools that let you do just that. They are called views.
Each view gives you a different way of looking at some of the data in the database. The view you choose depends on what
information you want and the format you want to see it in. You can, for example, use a table format or a bar-graph format to
see how many hours each resource works during a given time period. You can also use views to accomplish specific tasks, such
as entering and editing information about tasks and resources.

Some views show essentially the same information, but in different formats. For instance, you can enter data in a column in
one view and see it displayed as a bar graph in another view.

There are two major categories of views: task views and resource views. Task views show information about one or more of
your tasks. One of the most often used task views, which you see by default when you start Microsoft Project, is the Gantt

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Chart view. Resource views show information about one or more of the resources — people or equipment — you assigned to
your project. One example of a resource view is the Resource Usage view, which displays work allocations over time for each
resource.
The following tables describe some of the more commonly used task and resource views and the types of information they
display.
Use a task view when you want to enter, change, or display task information.
Task view

Description

Gantt Chart

A list of tasks and related information and a chart that graphically shows tasks and durations over time. Use this
view to enter and schedule a list of tasks.

PERT Chart

A network diagram showing all tasks and task dependencies. Use this view to create and fine-tune your schedule
in a flow chart format.

Calendar

A monthly calendar showing tasks and durations. Use this view to show the tasks scheduled in a specific week or
range of weeks.

Task Usage

A list of tasks showing assigned resources grouped under each task. Use this view to adjust the amount of work
your resources do on tasks.

Tracking
Gantt

A list of tasks and related information and a chart that graphically shows planned and scheduled bars for each
task. Use this view to compare the desired schedule to the actual schedule.

Task Sheet

A list of tasks and related information. Use this view to enter and schedule tasks in a spreadsheet-like format.

Use a resource view when you want to enter, change, or display resource information.
Resource view

Description

Resource
Graph

A graph showing resource allocation, cost, or work over time. Use this view to display information about a single
resource or group of resources over time.

Resource
Sheet

A list of resources and related information. Use this view to enter and edit resource information in a spreadsheetlike format.

Resource
Usage

A list of resources showing assigned tasks grouped under each resource. Use this view to show cost or work
allocation information for each resource. Also, use this view to adjust the amount of work resources do on tasks.

Data Lost and Found
Have you ever found that some of the data you entered into a program seems to have vanished? And do you sometimes
wonder why information appears in certain places without your having entered it there? For instance, where does the data for
a task’s start and finish dates come from? These seeming oddities are explained in the following sections.
You Can’t Delete a Field
Views Just Display Project Data
You Can Delete Data
Microsoft Project Creates Some Data by Itself

You Can’t Delete a Field
A field that you see within a view, such as the Duration field in the Gantt Chart view, is simply a visible copy of the real
Duration field that’s located in the database. If you delete the Duration field from the Gantt Chart view, you have removed that
copy of the field from the Gantt Chart view only. You have not deleted the "real" Duration field from the database. In fact, not
only can you still display the Duration field in other views, you can also display it again in the Gantt Chart view.

Views Just Display Project Data
Views offer you many ways to examine portions of your project information. But only the database, which you never see,
actually stores data.

You Can Delete Data
While you cannot delete a field itself, you can delete the entries in a field.

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Microsoft Project Creates Some Data by Itself
Microsoft Project enters certain data into special fields called calculated fields. For example, when you enter a task duration,
Microsoft Project automatically performs a calculation to determine the task’s start and finish dates. It enters the calculated
dates into your Start and Finish fields without your having to do so manually. Actually, this is one of many such calculations
Microsoft Project performs automatically. So don’t be surprised next time you see data that you didn’t enter.
That completes the flow of data: from you to the Microsoft Project interface, "down" to the database, back "up" to the views,
and then finally out to you once more. In this flow you and Microsoft Project are interdependent partners. Microsoft Project
depends on you for complete and accurate information. And you depend on Microsoft Project to create an accurate schedule
from the information you enter.

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