More Project 2007 Tips & Tricks

Welcome to this series on the best Microsoft Project 2007 Tips & Tricks. The techniques offered here and in subsequent series' articles are based on my experience with Project, both as an instructor, a project manager and an author.

In Microsoft Project, when you assign a resource to a task, that resource's name is displayed to the right of the Gantt bar. But, when you assign a resource at any percentage other than 100%, you also see the assigned percentage.

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1. View your Resource Sheet and type the names of each resource into the Resource Initials field
2. View the Gantt Chart
3. Choose Format: Bar Styles from the Menu bar
4. Select Task
5. Click the Text tab
6. Click the drop-down arrow next to Resources and choose Resource Initials

Now, when you view your Gantt Chart, the entry that is listed in the Resource Initials field on the Resource Sheet is what will be displayed next to each Gantt Bar.

A series of articles on cool things you can do with Project wouldn't be complete without a small amount of attention paid to all that is new in the 2007 edition.

From a usability standpoint, these are some pretty cool new features. Beginning with Project's new ability to undo more than just the very last thing you did. That's right. Project 2007 now has a multi-level undo feature. Bring on the mistakes.

And, let's not forget the new Change Highlighting feature (mentioned briefly, just once, in a related article). This is the feature that highlights any areas of your project that have been updated based on the last change you made. This is perfect for seeing, at a glance, how many other tasks are affected when just one tasks slips by just one day.

Also mentioned in a previous are the Cost Resources. This is a great feature that allows you to assign costs to your project without altering your project scheduling.

Project 2007 has really upped the ante in terms of reports, too. In the "old days" of project reporting, there were the usual suspects: Who Does What When, Task Assignments, Project Costs, etc... But, now, we have Visual Reports that tie into the robustness of programs like Visio and Excel.

The tips listed in this series just scratch the surface of the capabilities of Microsoft Project. There are lots a great blogs out there hosted by experienced project managers that can give you even more.