Project 2007: Manage by Exception Using Filters

In every project you will most likely have some experienced resources and others who are inexperienced and need more supervision. If this is the case, you might opt to forego micromanaging in place of the management by exception approach. In other words, you would allow your team members to complete their assignments, intervening only when the project plan seems to be off-track or the work of the resources is not meeting the scope standards.

Just as you use filters to view specific project data in the Project program, you can use the same filters to modify what information is displayed in your reports. In this way you can print a customized report without having to create a new report from scratch.

To modify a predefined report to filter out unnecessary project data, use the Task (or Resource) Report dialog box. The Task Report dialog box is shown in the figure at the bottom of this article.

From here, use the Filter drop-down list to choose a filter to apply to the selected report. To view a report using a filter, follow these steps:

1. Choose Report and then Reports.
2. Select any report category, and click Select.
3. Select any report, and click Edit.
4. In the Filter drop-down list, select the filter to apply. Select the Highlight check box if you want to display all results, but highlight the one that passes the filter tests.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Close, and then click Close again.

If you often find yourself using the same filter on the same report, consider creating a custom report.

Be sure to view our entire series of articles related to using Microsoft Project.

With permission from Microsoft Press, this article content was excerpted from the book, Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 (Self-Paced Training Kit for Exam 70-632).