Project Plan tutorial: getting started, tasks and project management
Let's get started and create our first project plan. Before we start of creating our first task, I'd recommend to set the visible date range by using the controls on the top right. To create our first task, we can either use the plus button in the left grid or we can use drag&drop, right in the gantt chart. Let's create a task for a Business Case Validation Process. You can set the exact start and end dates of the task or you may also choose a duration in days. To switch between week days and calendar days, you can use the little brief case icon to decide if weekends should be excluded in the duration. Next, let's create a milestone with a Go- or No-Go Decision for our implementation. Now create a dependency between the task and milestone by drawing a line between both items. When creating your first dependency, you will be asked if you want your dependencies to automatically reschedule subsequent tasks. Check out our separate tutorial snippet which explains auto scheduling. We will click no for the moment, as we can reconfigure this later anytime. Let's assume we forgot to create a parent task called Validations. Not a problem, we can create this one afterwards. Just create a new task, move it to the top and drag the existing items below this one. You may also select the "Determine dates and progress from child items" option to ensure that the new parent task automatically adapts to the progress and the start- and end dates of its children. Let's continue with our plan and create a task for the implementation. Create another dependency Now we are going to create a marker line for our press releases. So we choose type "marker", pick a color... and name it "Press Releases". And here is our marker line. Next, let's create a highlighted area to show that there is a feature freeze planned, prior to the press releases. So we create a type "Highlighted Area", call it "Feature freeze" and done. At last, we'd like to create a task for the market rollout. Now, let's assign some resources to our tasks. So double click on a task and go to the resources tab. You can either add resources from your corporate directory or you can just create arbitrary resources manually, which we will do now. You may also assign a whole team as a resource. Let's assign one of our existing resources to our milestone. You can leverage auto-completion once these resources are already known in your plan. To track the progress of your tasks, projects and sub-projects, you can use a little slider which becomes visible when you hover your mouse over a task. If needed, you can also enable a setting to show the exact task completion in percentage in your plan. Now let's assume you would like to copy your entire project and create a hierarchy of multiple projects in your plan. To do so, create a new task, provide a name for your project and then drag all existing items under this project You can use the "Determine dates and progress from child items" function if needed You may also hide the entire bar in the gantt chart. This option is available for any task that has child items. To revert, you can double click the task again and uncheck the "hidden" checkbox. Now let's copy the entire project by using the context menu of the task, then click "Copy items" To paste the copied items, right click, and choose "Paste items". If needed, you can shift the pasted items to another date. Now let's provide another name for this pasted project. You can then shift the entire project by shifting it's parent task. Alternatively, you may also use multi-select and then shift multiple tasks at once. You can open and close your hierarchy items using the little icons in the left grid. You may also paste items as children of an existing task. To do so, right click onto the existing task and choose "Paste items as child" You can now see that your copied project has become a child of the market rollout task. To undo any activity, you can use the undo button in the toolbar. Whenever needed, you can also undo multiple steps bei clicking multiple times. You may also copy individual selections, by holding the shift key on your keyboard and clicking on multiple rows or bars. Then choose "Copy item" Now we copied and pasted an individual selection. Let's undo. I’ll hand over to Matilda to explain portfolio management. To manage multiple projects, you have two options. You can either manage them all in the same plan using a project hierarchy, as seen here. This is the preferred option, if you have to see all projects and resources in the same gantt view. Alternatively, you can also use the portfolio view and track the overall status of each project there. To manage the overall status of the project, please go to the top right corner and type a status description. You can then open the Project Plan app in your sidebar to see an overview of your recently opened plans including their overall status. Clicking onto a plan here will bring you right into the plan quickly. To add the portfolio view of Project Plan to your sidebar, please go to Apps in Microsoft Teams. Search for Project Plan And add Project Plan by cherryware. Click open We recommend to pin Project Plan in the sidebar. To do so, right click on the Project Plan icon in the sidebar and click Pin. And back to Chris! Now let's assume you would like to use one of your projects as a template. You can right click on any item in your plan and click "Save as template..." This template will now be available in any of your plans through the top left menu. Please note that templates are always personal for yourself only. You can also create a new project plan and start from the template. To do so, add a new Project Plan tab. and select "Create from stored template" You have now created a new project plan tab from your template. Project Plan includes a basic function to auto schedule dependent tasks. To activate the feature, go to the settings menu and check the option "Auto-schedule dependent tasks". Now when a task delays that has dependent tasks or milestones, these items will be shifted automatically. Please note that this is a relation type called "Start no earlier than". So it will only be scheduled forwards and not backwards. We are aware that dependency management can be much more complex including lead and lag times and more complex dependency configurations. However, as our users are in love with the simplicity of the Project Plan app, we have decided to avoid additional complexity with dependencies. To share your project plan with other people, be it team mates or external customers, you have various options to export. To do so, open the top left menu and go to export. You will see options to export to PDF, which is also the best format for printing. Export as PNG image. Export as Excel sheet with raw data in table format. Or you may also share a weblink to an interactive website which will always stay in sync with the latest state of your plan. But now, let's get started! Open Microsoft Teams! Go to your preferred channel Add a tab ... and start creating your own Project Plan!