Entering tasks (book excerpt)

Applies to
Microsoft Office Project 2003
Book cover This article was excerpted from Microsoft® Office Project 2003 Inside Out by Teresa S. Stover. Visit Microsoft Learning to buy this book. View other articles written by Teresa Stover.

In this article

Filling in the Gantt Chart

Adding tasks to your project plan

Importing tasks from an Excel worksheet

Entering recurring tasks

Now that your project file is set up with all the necessary basics, you are ready to get down to the real business of entering tasks.

Filling in the Gantt Chart

There are several approaches you can take to fill in the Gantt Chart. The following are some examples:

  • Brainstorming    Enter tasks as you think of them, without regard to sequence or grouping of related tasks. You can move and organize the tasks later.
  • Sequential    Think through the project from beginning to end, and enter tasks sequentially.
  • Phases    Think of the overall phases of the project. For example, in a commercial construction project, you might enter the phases of Procurement, On-Site Mobilization, Site Grading, Foundations, Steel Erection, and so on. After those phases are in place, you can add tasks and subtasks beneath them.
  • Milestones and deliverables    Consider what the project is producing in terms of the milestones and deliverables. Enter those events as tasks, and then add tasks and subtasks beneath them to flesh out the project. Your scope statement can be a valuable guide in this process.
  • Team collaboration    Ask team members to list the tasks they believe will be necessary to the areas under their responsibility (assuming, of course, that you already have team members in place and available). Team members can do this informally, for example, through e-mail. Or, team members can submit tasks and their estimated durations in a Microsoft Office Excel 2003 spreadsheet, which you can then easily import into Project. If you are using Microsoft Office Project Server 2003, team members can send you tasks from Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003, and then you can incorporate them automatically into your project plan.

Find links to more information about creating new tasks through automated team collaboration in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

  • Archived projects    Review completed projects of a similar type done in your organization. With such historical information, you might find that much of the "legwork" — in terms of phases, task sequencing, resource assignments, and more — has been done for you. If the archived projects contain solid tracking information, you will have excellent data on durations and costs.

Find links to more information about saving a project as a template, and about using an old project as a starting point for a new one, in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

  • Expert consultation    Ask known experts what tasks are needed for various aspects of the project. This is particularly useful if you are the manager of a project in which you are not necessarily an expert. This happens frequently enough, and it is not necessarily a bad thing, but you will need dependable experts to help provide reliable task information. Even if you are well-versed in the project knowledge area, you might not know all the necessary details for each phase. Experts can come from within your own group, from stakeholders, from other groups or project managers within your organization, or from colleagues in your profession or industry.

ShowProject management practices: Activity definition

The stage of the project management process during which you are entering tasks is often referred to as activity definition. Here, the planning team identifies the specific activities, or tasks, that must be done to produce the project deliverables and meet the project objectives as specified in the scope statement.

Activity definition is typically done with the guidance provided in the scope statement and the work breakdown structure (WBS). The deliverables, or work packages, described in the WBS are divided and subdivided into smaller tasks that can be better managed and controlled in the project.

Find links to more information about work breakdown structure codes in Project in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

In some organizations, the project management methodology dictates that the WBS is developed first and the task list is developed next. Other organizations develop both at the same time.

In any case, the task list must include all activities that will be performed in the project, but it does not include any activities that are not required as part of the project scope. Each task should be descriptive enough to communicate to responsible team members what is required by the task.

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Adding tasks to your project plan

To enter tasks directly into your project plan, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure you are working in the Gantt Chart.

You can see the name of the current view in the Active View bar that runs vertically along the left side of the view. If it does not say Gantt Chart, then on the View menu, click Gantt Chart.

You can enter tasks in any task view, of course. Find links to more information about views in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

  1. Type the name of the task in the Task Name field.
  2. Press either ENTER or DOWN ARROW to move to the next row.
  3. To edit a task that is already entered, click the task name, and then make your changes in the entry box just above the task sheet.

Find links to more information about entering durations, lead and lag times, and start and finish dates in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

ShowTips: Entering tasks

Keep the following points in mind when entering tasks:

  • Do not be overly concerned about sequence when first entering tasks. You can worry about that after you have a "first draft" of tasks in place.
  • Enter duration estimates either at the same time you enter your new tasks or later. The default duration estimate is 1 day, and estimates are formatted with a question mark to remind you that they are not confirmed yet.
  • Do not enter a start or finish date in the Start or Finish fields in the Gantt Chart, although it might be tempting to do so. In most cases, you will want Project to calculate those dates for you, based on other task information you will be entering.
  • Name the task with sufficient description to communicate to team members and stakeholders what the task is about. A task called simply "Review" or "Edit" might not be enough information.
  • Decide whether you want the context of the task to be understood if it is ever separated (by being in a separate view, report, filter, or grouping, for example) from its surrounding tasks. For example, you might have several tasks in different phases for "Administer contracts," but one task might relate to procurement, one to the architects, and another one to the builders.
  • Note whether you have sets of tasks that are repeated in different phases of the project. You might want to give them more general names so you can copy and paste these sets of tasks under their respective phases, instead of repeatedly typing them in individually.

ShowInside Out    Do not fill in the Start and Finish fields

By default, the Gantt Chart table includes the Task Name, Duration, Start, Finish, Predecessors, and Resource Names fields as columns. A natural impulse when entering tasks is to enter project information into each of these fields. However, you can get yourself into some trouble if you enter dates in the Start and Finish fields. Not only would you be struggling to calculate start and finish dates for each task while Project could more easily do it for you, but you would be putting undue restrictions on your schedule and possibly creating scheduling conflicts.

The best approach is to enter the task names first, and then the durations if you know them. Leave the Start and Finish fields as they are for now, and let Project calculate them for you as you add other project information. The Predecessors field is filled in for you when you start creating links between tasks. At that point, with durations and links in place, Project calculates the Start and Finish dates. If you then want to constrain the dates, you can edit them as you need.

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Importing tasks from an Excel worksheet

Many project managers do well by having others on the team develop a task list of their specific areas of responsibility. A great way to automate this process is to have these individuals use Excel to create their task lists and then import the worksheets into the Project Gantt Chart.

The standard Excel importing process involves mapping the Excel columns to the corresponding Project columns to ensure that the right information ends up in the right places in your Gantt Chart task table. Project comes with an Excel Task List template set up for this very purpose.

To use Excel and the Excel Task List template on the same computer on which Project is installed, follow these steps:

  1. Start Excel.
  2. In the New Workbook task pane, click On my computer. (If you do not see the New Workbook task pane, click New on the File menu.)

The Templates dialog box appears.

  1. Click the Spreadsheet Solutions tab.
  2. Double-click Project Task List Import Template.

The template creates a new file with columns that correspond to the default Gantt Chart in Project.

Excel Task List template

  1. Enter tasks and other task information as needed, and then save the file.

 Note   If you are working with Microsoft Excel 2000 or earlier, you can still use the Project Task List Import template. Open Excel, and then, on the File menu, click New. Click the Spreadsheet Solutions tab. Double-click Microsoft Project Task List Import Template.

When you are ready to import the task list into your project plan, follow these steps:

  1. Open the project plan into which you want to import the Excel task list.
  2. On the Standard toolbar, click Open.
  3. Go to the location on your computer or network where the Excel task list workbook is saved.
  4. In the Files Of Type list, click Microsoft Excel Workbooks (*.xls).

The task list workbook appears in the list of folders and files.

  1. Click the task list workbook, and then click Open.

The Import Wizard opens.

  1. Click Next.
  2. Click Project Excel Template, and then click Next.
  3. Specify whether you want to import the file as a new project, append the tasks to the currently active project, or merge the data into the active project.
  4. Click Finish.

The tasks are imported into Project as you specified.

  1. If you need to provide this template to others on your team, it is located by default in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\1033 folder, and it is named TASKLIST.xlt.

Those who want to use this template should copy this file to the same location on their computers.

Find links to more information about linking or embedding Excel data into Project in the See Also section, which is visible when you are connected to the Internet.

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Entering recurring tasks

You might have certain tasks that need to be scheduled at regularly occurring intervals. For example, suppose that you have a project team meeting every Thursday morning. Or perhaps you gather information and generate a resource management report the first Monday of each month. Instead of entering the same task every week or every month throughout the span of the project, you can create a recurring task. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Make sure that you are working in the Gantt Chart.

If necessary, on the View menu, click Gantt Chart.

  1. In the Task Name field, click in the row below where you want the recurring task to appear.
  2. Click Insert, and then click Recurring Task.
  3. In the Recurring Task dialog box, type the name of the recurring task in the Task Name field.

For example, you could type Generate resource management report

Recurring Task Information dialog box

  1. Under Recurrence Pattern, specify how often the task is to be scheduled — that is, daily, weekly, or monthly.
  2. Specify the details of when the task is to take place during that frequency — for example, every other Thursday, or the first Monday of every month.
  3. Under Range Of Recurrence, specify when the recurring task is to start and end.
  4. When finished, click OK.

The recurring task is marked with a recurring task indicator Button image. It is represented with a summary task with all occurrences of the task as subtasks.

ShowTip: View recurring task information

Review the recurrence pattern and range by resting your pointer over the recurring task indicator. Double-click the recurring task to open the Recurring Task Information dialog box.

ShowTroubleshooting: While you enter project information in Gantt Chart view, your menus and toolbars all go gray

When you are in the middle of entering a task or any other task information in a Gantt Chart, the menus and toolbars become temporarily unavailable and are therefore grayed out.

Finish entering the task by pressing ENTER. If you want to do something to that task, click it to select it again, and then choose the command or button you want.

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About the author     Award-winning author Teresa Stover has written 11 computer books and countless user manuals, tutorials, and online help systems. She is a project management expert who's served as a consultant to the Project team since Version 4. Teresa is the author of Microsoft® Project Version 2002 Inside Out and manages her own technical and business writing consultancy.

 
 
Applies to:
Project 2003