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Chapter 21 - Working with Multiple Projects Introduction Working with Many Projects in One Project File Customize as You Consolidate Project Files Consolidate Open Project Files Quickly Organize Consolidated Projects Break a Large Project into Smaller Projects Link Tasks Between Projects Sharing Resources Among Projects Create a Separate Resource Pool Update Information in a Resource Pool Open Several Project Files at Once: Workspaces Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of Introduction If life were simple, you’d manage one project at a time, create one project file, and that would be that But life isn’t usually so simple Often you need to manage several projects at the same time While you can easily create a separate file for each project, the question is, how best to manage them all? If you’re managing a few relatively small projects, you might manage them as independent projects in separate files But that may not always be the best solution In many instances, a better way is to combine several project files into one consolidated project file Having a consolidated project file is like having your own command-and-control center Within one window, you can view a number of projects at one time Each project is represented by a single task in the consolidated project file As with a single project in its own project file, you can view and edit the individual tasks, resources, and assignments of each project in a consolidated project file In addition to consolidating projects, there’s another way to work with several projects at the same time If there are certain project files that you usually open and work with at the same time but prefer to keep separate, you can save time by opening them all at once Working with Many Projects in One Project File Managing a few independent projects is straightforward: you just create a separate project file for each one But if you work frequently with a number of related projects, you can manage them more easily by consolidating them When you consolidate projects, you insert them into a single project file, so you can view all the separate inserted projects in the same window In the Gantt Chart view, each project is represented as a summary task You can show the project task alone or expand it and show the other tasks that make up the project Consider consolidating projects in these situations: Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of • • • • • You can insert up to 1,000 You have a large, complex project that you need to break down into projects in a consolidated project smaller, more manageable projects, but you still want to maintain the file scheduling relationship between the inserted projects The inserted projects of a larger project get updated frequently and you want the changes to be reflected automatically in the larger project You’re managing several projects that share the same resources You’re tracking several separate but related projects You want to create reports that include information from several projects The source file for an inserted project remains a separate file By default, this source file is linked to the consolidated file Any changes you make to the source file appear automatically in the corresponding inserted project of the consolidated file, and vice versa That way, both the source file and the inserted project are updated when you update either one Note, however, that format changes are not transmitted between source and consolidated project files Microsoft Project provides two ways to consolidate several projects Choose the way that best meets your needs: • Customize as you consolidate your projects This method lets you specify the order and location of the inserted projects within the consolidated project, as well as other factors • Consolidate open projects quickly With this method, available only for projects that are already open in separate windows, Microsoft Project determines the order in which the inserted projects appear in the consolidated project file and automatically links them to their source files Customize as You Consolidate Project Files When you customize a consolidation, you can insert individual projects in a specific order and into any outline level in the consolidated project file You can even insert a consolidated project into another consolidated project To customize a project file consolidation On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart Open a new or existing project file In the Task Name field, select where you want to insert the projects On the Insert menu, click Project In the Look in box, click the drive, folder, or Internet location that contains the project files you want to insert Hold down ctrl, and then click the project files you want to insert Click Insert The projects will be consolidated in the order they are listed Repeat steps through for each folder that contains project files you want to insert into the consolidated project Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of By default, an inserted project file is linked to its source file; if you change one file, the change automatically appears in the other file This option is useful when you frequently update either the inserted project or its source file and you want both of them to remain exactly the same Sometimes, however, you might want an inserted project to be independent of its source file, and vice versa In that case, you can break the link between the two files, so that changing one doesn’t automatically update the other The tasks from the inserted project will then belong to the consolidated file To delete the link between an inserted project and its source project file In the Task Name field, double-click the project summary task of the inserted project Click the Advanced tab Under Source project, clear the Link to project check box Consolidate Open Project Files Quickly When working with several project files that you’ve opened in separate windows, you might decide that it would be more convenient to work with those files in one window, as a consolidated project If that’s the case, you can consolidate the open project files all at once, without having to insert them one at a time Microsoft Project automatically creates a consolidated project file for you When consolidating open project files, you can specify which of the open projects you want to consolidate You can’t specify the location or order of the inserted projects in the consolidated project file, although you can so afterward With this method, the inserted projects are automatically linked to their source files You can’t unlink the files from their source files as you consolidate them, although you can so afterward To consolidate open project files Open all the project files you want to consolidate On the Window menu, click New Window In the Projects list, click the project files you want to consolidate To have the consolidated project appear in a view other than the one currently displayed, click a different view in the View box Organize Consolidated Projects When you consolidate projects, the inserted projects may not end up in the order or at the outline level you want them But the remedy is easy For the most part, you can organize inserted projects the same way you organize tasks in a task list, by moving them to different locations and indenting or outdenting them As with tasks, when you indent a project to a lower level than the project above it, the project above becomes a summary project Typically, a summary project represents a phase or a subphase of the consolidated project The summary project displays cumulative information about the projects beneath it Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of For information about how to indent, outdent, and move an inserted project or to show or hide the tasks of an inserted project, see Chapter 4, "Breaking Your Project into Tasks, Phases, and Milestones." Break a Large Project into Smaller Projects It’s usually relatively easy to develop, track, and manage projects that contain several dozen or even a few hundred tasks But very large projects — those that include many hundreds or even thousands of tasks — can stretch anyone’s ability to manage well If you’re dealing with a very large project, especially one that consists of logically separate portions or phases, or involves several project leaders, you may want to break the project into smaller projects that are combined in a consolidated project When you break down a very large project, you typically want to show the dependencies between the inserted projects This makes sense because the inserted projects are often closely related portions of a larger project You show dependencies by ordering the inserted projects logically (for example, Phase before Phase 2, and so on), placing them at the correct outline level (for example, Subphase A under Phase 1), and linking individual tasks between projects to show scheduling dependencies (for example, Task in Phase must finish before Task in Phase can begin) To break a large project into smaller projects On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart Hold down CTRL, and then click the row heading of each task you want to break out as an inserted project Click Cut Task Click New In the Start date box, enter the date you want the inserted project to start, and then click OK In the Task Name field, click the first row Click Paste 10 11 12 Click Save In the File name box, enter a name for the inserted project, and then click Save On the Window menu, click the project into which you want to insert the new project file On the Insert menu, click Project In the Look in box, click the drive, folder, or Internet location that contains the project file you want to insert 13 In the folder list, click the project file you want to insert 14 Click Insert 15 Repeat steps through 14 for each project file you want to insert into the consolidated project Link Tasks Between Projects Often when you manage several projects, some of them may be related, with the start and finish dates of tasks in one project depending on the start and finish dates of tasks in another For example, if the inserted projects in a consolidated file represent project phases, perhaps the first task of one phase can’t begin until the last task of the preceding phase ends Projects within a consolidated file aren’t the only ones that can have dependencies There can be dependencies between two or more stand-alone projects For instance, you might want to ensure that a resource assigned to tasks in two different projects wouldn’t have to work on both projects at the same time You’d want to make sure that one task didn’t start until the other is finished To show dependencies between projects in the same consolidated project file or between different project files, you can link tasks between projects The links between projects work the same way as links between tasks within the same project Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of By default, the following procedure establishes a finish-to-start dependency between tasks After you’ve linked the tasks, however, you can change the link to a start-to-start, finish-to-finish, or start-to-finish link (You can also specify lead and lag time.) For information about linking tasks, see Chapter 5, "Getting Tasks Done in the Right Order, at the Right Time." To link tasks between projects Open both projects On the Window menu, click New Window Hold down CTRL, click the projects that contain the tasks you want to link, and then click OK On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart Position the pointer over the Gantt bar for the predecessor task and drag to the successor task in the other project A finish-to-start task dependency is created If the tasks you linked are not in a consolidated project, an external predecessor task is added to the project containing the successor task and an external successor task is added to the project containing the predecessor task You can link tasks between individual (unconsolidated) projects by typing "project name\ID" in the predecessor field (where project name is the file name of the project containing the task you want to link to and ID is the ID of the task you want to link to) If the start or finish date of an entire project is dependent on the start or finish date of another entire project, and not just of a task within the project, you can link one project to another To link two projects Open both projects On the Window menu, click New Window Hold down CTRL, click the projects you want to link, and then click OK On the View Bar, click Gantt Chart Position the pointer over the Gantt bar for the project summary task, and then drag to the summary task bar of the successor project A finish-to-start task dependency is created You can change this to a different type of task dependency Sharing Resources Among Projects With several projects on your plate at once, managing resources can be complicated if you try to manage them for each project separately If you use some of your resources for different projects, Microsoft Project can help you simplify resource management by enabling you to share resources among projects You this by creating a resource pool, a project file containing information about a group of resources that several projects share in common By creating a resource pool, you can: Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of • • • • • • Share resources among a number of projects Add shared resources to a new project quickly Easily review resource usage and costs across all projects without opening each individual project file Identify and resolve conflicts that may result when resources are assigned to more than one project Update the same piece of resource information — such as a resource rate, a resource calendar, or a resource cost — for all projects at once rather than one project at a time Print resource reports that provide details about resource usage across projects When you create a resource pool, all the resource information that resides in the pool appears in each project file that shares the pool, because the resource pool is linked to the projects Whenever you change information in the resource pool, such as a resource rate, you can transmit that change to all the linked projects Likewise, if you update resource information in a project, you can transmit that change back to the resource pool By default, the information in the resource pool takes precedence, so resource information that’s already in the resource pool can’t be overwritten by information added later from projects that share the pool You can, however, specify that the inserted project takes precedence You can share resources among projects whether or not you consolidate the projects If you know in advance that a number of projects will share the same resources, you don’t need to enter those resources into each project individually Instead, you can create a resource pool containing resource information only (no tasks or task information), and then have all related projects use this project’s resources If, after creating several projects that include both tasks and resources, you realize that they have many resources in common, you can designate one project as the resource pool for all the projects Create a Separate Resource Pool Before you create several projects that will use the same resources, you can save time by creating a project file that contains resource information only When you create a separate resource pool, you enter resource information once for the entire group of projects that will share those resources Then, you link each project to the resource pool file To create a separate resource pool Open a new project file This file will contain the resource pool Enter information for each resource that is assigned to the projects that will share the resource pool Click Save In the File name box, type a name for the resource pool file Create the projects that will share the resource pool Open the projects that will share the resource pool Switch to one of the open project files On the Tools menu, point to Resources, and then click Share Resources Click Use resources, and then click the resource pool file in the From box Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of 10 To overwrite pool information with resource information from the selected project file (for resources that they have in common), click Sharer takes precedence 11 Repeat steps through 10 for each project that will share the resource pool Update Information in a Resource Pool Whenever you change resource information in a project that shares a resource pool, you must update the pool so that the latest information is available to all the other projects that share the pool To update information in a resource pool Open the project that shares the resource pool On the Tools menu, point to Resources, and then click Update Resource Pool Open Several Project Files at Once: Workspaces Occasionally, you might be responsible for projects that are unrelated but run concurrently, so you must work with them at the same time Because they’re unrelated, it probably wouldn’t make sense to consolidate them into one project file One alternative to consolidating them is to open each project individually, in its own window But if you work with the same group of projects frequently, that could get time-consuming A faster way to open the projects is to create a workspace A workspace is a list of project names that are linked to the project files you specify When you open a workspace, you open all the listed projects at the same time To create a workspace Open all the files you want to include in the workspace On the File menu, click Save Workspace In the File name box, type a name for the workspace file Click Save Microsoft Project 98 – Chapter 21 Page of