Plan and track costs more effectively

Did you know there is a new resource type in Project 2007 called a Cost resource?

It allows you to plan and track project costs not related to a resource or material.  Here's how to create a cost resource in Project 2007 and Project 2010.

1. Open the Resource Sheet
2. Create a new resource called Travel Cost
3. Change the value in the Type column to Cost

Now assign this resource to any task (or number of tasks) to plan and track actual cost against a particular task, which is totally independent of any resource or material assigned to the task - great huh?

What if there was a way to capture the approved budget cost for a project, which was independant of forcast and and actual cost, just so you know (and it's not a task note) Stay tuned for future blogs to find out more...

What just changed - I wasn't looking!!

Isn't that one of those frustrations when you're teaching yourself how to use Project? You change something hit enter and a whole lot of other stuff changes in the schedule and you have no idea why?

The first thing I'd suggest is to invest the time and money (if you can spare either) in some good MS Project training. If you can't spare either, on your self-guided path to enlightenment you might want to check out Change Highlighting. This is what happens when you change something in your schedule and immediately after the change some cells are automatically highlighted blue. This is called Change Highlighting. Here's how to switch on:

Project 2007
Format -> Text Styles... -> Item to Change: Changed Cells -> OK

Project 2010
Gantt Chart Tools Format tab -> Text Styles button -> Item to Change: Changed Cells -> OK

It's also possible to add the Change Highlighting button to the ribbon in 2010, but that'll be content for a future blog...

Enjoy!

Project 2010 - Setting a Baseline

Baselines provide the basis for comparison of schedule and budget performance as the project is executed. The initial baseline should be set once the plan is realistic, finalised and approved. Only then is a plan ready to track actual progress against it.

To set a baseline:

1. In the ribbon on the Project tab, within the Schedule group of commands, click set baseline -> set baseline. 

The Baseline value (without any number) will always represent the current baseline.


2. Making sure Set Baseline and Entire Project are set, clicking OK sets the Baseline.

3. Notice as the baseline is now set the values of the start, finish, baseline start and baseline finish  columns are now the same.