Type of project settings
As each project is unique, the project settings chosen in the Microsoft Project are very important for the calculations of durations, dates, links, displays and others.
Microsoft Project has three types of project settings in the Project Options:
- Application Options – These options control how the software looks and works, and they impact every project you open. You only need to set these options once, as they are not project-specific.
- Project-Specific Options – You can set these options to any project currently open. Because these options are project-specific, you can specify a different options for each project, depending on the type of project.
- Options for All New Projects – These options impact all new projects created from the Blank Project If you regularly create new projects from a blank project, you definitely need to set these options so that you do not need to set them manually for every new project you create.
To specify all three types of options settings, click the File tab and then click the Options tab in the Backstage. Microsoft Project displays the General page of the Project Options dialog shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Project Options dialog – General page
General Page Options
Date format setting
Project view section of the dialog- This option controls how Microsoft Project displays the dates in every project you open.
The default setting, Wed 1/28/09, displays the day of the week along with the date. This means that all date-related columns, such as the Start and Finish columns, need to be fairly wide to display the complete date.
Show the Start screen when this application starts option
When selected, which is the default setting for this option, Microsoft Project displays the Start screen every time you launch the software. Figure 2 shows the Start screen of Microsoft Project. When Microsoft introduced this new feature.
If you do not like seeing the Start screen every time you launch the software, then I recommend you deselect the Show the Start screen when this application starts option. If you disable this option, then each time you launch Microsoft Project, the software immediately opens a new blank project. This is how the software used to work before Microsoft introduced the Start screen as a new feature.
Figure 2: Start screen in Microsoft Project
Schedule Project Settings
Click the Schedule tab to display the Schedule page of the Project Options dialog shown in Figure 3. This page includes a number of options that control the schedule of the active project, but I believe the most important options are all found in the Scheduling options for this project section of the dialog. Notice in Figure 3 that I scrolled the dialog to focus on the options in this section of the dialog.
Figure 3: Project Options dialog – Schedule page
New tasks created option
This option determines whether Microsoft Project creates a Manually Scheduled task or an Auto Scheduled task each time you add a new task to your project schedule. With very limited exceptions, I do not believe you should use Manually Scheduled tasks in your projects because of their very restrictive and inflexible behavior. Instead, I believe you should always use Auto Scheduled tasks to allow the Microsoft Project scheduling engine to work as designed. Because of this, I recommend you change the New tasks created value to the Auto Scheduled setting.
Default task type option
This option determines whether new tasks you add to your project schedule are Fixed Units, Fixed Work, or Fixed Duration tasks. My recommended setting for this option is based entirely on your scheduling needs, and is based which one of three numbers that you want to fix or “lock” in the scheduling engine. I personally like the Fixed Units setting, but a company I worked for recently prefers Fixed Work, and the latest client with whom I worked prefers Fixed Duration. So, for this option, I have no specific recommendation. I simply want to let you to know that this setting is important and should be set according to your scheduling needs.
New tasks are effort driven option
This option refers to the Effort Driven behavior of Microsoft Project. Suppose that it would take one painter working full-time for 10 days to paint a large home. If you add a second full-time painter to help with the painting, the painting time would be reduced to only 5 days. This behavior is what we call Effort Driven scheduling. Think about the majority of tasks in your own Microsoft Project schedules. If you add a helper to a task in your own projects, do you expect that the software will reduce the Duration accordingly? If your answer is yes, then I recommend you select the New tasks are effort driven checkbox. If your answer is no, then I recommend you leave this option deselected.
Estimated Duration values
-represented by the Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations and New scheduled tasks have estimated durations options. Both of these options are selected by default, and are responsible for the display of question marks to the right of Duration values, such as 1d? for example. When selected, these two options are very helpful if you primarily use Duration-based planning. Since the question marks only disappear when you manually type a Duration value, these two options help you to spot any tasks for which you have not yet entered a Duration value. If you primarily use Work-based planning, where you assign resources to tasks with a Units value and a Work value and then Microsoft Project calculates the Duration, then these two options are not very helpful. If you primarily use Work-based planning, I recommend you deselect these two options. If you primarily use Duration-based planning, I recommend you leave the options selected.
Advanced Page Options
Click the Advanced tab to display the Advanced page of the Project Options dialog shown in Figure 4. This page includes a number of advanced options that control the display and schedule of the active project, but I believe the most important options are found in the Display options for this project section of the dialog. Notice in Figure 4 that I scrolled the dialog to focus on the options in this section of the dialog.
Figure 4: Project Options dialog – Advanced page
Abbreviations used for time units,
represented by the Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years options. These options are important because they impact how Microsoft Project displays Duration values and Work values in the active project. I personally recommend that you change these options to display the shortest abbreviations possible, so that columns that display Duration and Work values can be narrower as a consequence. For example, I recommend you change the Days option from the default day value to the d value instead.
Show project summary task option
The Project Summary Task is the highest-level summary task in the project, and summarizes the entire project into a single task. Also known as Row 0 or Task 0, the Project Summary task displays the current Start date of the project, the current calculated Finish date of the project, the current Duration of the project, as well as the total Work, Cost, and variance for the entire project. I believe it is vital that you display the Project Summary task in every project you manage; therefore, I recommend you select this option.
Additional options
There are many additional settings in the Project Options dialog in Microsoft Project. Which options do you think are most important for your type of project?
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