When using Microsoft Project, you’d want to spend less of your time doing the actual planning and spend more of it on more important matters. Microsoft Project (MSP) has the tools that you will need to make your planning smooth and seamless.

But did you know that there are some tips and tricks that can make your work easier? MSP is a fantastic tool in itself, but there is so much that we can do if we invest the time and effort to learn the tool and use it to its maximum potential.

It’s even possible to make a working project plan flexible enough to last throughout the project. By following these tips and tricks, you wouldn’t have to break a sweat in doing just that!

8 Tricks You Need to Learn About Microsoft Project

To have a working project plan from Microsoft Project, these are the tricks that you should learn about. This section includes tips when setting options, updating your schedule, and a lot more. These tips are often associated with being the best practices in Microsoft Project.

You can also learn a lot of tips from Microsoft Project tutorials and other training programs. They teach you a lot of techniques when using Microsoft Project. But these tricks, you can learn these by yourself at home. All you need is a laptop and this list to make your project management seamless.

1. Define the specifics for a project

When making a project plan, it is crucial to define the specifics for a project. This is often overlooked, but it plays an important role to make your life easier as we go on with the list.

It’s important to define the date when the project was started. The default setting in Microsoft Project would be the date when you created the file. If the project started earlier (or about to start), you should change the date to the proper one.

Defining the start date in Microsoft Project.

You can also define the assumed finish date of the project. This is important, specifically if your project has a strict deadline. This will make you spend less time using Microsoft Project while gaining the most out of it.

2. Set your settings to Auto-scheduled

The default setting for your Microsoft Project tasks is manual scheduling. And if your task is manually scheduled, you have to update it manually every time there’s a factor that can affect the finish date of your project. 

That’s why it’s highly recommended to set your MSP settings to auto-scheduled. If you already defined your project start date, all your tasks will automatically have the same start date as their default.

3. Have a well-defined calendar

Everything in your project plan will follow a calendar. You can edit the calendar in Microsoft Project and set holidays depending on dedicated holidays for a specific year. You can also set the working time for each day in the calendar. This helps in managing your resources well using Microsoft Project.

There are three default calendars in MSP. The project calendar, task calendar, and resource calendar. All of these calendars can use these three different shifts to define the working time per day. Here are the three shifts:

• Standard shift – In a standard shift, the working time is between 8 AM and 5 PM with a 1-hour break in the noon.
• 24-hour shift – The 24-hour shift starts at midnight on the first day and ends at midnight of the next day with no break hours. 
• Night shift – During the night shift, working time is set from 11 PM to 8 AM, with an hour of break (3 AM – 4 AM).

You can use these default calendars but it’s always good to make necessary changes in a calendar depending on organization holidays. You can always change these (and more!) in Microsoft Project.

4. Make sure your tasks are complete before starting a project

When starting a new project, it would be less stressful if you managed to complete your list of tasks before starting. It’s quite bothersome to add a new task in the middle of an ongoing project. That’s why try not to miss a task when adding them to your project. 

Keyboard shortcut: For Windows OS, press Insert to add another task manually. For macOS, you can use Fn+Enter to add a new task.

5. Define task relationships

When planning projects, you can’t escape the fact that there are tasks that are correlated to each other. And sometimes, these tasks can make or break your project deadline. When one task is delayed, the others will also be delayed.

That’s why it’s important to define the relationship between your tasks. If you set the actual dates in MSP, the dates for successor tasks will be automatically adjusted.

6. Identify task hierarchy

You can identify the tasks that go along together and the tasks under each category. These tasks can be grouped into sub-tasks in Microsoft Project. You can use the Indent and Outdent features of MSP to make a work breakdown structure (WBS).

Keyboard shortcut: Shift + Alt + Left/Right Arrow Key to indent/outdent a task for Windows. For Mac users, you can use Alt + Left/Right Arrow Keys to outdent/indent tasks, respectively.

7. Baseline start and finish

There are times that you will need to change the start and finish date of a task. Luckily, you can also set the baseline start and finish of the task. These baseline dates will not be affected even if you change the actual start and finish dates of a task.

8. Check for date constraints

Lastly, you need to check if there are any conflicts in the dates for the tasks. You may have to adjust certain tasks and make them independent from one another. This way, you will be alerted if you have tasks that will have constraints.

MSP does not change these tasks automatically. Therefore, you can adjust the dates for the conflicting tasks and modify them yourself to fit them into a schedule. This will give you more control and freedom when scheduling tasks.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of learning the tips and tricks of MSP is to spend the least time on the software while getting the most out of it. These tricks will help you save a lot of time while still producing a quality project management plan.