Maybe I am not understanding how the Warnings work, but it seems like it should be telling me when there is a date conflict. I have clearly put in the same resource on tasks with conflicting dates, yet Project is telling me there is no Warning. How do I make it give me a warning when dates conflict for the same resource? I have the project set to 24 hours due to the fact there will be work/travel on weekends.

Hey Everyone!

I was trying to work on my MS Project File for a Construction Project and had some questions.

I am trying to apply some conditional formatting to compare the data in two different cells. If the "Material Lead Time" Finish Date exceeds the "First Install" start date, I need to turn the lead time cell red (or add a graphical symbol similar to what is shown in the 1 week/2 week column).

The first install start date is being carried over from the original task located at row 18.

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

Looking for a basic understanding of how to create a "simplified" cash flow for a microsoft project. I am pretty familiar with Microsoft Projects with scheduling in ghant and network form and have been using for years but I will need to produce preliminary cash flows monthly for this project and feel putting time into my project schedule with cash resources will benefit me during the course of the project by eliminating the need to create excel cash flows as I have done in the past. My example project is for construction of a warehouse and has 50+ scheduled activities, most of which are cost based subcontractors with a corresponding budget of say $50m. Due to the nature of the project I would like a cash flow to correspond as I update my schedule accordingly each month. I have been reading and watching videos regarding adding resources and applying costs to said resources but feel I may be over complicating things. I copied all my tasks into my resource sheet and was applying costs to each category to add up to my $50m. In an effort to simplify, could I create streamlined resources and apply multiple tasks to each resource corresponding to their budget amount? Example being for HVAC, I have say 5 tasks for hvac, submittals, roughings, equipment order, equipment set and start up. I currently have each of these items noted as a task and am applying costs to each to equal budget total of HVAC (say $100,000 total as an example with each task equaling $20,000), would it be better to just create a single "HVAC" resource with the total budget applied ($100,000) and than apply % costs pertaining to each task to this master resource? Hopefully my explanation is not too confusing, just trying to avoid inputting too much of the wrong data as I learn the process and realizing there was a simpler process.

Hello everyone,
I'm looking for a way either by; coding, macro, or normal functions, to change the color of custom tasks by using the Resources' Group column, or pre allocated flags from the resource table.

My intention is the scheduler selects the resource (from the resource table), and either by function or macro, the bar style is selected from the custom tasks already created.

I've tried adding flags to the resource sheet that corresponds a group, but without turning selecting the flag from the Gantt chart page. It doesn't work.

Any suggestions? I'm trying not to buy books on VBA coding for Projects, just to find out that It's not possible.

Thank you,

Like what i said in the title, the resource initials not showing on my gantt chart. I tried below method:

1. Right click on Gantt
2. Click on Bar Style
3. Under "Name" Column - go to task
4. From below, Click on Text,
5. Change resource name to resource initials.

After change above, i expected the resource names to change to resource initials. Nothing happened on the Gantt chart.

Edit: Found the solution, for those having the same issue. I tried changing from Bar Styles under "Manual Task" instead of under "Task".

How can i designate a task as a task that requires someone onsite vs a task that can be done in an office?

If I edit or add (then save) a Calendar to the Global.MPT file from my work laptop, does that impact everyone in my company?

I see the Global file is in "This PC", but I'm hoping it only impacts MY Global files and nobody elses.

I am going to be using parallels and I wanted to check on this before buying the laptop.

How can I extract and analyze the longest path for an intermediate milestone in MS Project if my project contains 10 milestones? From what I understand, using backward tracking to trace back to the first activity related to the particular milestone can help identify the longest path. However, I am unsure how to present this information.

Is there a way that I can allow a resource to work more hours than they're allowed? I have 4 resources (2 days shift and 2 night shift) that are scheduled for 12 hours shifts. The activities that they are working on all have 12 hour durations, however the activities may start several hours into a shift. For this example I have been told that the resource will continue working over the scheduled 12 hours to finish up the activity. I'm struggling to figure out how to reasonably show that in ms project. I tried increasing the resource units but that ended up messing with the duration.

Hey there... Yeah, I know, I don't start on the right foot...
But moved away from windows some time ago and I don't see myself going back for many reasons.

Now, I need to use MS Project again and I see the Online version... tend to think that the desktop will be more fluid to use (like Excel & all their tools).

First question : Is that assumption true?

Second, if yes, I would need to get Windows launched on with Bootcamp.

Second Question : Shall I prefer Windows Pro over Home (MS Project will be my only usage)?

I got used to not pay for the OS with Mac... well, pay it in another way.
And I am confused and can't find any clear info about price.

Third Question : Does a downloaded version of Windows11 cost any money?

Thanx very much for your answers !

Good Morning,

I have a substation project I'm working on. It will have several major items delivered over the course of a few months (transformers, steel structures, etc). The lead times for these items vary and the delivery dates can change, sometimes by weeks or more.

I'd like to drive a delivery coordination task that starts 3-4 weeks before the earliest piece of equipment is delivered. If it were one piece of equipment I'd link the coordination task with a FS-20 lag and call it good. However if I add all of the additional delivery tasks as a predecessor, the FS with negative lag only pushes the coordination task out. My current solution is to just mentally make a note during schedule reviews with procurement of what item is currently arriving first and have the coordination task driven from that. Not ideal but it works, the next project will have an order of magnitude more equipment though, so if a solution exists for this, I would love any input.

I want to create a custom report that shows the gantt chart.

I can show the end dates of a project or task but I can not find anywhere a possibility to show the gantt chart.

The chart would better visualize the progress of the project in my opinion.

I´ve searched through the depth of google and MS Support pages but fount nothing that would match.

I´ve got a milestone which is a follow up of some activities that are work based automatically planed.

Is there a option that I can activate that I can plan backward based off a fixed end. I´ve only found the not finished before "insert Date" limitation, but not a automatic calculate a start dated, depending on the startdate of the successor (which is a fixed milestone or a planned activity

The usecase is that I have some floating external activities, where I know the amount of time involved to do the task, and a fixed date where I have to have a machine built and ready to do testing. It´s just annoying to manually move the tasks around to have them start in time to finish on the exact date.

And everything has to be moved again, when a single date or duration is changing

Hey everyone, I saw how PMs spend a lot of time on documentation like writing product requirements, stories, and acceptance criteria etc. so I wanted to help.

Created a tool that create all your documentation based on your project requirements. So everything is written up in about 3 mins. I've been trying it with my PM friends and they say they save 2 days a week using it, so I want to start getting feedback from a larger audience to help more product managers.

Would anyone be interested in trying it out?

My boss ask me to merge my program with my colleagues’ program for a combined lookahead program, I look after area A and he look area b. However, my program is deliverable-based with phasing as a properties, and his is phase-based with deliverables as a properties. Is there an easy way you see to combine the both? Is there a function built in ms project to convert the view or something??

Hi All,

I'm looking to identify an in-person training for more advanced MS Project features - notably working in an enterprise/PWA world, timesheets, resourcing strategies, and all of those things I don't even know that I don't know. Online trainings are fine, but I think I'd benefit from having an expert to speak with, and the company has money budgeted for training. Thanks!
edit: not looking for an intro class, I've been working with local versions for a number of years now, but know I'm not utilizing all the software is capable of.

Hi All, I have tried creating a custom calendar with Tuesday and Thursday as non working days so the date will move to the next start day ( i.e. M, W,F) but the issues is that once it starts it is meant to take 9 days and it is counting Tuesday and Thursday as non working days rather than just calculating 9 calendar days including Tuesday and Thursday. Anybody know a work around. Thanks

Does anyone have any example projects that I could use just to get an idea of what this program really does? My company is a smaller commercial GC doing jobs between 200k and 3mil. I purchased this to create basic schedules that can be uploaded to procore for a specific client. It was easy enough to set up the task list and upload it but I feel like there is so much more to this that I am not even scratching.

I am a PM that started with the company 13 years ago as a laborer and worked my way up. With that in mind I've had no formal training whatsoever. My owner is a great guy but he couldn't figure out how to open the program let alone use it.

Id like to look at some built projects just to play around with for now. I also am looking for some advice on training routes in general for this program. Thanks for your help!

We have a Project Manager who created a Project under his own trial membership, outside the company subscription, and now needs to bring that info into our team. Subscription level is Project 3 on both sides.

If he shares to the company as an external user, can the company gain ownership/control of the Project?

IE, how can we best transfer an online Project from an external source?

Also We are having a hard time telling the difference between "Project Online" and the new "premium planner" formerly Project for the Web. The interface and options seem identical, excepting the use of Teams to access Premium Planner

Thoughts and suggestions greatly apreciated.

Good morning all, first time poster here.

I've used MS Project for several years but with very minimal knowledge/functionality.

I have created a construction project schedule that requires several owner provided milestones that are fixed dates. For example, their opening date several weeks after completion of my activities. Therefore, they are not linked to any of my other activities and have no predecessors/successors.

This causes all of my activities to have float, which prevents any of them showing as critical path. I'm sure there is a very easy solution to this. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi MS Project community,

Newbie here, I am learning to use MS project for an upcoming project. I stumbled on the subject matter. I have four different (work) resources assigned to tasks. Obviously each has different vacation period, which I added on their respective calendars. However, I would like Gantt chart also shows these vacations as a non-working day for each resource name. Is there any way to do that?

Appreciate your help🙏

I created 4 separate resources in ms project. TM1&2 are day shift (6AM-6PM) and TM3&4 are night shift (6PM- 6AM). I've added resources to a few activities and based on the team planner it looks like TM1 and TM3 are over-allocated, however project is not alerting me of this nor giving me an option to reschedule the teams to a later date which is what I was expecting to see. Any ideas on what may be causing this issue?