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About this lesson
Learn how to access Project for the Web from within the Microsoft 365 hub.
Exercise files
Download this lesson’s related exercise files.
3.01 access-project-for-the-web - Exercise.docx52.7 KB 3.01 access-project-for-the-web - Exercise solution.docx
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Quick reference
Access Project for the Web
Understand where to go to access and launch Project for the Web.
When to use
To use Project for the Web we first need to launch the application. We will do this every time we need to use Project for the Web.
Instructions
If we need more functionality than Planner provides, the next step up is Project for the Web. Project for the Web or P4W as it's known is the latest addition to the Microsoft Project family. It bridges the gap between low-level project management in Planner and complex project management in Project Online Desktop.
Project for the Web exists in the cloud on the Power Platform which means it's perfect for team collaboration and we can utilize Power Apps to extend its capabilities.
To access Project for the Web we need to have a Project subscription, either Plan 1, Plan 3, or Plan 5. Any of these plans will give us access to Project for the Web. Once we've subscribed we can download the software.
Before we can get into how Project for the Web works, we need to know where to go to launch the application.
Launch Project for the Web
Once we've downloaded and installed Project, we can launch it from our Office portal.
- Go to office.com
- Sign in using your email address and password.
- From the online portal, click the App Launcher.
- Click on Project from the app list.
Project for the Web will load into a web browser. If this is the first time we are using Project for the Web, there won't be much to see on the homepage as we haven't created any projects.
This is the starting point for creating a project plan in Project for the Web.
Hints & tips
- At the time of writing this course, we go to office.com to log into our Office portal. However, this URL is about to change to microsoft365.com.
- 00:04 If you've been using Microsoft Planner up until this point to manage and
- 00:08 organize your team tasks, you might have found that it has certain limitations.
- 00:13 Or there's just not enough functionality for
- 00:15 you to be able to manage your project in the way that you want to.
- 00:18 If that is the case,
- 00:20 then you might consider stepping up to using Project for the web.
- 00:24 And as we've already discussed at the start of this course, Project for
- 00:28 the web kind of fills that gap in between Microsoft Planner,
- 00:32 which we use for basic, individual, and team task management, and
- 00:36 the more complex product of Project Online.
- 00:39 Project Online is a very complex application.
- 00:42 And it is great for project managers who have to manage multiple complex projects,
- 00:48 and need things like cost and resource management functionality.
- 00:53 But what Microsoft realized very quickly is that there was a gap in between
- 00:58 these two.
- 00:58 A lot of people these days find themselves in the position of having to
- 01:02 manage projects.
- 01:03 And those people might not necessarily be project managers by trade.
- 01:08 And if you're not a project manager,
- 01:10 using an application like Project Online is pretty intensive.
- 01:14 You have to go on a lot of training courses to really be able to
- 01:17 understand how Project Online works.
- 01:19 So what Microsoft wanted to do was fill that gap, and
- 01:22 provide a product that had more features than something like Microsoft Planner, but
- 01:26 wasn't complex and hard to learn like Project Online.
- 01:29 So that is where we have Project for the web.
- 01:32 And in this section of the course, we're really going to do a deep dive into this.
- 01:36 We're going to create a project, and we're going to go through all of
- 01:39 the functionality, but we need to start out with launching Project for the web.
- 01:43 Once again, we need to make sure that we do have a Project subscription,
- 01:47 either plan one, plan three, or plan five.
- 01:50 Once you have a subscription for Project, you can launch Project for
- 01:54 the web through your Microsoft 365 portal.
- 01:57 So I'm currently in my portal, if we click on the app launcher
- 02:01 in the top left-hand corner, we should be able to find in here Project.
- 02:05 So let's click on it to open it up.
- 02:08 Now, this is a browser-based application, and
- 02:12 it has a really intuitive, simple-to-use interface.
- 02:15 So once we've launched Project for the web,
- 02:18 we're going to be presented with what we call Project Home.
- 02:22 So let's take a quick tour around the interface, it is very simple and
- 02:25 intuitive.
- 02:26 So I don't envision you having too many problems with this.
- 02:29 So if we start at the top, we have a New project button, very self explanatory.
- 02:35 If we want to create ourselves a new project plan, we can click on this, and
- 02:39 we have a few different options in here.
- 02:41 Of course, we're going to to go through all of these in the coming lessons.
- 02:45 Underneath that, we have a Favorites area, and
- 02:47 this is where we can mark specific projects, maybe, that we use frequently.
- 02:52 And also mark roadmaps, I'll explain what those are a bit later on, so
- 02:57 that those appear at the top of this list.
- 02:59 And really,
- 03:00 this Favorites area is just a quick way of accessing things that we use all the time.
- 03:05 And then underneath that, much like many other Microsoft applications,
- 03:09 we have three quick ways of finding specific files.
- 03:13 The first tab we have here is the Recent tab,
- 03:15 so this is going to show recent projects that you've been working on.
- 03:19 And notice with this list, we have a Source column, and
- 03:23 it tells us where that project was created.
- 03:25 So you can see the majority of mine were created in Project for the web, but
- 03:30 I do have a roadmap in here as well.
- 03:32 If you have a file that you've imported from something like Project Online,
- 03:37 you would see Project Online in this Source column as well.
- 03:40 And we can see the last time that we accessed this file.
- 03:44 Also note that just above that, we have a lot of filter, where we can search for
- 03:47 specific projects.
- 03:48 So if my list was very, very long and I was looking for something in particular,
- 03:52 I could click up here.
- 03:53 And let's just type Employee Onboarding, you can see it immediately finds it.
- 03:58 Click on the cross to clear that filter, so that's your Recent list.
- 04:03 We then have Shared with me, so if someone shared a project with you,
- 04:07 this is where you can find it.
- 04:09 And Created by me will show just the projects that you've created.
- 04:14 So these two, essentially filter this Recent list.
- 04:18 And as I mentioned, we have a Favorites area at the top here.
- 04:21 If I wanted to add, let's say, Product Launch to my Favorites area,
- 04:25 I would simply hover over it.
- 04:27 And you can see, I have a star icon just here,
- 04:29 which allows me to mark it as a favorite.
- 04:32 It moves that up to the Favorites area, and displays it in a card format.
- 04:37 If I want to remove it from Favorites, I can click the three dots, and
- 04:41 simply select Remove from Favorites from the contextual menu.
- 04:45 Now, right at the bottom, we have a quick way to jump across to Project Online.
- 04:49 And as usual, in the top right-hand corner,
- 04:52 we have access to our account details from up here.
- 04:56 We have access to the Help files, so I can click this and start searching for help or
- 05:01 browsing some of these links.
- 05:03 We have our Settings underneath this cog icon, so very similar to Planner.
- 05:08 And then we can send Feedback to Microsoft if we want to.
- 05:11 And everything we see here is referred to as Project Home.
- 05:16 So if you hear me mention Project Home,
- 05:18 I'm talking about this homescreen just here.
- 05:20 So the interface is extremely simple.
- 05:23 And of course, if we want to open up any of these projects, we simply click on
- 05:27 the link, and it's going to open up that particular project in Project for the web.
- 05:32 And you can see here, this is an existing project that I've already created.
- 05:36 If I want to go back to Project Home, if you take a look over on the left-hand
- 05:41 side, we have a little Home icon just here.
- 05:43 If we click this, it's going to take us back to that main homepage.
- 05:47 So a really simple, straightforward, and intuitive interface.
- 05:51 Make sure you're familiar with the different parts, and in the next lesson,
- 05:55 we're going to take a look at how we can set up our Project notifications.
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