Open a Project and View the Project Plan

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About this lesson

Take a look at an existing project plan in Project for the Web to gain a greater understanding of the advantages and limitations of the application.

Quick reference

Open a Project and View the Project Plan

Open a project file and explore some of the options available to view and edit the plan. 

When to use

Whenever we want to work on a project plan we need to open it and understand the options we have when it comes to editing and viewing the plan. 

Instructions

Project Home

  • Click the Home button. 
Recent List

The Recent tab is where we can find the project files we have opened and worked on recently. The most recent file will be at the top. This list is dynamic meaning it changes depending on our activity. The Source column tells us where the file has been created either in Project or Roadmap. 

Favorites

We can add any project file to our favorites. This will move the file to the Favorites section at the top and it will stay there until we choose to remove it. In general, it's good to add files we work on every day to favorites so they are easy to access. 

  • Hover the mouse over any file in the recent list. 
  • Click the star icon.
Remove from Favorites
  • Hover the mouse over the file in the Favorites section. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Click Remove from favorites. 

Open a Project File

  • From Project Home, click on the link to the project or on the card if the project is in the Favorites list. 

Rename a Project

The name of the project will be displayed at the top of the screen. If this is a new project it will have the default name of 'Unititled1'. We can rename any project to something more meaningful and easy to identify. 

  • Click on the project title. 
  • From the pane on the right-hand side, overtype the current name with the new name. 

Project Start and End Dates

Underneath the project title, we can see the current start and end dates of the project. If we have not defined these, the start and end dates will be set to the current day's date. 

We can define the start date of our project but not the end date. The end date is calculated automatically by project based on the durations of the tasks. 

Change the Start Date
  • Click on the start and finish date link
  • Click the calendar icon next to start date. 
  • Select a date from the date picker. 

The Task List

The task list is where we can see our tasks. If a task is in bold, it means it is a summary task that has subtasks. We can click on the small arrow to collapse and expand the group. Summary and subtasks add structure to our project and make it easier to read and find specific tasks and groups of tasks. 

Column Headings

The task list has several default column headings that hold different types of information. We can customize these columns to suit our needs. We can hide columns, add custom columns and rearrange columns to customize our view. 

Filters

The Filters button allows us to filter our task list. For example, we can filter by priority, bucket, label, due date, completion status etc. 

Group Members

The Group members button lets us see who is a member of this project plan. If the project is public, everyone in our organization has access. If a project is private, we need to invite people to become members. 

We can create member groups and add people from here. 

More Options

In Project for the Web, three dots means More options. If we click the three dots next to Members we can see various additional actions. We can export our project data out to Excel, copy the project or view the project details. 

Views

We can view our project plan in several ways: Grid, Board, Timeline, Charts, or People. 

Grid 

Grid view shows our tasks in a long list. It's generally the view we use when adding tasks to a project. 

Board

Board view shows our tasks as cards. This is a good view to use when we need to organize our tasks into buckets as it's easy to drag and drop. 

Timeline

Timeline view is where we can see our tasks visually represented by bars on a timeline. It makes it easy to see the durations of tasks and if tasks have dependents. We can also adjust the durations of tasks from here. 

Charts

Chart view shows some key metrics in the form of charts relate to our project plan. 

People

People view lets us see each member working on this project and the tasks that are assigned to them. 

Hints & tips

  • There is no save button in Project for the Web. When we make changes, they automatically save. 
Login to download
  • 00:04 So now that we have this project imported into your project for the web,
  • 00:08 let's take a look at some of the basic details when we're working with a project.
  • 00:13 Now the first thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to jump back to project home.
  • 00:16 So remember, we can click on the Home icon in that left hand menu.
  • 00:20 Now notice what has happened here to my recent list.
  • 00:24 We can see that new project that we've imported is now at
  • 00:27 the top of the list because it is the most recent.
  • 00:30 And remember, if we're going to be working on this frequently,
  • 00:33 we can click on the star just to add that to favorites.
  • 00:36 And that's another thing when you're working in project for
  • 00:39 the web if you're looking for more options, always look for the three dots.
  • 00:43 So you can see we have three vertical dots here which gives us a contextual menu
  • 00:47 where we can find more options.
  • 00:50 And also in the recent list, we have those same three dots, so
  • 00:54 three dots is always more options in a contextual menu.
  • 00:58 So if we want to re-open up this file, we can simply click on the card and
  • 01:02 it's going to jump us back into the project plan.
  • 01:04 Now when you're looking at your projects within project for
  • 01:08 the web, notice at the top here we have a title.
  • 01:11 Now this has just been imported from the original file in Project desktop and
  • 01:15 it doesn't look particularly great.
  • 01:17 So the first thing I'm going to do here is renamed the project.
  • 01:20 So if you want to rename anything,
  • 01:23 we can click on the link and it's going to open up a pane on the right hand side.
  • 01:28 And this is where we can go in and rename our project, Upgrade Server Project.
  • 01:34 Now notice that there's no save button here,
  • 01:36 and you'll find that throughout project for the web.
  • 01:38 A lot of the time, you just make your change and then when you click close this
  • 01:42 pane down, it automatically updates and you can see that up there.
  • 01:46 Underneath our project name, we're always going to have the start and
  • 01:50 end dates of the project.
  • 01:51 And if we click on this because that is also a link,
  • 01:54 it's basically going to open up the same window on the right-hand side.
  • 01:58 And this is where we can come to modify the start date of our project.
  • 02:02 And one thing you have to remember in project for
  • 02:05 the web is that we can change the start date, but we can't change the finish date.
  • 02:10 And that is because the finish date is automatically calculated based on
  • 02:14 the durations of the tasks that we have in our project.
  • 02:17 And of course,
  • 02:18 we'll speak a lot more about that when we start adding tasks to a new project plan.
  • 02:22 But one thing we can do is definitely change the start date of any of our
  • 02:26 projects from here.
  • 02:27 Let's close this window down.
  • 02:30 Now underneath, this is where all of our tasks are listed out.
  • 02:33 And you can see that some of these are in bold, and that is where project
  • 02:37 has picked up that these are effectively headings, these are different groups.
  • 02:41 And the way that we refer to these in project for the web is that those
  • 02:45 ones that you can see in bold are considered to be summary tasks, and
  • 02:49 the ones underneath are subtasks of that summary task.
  • 02:53 And summary and subtasks really add structure to your project.
  • 02:57 Once again, we'll be taking a look at how we create these a bit later on.
  • 03:00 We then have different columns of information and
  • 03:03 you're going to see that when you first start using project for the web,
  • 03:06 you're going to have some default columns in there already.
  • 03:09 For example, we have names, so that's the task name.
  • 03:12 We have quick look, this is where we can see an icon that lets us know if this
  • 03:17 particular task has attachments, notes, or checklist items.
  • 03:21 We can see who the task is assigned to in the next column.
  • 03:25 We can see the duration.
  • 03:27 And then we have an Add column button because we can completely
  • 03:31 customize what columns we're seeing, we can remove the default columns,
  • 03:35 we can add other columns so that we have everything set up as we need it to be.
  • 03:40 We have some filters that we can use to filter our tasks in the top corner,
  • 03:43 again, we'll look at this later.
  • 03:45 And then Group members shows us who has access to this project plan.
  • 03:51 Before I click on Group members, it's not showing me anybody and that's because
  • 03:55 currently, I'm the only one who has access to this plan because I imported it in.
  • 03:59 Again, we have three dots all the way over on the right-hand side which allows us to
  • 04:04 do things like export all of our project information out to Excel,
  • 04:08 much like Planner.
  • 04:09 We can copy the project and we can also jump in and view our project details.
  • 04:14 And that pretty much takes us back to the same window that we got to when we clicked
  • 04:19 on the project name and the project start and finish dates.
  • 04:23 Now the most important thing in here are the different views that we can view our
  • 04:27 project in.
  • 04:28 And you'll notice running across the top here we have Grid, Board, Timeline,
  • 04:33 Charts and People.
  • 04:34 Now we are currently in Grid view because we have that line underneath, and
  • 04:38 this is basically going to show all of our tasks in a big, long list.
  • 04:42 And in general,
  • 04:43 this is the view that I like to work in when I'm building my project,
  • 04:46 when I'm adding new tasks, editing tasks, but we also have other views.
  • 04:50 If we jump across to Board, this looks very similar to Microsoft Planner.
  • 04:55 We can see our tasks organized into different buckets, and
  • 04:59 they're displayed in this card format.
  • 05:02 And I like to switch into here when I'm trying to organize my tasks into different
  • 05:06 buckets, I find it a lot easier to work in this view.
  • 05:09 Moving across we then have a Timeline view and
  • 05:12 this is very similar to a Gantt chart view in project desktop.
  • 05:17 This is where we can see a visual representation of the durations of each
  • 05:21 task and we can also see which tasks are linked together and have dependencies.
  • 05:26 If we jump across to Charts, this is where we can see some high level statistics
  • 05:31 related to what we have in our project plan.
  • 05:33 Now this project that I imported is basically just a template that
  • 05:37 I downloaded,
  • 05:37 so it's not really accurately reflecting what a real project would look like.
  • 05:41 You can see here that everything is not started,
  • 05:44 we don't have anything in progress late or completed.
  • 05:46 But just know that you can come into here and
  • 05:49 see some of these statistics as charts, which makes everything more visual.
  • 05:55 And then finally, we have a People section at the top as well.
  • 05:59 And this is basically where we can see Add tasks organized by whoever they're
  • 06:04 assigned to.
  • 06:04 And you can see here that currently,
  • 06:07 all of the tasks in this project are unassigned.
  • 06:09 So just be aware of these different views that you have when you open
  • 06:14 an existing project or if you create a new project from scratch.

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