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Quick reference
Create a Project Roadmap
Monitor and track important tasks across multiple projects by creating a roadmap.
When to use
We create a project roadmap whenever we are managing multiple projects and need to keep a close eye on key tasks within those projects.
Instructions
A project roadmap allows us to link to multiple projects and choose specific key tasks to monitor closely. It's most useful for team leaders and project managers who have numerous projects to keep on top of.
Create a Roadmap
To create a roadmap, we need to connect to all of the projects that contain tasks we would like to monitor.
- From Project Home, click New Project.
- Click Roadmap.
Roadmap view looks similar to Timeline view. We have dates running across the top, a zoom slider, and filters. This is where we connect to our projects.
- Click Add row.
Each row in the roadmap represents a project we've connected to.
- From the pane on the right-hand side, give the row a name.
- Add an owner.
- Click Connect to a project and Project.
- Select a project from the list.
When we connect to a Project we are essentially setting up a flow. Flows are automated processes that exist in Power Automate, one of Microsoft's Power Platform Services.
To connect successfully to our project, we need to make sure that we have a green tick next to any items in the Sign in section.
In this example, I need to be signed into Project Roadmap and Microsoft Dataverse to connect to this project. If we have a green tick, we have been signed-in successfully and have a valid connection.
- Click Connect.
Once connected, we can see a list of all tasks that belong to this project. We can select the checkbox next to any of these tasks to add them to our roadmap.
To make quicker selections, we can click the Quick select drop-down to select all summary tasks or all subtasks.
- Select some tasks.
- Click Update.
The selected tasks will be added to the Kitchen Renovation roadmap.
We can repeat this process to connect to other project plans so we can monitor all key tasks across multiple projects in one place.
Edit Details
We can edit the details of the tasks in our roadmap.
- Click on any task to see an overview of the task information.
- Click the drop-down arrow next to Status to change the status of the task in the roadmap.
Changing the status will change the color of the bar in the roadmap. This color coding is a useful visual indicator particularly for tasks that are at risk of falling behind schedule.
Add Key Date
We can add key dates to our roadmaps. Key dates act in a similar way to milestones. We can use them to highlight specific key dates in our project.
- Click Add key date.
- Type a name for the key date.
- Set a Due date.
- Set a Status.
- Click Add key date.
Key dates are represented by a pin indicator in the roadmap.
Reorder Projects
We can reorder our projects in the plan.
- Click on the project.
- Click the Move up or Move down button to change the order.
- 00:03 Project roadmaps are a great way of being able to keep
- 00:08 your eye on specific tasks across multiple projects.
- 00:12 So if you're a project manager or maybe even if you're a team leader and you have,
- 00:17 maybe three or four projects currently on the go, you might want to make sure that
- 00:21 you're on top of the key tasks that relate to those projects.
- 00:25 So, what we can do is, we can create what we call a Project Roadmap,
- 00:30 which allows us to pick specific tasks across all of the projects that
- 00:34 we have access to and monitor those tasks.
- 00:37 We can also do things like add in key milestones to keep us on track.
- 00:43 So let's take a look at how we create a Project Roadmap,
- 00:46 how we add tasks, and some of the features within the Project Roadmap.
- 00:50 Now, I'm back at Project Home,
- 00:52 where we can see all of the last projects that we've created.
- 00:56 And, as I said, in this Source column underneath Recent files,
- 00:59 you can see that pretty much everything in here I created in Project for the Web.
- 01:04 But one of these is a Roadmap, instead.
- 01:07 So you can always tell when you're looking at Recent files,
- 01:10 which ones are your Project files, and which ones are your Roadmaps.
- 01:14 Now if we want to create a brand new roadmap, we need to jump up to the New
- 01:18 project button, and we're selecting this one just here, Roadmap.
- 01:23 And this is basically going to present us with kind of like a Timeline view, again.
- 01:27 We have very similar options at the top here to what we have in Timeline view.
- 01:31 We have a Zoom slider, so we can adjust what we're looking at.
- 01:35 We have a Go to date button, a Filter, Group members, so on and so forth.
- 01:40 Now, the first thing I'm going to want to do here is, rename my roadmap.
- 01:44 Because, notice, by default, it just says, Untitled.
- 01:47 So let's click, and I can rename in here.
- 01:50 So I'm just going to call this My Projects.
- 01:54 It's also worth noting that if you want to delete a roadmap,
- 01:57 this is where you're going to find that option, as well.
- 01:59 Now let's close this pane down,
- 02:02 because now we need to start adding in tasks across multiple projects.
- 02:07 So, what we can do here is, we can add a row.
- 02:10 Now, each row in our roadmap represents one project.
- 02:15 So we've been working on the Kitchen Renovation project.
- 02:18 So this first row is for the Kitchen Renovation project.
- 02:22 Now, notice in the pane on the right-hand side it says, Untitled row,
- 02:27 I'm going to call this Kitchen Renovation.
- 02:31 The owner of this project, well, that is me, I created it.
- 02:34 So I'm going to select my name, and
- 02:36 now we need to connect to that particular project.
- 02:40 So I'm going to click the drop down just here,
- 02:43 we want to connect to an existing project.
- 02:46 And take a look at that,
- 02:47 it's going to show me all of the projects that I have access to.
- 02:52 So the top one here is Kitchen Renovation, let's select it.
- 02:56 So at the top here it says, Choose a project, Kitchen Renovation, that's fine.
- 02:59 It then says, Connect to project, Get updates to Roadmap from Project.
- 03:05 And then it says, Flow type: Scheduled.
- 03:07 So, what is all of this?
- 03:08 Well, effectively, when we're connecting to a project,
- 03:12 we're creating a flow in Power Automate.
- 03:14 And if you recall, right at the beginning of this course,
- 03:17 I mentioned that one of the biggest advantages of Project for
- 03:21 the Web is that it's built on the Power platform.
- 03:23 Which means we can utilize other power apps like Power Automate and Power BI.
- 03:28 And this is where we can see Power Automate in action.
- 03:31 We're effectively creating a flow, we're creating a connection.
- 03:35 Which means that if I connect to the Kitchen Renovation project, and
- 03:39 then changes are made to specific tasks in that project,
- 03:42 if I've added those tasks to my roadmap, it's going to update.
- 03:46 Now it might be that you don't know a great deal about Power Automate,
- 03:49 maybe you've never used it before.
- 03:51 All you really need to know is that Power Automate allows us to automate workflows.
- 03:56 An example of that would be, let's say that you post a YouTube video on Monday,
- 04:01 Wednesdays, and Fridays.
- 04:03 Instead of manually posting a video on those days, you could set up a flow in
- 04:07 Power Automate that automatically posts your videos for you.
- 04:12 That would be an example of a workflow.
- 04:14 Now, in relation to the Kitchen Renovation project,
- 04:17 this workflow relates to connecting to a project and keeping it updated.
- 04:22 So you can see underneath, in this Sign in area,
- 04:25 it's telling us which applications project needs access to in order to
- 04:29 keep the Kitchen Renovation project updated in the roadmap.
- 04:34 And it says, it needs access to Project Roadmap,
- 04:37 which is the actual roadmap application, and also the Dataverse.
- 04:41 And the Dataverse is where all of our project information is stored.
- 04:46 Now, if we have a green tick next to both of these,
- 04:48 it means that we've successfully connected.
- 04:52 So project is going to use your Microsoft 365 Sign in credentials to
- 04:56 attempt to sign in to all of the applications it needs access to in order
- 05:01 to create this connection.
- 05:02 If you have anything here, other than a green tick, so
- 05:06 maybe it says Sign in, or maybe it has an error message,
- 05:10 you need to deal with those first before you can connect to your project.
- 05:15 And most of the time it just means that you haven't signed in,
- 05:18 and you'll see a little Sign in link, just here,
- 05:20 which will just require you to enter in your email and password credentials.
- 05:25 Now, both of mine are green, so I can simply click on Connect, at the bottom,
- 05:29 to connect to the Kitchen Renovation project.
- 05:32 Now, as soon as I get connected, it's basically going to present to me,
- 05:35 in this pane on the right-hand side,
- 05:37 all of the tasks that are part of that Kitchen Renovation project.
- 05:41 And this is where I can start going through, selecting particular tasks that
- 05:45 I'm most interested in, and adding them to my Project Roadmap.
- 05:49 So let's go through.
- 05:50 I'm really interested in Rough Blueprints and Sketches.
- 05:54 Let's select that task.
- 05:55 I'm interested in the Budget and the Timeframe.
- 05:59 I'm interested in the Demolition, the Removal of the sink, and
- 06:02 the Removal of the tiles and flooring, and I could carry on going.
- 06:06 In this example, I'm just going to add in those particular tasks.
- 06:10 Once I've selected the tasks I'm interested in monitoring, I can
- 06:14 click on Update, at the bottom, and it's going to import those particular tasks.
- 06:19 And you can see now if I click away, there are my tasks listed just here.
- 06:23 Now if I zoom all the way out, and I'm going to Go to date,
- 06:29 there are those tasks that I selected.
- 06:33 If I hover over them, I can see what that task is, set budget and timeframe.
- 06:38 This one over here is the demolition of walls and cabinets.
- 06:41 And if I click on these tasks,
- 06:42 it's going to open up a little bit more information.
- 06:45 I can see the Title, I can see the Start date, and the End date.
- 06:49 And in this particular Roadmap, I can choose to set a Status.
- 06:53 Now, it's worth noting that this doesn't have any reflection, or
- 06:57 it doesn't filter back to the actual project plan,
- 07:00 this is just really when you're working in Roadmap.
- 07:03 So I could say that this task is On track to be completed.
- 07:08 And I can carry on going through color coding, the status of each of these tasks.
- 07:14 So it's a nice quick way of being able to see, in your Roadmap, the key tasks which
- 07:18 really influence your project's completion date, and being able to see if they're
- 07:22 on track, if they're at risk, if they're at high risk, so on and so forth.
- 07:26 If I want to, I can add another project simply by adding a row.
- 07:31 And this time we're going to add the Onboarding Project.
- 07:35 The owner is me.
- 07:38 We're going to Connect to a project, and then I can choose it from here.
- 07:42 So let's say, Employee Onboarding.
- 07:45 Again, it needs to connect to Project Roadmap and
- 07:47 the Dataverse to grab the data.
- 07:48 Which is fine, I've got green ticks.
- 07:50 Click on Connect, and
- 07:52 then it's going to open up all of the tasks that are part of this project, and
- 07:56 I can go through and select the ones that I want to keep an eye on.
- 08:00 So I'm just going to choose a few of these.
- 08:02 Let's just select a fair few, and
- 08:05 then click on Update to pull them across to the Roadmap.
- 08:10 So now I can effectively view my projects side-by-side.
- 08:14 And it might be that you need to scroll around a little bit because some of your
- 08:17 projects might be on completely different timelines, and
- 08:19 take place at completely different points in the year.
- 08:22 So just bear that in mind when you're working in this view.
- 08:25 Another thing we can do from here is Add key dates, and
- 08:28 these would be most similar to Milestones in Project Desktop.
- 08:32 So I'm going to click on the Kitchen Renovation project, and
- 08:35 I'm going to say that I want to add a Key date.
- 08:37 So maybe a Key date is when the Demolition starts.
- 08:41 I'm going to select exactly when that is.
- 08:43 So, again, this is just going to be a rough guesstimate.
- 08:46 So let's say the 15th of February.
- 08:48 I can set a Status, we'll say, On track, and
- 08:51 I can add the Key date to this particular project plan.
- 08:55 And you can see it's represented with this little pin icon at the top, just here.
- 08:59 So roadmaps are a great way for project managers and
- 09:03 team leaders to keep on top of multiple different projects, and keep an eye
- 09:08 on key tasks which could have an effect on the overall completion date of a project.
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