Using the Task Board

Quick reference

• 00:03 In previous videos, I showed you how to update the percent complete of
• 00:08 a task either by using the percent complete,
• 00:11 using these icons up here in the Task tab, or even using the split view.
• 00:16 But if you're interested in doing things a little bit differently using a maybe more
• 00:20 Agile type approach to status in your project,
• 00:23 you can use what's called the Task Board.
• 00:25 Click the View tab, and then assuming you have project online,
• 00:30 you'll have this new Task Board icon.
• 00:33 Go ahead and click that and that will bring us into the board view.
• 00:37 In Agile, we have this concept of what's called a backlog.
• 00:41 The backlog is a list of all the items that have yet to be done.
• 00:46 And that's typically thought of in this Not Started column.
• 00:51 Now, what's a little weird with this Not Started column is Microsoft Project is
• 00:56 essentially showing us all the tasks from the project and
• 00:59 some of them may already be completed.
• 01:01 So we'll get to that in just a moment.
• 01:04 The next thing you want to do is have this Next up column.
• 01:07 This is kind of the stuff that you're planning on doing real soon.
• 01:11 Then you have In progress and Done.
• 01:14 So let's say that this Acquire land task is done, and
• 01:17 I know it is because there's a checkbox there.
• 01:20 And if I were to double-click on the box, you'd also see that
• 01:24 in the Task Information dialog, the task is 100% complete.
• 01:29 So I'm just going to go ahead and click,
• 01:31 hold on to my mouse button, and drag it over here to Done.
• 01:35 Now, I'm going to start talking to people about a few activities over
• 01:40 the course of the next few weeks.
• 01:42 So what I'm going to do is take Create architectural design and
• 01:47 Acquire loan and put those in the Next up column.
• 01:51 Now, as I'm progressing,
• 01:53 I'm realizing that someone did actually start on Create architectural design.
• 01:59 So I'll go ahead and take that and move it over here to In progress.
• 02:03 Now let's say that the Create architectural design task is done.
• 02:07 I can take this and drag it and drop it over here.
• 02:10 Notice a checkbox automatically came up here and it changed to 100%.
• 02:16 Well, wouldn't it be nice to also get a percent complete as we're dragging things
• 02:21 over rather than waiting until the end?
• 02:23 So maybe Next up to us means that it's 25% complete.
• 02:27 I'll go ahead and click the Set % Complete item and type 25, and press Enter.
• 02:34 Now the next test that I drag over will have the 25% complete, but
• 02:38 let me just show you something real quick.
• 02:40 I'm going to double-click on Acquire loan.
• 02:43 Notice it's still at 0%.
• 02:45 That's where it was before.
• 02:47 What I have to do is kind of move it back over here and then put it here.
• 02:52 And now once I've done that, I double-click again,
• 02:55 you can see the 25% complete.
• 02:57 So any other activities that we move over will now also have that 25% complete.
• 03:03 Microsoft Project allows you to also move these items around.
• 03:10 So even though the Land acquisition complete has to happen after other
• 03:14 activities, if this is an important thing for you and
• 03:17 you want to move it to the top, you can.
• 03:19 It's not going to change the layout of your project plan.
• 03:23 As a matter of fact, let's take a look at this.
• 03:25 We have Acquire loan and Acquire permits.
• 03:28 Land acquisition complete might come after those.
• 03:31 If we go back into the Gantt chart, you can see there it is,
• 03:34 Land acquisition complete happening after Acquire loan and Acquire permits.
• 03:39 So you're not really changing the structure of your project at this point.
• 03:43 You're just moving things around to put focus on the things that
• 03:46 are important to you.
• 03:47 Now, working with this backlog along the left-hand side,
• 03:50 it can get pretty daunting.
• 03:51 Look at all these activities as I scroll.
• 03:54 So another way to look at just the information you want to work with is to
• 03:59 click this filter icon on the top right.
• 04:01 Here you can see when you click on the summary item, you can just choose, for
• 04:05 example, Finalize House, and it shows you just the finalize house items.
• 04:10 Notice it also filters out the things that I had been working with before,
• 04:14 because it's focusing just on that phase of work.
• 04:17 Now I'm going to go ahead and click Prepare House Purchase.
• 04:21 And you'll notice nothing shows up on the backlog.
• 04:24 That's because all those items are already over here, so it's okay.
• 04:29 Of course, you can always just click the Clear item to clear your filter.
• 04:33 You can also filter on resources.
• 04:36 Maybe you're sitting down with, let's say the general contractor.
• 04:40 You just want to focus on the activities that the general contractor is doing
• 04:44 right now.
• 04:45 Now you can just talk to that person and drag and drop the items over as needed.
• 04:50 And then if you want to get rid of the filter altogether, you can just clear
• 04:55 that and then also click this X button to bring the screen back to normal.
• 05:00 You can also find activities by clicking on the magnifying glass.
• 05:04 And when you type it,
• 05:05 it will automatically filter everything on the screen.
• 05:08 So I'll just type purchase.
• 05:10 And you can see only those two items with P-U-R-C-H are displayed.
• 05:15 And, of course, you can click the little x item here, and
• 05:19 you'll get all of your tasks back again.
• 05:21 Finally, you can add a new column.
• 05:25 Now, why would you do that?
• 05:26 You already have Not Started, Next up, In progress, Done.
• 05:29 Well, maybe you want to have a column that's called Blocked,
• 05:33 meaning that there's a problem.
• 05:35 So I just press Enter, and now let's say that this Purchase House Materials
• 05:40 activity is blocked because we don't have access to the materials right now.
• 05:45 I can put that here, and then I can address it.
• 05:48 I can add more columns here and I can also set a percent complete.
• 05:53 I don't suggest you add many columns because then you'll end up with scrolling
• 05:57 and the screen could get a little bit too complicated.

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