Working with the Timeline

Quick reference

• 00:04 We took a very good step in helping our homeowner understand where we are with
• 00:09 our current duration and cost by creating graphical health indicators.
• 00:15 Now, our homeowner is a sponsor for the project.
• 00:19 And this sponsor may not know what a gantt chart is, they may
• 00:24 only know and understand what some major tasks are to complete the house.
• 00:30 We're the project manager, so we're the ones that need to know how to read this.
• 00:35 So what Microsoft Project provides is what's called the timeline.
• 00:39 And the timeline's gonna give us a way to graphically visualize
• 00:43 some of the major activities that are happening in the project.
• 00:46 And I'm gonna show you how to set up the timeline in this lesson.
• 00:50 The first thing we need to do is display the timeline.
• 00:52 So we'll click the View tab, locate the Split View section, and
• 00:57 check the timeline check box.
• 00:59 This displays the timeline.
• 01:02 Now if we want to add tasks to the timeline,
• 01:04 we can do that by selecting the task, clicking the Task tab,
• 01:11 locating the Properties section, and choosing Add to Timeline.
• 01:17 Now, you'll notice that this timeline item here is called Acquire Loan, but
• 01:22 it's actually pretty small in terms of what you can read.
• 01:28 I might want to print this, I might want to send it in an email.
• 01:31 So what I can do is just drag and drop this outside of the timeline area there.
• 01:38 Now I might want to add a milestone, so I'll go ahead and
• 01:41 click this Land acquisition complete and once again choose Add to Timeline.
• 01:47 Notice how milestones automatically are callouts in this area,
• 01:52 and they have this little diamond here.
• 01:56 Let's do a few others.
• 01:57 It's gonna be important to find out when we install the house frame, so
• 02:02 I'm gonna go ahead and add that to the timeline.
• 02:05 And I'll make that a callout.
• 02:08 And I might also add House build complete, just so you get the idea.
• 02:17 Now, one thing to note is that the timeline
• 02:20 actually does not display information regarding the percent complete,
• 02:26 what the status is of these items.
• 02:28 It's just saying, here they are.
• 02:31 So Acquire loan could be done and we won't know.
• 02:34 Now in this case, it's not, but the point is is that we won't ever see
• 02:39 whether this is done if we were to just say copy and paste this or print it.
• 02:44 So what you can do, is use your own coloring scheme.
• 02:48 So for example, if I select this task, and
• 02:50 then I go to the Task tab, I can go ahead and make it a different color.
• 02:56 I don't recommend you use red because that's actually going to
• 03:00 mean critical tasks.
• 03:01 But Acquire loan I just made blue, so
• 03:04 maybe what that means is it's an upcoming task.
• 03:08 Install house frame, I could make that, let's say dark grey,
• 03:14 because that's a task that's coming up in the future.
• 03:17 So you can decide on a color scheme that works for you.
• 03:22 When we're ready to share this timeline,
• 03:24 we can of course just pull this up on the screen.
• 03:26 We can also print it.
• 03:28 But another thing we can do is if we make sure we select the timeline area, so
• 03:33 I'm just clicking in here with my mouse, I can then click the Format tab and
• 03:38 choose Copy Timeline.
• 03:40 You can choose For E-mail or For Presentation or Full Size.
• 03:44 I tend to like using For Presentation.
• 03:48 So what that's done is it's just copied the timeline into the clipboard.
• 03:52 Now that I have the project timeline copied to the clipboard,
• 03:55 I can paste it into PowerPoint.
• 03:59 And with it in PowerPoint, I can now bring it over here, I can resize it.
• 04:08 And it's ready for presentation.
• 04:10 Now, one thing to note is sometimes the fonts don't look quite good.
• 04:13 So these are graphical elements that you can select, so it's not a bitmap.
• 04:18 And you can make it bold and increase the size of the text, or
• 04:22 alternatively, I'll just delete this.
• 04:26 And I'll choose paste with the pick list, Paste Special, and choose Bitmap.
• 04:34 Now that it's a bitmap, I can't select these individual items and do anything
• 04:38 with them, but I feel that the graphics actually look a little bit better.
• 04:43 So when you go into presentation mode, the graphics will look a little
• 04:48 bit more crisp and you should be able to see the text on a projector.
• 04:54 I'm going to show you two other tips on how to use a timeline.
• 04:58 One is if you click the Date Format, you can change to smaller dates.
• 05:03 Watch what happens to the timeline as I select this smaller date.
• 05:09 It makes it a little bit more legible.
• 05:12 The other thing that you can do is add additional tasks by clicking this
• 05:15 Existing Tasks icon.
• 05:17 And if you scroll down,
• 05:20 you can choose other tasks that you’d like to include in the timeline.
• 05:26 Now it’s important is you don’t just start to recreate
• 05:29 the project schedule up here on the timeline.
• 05:31 The timeline is designed to provide a clear and concise view
• 05:36 of important information that you wanna communicate to your stakeholders.
• 05:40 This is not a place to dump all of the tasks and have this big graphical view.
• 05:45 No one will be able to read that, It'll be too much for anyone to absorb,
• 05:49 and you will lose your message when you're communicating your project status.

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