Working with the Timeline

Quick reference

• 00:04 We took a very good step in helping our home owner understand where we
• 00:09 are with our current duration and cost by creating graphical health indicators.
• 00:15 Now, our home owner is a sponsor for the project.
• 00:19 And this sponsor may not know what a Gantt chart is, they may only know and
• 00:25 understand what some major tasks are to complete the house.
• 00:29 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 is going to give us a way to graphically visualize some of the major
• 00:43 activities that are happening in the project.
• 00:45 And I'm going to show you how to set up the timeline in this lesson.
• 00:49 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
• 00:56 check the Timeline checkbox.
• 00:58 This displays a timeline.
• 01:01 Now if we want to add task to the timeline,
• 01:05 we can do that by selecting the task, clicking the Task tab,
• 01:10 locating the Properties section, and choosing Add to Timeline.
• 01:16 Now, you'll notice that this timeline Item here is called acquire loan,
• 01:22 but it's actually pretty small in terms of what you can read.
• 01:27 I might want to print this, I might want to send it in an email.
• 01:30 So what I can do is just drag and drop this outside of the timeline area there.
• 01:37 Now, I might want to add a time, rather a milestone, so I'll go ahead and
• 01:41 click this land acquisition complete and, once again, choose Add to Timeline.
• 01:46 Notice how milestones automatically are callouts in this area,
• 01:52 and they have this little diamond here.
• 01:55 Let's do a few others.
• 01:58 It's going to be important to find out when we install the house frame.
• 02:01 So I'm going to 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,
• 02:13 just so you get the idea.
• 02:16 Now, one thing to note is that the timeline actually does
• 02:20 not display information regarding the percent complete,
• 02:25 what the status is of these items, it's just saying here they are.
• 02:30 So acquire loan could be done and we won't know.
• 02:33 Now, in this case, it's not.
• 02:35 But the point is is that we won't ever see whether this is done if we
• 02:40 were to just say copy and paste this or print it.
• 02:43 So what you can do is use your own coloring scheme.
• 02:47 So for example, if I select this task and then I go to the Task tab,
• 02:52 I can go ahead and make it a different color.
• 02:55 I don't recommend you use red because that's actually going
• 02:59 to mean critical task.
• 03:01 But Acquire loan, I just made blue.
• 03:03 So maybe what that means is it's an upcoming task.
• 03:07 Install house frame, I could make that, let's say,
• 03:11 dark gray 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.
• 03:20 When we're ready to share this timeline,
• 03:22 we can of course just pull this up on the screen, we can also print it.
• 03:26 But another thing we can do is if we make sure we select the timeline area, so
• 03:31 I'm just clicking in here with my mouse.
• 03:34 I can then click the Format tab and choose Copy Timeline.
• 03:38 You can choose For Email, or For Presentation, or Full Size.
• 03:42 I tend to like using For Presentation.
• 03:46 So what that's done is it's just copied the timeline into the clipboard.
• 03:50 Now that I have the project timeline copied to the clipboard,
• 03:54 I can paste it into PowerPoint.
• 03:57 And with it in PowerPoint, I can now bring it over here, I can resize it,
• 04:06 And it's ready for presentation.
• 04:08 Now, one thing to note is sometimes the fonts don't look quite good.
• 04:12 So these are graphical elements that you can select, so it's not a bitmap.
• 04:16 And you can make it bold and increase the size of the text.
• 04:20 Or alternatively, I'll just delete this.
• 04:24 And I'll choose Paste with the pick list,
• 04:28 Paste Special, and choose Bitmap.
• 04:32 Now that it's a bitmap, I can't select these individual items and
• 04:36 do anything with them.
• 04:37 But I feel that the graphics actually look a little bit better.
• 04:42 So when you go into presentation mode, the graphics will look a little
• 04:47 bit more crisp, and you should be able to see the text on a projector.
• 04:52 I'm going to show you two other tips on how to use a timeline.
• 04:56 One is if you click the Date Format, you can change to smaller dates.
• 05:01 Watch what happens to the timeline as I select this smaller date.
• 05:07 It makes it a little bit more legible.
• 05:11 The other thing that you can do is add additional tasks by clicking this
• 05:15 Existing Tasks icon.
• 05:16 And if you scroll down,
• 05:18 you can choose other tasks that you'd like to include in the timeline.
• 05:24 Now, what's important is that you don't just start to
• 05:27 recreate the project schedule up here on the timeline.
• 05:30 The timeline is designed to provide a clear and concise view of important
• 05:34 information that you want to communicate to your stakeholders.
• 05:38 This is not a place to dump all of the tasks and have this big graphical view.
• 05:44 No one will be able to read that, it'll be too much for anyone to absorb.
• 05:48 And you will lose your message when you're communicating your project status.

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