Leveraging calendars and resources to schedule your project

Summary

Margaret Schmidt, a Program Manager for Microsoft Project, delivers an insightful presentation on leveraging calendars and resources for effective project scheduling in Microsoft Project for the web. The video begins with an overview of the agenda, which includes creating and applying calendars, discussing various resources, and building an accurate schedule. The practical demonstration focuses on Lucy, a non-profit worker in Seattle, who is tasked with creating a parade float. The process involves renting tools, managing volunteer availability, and tracking project hours. Schmidt guides viewers through setting up a seven-day workweek calendar, creating resources for equipment and volunteers, and assigning these resources to specific tasks. The presentation highlights the importance of aligning project calendars with resource calendars to ensure accurate scheduling. The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to provide feedback and explore further resources on scheduling in Project.

Takeaways

• 📅 Margaret Schmidt, a Program Manager for Microsoft Project, discusses leveraging calendars and resources to schedule projects in Microsoft Project for the web.
• 🔍 The presentation agenda includes creating and applying calendars, discussing different resources, and building an accurate schedule in Microsoft Project.
• 👩‍💼 Lucy, a non-profit worker in Seattle, is featured in a demo to illustrate project scheduling, including renting tools, managing volunteers, and tracking hours.
• 🛠 Lucy needs to rent tools for her project and track their availability, which is addressed by adjusting the project calendar to include weekends.
• 👥 Volunteers' availability and work types must be managed, which requires creating and assigning resources to tasks in the project.
• ⏰ Lucy wants to track her and her co-workers' hours to keep managers informed, emphasizing the importance of accurate time tracking.
• 🔧 Admin users can create new calendars using Power Apps, as shown when creating a '7 day a week calendar' for Lucy's project.
• 📝 After creating a resource with the desired work hours, a new calendar template reflecting those hours can be applied to a project.
• 👷 Lucy can create resources such as equipment and contacts without admin privileges, which helps in assigning specific tasks to non-organizational members.
• 🔄 The effort for tasks is automatically updated when resources are assigned, reflecting the duration and availability of those resources.
• 🗓 It's crucial to align resource calendars with project calendars to ensure tasks are scheduled correctly, especially for resources with non-default working hours.

Q & A

What is Margaret Schmidt's role at Microsoft?

Margaret Schmidt is a Program Manager for Microsoft Project, specializing in Scheduling and Accessibility.

What is the main topic of Margaret's discussion?

The main topic is leveraging calendars and resources to schedule projects in Microsoft Project for the web.

What is the first step in ensuring that weekends are available for scheduling tasks in a project?

The first step is to go to Project Settings and ask the admin to create a project calendar that includes weekends.

How does an admin create a new calendar template in Microsoft Project?

The admin creates a new resource with the desired working hours, saves it, and then applies this resource's working hours to a new calendar template.

What is the purpose of creating a resource for equipment in Microsoft Project?

Creating an equipment resource helps to represent and track any equipment or materials needed for a project, which are not personnel but items required to complete tasks.

How can Lucy manage the availability of volunteers in her project?

Lucy can create a Contact Resource for each volunteer, specifying their availability and the type of work they are doing.

Why is it important to set the correct calendars for resources and projects in Microsoft Project?

Setting the correct calendars ensures that tasks are scheduled on the right days and that resources are utilized effectively, avoiding conflicts with their actual availability.

How can Lucy track her own and her co-workers' hours on the project?

Lucy can track hours by assigning user resources, representing individuals in the organization, to tasks and updating their work hours accordingly.

What feature in Microsoft Project allows users to provide feedback directly within the app?

The in-app feedback button, represented by a smiley face in the top right corner of the Project app, allows users to submit feedback.

How does the timeline view in Microsoft Project for the web handle tasks scheduled on weekends by default?

By default, the timeline view grays out weekend columns and automatically reschedules tasks dragged onto a weekend day to the next working day.

What is the process for Lucy to apply a new working hours template to her project?

Lucy should re-open the project details pane where she can find a calendar dropdown that offers different calendar template options. She selects the seven-day a week calendar template and applies it to her project.

What type of resource does Lucy create for Christopher Reed, and why?

Lucy creates a Contact Resource for Christopher Reed because he is a volunteer not part of the organization who doesn't need access to Project but whose availability and work need to be tracked for the project.

Outlines

00:00

📅 Introduction to Scheduling with Calendars and Resources in Microsoft Project

Margaret Schmidt, a Program Manager for Microsoft Project, introduces the topic of leveraging calendars and resources for project scheduling in Microsoft Project for the web. She outlines the agenda, which includes creating and applying calendars, discussing different resources, and combining them to build an accurate schedule. The demo will focus on Lucy, a non-profit worker in Seattle, who is creating a parade float. Lucy needs to rent tools, manage volunteer availability, and track hours for project team members. The video will guide viewers through setting up a project calendar that includes weekends, as Lucy intends to work on Saturdays and Sundays.

05:01

🛠️ Creating and Applying Custom Calendars and Resources for a Project

The video script explains how to create a custom calendar and resources in Microsoft Project for the web. It details the process of an admin user creating a '7 day a week calendar' using Power Apps, by defining a new resource with adjusted work hours to include weekends. The admin then creates a new calendar template based on this resource. Lucy, the project worker, applies this new calendar template to her project, enabling weekend work. The script also covers how Lucy can create her own resources, such as 'Building Tools' for rented equipment and 'Contact Resources' for volunteers like Christopher Reed, setting their availability and work hours accordingly.

10:03

🔄 Assigning Resources to Tasks and Adjusting Effort Durations

The script demonstrates how to assign the created resources to specific tasks within a project in Microsoft Project for the web. Lucy assigns 'Building Tools' to construction tasks and the volunteer 'Christopher' to tasks related to the parade. The system automatically updates the effort required for tasks based on the resources assigned and their availability. It also shows how to adjust the work calendars of user resources like Lucy to reflect their actual working hours, including weekends. The importance of aligning resource calendars with project calendars for accurate scheduling is emphasized. The video concludes with an invitation for feedback and mentions of additional resources and sessions for learning more about project scheduling.

Keywords

💡Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a project management software program developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads. In the video, it is the central tool used to manage Lucy's parade float project, with features like scheduling, resource assignment, and task tracking being highlighted.

💡Program Manager

A Program Manager in the context of software development and project management is a professional responsible for overseeing the planning, execution, and closing of a project or program. Margaret Schmidt, the speaker in the video, is a Program Manager for Microsoft Project, indicating her role in managing the development and implementation of the software.

💡Scheduling

Scheduling in project management refers to the process of defining the order and timing of tasks to be executed, as well as the resources required for each task. It is a critical component for ensuring that projects are completed on time. In the video, scheduling is a key focus, with the speaker discussing how to use calendars and resources to schedule a project in Microsoft Project for the web.

💡Accessibility

Accessibility in the context of software and technology refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. It ensures that people with the widest range of capabilities can use the software effectively. Margaret Schmidt specializes in this area, which likely means she focuses on making Microsoft Project more usable for everyone, including those with disabilities.

💡Calendars

In project management, calendars are used to define working days and hours, which are essential for scheduling tasks and resources. The video explains how to create and apply calendars in Microsoft Project for the web, such as creating a '7 day a week calendar' to accommodate weekend work for Lucy's project.

💡Resources

Resources in project management are all the assets needed to perform and complete the work, which can include people, equipment, materials, and time. The video demonstrates creating different types of resources in Microsoft Project for the web, such as equipment resources for rented tools and contact resources for volunteers.

💡Non-profit

A non-profit organization is a group that operates without the primary goal of making a profit, often pursuing a specific mission or cause. In the video, Lucy works for a non-profit in Seattle, which is creating a float for a parade, highlighting the application of project management in non-commercial settings.

💡Volunteers

Volunteers are individuals who offer their time and effort to support a cause or activity without financial gain. In the context of the video, Lucy manages volunteers who are helping with the parade float project, emphasizing the need to track their availability and contributions.

💡Work Hours

Work hours refer to the specific times during which resources are available to work on project tasks. The video shows how to set work hours for different resources, such as making adjustments for a '7 day a week calendar' and specifying the availability of rented tools and volunteers.

💡Tasks

Tasks are the individual pieces of work that need to be completed as part of a project. The video script describes how Lucy has added tasks to her project in Microsoft Project for the web, such as 'build float platform' and 'prep parade walkers,' and how these tasks are assigned resources and scheduled.

💡Dependencies

Dependencies in project management are relationships between tasks that affect the sequence and timing of the project. While not explicitly detailed in the provided script, dependencies are an important aspect of scheduling projects, and the video mentions a related session that covers dependencies, constraints, and effort duration.

Highlights

Margaret Schmidt introduces herself as a Program Manager for Microsoft Project with a focus on Scheduling and Accessibility.

She will discuss leveraging calendars and resources to schedule projects in Microsoft Project for the web.

The agenda includes creating and applying calendars, different types of resources, and building an accurate schedule.

A demo will focus on Lucy, a worker for a non-profit in Seattle, creating a float for a parade.

Lucy needs to rent tools, manage volunteer availability, and track project hours for her team.

Microsoft Project for the web automatically reschedules tasks to working days, excluding weekends by default.

Lucy wants to work on weekends, so she needs to adjust the project calendar settings.

The admin user creates a seven-day-a-week calendar using Power Apps to accommodate Lucy's project needs.

A new resource type is created to define the working hours for the custom calendar.

The admin updates the resource's work hours to include weekends and saves the changes.

A new calendar template is created in the admin settings to reflect the updated work hours.

Lucy applies the new seven-day-a-week calendar template to her project to enable weekend scheduling.

Lucy creates resources for equipment and volunteers without needing admin privileges.

Equipment resources represent materials or tools needed for project tasks.

Contact resources are used for individuals outside the organization, like volunteers.

Lucy assigns resources to specific tasks, and the effort fields update automatically.

It's important to set calendars correctly to ensure resources are scheduled on the right days.

Feedback on the experience can be provided through the in-app feedback button.

Transcripts

(upbeat music)

- Hi, my name is Margaret Schmidt

and I am a Program Manager for Microsoft Project.

I have worked on the Microsoft Project Team

for about a year and a half,

and I specialize in Scheduling and Accessibility.

And today, I'm going to talk to you about how

you can leverage calendars and resources

to schedule your project in Microsoft Project

for the web.

So, just a little overview of our agenda today.

First we're going to talk about calendars and how to create

them and apply them in Project for the web.

Going to talk about the different resources

that we have that you can make in Project for the web.

And then, we're going to bring it all together

to build an accurate schedule in Microsoft Project.

So, we're going to do all of this during a demo today.

But I'm just going to set up that demo a little bit.

So, this demo is going to focus on Lucy,

who is a worker for a non-profit in the Seattle area.

And the project she is working on right now,

is she's creating a float for an upcoming parade

in Seattle.

So, there are a few things that Lucy needs to do

to make sure that this project happens on time.

First of all, she needs to rent tools to help her build

the parade float.

Her organization doesn't actually own any,

so she wants to rent them and be able to track

when those are available.

The second thing, is she has some volunteers

who work with the organization and she wants

to be able to manage when they are available

and what type of work that they are doing.

And the last thing, is she wants to track her own hours

and the hours of her co-workers who are also working

on this project so that their managers are aware

of everything that they are doing.

So, let's jump into the demo.

So, now I've opened up Microsoft Project for the web

and I'm on the home page.

And Lucy has already created a parade float project

down here.

So, we're going to open that up.

Lucy has already added a bunch of tasks in here

and I opened up the timeline view.

Now, as you can see, we have actually these grayed out

columns which represent the weekends here.

And if I try to drag a task onto a weekend day,

it automatically gets rescheduled to the next working day.

And we have a toast down here that tells me that.

But, Lucy actually wants to be able to work on weekends.

You know, she's working with volunteers on this project,

which means sometimes people are going to

want to come in on Saturday, so Lucy needs to make sure

that weekends are available during this project.

And the way she does that is first

by going to Project Settings.

Now as we can see here, there isn't

any calendar information.

This tells Lucy that she actually needs to go talk

to her admin and ask them to create a project calendar

for her.

So, I'm going to open up the admin user.

Now, this is the admin user and Lucy has asked

her admin to create a seven day a week calendar for her.

So, I'm going to teach you how to do that.

The admin has opened up Power Apps,

and is going to go to Apps, and once that loads

go to Project.

And, then when they're on the project,

they're going to go to resources.

So, what the admin is actually going to do,

is they're going to create a resource

with the right amount of working hours

and then create a calendar based on that.

So, I clicked "New" here.

And I'm going to click "Resource Type."

Now there are a bunch of types,

and we're going to talk about some of these

later on in the presentation.

But for now, I just need a generic resource.

Which just means, you know, unspecified.

If you don't need any of the other types,

you should probably make a generic resource.

I'm going to name this something like,

"7 day a week calendar."

Now, this is a resource so that might seem

a little odd, but we're going to set the calendar

of this resource so that's going to make sense

in a little bit.

After this saves, what's going to happen

is I'm going to get a new tab here

called "Work Hours."

And when I click on that, it's going to open up

and show me all of the working hours

of this resource.

Everything in Microsoft Project gets a default

work hours template when you create it,

which is usually Monday through Friday,

nine to five, although, it could be different

based on your tenent.

Now, I've opened up the editing pane

and I can add Saturday and Sunday

as working days.

Now, I not going to actually mess with the times

during which this resource works

because Lucy's office is only open nine to five

every day anyways.

But we have added Saturday and Sunday

as working days so that this resource

can work on those days.

Now, as soon as I clicked save, we saw that those changes

were updated on this calendar.

So, we're going to save and close this resource.

Once that's been saved and closed,

I'm actually going to go down here to "Projects"

and click on "Settings."

This is going to give me a little bit different information.

We don't really care about the "Parameters" tab,

but we're going to go to the "Calendar Templates" tab.

Calendars Templates are templates that define

when your project can work.

So, we see that there's only one calendar template here,

which is the default one.

And this actually just represents

the nine to five, Monday through Friday working hours

that most things get assigned.

But we're going to create a new calendar template here,

and call this the "7 day/week calendar"

and add a resource.

So, we can find our resource here and click save.

So, now the resource who's working hours

we updated, has been applied to this work template.

So, now this work template has the working hours

that were defined by this resource.

Now, I'm going to go back to Lucy,

and reload this project.

So, in this sense, an admin has created a new

working hours template and told Lucy

that they made a working hours template

that she can use.

So, she's going to go back and try to apply

that working hours template to this project.

As soon as this loads, Lucy's going to re-open

that project details pane and we can see

that at the bottom, now we have this calendar dropdown,

which gives me different options for calendar templates

I can choose.

Lucy's going to choose the seven day a week calendar,

and close that.

And as soon as I did that, we saw that those

grayed out columns disappeared.

And now, I can schedule my tasks for weekend days

without them getting rescheduled.

Which is great.

Now, Lucy can schedule her tasks

for whenever she wants.

However, she still has to create a few resources

to make sure that her tasks can be assigned

to whoever she wants.

Lucy can do that without the admin,

so that's what I'll do now.

I'm going to go into this waffle and open up Power Apps.

Lucy's going to see something that's a lot like

what the admin sees.

But, because Lucy isn't an admin,

she isn't allowed to do everything that the admin can do.

Which is why we had to ask the admin

to make the calendar.

However, Lucy can make resources on her own.

So, she's going to go down to this resource page

and wait for that to load and create

some resources.

So, as we can see, there's actually, I can see

the seven day a week calendar resource

that the admin made.

I'm not going to go edit this because I can't actually

create new calendar templates.

I'm going to create a new resource for Lucy.

And the first thing Lucy wants to do

is create an equipment resource.

An equipment resource represents any type

of equipment or piece of material that you might need

to use for your project.

So, not a person working on tasks,

but a thing that you might need to complete a task.

I'm going to come down here and name this "Building Tools."

And save that.

So, this represents the building tools that Lucy

has rented to work on the parade float.

And I can go in and edit the work hours

of this just like I did with the generic resource.

Now, let's say that Lucy actually only rented this

for the month of March.

So, I'm going to come in, actually,

and

edit

this and following events.

Now, we can see that there's a start date here

and there's an end date here which is December 29,

9999.

I'm going to actually have to return these before then,

which is on March 31st, because Lucy is only

renting these for the month of March.

And adding Saturday and Sunday as working days,

and saving.

As soon as that's updated, I can see that

when I go into the month of March,

the tools are available on Saturdays and Sundays.

So, now that I've created the building tools,

I'm going to create a resource for the volunteer.

So, to do that, I'm going to create a Contact Resource.

A Contact represents anyone who isn't part

of your organization and who doesn't need access

to Project but who the Project Manager

wants to track.

So, in this example, you have a volunteer

who doesn't actually need to know

the entire scope of what's happening to build

the float, but who Lucy needs to track

because she needs to know when he is available

and when he's going to be doing some work.

So, the name of this contact is Christopher Reed.

And, we also have to create a contact here.

So, I'm going to create new contact,

and as you can see there's a lot of information

in here, but we only need the last name

and the first name.

So, I'm going to create a contact, click Save and Close.

And after that is saved, I can save my new resource.

And again, once I've saved the resource,

I can edit their work hours.

Now, Christopher probably has a full-time job

that he works during the week,

but he likes to work weekends.

We're going to update his working hours

to reflect that.

So, we're going to de-select all of Monday

through Friday but leave him as available

on Saturday and Sunday, because he's willing

to come in whenever we need him.

When we click save, we can see that, again,

our resource hours are reflected in the work hours tab.

And go back.

Okay, so now that I've created my two bookable resources,

I also want to make sure that Lucy's own working hours

are up to date.

So, I'm going to scroll down

and I find Lucy Martenelli here.

And so, while this is a user resource,

she can come in and update her own working hours.

So, a user resource represents someone who's actually

in your organization who has a license to Project

and has working hours.

So, when we scroll down, we can see that Lucy

has already updated her working hours

because she's working Saturday and Sunday

during the month of March while this project is happening.

Great, now I have all of my resources ready,

and so I'm going to go back to this waffle

and hit All Apps, and scroll down until I find Project.

So, now I'm back on the Project for the web home

and I'm going to re-open my Parade Float Project.

It's back to where I left it.

And, you can see that Lucy has already added

a group here, with her co-workers who are

going to work on this project with her.

But we can see that we don't have our Building Tools

or Christopher resource in this group.

That's okay.

We can still assign those things to different tasks.

So, for example, for build float platform,

I'm going to click here and,

I can see that building tools

has already been added here.

But if I didn't see it, I could search for it

and it appears until Other team resources

and Everything else.

So, I'm going to add that to my Build float platform task

and to my Build skirt platform task.

Now, I know Christopher is walking in the parade.

So, I'm going to add him to the Prep parade walkers task.

So, I'm going to search for his name,

and he appears right now under Other team resources.

So, he's getting added there.

And I'm going to also add him to the Walk in parade task.

Now, as we can see, the effort got automatically updated

to reflect how long we're going to be using all of these

different resources.

So, even though Christopher can't see

when he is walking, we know that he's going to spend

about eight hours on these different tasks.

And same with the Building tools, we're going to use them

overall for about 72 hours.

Of course, if I think that's wrong,

I could come in here and edit them,

but right now, I think that's fine.

Additionally, you know, Lucy can use her different

team resources to assign them to tasks.

So, maybe Brooke is going to mount it on wheels.

And, Benjamin is going to hook up the lights

and sound system.

And we can see, again, that these effort fields

are getting automatically updated.

Now, maybe Benjamin, you know, has the default

work calendar as all resources are given by default.

The project has a Saturday through Sunday calendar.

So, we can actually see when this is happening

over the weekend, Benjamin isn't getting any more work

because it's assumed all of his work

is happening on the day that he can actually work

which is that working day, either Friday or Monday.

So, that's kind of why it's important

to go in and set your calendars.

Because we have to make sure that our resources

and our projects have similar calendars

so that they can be scheduled on the correct days.

Now, Lucy has a little bit more work to do in here,

but I think we've seen all we really need to see

to understand this.

So, let's get back to the presentation.

So, now that you've seen how calendars and resources

work in Project, tell us what you think.

If you're watching this during the Project Conference time,

check out the website and see if there are any

upcoming resources Roundtables to give us feedback

on this experience.

Additionally, we have a scheduling session,

which shows you how dependencies, constraints,

and effort duration work in Project.

If you want to understand a little bit more

about those different things, I recommend you check out

that session.

And then, the last thing, is you can always send us

feedback using our in-app feedback button

which is a little smiley face in the top

right corner of the Project app.

So, make sure, if you go in there,

that you leave your email so that we can email you back

if we have any questions or concerns about the piece

of feedback that you leave us.

And that's it.

Thanks so much for watching.

(upbeat music)