Productive Organizer

Being in the IT industry, we somehow have to get acquainted with Microsoft Project. I been using for some time and truth to be told, i’m too bothered about getting things done than plan using Microsoft Project.

What pissed me off is a few subtle inconvenience that i wish i have solutions for. Specifically, if i can operate it better through the use of keyboard shortcuts it will be much more productive.

Here i present some shortcuts that will improve your productivity.

Scroll to task on the Gantt Chart – [Ctrl +Shift + F5]

Ever while you are reviewing the tasks and want a quick way to see where this task is in the timeline of the Gantt Chart? I have this problem alot of times and got so piss of with having to pick up the mouse to scroll to it and wonder if its before this point or after this point. This keyboard shortcut is cool.

Scrolling the Gantt Chart while in Task navigation – [Alt Left/Right key]

While we are at it, you might want to do a visual reference how long it takes on the Gantt Chart. The typical way is to pick up the mouse and scroll.You cannot use the left and right key since you will be scrolling in the task view. Press Alt Left or Right will enable you to scroll the Gantt chart area while you are in task view.

Insert a new task above – [Ins]

This is straight forward. chances are you will need to insert a new task in between 2 task. Use the insert key will insert a row between them.

Indent and Outdent a task – [Alt + Shift + left or right arrow keys]

Since we add a new task previously whats a fast way to indent and outdent? Using Alt Shift Left or Right will enable you to do that.

Expand and Collapse a branch of task- [Alt + Shift + - or = arrow keys]

For abit of focus review, you might want to collapse a branch so that you can focus on other branches and later expand them. The keyboard short cut to do this is to leverage on Alt Shift – or =. the easy way to remember is that – or = translates to minus and plus when shift is press!

As an added bonus, to expand the whole project you can use [Alt + Shift + *]!

Link [Ctrl + F2] and Unlink [Ctrl + Shift + F2] Tasks

Say you want to select 2 task or a whole list of task and link them up fast (dependency) how do you do that? Use the Ctrl F2 and Ctrl Shift F2 to do that

Conclusion

Crazy Colour Card for MS Project

There are many other useful shortcuts to using Microsoft Project and they really help to make navigation much more enjoyable.

Another bonus is this PDF keyboard shortcut for Microsoft Project Hosted at Scribd. Login with your OpenID or Facebook to download and print it.

It looks like MSFT are planning big things for the new MS Project 2010. I recently got re-acquainted with project at work and will look forward to news on MS Project 2010

Simple and Intuitive User Experience

• Project Professional and Project Server both use the Fluent User Interface (aka Ribbon), based on Microsoft Office. This helps users discover new tools relevant to what they’re doing at the moment.
• Intuitive Excel-like behavior adds the ease-of-use of Excel to the power of Project’s scheduling engine.
• Powerful new views like the Timeline View and Team Planner.
• Web-based project editing brings the power of Project to the web.

Enhanced Collaboration and Reporting

• Built on SharePoint Server 2010 to bring the power of SharePoint’s business collaboration platform with Project’s advanced portfolio management. It also shares the same interface as SharePoint.
• Easily create reports and dashboards on the fly.
• Better time and status reporting.
• Connect teams with SharePoint Sync to allow two-way round-trip synchronization of tasks and schedules. This allows team members to update their status on SharePoint and stay more connected as a team.

Unified Project ad Portfolio Management

• Common experience across full PPM lifecycle, including centralized administration.
• Flexible project capture and initiation so that organizations can also capture work that may not be part of a project yet.
• Enhance governance through workflow.
• Powerful portfolio selection analytics.

Scalable and Connected Platform

• Extended interoperability with other Microsoft products like Exchange Server so that team members can report status directly from Outlook, for example.
• Simplified Administration.
• Rich Platform Services make it easier to connect with 3rd-party products.
• Enhanced Developer Productivity through integration with Visual Studio.

Microsoft Project 2010 builds on the Microsoft Office Project 2007 foundation with flexible work management solutions and the right collaboration tools for occasional and professional project managers, and includes a pathway to more advanced project and portfolio management capabilities as business needs evolve.