Building a Resource List from an Outlook Address Book
If you use Outlook at work, you probably already have information
about team members in your Outlook address book or Contacts folder.
Rather than retyping all this information in Project, you can import
resource names from Outlook into Project. Here are the steps:
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In Project, open the file into which you want to import resources.
If you use a resource pool,
import the resources into the pool rather than into individual
projects. Similarly, if you use Project Server, don’t import resources
directly into Project but into the enterprise resource pool instead.
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Choose Task→View→Resource Sheet.
Select the row where you want to insert the new resources.
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Choose Resource→Insert→Add Resources→Address Book.
The Select Resources dialog box appears.
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Select the names of people you want to add to the Resource Sheet
.
You can select several resources at a time by Shift-clicking the
first name in the group and the last name in the group. Select
nonadjacent names by Ctrl-clicking each name.
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Click Add.
The names appear in the Add box.
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Click OK.
Project adds new rows in the Resource Sheet for the selected resources.
Sending Project Information to Others
You’ve probably emailed thousands of messages with attachments, so
the concept of attaching a Project file to an email is nothing new.
However, with Project, you can choose to send the whole project or only
a few tasks and resources. If your audience doesn’t have Project
installed on their computers, you can create a picture of the Project
information and mail that instead. Project can send files using any MAPI-compliant (Messaging Application Programming Interface) email program.
Tip
If your organization uses SharePoint, that’s a far easier way to share Project information.
When you need approval for a schedule, the routing mechanism in Outlook
can send the file to reviewers in sequence, so you can get their
comments and approvals. While sending attachments tends to choke email
servers with multiple copies of the same file, publishing a Project
file to a Microsoft Exchange folder or to a Microsoft SharePoint site lets everyone look at a single copy (which requires that you use Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft SharePoint).
Sending Project files via email
Sending Project files via email is easy, whether you send the
message from your email program or directly from Project. In your email
program, simply create a new message, and then, in Outlook 2010, choose
Insert→Include→Attach File (or your email program’s equivalent command)
to attach the Project file. If you tend to forget attachments, like
most people do, you can create the email message in Project, which
automatically attaches the file.
Here are the steps for sending a Project file from within Project:
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In Project, open the Project file you want to send, and then choose File→Share→“Send as Attachment”.
Your email program starts (if it isn’t running already) and opens a
new email message form with the current Project file already attached.
The Subject line contains the filename.
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Click the To: box, and then, in the Select Names dialog box, select the names of the recipients.
You can also type email addresses directly in the To: box.
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Edit the Subject box to tell your recipients why you’re emailing the Project file.
In the message area, tell the recipients what you want them to do with the Project file, as shown in Figure 5.
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Click Send or the equivalent command.
The recipients receive an email message with the Project file attached.
