1. Navigating the Project Ribbon
The Project ribbon is like a cyber-border collie, herding related
features onto tabs to make them easier to find. As you plan and manage
a project, you shift your focus from tasks to the resources who work on
them to the big picture of the entire project, so the Task tab,
Resource tab, and Project tab make perfect sense. As it turns out, a
few other tabs come in handy for working with your Project files and
looking at your project in different ways. This section steps through
the six tabs that appear when you launch Project 2010 for the first
time.
Managing Files in the Backstage View
The File menu from earlier Project versions is now the File tab on
the ribbon. You can call it the File tab, but Microsoft refers to the
page that the File tab opens as the Backstage view. When you click a command on the left side of the Backstage view, it takes over the entire Project window, as you can see in Figure 1. For example, when you click New, the Backstage view presents a plethora of ways to create a new file .
A few commands in the Backstage view need no explanation: Save, Save
As, Open, Close, and Exit. Their familiar icons tell you they do what
they’ve always done. When you click Save, Project saves the active
Project file. Click Save As, and the Save As dialog box appears. You
get the idea.
The other entries on the Backstage menu do more. Here’s a quick intro:
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Info
. Information about
the active Project file, such as its start and finish date, appears on
the right side of this page. Click Project Information and choose
Project Statistics to see scheduled, baseline, and actual values. This
page also includes an Organizer button, so you can copy project
elements between files . If you use Project Server, you can access Project Server accounts from this page. -
Recent
. The Recent
page is a list of all the projects you’ve opened recently. If you open
a lot of Project files—say, as you write a book about Project—this is
the quickest way to reopen a file. On the other hand, if you work on
one or two projects for months at a time, you can pin a project to the
top of the Recent Projects list by clicking the pushpin icon to the
right of the filename.
Tip
For even easier access, you can display one or more projects on the
Backstage menu itself. At the bottom of the Recent Projects list, turn
on the “Quickly access this number of Recent Projects” checkbox and
type the number you want. Project displays that number of recent
projects above the Info command, starting with any projects pinned to
the Recent Projects list. Click the filename to open the Project file.
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New
. This page offers several ways to create a new file ,
including starting from scratch with a blank project, using a template,
or creating a file from an existing project, an Excel workbook, or a
SharePoint task list. -
Print
. The Print
page looks like a spiffed-up version of the familiar Print dialog box.
This one page lets you select a printer, specify print settings like
paper orientation, and choose page setup settings like margins .
If you rarely touch any of those settings, you can simply choose the
number of copies and click the big Print button at the top of the page.
If you don’t have one of those widescreen monitors, the Print page
leaves little room for a preview of what you’re printing
and you can’t shrink the print options area. -
Save & Send
. As its name
implies, this page offers features for saving and sending Project
files. The Save & Send section helps you send your Project file as
an email attachment, synchronize your file with a SharePoint Task List, or save the Project file to a SharePoint site . If you subscribe to Project
Online (an online service that works with Project Server and
SharePoint), you can also share your file to Project Online.
Note
Choosing Save Project as File is an alternative to choosing Save As on the menu in the Backstage
view. The page displays several common file formats, such as Project,
Project 2007, Project 2000-2003, Project Template, Microsoft Excel
Workbooks, and XML Format.
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Help. It’s no
surprise that the first command on this page opens Project’s Help
window, but you can also find other help resources, contact information
for Microsoft, and other links. -
Options. Choose Options to open the Project Options dialog box and specify options to tell the program how you’d like it to behave.
Tip
The Quick Access toolbar sits above the File and Task tabs and looks
like one of the toolbars from earlier versions of Project. Out of the
box, it has icons for all-time favorite commands: Save, Undo, and Redo.
But you can customize the Quick Access toolbar with your favorites.
A Tour of the Other Ribbon Tabs
Project management’s focus on projects, tasks, and resources is a natural fit for tabs
on the ribbon. This section introduces you to the rest of the tabs on
the Project ribbon.
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The Task tab
is home to commands
for creating tasks (subtasks, summary tasks, and milestones),
rearranging them in the outline, and linking tasks to one another. The
first section on this tab lets you choose popular task-oriented views
like the Gantt Chart. You can also use this tab to format tasks, copy
and paste them, or look at their details. This tab also has the
incredibly useful Scroll to Task command, which scrolls the view
timescale
until the selected task’s task bar is visible. During project
execution, you can use commands on this tab to move tasks to new dates,
update task progress, or investigate scheduling issues. -
The Resource tab
has a section for choosing popular resource-oriented views, like the Resource Sheet or the Team Planner .
Whether you’re adding resources to a project, assigning them to tasks,
or leveling them to remove overallocations, this is the tab you want.
This tab also contains commands for setting up, refreshing, and
updating a resource pool . If you use Project Server, this tab has the commands for accessing the Enterprise Resource Pool and substituting resources. -
The Project tab
is a catch-all for
project-oriented commands. It contains commands for viewing project
information, defining work calendars, setting project baselines,
inserting subprojects, creating links between projects, running
reports, and so on. This is also the tab to select if you want to work
on custom fields or your WBS code. In addition, you can also find
commands to recalculate your project schedule, update project-wide
status, or compare two Project files. -
The View tab
starts with buttons
for the most popular task and resource views, but you can also access
the More Views dialog box to choose any view you want. This tab has
commands for controlling what information you see in a view: how many
levels in the outline; the table applied; highlighting; how the list is
filtered, grouped, or sorted; and the time periods used in the
timescale. You can turn the Timeline view and the Details pane on and
off and choose the view that appears in the Details pane .
You can also switch between windows and arrange windows from this tab.
The only command that doesn’t seem to fit is in the last section: You
choose Macros to run macros. -
The Format tab
is a chameleon that
offers different formatting commands depending on the view that’s
active. For example, when the Gantt Chart view is applied, the Format
tab lets you insert columns in the table, format task bars and text
styles, display elements like summary tasks or critical tasks, and so
on. When you switch to the Timeline view, the Format tab lets you add
tasks to the timeline and format them. For the Resource Usage view, the
Format tab has checkboxes for which fields you want to see in the
time-phased data grid.
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