Creating and Using Project Templates
In this section, you learn how to create and reuse project templates.
A template
is a project that has been specially designated to be used more than
once by you or others. When you save a template file correctly, it has
the file extension of .mpt rather than the .mpp extension that reflects a
normal project file. A template has special characteristics, one being
that it is saved into a special location reserved for templates.
Templates are especially
useful for establishing consistent and repeated activities in a project
so you do not have to start a project from scratch. For example, if you
were in construction, you might be building condominiums, and each condo
project requires similar activities. You could set up the project once
with all of the tasks already entered, and save it as a template to be
used over and over for each condo project. As another example, suppose
you are working on a major acquisition project; you can easily make a
template that has custom fields that can be used by both the buyer and
the seller. Project templates do not have to be very detailed or include
all project information. Instead, project templates need to contain the
common and repeatable project details that you can easily modify to fit
to the new project you are creating.
A template can help you to set
standards for projects within your organization, especially if the
project structure and setup can be reused by several different project
managers. A template enables you to reuse common tasks, project
information, customized fields, calendars, and notes in a template
project. It also lets you set up shared standard resources and equipment
lists.
When you are building a
template, you should strive for minimum threshold, not maximum. Build
the template so that the basics are included, but let your project
managers add their own tasks when they create their projects. If you
have a template where project managers seem to be removing tasks over
and over again, then those tasks do not belong in a template. Estimated
durations can be included to establish standards. In the construction
project example, it might be useful to include a task for wiring the
condominiums and provide an estimated duration that represents the
standard that you want to maintain.
Finally, you should try to
include task relationships when designing a template. The closer the
template reflects the actual activities and sequence of work performed
on projects, the easier it is going to be for project managers to use
the template, which will make them more productive. The purpose of
building a template is to make it as useful as possible, so you can save
time in the future.
Creating a New Project Template
When you have a project you
would like to use as a template, or have entered all of the project
template details in a new project file, you can now save it as a
template so that it will be available to be used in the future.
Follow these steps to save a project as a template:
1. | From the main menu, select the File tab, Save As.
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2. | In
the File Name field, enter the name of your template. Try to provide as
descriptive of a name as possible, which will enable you to easily tell
what the project template contains. You might even want to include
Template at the end of name for easy identification.
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3. | In
the Save as type drop-down box, select Template (which you can see is a
.mpt file). After you select the Template file type, Project will
automatically change the location to the Templates folder.
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4. | Click the Save button.
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5. | In the Save As Template dialog box, select the values you want to be excluded from your template, as follows (see Figure 1).
It is good practice to always select all the fields in the Save As
Template dialog box, unless you have very good reason to include the
values described in your template. If you leave the check boxes cleared
and use this file as a template, every project based on the template
will have the values left in the template:
- Values of All Baselines—
Select this box to remove any baselines that might have been set in the
project (which you would have set using Tools, Tracking, Set Baseline).
- Actual Values—
Select this box to remove any actual values from the template.
Selecting this item will remove data in the Actual Work, Actual
Duration, Actual Cost, as well as other actual data fields.
- Resource Rates—
Select this box to remove any rates on resources that might be on the
Resource Sheet or assigned tasks in the project. If you have added
resources and their rates to this project, leaving this option cleared
will save that resource information on the project schedules based on
this template. You might want to leave this option cleared if you are
using generic resources to initially calculate an estimated budget for
the project using the template. Be cautious if you decide to leave
resource rates in the template. In a couple of years, it is possible
that resource rates will change and will need to be modified. If you
fail to modify the rates, you risk having an inaccurate project budget.
- Fixed Costs—
Select this box to remove any fixed costs in the project template. In
some templates, you might want to leave fixed costs in the template,
although you should review the template occasionally to see if the fixed
costs should be modified. For instance, there may be a fixed cost for
inspections for the condo project template. You might want to leave the
fixed costs in the template for others to use.
- Whether Tasks Have Been Published to Project Server—
Select this box to remove the designation that specifies whether the
project has been saved to Project Server and, therefore, has
dependencies with it. Project Server is the enterprise-wide edition of
Microsoft Project, and if you are using the Standard edition of
Microsoft Project, you will most likely want to select this item for
exclusion.
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6. | After you have made the desired selections, click the Save button to save your project as a template.
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Tip
It
is important to note that you can save any project as a template, even
the one you have created as a regular project—even if it has already
been completed. The options described in step 5 are particularly useful
if you are using an old project as a template. These options enable you
to exclude the actual values, baselines, and other project-specific
information that you do not necessarily want in your template. However,
you still want to be cautious of any other data you could save in a
template. For instance, you may also have included hyperlinks in the
file you are saving as the template, and those hyperlinks will be
irrelevant for future projects using the template. |
Modifying Existing Template Files
Microsoft Project
provides no direct option to open an existing .mpt file. Therefore, in
order to make changes to an existing project template file, you must
open a copy of the template, make the desired changes, and resave it
under the default name and .mpt extension. You must make sure to select
the Project Template file type in the Save As dialog box; otherwise, a
regular project file will be created by default. If you perform this
action correctly, you see a message saying the filename already exists.
When the template file is resaved, it overwrites the original copy,
creating a more up-to-date one you modified.
Opening a Template File to Create a New Project
If you created a new
template following the instructions in the previous section, and if you
have used the Project default location, that template will be available
under the Templates dialog box in Project, as shown in Figure 2. When you open a template file, you are opening a copy of the template file, not the original template file itself.
To create a new project based on a template, follow these steps:
1. | Open Microsoft Office Project.
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2. | In the main menu, select the File tab, New.
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3. | In the New Project pane, select either Recent Templates or My Templates (see Figure 2).
Either will open the Templates window and display available project
templates, pre-filtered accordingly. Blank Project is the default
template that automatically comes with Project. You can download
more templates in the Office.com section. Make sure to take a look and
see if any of these templates might work for you.
Note If
you are using Microsoft Project Professional 2010 connected to Microsoft
Office Project Server 2010, the Templates window contains an additional
selection—Enterprise templates. Enterprise templates are
enterprise-wide templates that are saved to the server and that can used
by any project manager connected to that Project Server. Enterprise
templates are a great way to create standards and project schedule
consistency within an organization. |
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4. | Select
the template you would like to use and click OK. One of the first
things you should do in the new project is select the Project tab,
Properties, Project Information and change the Start Date to the
relevant start date of your project.
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5. | Templates
retain all the old dates that were saved in the original template.
Select the Project tab, Schedule, Move Project to update all tasks and
deadlines to match your new project start date. |
