MS Project: Managing and Linking Tasks

Name: MS Project: Managing and Linking Tasks
Author: Elissa Smith

Identify milestones and create tasks to keep your project on track

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Course: On-Demand

In this lesson, it's time for us to start looking at managing our tasks. This includes editing them, moving them, and also deleting them. So to start with, when it comes to editing tasks, it's very similar to editing cells in an Excel spreadsheet. First of all, if I need to replace the title of a task name, I'm going to come right here to the task and go ahead and type over the top of it. And as I type, it will replace what was already in the task name box. Now what if I just want to change one word inside of my task name? I can select the task, hit F2 if I'm on a Windows computer, and F2 is a shortcut to allow me to open up with a cursor inside of that box and actually be able to update the information. Now additional things I can change here are going to include the duration field. When it comes to durations, of course, you have days, weeks, and months. Let's say that this task needs to go from one day to three. I can actually type in 3D. This is the same as days because Microsoft Project will take abbreviations. If it's a week, for example, say three weeks, I can actually type in 3WK and that will represent a week. Let's say that I have a task that's quite long, like one month. I can actually come to the task and do one and then MON for month and it will take a month. Now after I have made adjustments to my tasks with editing them, the next thing I may need to do is actually move some of my tasks. For this, I have a couple of traditional tools. One of them is drag and drop. For this, I want to select my entire task. You can do this by actually coming to the task rows on the side that have numbers next to them and click. This will actually select the entire row that the task is on in your task table. And notice when you bring your mouse pointer up to the row that's been selected, it looks like four black arrows, basically like a compass. When your mouse pointer looks like this, it means that you can drag and drop this task into a different order. So what I'm going to do is take this particular task, hold down my left mouse button and drag it down until I get it where I want it in the task list and then release my mouse and it will move the task. Now if you're not comfortable with drag and drop, you can also do a cut and paste. For this, again, I suggest that you select the task by first of all selecting the row number next to it. This ensures that you're getting the entire task selected. So after I've gotten the task selected, I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut of Ctrl X. This actually removes the task. If you'd like, you can also right click and say cut, which will do the same thing. Then I'm going to go to the row where I want this new task to go above it and I'm going to either do Ctrl V or I'm going to right click and say paste. And this will paste that task above the top of the task that I was already next to. Very much like cutting and pasting in Microsoft Excel. Now finally, how can you delete a task? So if you have a task that you do not need, the easiest way to delete it is to actually come to the left hand side of the task and click and then use the delete key on your keyboard. This will actually remove the task from your task list. You can also go to any task and right click on its row number. This will select the entire row that the task is on and notice that you have a delete task option from here. One thing I'm going to warn you about is many new users will click on a task by clicking on the task name and assume that the task is selected and hit the delete key on their keyboard. But notice this does not delete the entire task. It only deletes the task name. It does give you an X that will give you an opportunity to delete the entire task, but it is an additional step. So again, what I would suggest is select the entire task and then hit the delete key on your keyboard to get your tasks gone. Now can you use the undo button? Absolutely. It's still here up in the top left hand corner on the Quick Access Toolbar and it will allow you to undo a task if you've accidentally deleted it. But remember these again tricks to help you adjust your task list and prepare you to get your task schedule established. Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned. In the next lesson, I'm going to show you how to split tasks.

Beginner Provider : Elissa Smith 9 Lessons · 33m in English

Course Description

Microsoft Project is a project management software product that helps project managers complete their work. MS Project is used when developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads. Breaking down your project into smaller tasks keeps the process manageable and less overwhelming. There are many ways you can manage your tasks, including splitting them, setting milestones, and setting recurring tasks. So how can you use MS Project to better manage your tasks?

In this course, you’ll learn about identifying milestones, as well as creating a task hierarchy, recurring tasks, splitting tasks, subtasks, and summary tasks. You’ll also learn to link tasks together with task dependencies. By the end of this course, you’ll know how to manage tasks and link them to key start and finish dates in MS Project to keep everything on track for scheduled completion.

What You'll Learn

Manage and edit tasks in MS Project
Create a task hierarchy using summary tasks and subtasks
Set up milestones, recurring tasks, and split tasks
Link tasks together using task dependencies
Apply finish-to-start, start-to-start, and finish-to-finish relationships
Link tasks to key start and finish dates to keep projects on schedule

Key Takeaways

Microsoft Project helps project managers develop schedules, assign resources, track progress, manage budgets, and analyze workloads.
Breaking a project into smaller tasks keeps the process manageable and less overwhelming.
Tasks can be managed in many ways, including splitting them, setting milestones, and setting recurring tasks.
Task dependencies let you link tasks together and connect them to key start and finish dates.
By the end of the course you can manage tasks and link them to keep everything on track for scheduled completion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this MS Project course cover?

It covers identifying milestones and creating a task hierarchy, recurring tasks, splitting tasks, subtasks, and summary tasks, as well as linking tasks together with task dependencies.

What is Microsoft Project used for?

Microsoft Project is project management software used when developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.

What kinds of task relationships will I learn to use?

You will learn about linking tasks and using start-to-start relationship tasks and finish-to-finish relationship tasks, along with finish-to-start linking.

What skills does this course help me build?

It supports skills in task planning, task management, project structuring, project management, software project management, and using Microsoft Project.

What will I be able to do by the end of the course?

You will know how to manage tasks and link them to key start and finish dates in MS Project to keep everything on track for scheduled completion.