MS Project: Creating and Applying Custom Fields

Name: MS Project: Creating and Applying Custom Fields
Author: Elissa Smith

How to utilize custom fields.

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Course: On-Demand

Hello, in this advanced project lesson, we want to look at how to create custom fields. Now when you're managing a project, there are often pieces of information that you would like to store about a task or a resource, but you don't have a good place to put that information. This is where you can create custom fields and assign them to your task and resources and use them to contain this information that you want to keep track of. First of all, where do we go to access custom fields in project? The first place you can come to is the project ribbon, and in the Properties group, you can select Custom Fields. This will take you to the Custom Fields dialog box where custom fields are assigned and edited. Now there are multiple ways to get to the Custom Fields box. From the Gantt chart, an additional method to get to the Custom Fields box is to go up to the Task Entry table and right-click on any of the columns, and come down second from the bottom, you'll see Custom Fields. This takes you to the same box. Additionally, if you're in the resource sheet, you can also right-click on one of the columns of the resource sheet and also get to the Custom Fields box as well. Now what I need to do is I would like to create a hire date field for when a contract has started in my project for some of my resources. To keep track of this information at the resource level, I'd like to create a custom field. So I'm gonna come up to the Project Ribbon tab and select the Custom Fields box there. This takes me in to the Custom Fields dialog. Now you'll notice at the top that you first of all have to select the type of field you're creating. You can create custom fields for tasks and for resources. Now for me, I need to start with a resource custom field, and on the right, I have to select the type of information that my custom field will hold. You'll see that you have text fields, cost fields, dates, duration, many different choices. And for each one that you pick, for example, if I pick a text field, I'll see that in this project I have up to 30 custom text fields that I could create. In my case, I need a date field. When I pick date for my Custom Field type, you'll see it gives me 10 different types of date custom fields that I can create. Now Date 1 is just the default name for the first custom date field I'm going to create for my resource, and I'd like to give it a different name. So I'm going to select it, then come down and select Rename. I'm going to come in to the Rename field and just call it Contract Hire Date. And then I'm going to click on OK. You'll see that next to in parentheses the Date 1 field now has the new name that I've added for this field. Now I'm gonna click on OK. Now where do I go to access this custom field at the resource level? I'm going to go to any of my resources, double-click, and in the Resource Information box, the fourth tab over is for custom fields, and here I'll see my new Custom Date field that I created. I could come in here, and because I selected it to be a date time field, it actually gives me a calendar that I can pick from to put the date in, or I can type it in. And then I'm gonna click on OK. So for any resource that I go into, now when I go to the Custom Fields box, I will see that right there, I can come in and add the Custom Field information for the specific resource. Now the next thing that I want to do is do this at the task level. For this I'm gonna come in and go to my Gantt chart. From the Gantt chart to get into custom Fields, I'm gonna go back up to the project ribbon and select the Custom Fields box. This time, I would like to go in and create a custom text field for each of my tasks to keep track of a specific location where a task will be happening. To do this, I'm gonna come in and make sure that I've picked my task as the field type, and then I'm gonna come in and describe what type of information will be going in to that field. In this case, it will be text. Again notice, we have up to 30 different potential text fields that we can use in any project file that's a custom field. And again, I'm just gonna select Text 1 because I haven't created any custom text fields yet, and then I'm gonna say Rename, and I'm just gonna call it Task Location and click on OK. Once I click on OK again, the custom field is saved. Now to access a custom field for a task, I'm gonna double click on any task and open up its Task Information box. I'm gonna come here to the Custom Fields tab of the Task Information box, and here we're going to see the new custom field that I just created. And then here I can go ahead and enter in the value for that custom field. And for any task that I go to, when I come in to the Custom Fields box, I can come in and type in a different task location for each of my custom fields. It doesn't have to be the same, and it will be stored with each task. Thanks so much for watching, in the next lesson we're going to explore different ways to view custom fields.

Advanced Provider : Elissa Smith 4 Lessons · 14m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

By customizing your fields within MS Project, you can keep your project’s tasks in the Gantt chart as accurate as possible. In this course, you’ll learn how to create and customize fields, access them faster and view them in a table. You’ll also learn to generate look-up lists to help users avoid mistakes. Finally, you’ll understand how to apply customer fields with formulas to calculate information in your project and how they are similar to formulas in Excel.

What You'll Learn

Create and access custom fields in MS Project
Apply quick ways to view custom fields in a table
Set up look-up lists to help users avoid mistakes
Establish formulas within custom fields to calculate project information
Customize fields to keep Gantt chart tasks as accurate as possible

Key Takeaways

Customizing fields in MS Project helps keep a project's tasks in the Gantt chart as accurate as possible.
Custom fields can be created, accessed faster, and viewed in a table.
Look-up lists can be generated to help users avoid mistakes.
Custom fields can use formulas to calculate information in a project, similar to formulas in Excel.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will I learn in this MS Project custom fields course?

You will learn how to create and customize fields, access them faster, view them in a table, generate look-up lists to help users avoid mistakes, and apply custom fields with formulas to calculate information in your project.

What topics do the lessons cover?

The lessons cover Creating and Accessing Custom Fields, Viewing Custom Fields in a Table, Look List Custom Fields, and Custom Fields with Formula.

How do formulas in MS Project custom fields work?

Custom fields can use formulas to calculate information in your project, and they are similar to formulas in Excel.

What skills does this course help build?

It builds skills in Custom Fields, implementing projects, Microsoft Project, Project Portfolio Management, and user customization, and supports Microsoft Project Certification.