Microsoft Project Professional Essentials Training in Canada

Effective project planning requires a clear understanding of the work to be completed, the order in which activities should take place, the resources required, and the expected project costs. Microsoft Project Professional provides a structured environment for planning and managing these elements within a single project schedule.

In this course, participants learn how to build a new project plan from the ground up and modify it to reflect project requirements. Tasks, durations, dependencies, milestones, calendars, and resources are used to create a detailed and practical project schedule.

Once the initial plan has been established, participants learn how to set a Baseline and record actual project progress. The course also demonstrates how to compare current performance with the original plan and use Microsoft Project Professional reporting features to communicate project status and performance.

No previous experience with Microsoft Project Professional is required.

The following knowledge and skills are beneficial:

• A general understanding of project management concepts,
• Confidence navigating files and folders within a Windows environment,
• Ability to open, close, and save files.

This course is designed for users who are new to Microsoft Project Professional and want to learn how to create a complete project schedule from the beginning.

It is also suitable for existing users who want to refresh their knowledge, improve their project planning skills, or develop a more structured approach to working with Microsoft Project Professional.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Navigate Microsoft Project Professional and identify its main components,
• Use different Views and Tables to manage and examine project information,
• Create a new project plan from scratch,
• Build a detailed project schedule using tasks, dependencies, and Milestones,
• Create, assign, and manage project resources,
• Use a Baseline to compare actual project progress against the original plan,
• Record and monitor actual project information,
• Create and interpret reports to communicate project status and performance.

Module 1 – Getting Started with Microsoft Project Professional

• Introduction to Microsoft Project Professional
• Exploring the Microsoft Project Professional environment
• Understanding key interface components
• Working with different Views
• Using Tables
• Examining project information through different views

Module 2 – Creating a Project Plan

• Creating a new Microsoft Project plan
• Configuring Project Working Time
• Working with Project Information
• Creating Summary Tasks
• Defining the Task List
• Structuring project work into manageable tasks

Module 3 – Building the Project Schedule

• Defining Task Durations
• Creating Milestones
• Understanding Manual and Automatic Scheduling
• Creating Task Relationships
• Defining Dependencies between tasks
• Creating and applying Task Calendars
• Working with Constraints
• Setting Deadlines
• Creating Recurring Activities
• Adding Notes to Tasks

Module 4 – Managing Resources in a Project Plan

• Understanding Resource Types
• Working with Resource Calendars
• Managing Resource Availability
• Adding Resource Costs
• Assigning Resources to Tasks
• Understanding Effort-Driven Scheduling
• Identifying and resolving Resource Overallocation

Module 5 – Introduction to Project Tracking

• Setting a Project Baseline
• Understanding the role of the Baseline in project tracking
• Identifying the Critical Path
• Marking completed tasks
• Entering Actuals
• Comparing actual progress with the planned schedule

Module 6 – Viewing and Reporting Project Information

• Filtering project information
• Organising information with Groups
• Highlighting relevant project data
• Adding Tasks to the Timeline
• Using Standard Reports in Microsoft Project Professional
• Reviewing project status and performance through reports
• Exporting project information to PDF