Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual

Chapter 9. Connecting Resources to Tasks

So far, you’ve created tasks in Project (Chapter 6), connected them in the correct sequence (Chapter 7), and told Project about the resources you need (Chapter 8). Now, all that hard work on your Project file is about to pay off. You’re ready to turn it into a real schedule that shows when tasks start and finish—and whether they finish on time.

Although you may estimate hours of work or task duration early on (Understanding Work and Duration), you don’t see the whole timing picture until you assign resources to your Auto Scheduled tasks (Assigning Work Resources to Tasks). The number of resources you use, how much time those resources devote to their assignments, and when they’re available to work all affect how long tasks take and when they occur. And if you’ve set up your Project resources with costs and labor rates, resource assignments generate a price tag for the project, too.

In Project 2010, you can manually schedule tasks (Planning with Manually Scheduled Tasks), which puts you in complete control over when they start and finish. The new Team Planner view shows who’s doing what and when, which tasks aren’t assigned, or who’s overallocated. With manually scheduled tasks, all you have to do in the Team Planner view to change any of these situations is drag tasks to a resource or move the tasks in the timescale.

This chapter clarifies how duration, work, and units interact and explains how to use this information ...