Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Appendix B. Getting Help

Microsoft Project 2013 may be your first introduction to project-management concepts like the critical path (Reviewing the Schedule and Cost) and work breakdown structures (Applying Calendars). For you, Project presents a double challenge: learning what the program’s commands and checkboxes do, and learning what to do with them. Or maybe you’re a project-management expert and just want the dirt on how to use the program’s features to get your work done: scheduling, budgeting, reporting, and keeping your project on course. For you, learning Project is a technical exercise: which features help you with the task at hand, where to find those features, how to get them to do what you want, and how to avoid the program’s gotchas and limitations.

Whichever camp you’re in, the first place you’re likely to look for assistance is within the program itself. Project 2013 Help includes typical help fare like step-by-step instructions for using the program to perform various tasks. Help topics occasionally tell you why a feature is helpful, the best way to put it to use, and even give examples.

Finding the information you need is your biggest challenge. Project 2013 scatters tidbits of assistance throughout the program. For example, if you point to a column heading, a tooltip tells you what the field represents and may even show the formula Project uses to calculate it, as you can see in Figure B-1. Or if you point to an icon like the Insert Summary Task icon on the Task ...