Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Tying Up Loose Ends

Transitioning resources is another part of closing a project. What resources do when they finish their work for you may not seem like your problem. However, before everyone starts popping champagne corks and playing Twister, it’s in your best interest to make sure that people have completed everything you need for your project, and that their managers know when to line up their next assignments. Winning points with resource managers may make it easier for you to get resources on your next project, so managing resource handoffs is a win-win proposition.

If you share resources with other projects, you also need to close out any remaining planned hours in your project schedule. In other words, once the project is complete, the Remaining Work field should equal zero for all resource assignments in the project. To do this, in Task Usage view, display the Work table (in the View tab’s Data section, click Tables→Work). Then, in the Task Usage Tools | Format tab’s Show/Hide section, turn off the Project Summary Task and Summary Tasks checkboxes. Then, click a Remaining Work cell that’s equal to zero, and position your cursor over the fill handle at the cell’s bottom right. When the cursor changes to a + sign, drag over all the rows in the table.

Tip

After the remaining work hours are set to zero, all your project’s tasks should have a % Complete value of 100%. To make sure every task is 100% complete, in the View tab’s Data section, click Filter→Incomplete Tasks. If any ...