Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

What You Can Do with Macros

A macro does one thing really well—it performs a series of steps each time you run it. For example, you can record a macro that hides summary tasks, turns on the critical path, and then sorts tasks by Duration in descending order. Macros are great timesavers because they can perform the equivalent of dozens of mouse clicks and key presses almost instantaneously. Moreover, macros reduce mistakes because you’re not typing and clicking as much.

Any kind of repetitive task is a contender for macrohood. You can create a simple macro that sorts a task list or a sophisticated one that applies a view, filters and sorts the content, runs a report, and then prints it for your stakeholder status report. Since Project’s creators couldn’t anticipate every feature that organizations might need, macros let you create your own Project features, calculating project performance and evaluating your project in various ways. For example, a macro can count the number of on-time and slipping tasks to calculate the percentage of tasks that are headed for trouble.