Discover The Top Ten Changes In Project 2010

Want to find out the key changes in Project 2010? This article brings you details of the top ten changes to help you to get to grips with what's new in Project 2010.


Change One: New shiny interface

Launch Project 2010 and you'll see that Project now has Ribbon navigation tabs Task, Resource, Project, View and Format which replace the menus and toolbars, in common with all the other Office 2010 applications. All tabs are fully customisable so you can add or remove commands and you can also create your own tabs.


Change Two: The Backstage View

You can access the Backstage View by clicking the File Tab. This view has file management features found under the File menu in earlier versions of Project menu. You can also configure advanced settings such as Project Server connections.


Change Three: Change to task scheduling

Tasks are now manually scheduled by default, not automatically. This means that dependant tasks in linked relationships are NOT updated if a preceding task duration is changed, unless tasks are set for automatic scheduling. So you can place a manually scheduled task anywhere in your schedule and Project will not move it. You can change this setting for individual or all tasks using the command buttons on the Task tab.


Change Four: The New Timeline View

Above the regular Project view is the new Timeline View with a horizontal bar showing the overall Project timescale. You can set the Timeline View to show one or more tasks and you can drag tasks on or off the view. You can also copy and paste the Timeline View to another application.


Change Five: New Commands sub menu

You can right click in any Project table or view to show a context sensitive list of commands available. Left click on any one to select it, so most commands are accessible within two clicks.


Change Six: New team planner view, for resource scheduling

Project Professional 2010 has a new Team Planner view which shows resources assigned to tasks on a timeline, similar to the traditional resource usage view, but which lets you drag and drop tasks between resources.


Change Seven: Working with Project views made easier

The View Tab lets you easily change views (no complex sub menus to wade through) and at last you can easily customise a view by adding or deleting columns, but the advice is still to copy the view first and then add the columns to the copy view.


Change Eight: New inactive task feature

If you decide to drop one or more tasks from your plan you can mark them as inactive. Inactive tasks will still show greyed out in the plan and the project will completely ignore them. However you can subsequently turn them back on again if you wish. The benefit is that a trail is left, which could be useful for auditing or archive purposes. Inactive tasks can be easily restored if you change your mind.


Change Nine: Summary Tasks can be created first

Summary tasks can now be created before regular tasks. Subsequent tasks can then be grouped under the Summary task by the usual indenting method. Some Summary tasks may now exist on their own.


Change Ten: The new Compare Projects feature

Well not actually new, but now much easier to find within the Reports commands. The Compare Projects command lets you compare the current Project file with another project file and results are shown in the Comparison Report. Differences are identified with clear easy to understand icons. The Comparison Report can then be saved as a separate Project file.


Other Changes:Improved Project collaboration with Project Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010

You can use Project Server 2010 to allow web based Project collaboration and you can use SharePoint 2010 to share table based data from Project.

If you copy a Project table and paste to another Office Application, the Project column headings now appear in the copied data.

Want to know more about Project 2010? A really effective way to get to know Project 2010 in a relatively short time is to attend a training course.