Strategies for creating presentation roadmaps you plan to refresh with Microsoft Project

Answer:

There are a few ways to do this:

First way: Ad hoc using Link to Active MS Project task

It's easy to "grab" just a few tasks at a time and put them on one or more task rows in Milestones.

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Second way: Code and import

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Third way: Flag and Import

Condensing one or more large projects onto a single page is a common problem, often requiring some up-front planning.  Here are some simple guidelines you can follow to make the process easier.  Steps 1 through 4 are required for setup of the presentation schedule.  Once you have completed steps 1 through 4, Step 5 (Refresh) is all you need to do to keep the schedule updated.

STEP 1 - Flag the tasks in Microsoft Project

1. Microsoft Project offers 20 "Flag" fields (Flag 1 through Flag 20).   Choose one of these fields.

2. In Microsoft Project, for each task to appear on the presentation schedule, set the flag to "Yes".

STEP 2 - Import the flagged tasks

1. In Milestones Professional, on the Connections tab choose Create Report from Project (or Create Report from Project Server.)

2. For Only import tasks with this Flag Yes, choose the flag field you established above.

3. For Tag with this ID field for future updates choose a field you plan to use as a unique identifier when refreshing.  If updating from a single file, uniqueID is best.  (If updating from multiple Microsoft Project schedules, see this article.

4. Since you plan to show finish dates, choose Use a built in template.

5. Under the Milestone category, choose Finish Dates.

6. Click Next.

7. Under Finish, choose the Microsoft Project field you want to appear with each finish date symbol.  Optionally, choose a field to appear as a symbol note.

8. Save the schedule.

Rearrange tasks and beautify the schedule

1. On the Tools tab, choose Dates.  Be sure that the Lock symbol to date when copying or moving ... is checked.

2. Move symbols by holding down the Shift key while dragging to another row.

3. Enhance your schedule using color themes, curtains, and shading.

4. Save the schedule when finished.

Tip: if your schedule is quite large, temporarily set the rows per page to 50 or more.  

Related topics

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Import from Microsoft Project (Milestones Help)