Best Way to Set Up and Tracking a Project: with Excel and Project

[Vit]

My company use an Estimated Computer based program to generate a cost
estimation of the project… (to allocate a budget for a cost/finance
scope…)

The output of the Estimated Program is an excel file with a quite good
WBS, work hours ad a quite good estimation of the duration…

Which is the best way to use the excel file??? Copy and paste as a
link or just copy and paste???

I have this question because I will use an excel file to do some
analysis and to print out a sort of time sheet for the work schedule….

Is possible to link excel and project in both ways??? Not with only a
“preferred way”??? (copy and paste link in both side so when I will
update in excel I will see the new info in project and vice versa…..)

The problem is that for Project Management Issues, the original Excel
file will be “the start”, and the plan will be a little different….

This is my idea:

Copy and paste from the estimated excel file to the WBS, work, and
duration

Generate the plan

Save baseline

Generate a new excel file and copy and paste link from the project to
excel

For example I will use excel to track the daily physical
“production” (think about at task as “drilling” where in project I
will have the total meters, the target production per day (custom
field -> meters/duration) and the actual production)… in this case I
will track the daily production in excel (because in Project I can
track on a calendar base only the work….) and link the into to project
(copy and past link)…

In this case, Is it possible to save the excel file in the workspace?
(I’m working on an EPM 2007 solution…)

I will appreciate every suggestion…

Thank you so much…

Vit

 

[Jim Aksel]

There is another option you should consider, and that is an import map that
will cross reference columns in an Excel file to an MS Project import map.

Try this. Save your Excel file so that the important data is in columns
with one task per row. This will establish columns for your start/finish
dates, WBS, costs, resource assignments or whatever else you like.

In MS Project, choose File/Open... In the dialog box that opens, change the
file type to "Excel Workbooks." You can then browse to your Excel file and
select open. This will launch a wizard that will step you through the import
process.

To learn the tricks, consider using a small Excel file first to see how the
mapping goes.
--
If this post was helpful, please consider rating it.

Jim

Check out my new blog for more information:
http://www.msprojectblog.com

 

[Vit]

thanks Jim,

this can be very useful for the 1st step...

but what about the next step (link a calculated cell in excel to a
field in Ms project????) is there any option to use a wizard or to
automated the process???

thank you so much....

Vit

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Vit,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

I don't know why you want to use Project. If you've already created a
schedule with the dates, you've done what Project is designed to do.
Project needs tasks, duration and predecessor links from which it will tell
you the scheduled dates that are possible. That's what Project does.
Importing such data into Project will cause Project to set up a series of
constraints whence you will lose a lot of the flexibility that a project
manager neads.

You can link data to and from Excel but the links are notoriously fragile
and I don't think most PMs would rely on them.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP
See http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc for my free Project Tutorials