VERY new to Project

[Ervin D. Fowlkes]

Ok, So I am a brand new project manager at a company that had no
system in place whatsover.
I migrated every task to Project 2007 with PWA and the outlook addin. In our
world I need tasks to be done by a certain date. I manage over 20 projects
with the same 6 developers. I did the insert a project thing into a master
view.

My Question: How do I schedule tasks. I mean, I know how to insert a
task, but what is the mindset?
Am I supposed to use the start date and finish date as the times i need
things done?
I seem to set everything as a "Must finish on" constraint is that right?
If I set the task as ASAP constraint all my tasks start at the project start
Date?

Sorry for being such a newbie.
any and all help greatly appreciated.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi Ervin,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You enter the Tasks, their Durations, their Predecessor links (logic links)
and then assign Resources to the Tasks. Then you let Project do what is
designed to do - work out a schedule of dates that is possible with the data
you've entered. Resist the temptation to enter dates as they will result
in constraints which will affect the flexibility of your project.

My advice is to take at least a 2-day introductory course as Project is by
no means intuitive as you are experiencing. Meanwhile, you might like to
have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the TechTrax ezine at this
site: http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the articles before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

When you've sorted out the basics, you might like to try posting on the
microsoft.public.project.server newsgroup. Please see FAQ Item: 24. Project
Newsgroups. 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

 

[Ervin D. Fowlkes]

That's a great help!
I am drowning in this thing and my bosses are questioning my decision to use
MSP.

Thanks

 

[Mike Glen]

You're welcome, Ervin

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