Most notable 2013 Features

[Anton Cotton]

I attended an MPUG webinar yesterday for the introduction of 2013 MPP. There are a few notable changes from 2010 but they are very nice…

– My favorite is…”Task Path” – on a selected task, you can turn on Predecessors, Driving Predecessors, Successors, and/or Driven Successors and the associated tasks are highlighted on the left and Gantt side!

– Reports are MUCH better – there is greater flexibilty in creating them because you get selection features as if you are in excel (check boxes) or you can easily copy/paste to excel and get the selection features there to modify it

– New things with resources: from the resource page, on the right side (not left), the task name is indicated in a box for the dates of the task; you can pick up the task and move it to another resource.

– in resource view you can also right click and instantly IM or email the person

– In Gantt view there is a little box next to each resource assigned to a task showing their IM status from which you can also IM or email them.

– “Exit” has been removed from the Backstage view – you have to add it to a toolbar seperately

No official release date has been given yet but I like the new features. Others?

[Anton Cotton]

Hi,

I’ve recently downloaded a beta copy of the MS Project 2013 and have to say that the tool has some changes good and not so good.

The new interface is visually a great step backwards, and reminds me of the days where you were given a choice of green or blue dependent on which screen manufacturer you used. Maybe I have missed a setting that allows you to alter the interface but as yet I have not found it. If it is designed this way to lower the demands on the computer sed then I suppose it is a good trade off. More grunt for the calculations as against the graphics allow more schedules to be open without your machine slowing down. As a user who has multiple schedules open concurrently this ould be a bonus.

The biggest step forward is the project dashboard being a single click. I can see this being utilised exstensively by PM’s and Schedulers to report status of the project.

After opening schedules from previous versions of project (2003/07/10) I have not come across compatability issues as yet, but Have not backsaved to see what compatability issues lie there. No doubt there will be be as that seems to always be the case.

Richard.

[Author]

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