Trouble Spots
As with any exam, it will vary from person to person as to what is deemed to be difficult. Be sure you are familiar with each of the topics in the exam objectives listed below.
- Templates—Microsoft Project 2007 provides a wide range of predefined templates to help speed your project management process. Templates give you a quick start to automatically populate a new project with useful information. A template, in Office Project’s .mpt file format, can capture task and resource information, formatting, macros, and other project-specific settings. In addition to the built-in and Microsoft Office Online templates, you can create your own templates based on previous projects. You can take advantage of your previous projects by creating your own custom template. This enables you to reuse an existing project as the basis for future projects. You can also send templates to other users in e-mail to share your work and to create consistency.
- Reports—There are several built-in reports that allow you to simply select, preview, and print the most frequently used information needed to manage projects, track resources, maintain costs, and communicate. Microsoft Project 2007 includes predefined task, resource, and cross-tab reports for you to print. You can customize any of these reports to present the specific information you want to display. You can also specify the format of details such as column totals, gridlines, or borders.
- Exporting and Importing Data—You can export project information to Office System Programs. When you export data, you choose or create a map that specifies the relationship between the fields in Project and the columns in the output file. The output file could be Microsoft Excel, comma-separated values (CSV) or Extensible Markup Language You can use an existing export map from another project if the map is available in the global file. By using the Organizer, you can copy an export map from a project file to the global file. Office Project Standard 2007 and Office Project Professional 2007 no longer support the OLEDB format.
You can import or transfer data into Project from a source program such as Excel. When you import data, you choose a map that defines how the data in the source program should be mapped to information in Project. Different programs use different file formats and file name extensions to indicate the format. Although you can enter values in some calculated fields Project 2007 may recalculate these values, either automatically or when you specify. If you import information from another file format into an enterprise project that requires you to enter specific information for tasks, you won't be able to save the project until all required information is entered.
You will be able to answer some of the questions using your project experience in handling resources, budgeting and defining tasks. You can usually eliminate some answers that are obviously incorrect. You should have a good understanding of the menus and the options contained in them. An example of this is provided in the sample question below:
Your boss has just asked you to align the items on your Microsoft Office 2007 project schedule with a new chart of account codes produced by the Budget Office. What is the proper sequence of steps in the Gantt Chart view to display the custom codes next to the relevant task items?
a. Click File. Click Properties. Click View Tab. Type in the custom code.
b. Click Insert. Click Custom Codes. Type in the custom codes.
c. Right-click a table heading. Click Insert Column. Select WBS. Type in the custom code. (Correct answer)
d. You cannot display custom codes in Microsoft Office Project.
You will probably see many questions about budget and cost resources as well as questions about defining the task such as fixed units, fixed duration, fixed work and effort driven.
Both Office Project Standard 2007 and Office Project Professional 2007 can open files created in previous versions of Project. You can save project plans in prior formats, for example Microsoft Project 98 .mpp file format or Project 2003, Project 2002, and Project 2000 file formats. Any features that do not map to prior file formats will be discarded when a project is saved in that older file format.
Another useful feature of Microsoft Project 2007 is the multiple Level Undo, which enables you to test what-if scenarios and then undo the changes. You can undo actions or sets of actions from macros or non-Microsoft applications, enabling you to test several what-if scenarios in order to fully understand the implications of each choice while making scope changes. As you test each scenario, the effects of the most recent change automatically become shaded with Visual Change Highlights. Now you can quickly see how the schedule reacts as you alter resources and tasks.