Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual

Chapter 23. Reusing Project Information

As you use Project 2013 to manage projects, you’re bound to make changes to features like views, tables, filters, and reports to help you do your job more effectively. Perhaps you prefer to work with Gantt Chart view in the top pane and Task Details Form view in the Details pane. Or you insert the % Work Complete field to the Summary table. If you go to the trouble of customizing Project, as described in the previous chapters, you probably want to use those customizations in most, if not all, of your projects—or at least show them off to your friends. When you want to reuse your customized elements, you can store them in a special file called the global template, so every new project you create can use them.

With each project you manage, you also add to your project-management toolbox. For instance, you might develop a task list and basic schedule for running a fundraiser that you can reuse for next year’s event or share with colleagues across the country who are hosting their own events. Part of the closing process for every project is archiving the work you’ve done, documenting what you learned, and recording that information so others can benefit from it (Quality Performance). Saving the Project file to an archive location at the end of the project accomplishes much of this work. However, if you want to reuse what you learned, you can turn your completed Project file into a project template so it’s ready to jump-start your next project. ...