Microsoft® Office Project 2007 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 4. Linking and Consolidating Projects

<feature><title>In This Chapter</title>

✓	Linking projects
✓	Consolidating projects
✓	Understanding consolidation and dependencies
✓	Viewing a consolidated project
✓	Following the critical path in a consolidated project
✓	Using a resource pool

</feature>

In this chapter, we look at different ways to link and insert projects. For example, you can include a link in a project to backup documentation stored in an Excel spreadsheet, or you can create several project files that cover different phases of the same project and then consolidate them to look at the big picture. As you read about these techniques, you also see how they can affect the structure of your project.

Connecting Projects with Hyperlinks

You can link one project to another by using a hyperlink. A hyperlink enables you to jump from the currently displayed document to another document on your hard drive, a computer network, or the Internet—useful when, for example, you’d like your Project schedule to reference some backup information stored in a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, or even another Project file.

Creating a hyperlink

When you insert a hyperlink in a project schedule, you can link an existing task to another project or create a new task that you can use to represent the timing or costs of another project. The hyperlink contains information about the physical location of the other Project file, but it doesn’t contain any of the timing or cost information, so you have to add that ...