You will immediately begin to apply its usefulness. Check any that you’d like to see displayed on the Timeline. Click on that to see a list of your tasks. Once you’ve accessed it, look in the Insert group for Existing Tasks. (A conceptual tab is one that appears only when you’ve done something to activate it.) You can do this by clicking anywhere within the Timeline space. If you’ve added multiple tasks to your task list and you want to pick and choose which of them-or all of them-for inclusion on the Timeline, you need to access the conceptual Timeline tools formatting tab. For demonstration purposes I am using a project file like one used to schedule staff training at a social service agency. Click on that, and your tasks appear on the Timeline bar. To add tasks one at a time, you can right-click on the task, and from the drop-down menu you will see Add to Timeline. As you begin to list your tasks, you can add them individually to the timeline, and you can also access a checklist that lets you choose any or all project tasks. When you open or begin a new project file, the Gantt Chart view automatically shows you a drab, empty timeline running along the top of your chart. You can also format the Timeline to give it some pizzazz for your stakeholders. It’s also easy to format it and incorporate it into a project status report.
You can easily see if you need to correct task overlap, either because of timing or staffing reasons. The Timeline provides an easy way to look at the various tasks that are a part of your project. As Cull states, Project 2010’s Timeline updates result from the input of many Project users based on their experiences with prior versions of Project. It was when I stumbled onto a video by Heather Cull, Microsoft’s Timeline program manager, speaking from Redmond, Washington, in May 2010, that I came to understand Timeline’s potential. After all, I didn’t hear any bells and whistles going off to announce that it had changed so drastically, so I didn’t think anything else about it.
I actually used this software for months without paying any special attention to it. When I first experienced Microsoft Project, I didn’t think the Timeline view was anything to write home about.