Each student will follow the instructor and complete hands-on exercises on their own computer workstation that is pre-loaded with the Microsoft Office 2010 application suite and Microsoft Project 2010. Each student will create and manage projects with Microsoft Project and follow the same steps that they would follow if they were creating and managing live projects.

This is a public, open enrollment training course, and there typically are students from various companies and industries in the same class. Because of this diversity, class discussions often include a wide variety of comments, questions, and student experiences to supplement the standard material covered in the course.

Microsoft Project 2010 Interface and Data Model Review - Review the Microsoft Project interface; review the project data and metadata model; review how to view and manipulate task, resource, and assignment data in a project using Views, Tables, Filters, and Groups; review the Quick Access Toolbar and the Ribbon interface.

Customizing the Microsoft Project Interface - Learn how to configure the Quick Access Toolbar and the Ribbon interface; learn how to create custom Tables, Filters, Groups, and Views in Microsoft Project; learn how to share custom Tables, Filters, Groups, and Views using the Organizer and the Global.mpt file.

Using and Customizing Data Fields - Review the various types of data fields built into Microsoft Project as well as how to expose them through the interface; learn how to create custom task and resource data fields to store free text data, structured data with lookup tables and outline codes, and calculated data using formulas; learn how to attach Graphical Indicators to a custom field to visualize the data.

Using and Customizing Working Calendars - Review the ways that calendars can be used in a project schedule; learn how to create a custom working calendar and modify the work week, the daily working hours, and non-working time such as company holidays or shutdowns; learn how calendars are related to the default working times for a project; learn how working calendars can be used to format views in Microsoft Project.

Planning and Tracking Project Costs - Review the ways that various types of resources contribute to the costs of a project; learn how to configure resource costs and plan for those costs in a project; learn how to create, configure, and use cost resources to plan and track fixed costs for a project; learn how to configure a Cost Breakdown Structure for a project.

Working with Resource Pools and Master Projects - Learn how to create a shared resource pool file to store and manage a common set of resources used on multiple projects; learn how to staff a project using resources in a shared resource pool; learn how to use the shared resource pool file to view overall resource workloads and capacities; learn how to create a master project to consolidate projects into a single program or portfolio view; learn how to use a master project to easily establish cross-project dependencies.

Tracking Project Variances and Performance - Review the various types of variances in a project and learn how to identify and analyze them for project performance; review Earned Value Analysis principles and the prerequisites in a project to perform EVA; review the built-in EVA fields and learn how to use them to measure project performance.

Importing and Exporting Project Data - Review how to copy and paste data between Microsoft Project and other Microsoft Office programs such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel; learn how to export data from a Microsoft Project schedule to various formats such as Microsoft Excel or XML; learn how to import data into a Microsoft Project schedule from various formats such as Excel or XML.