Working with the Organizer

The Organizer is a utility within Microsoft Project that allows you to save customized project settings. You can easily share these customizations with your other projects. You can use this feature to utilize specific, defined customizations for your organization, division, or department workgroups; or you may find that you just want to use it for your own purpose to save time when creating your own individual project plans.

The Organizer is used to copy customized items from one project file to another, or from one project file into the Global template. You can also use the Organizer to rename items, or delete an item that you no longer need.

To access the Organizer, choose Tools Ø Organizer. Figure 23.16 displays the Organizer dialog box, and Table 23.4 lists the different types of objects you can change in the Organizer.

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Figure 23.16: Use the Organizer to add elements to projects and templates.

Table 23.4: Items in the Organizer

Object Groupings

Description

Views

Sheets, forms, and graphs such as Gantt charts and Resource Sheets used to display project information.

Modules

One or more procedures, functions, or subroutines created with the Macro Recorder or in the Visual Basic IDE.

Reports

Print-ready reports, such as the Overallocated Resources and Slipping Tasks reports, as well as custom reports you create.

Forms

Standard and user-customized dialog boxes, designed to display detail about a single item such as the Task Information Form or Resource Information Form.

Tables

Information about Resources, Costs, Tasks, or Assignments, often displayed as part of a view. For example, the Gantt chart with Entry Table is a combination view/table.

Filters

Used to display a subset of information for a table, view, or report. Project includes filters for tasks (such as the critical task filter) and resources (such as the resource name and group filters).

Calendars

Base calendars for the project, including the Standard calendar and calendars created by the user.

Toolbars

The command bar collection, including all the predesigned toolbars, the Menu bar, and custom toolbars you’ve created. There are 12 toolbars that can be customized.

Maps

Specifications for how data is imported from or exported to other applications.

Fields

Standard and user-definable fields (Cost1, Cost2, and so on.) that are included in Project.

Groups

Sorting and filtering specifications for fields.

Copying Items from One Project to Another

The Organizer is the ideal place to copy items from one project to another. The following example copies a calendar from the Global template (global.mpt) to the Decentralization Project 7 project file. You can pull calendars from other sources by choosing different project files from the drop-down lists located at the bottom of the Calendars tab. In the example shown in Figure 23.17, the two fields are labeled Calendars Available In because the Calendars tab is displayed. Other tabs in the Organizer have similar fields.

Follow these steps to copy an item:

  1. Before you copy an item to another file, make sure that both files (or templates) are open.

  2. Choose Tools Ø Organizer.

  3. In the Organizer dialog box, choose the tab that contains the item you want to copy. Figure 23.17 shows the Calendars tab.

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    Figure 23.17: Use the Calendars tab to copy calendars from one project to another.

  4. Use the Views Available In lists to select the file you’re copying from and the file you’re copying to. It doesn’t matter which file is on what side of the dialog box.

  5. Choose the item you want to copy. For our example, Copy the 24 Hours item by selecting it from the left (global.mpt) side of the dialog box.

  6. Click the Copy button. If there is already an item with the same name in the target file, a message appears that asks you to confirm that you want to overwrite the existing item (see Figure 23.18). Choose Yes to replace the item in the target file, or use Rename to save it to the target file with a different name.

  7. Click the Close button located in the middle of the dialog box to close the Organizer.

    Note 

    These same steps can be used to copy any item that is managed by the Organizer.

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    Figure 23.18: A warning message appears if an item already exists.

    Tip 

    Items can be copied to the Global template from other Project templates, as described in the previous section. You can also use these steps to copy items from any of the pre-existing Project templates to the Global template.

Renaming Items with the Organizer

If you want to rename an item, such as a calendar that exists in a project file, you must use the Organizer.

Follow these steps to rename items:

  1. Choose Tools Ø Organizer to open the Organizer dialog box.

  2. Select the tab that contains the item you want to rename.

  3. Choose the Item you want to rename.

  4. Click the Rename button to open the Rename dialog box.

  5. Type the new name for the item.

  6. Click the OK button.

  7. Click the Close button located in the middle of the dialog box to close the Organizer.

Deleting Items

The Organizer is also the only way to delete customized items.

Follow these steps to delete an item:

  1. Choose Tools Ø Organizer to open the Organizer dialog box.

  2. Select the tab that contains the item you want to delete.

  3. Choose the item you want to delete.

  4. Click the Delete button. The Delete confirmation box appears.

  5. Click the Yes button to complete the deletion of the item.

  6. Click the Close button located in the middle of the dialog box.



Mastering Microsoft Project 2002
Mastering Microsoft Project 2002
ISBN: 0782141471
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 241

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