The means for organizing, managing, and storing the thousands of pieces of project information is the Microsoft Project database. There are three major categories in the project database:
Task information
Resource information
Assignment information
When you start entering project information, typically you enter tasks and associated information such as duration, date constraints, deadlines, and task dependencies. These all fall under the task information category.
Then you enter resource names and associated information such as standard rate, overtime rate, and working times calendar. These all fall under the resource information category.
As soon as you assign a resource to a task, you create an assignment, which is the intersection of task and resource. Information associated with an assignment includes the amount of work, the assignment start and finish dates, the cost for the assignment, and so on. These fall under the assignment information category.
Note | There are also three subcategories of project information: task-timephased, resource-timephased, and assignment-timephased. These subcategories are covered in "Working with Usage Views" later in this chapter. |
Understanding these three categories is important when viewing project information. There are task views and resource views. The individual fields that make up all views are also classified as task, resource, or assignment fields, and can only be seen in their respective views. Likewise, there are filters and groups designed just for task views and other filters and groups designed just for resource views.
Cross-References | For more information about working with your Microsoft Project database, see Chapter 32, "Working with Microsoft Project Data." |