Project Scheduling in Visio 2007

Most people need a scheduling tool at one time or another. Whether you want to clarify project milestones or track task dependencies, Visio 2007 includes a template to meet your needs. For example, you can create timelines and Gantt charts that double as attractive illustrations for status reports, slide shows, intranet sites, or other documentation, as Figure 12-1 shows.

Visio 2007’s strength is in providing easy-to-use tools for high-level scheduling tasks. You can use Visio 2007 to coordinate dozens of resources and track hundreds of tasks, but the project scheduling templates are really designed for smaller-scale projects. You can create the following four types of project scheduling diagrams in Visio 2007:

• Timeline Use to document high-level project milestones. A timeline displays start and finish dates and milestones for projects at a glance.

• Gantt Chart Use to provide a hierarchical view of the entire lifetime of a project. A Gantt chart can show how much of a task has been completed and helps you track a project’s progress.

• Calendar Use to create all-purpose monthly or yearly calendars. You can import Outlook scheduling information into your Visio 2007 calendar.

• PERT Chart Use to document project tasks, duration, and milestones in connected boxes that help in planning complex projects.

Using Visio 2007 with Microsoft Office Project 2007

If you use Microsoft Office Project 2007 or work with people who do, consider Visio 2007 a companion product. You can easily import .MPX files into Visio 2007 to generate timelines and Gantt charts. However, Visio 2007 is simply not in the same project management league as Project 2007—nor is it meant to be. Some people register for weeklong courses to learn how to use Project 2007’s powerful scheduling tools. With Visio 2007, you can assemble a diagram in a couple of hours, or less, to track tasks and milestones. However, you don’t have access to the type of reporting and advanced tracking features that Project 2007 offers.

Instead, Visio 2007 provides the best means to create attractive and simplified visual representations of a complex project schedule. In addition, you can use Visio 2007 to develop high-level schedules that can be shared with Project 2007 users. When you save a Visio 2007 timeline or Gantt chart diagram in XML format, the data can be imported for additional analysis in Project 2007. To make Visio 2007 easier to use with Project 2007, the Visio 2007 designers even renamed some commands to match Project 2007. For example, Promote Task and Demote Task in the Gantt Chart template are now Outdent and Indent.