ProjectXpert Getting Started with your trial

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ProjectXpert Getting Started with your trial Do you find your building projects difficult to manage? Want to streamline your jobs? Looked for the ideal project management solution but never found one?

And it s really easy! This Getting Started guide will take you about 30 minutes to run through and will show you the basics of how to quickly create a Gantt chart or build program.

1 ProjectXpert Getting Started with your trial Do you find your building projects difficult to manage? Want to streamline your jobs? Looked for the ideal project management solution but never found one? New ProjectXpert is the ideal project management software designed to help improve the way you operate and save you huge amounts of time by making sure all your projects run as smoothly as possible. And it s really easy! This Getting Started guide will take you about 30 minutes to run through and will show you the basics of how to quickly create a Gantt chart or build program. ProjectXpert System Requirements Windows XP (SP2) / Windows Vista / Windows 7; Pentium P4 700GHz; 256MB Ram; 100MB Disk space; Internet Connection; SVGA monitor; Pointing Device; Printer & CD ROM drive. How to load ProjectXpert Either download your free Trial from or if you have a Trial CD simply insert your CD into your PC or Laptop drive and it should auto-run so that you can install the trial software. If the CD doesn t autorun and you re running Windows 2000/XP, select Run from the Start Menu and type D:\Trial.exe where D is the CD drive. If you re running Windows Vista, the Run option may not be available, so type D:\Trial.exe into the Search box at the bottom of the Start Menu. LAUNCHING PROJECTXPERT 1. To launch ProjectXpert double click on the ProjectXpert icon on your desktop or select ProjectXpert from the Start, Programs Menu, HBXL, ProjectXpert folder. Once the program launches you will see a blank project displayed.

CREATING A PROJECT 2. The first task is to enter some project details.

The Project Details window should now be displayed.

To set the target start date click on the button next to the Target

click the OK button at the bottom of the calendar.

2 CREATING A PROJECT 2. The first task is to enter some project details. Click on View > Project Details... from the top menu. 3. The Project Details window should now be displayed. Click in the text box titled Name: and enter your project name. To set the target start date click on the button next to the Target Start Select the target start date for the project from the calendar and click the OK button at the bottom of the calendar. Click the OK button on the right side of the Project Details window. Your project should look like this. A blank sheet divided into four areas.

Enter the name of your first task, e.g. Site set up and then press the down arrow on your keyboard to move down to the next cell. You can now enter the name of your next task. 6.

3 4. TIP: It is probably a good time to save your project. You can save your project by clicking on the Save icon or by pressing Ctrl+S. You now have a blank project saved and ready for tasks to be added. The easiest way to add an activity is to click in the first Name cell in the Activity Table. CREATING TASKS 5. Enter the name of your first task, e.g. Site set up and then press the down arrow on your keyboard to move down to the next cell. You can now enter the name of your next task. 6. Repeat this process and add the following tasks. Set out Foundations Excavation Formwork Reinforcement Concrete Strike Formwork Backfill Dispose of balance of Arisings 7. As you can see each task added has been given a default duration of 5 days commencing on the project start date. Depending on how far away the Target Start is you may not be able to see the activities bars. To skip to the Target Start click on the Locate Bar icon.

8. The Activity Table and Gantt Chart should now look like this. GIVING TASKS DURATIONS 9.

One way is to hover the mouse over the end of the bar in the Gantt Chart until this symbol shows.

When moving the cursor you should see this information box showing you the duration.

4 8. The Activity Table and Gantt Chart should now look like this. GIVING TASKS DURATIONS 9. Finally you are going to change the duration of the tasks.there are many ways of doing this. One way is to hover the mouse over the end of the bar in the Gantt Chart until this symbol shows. Now left-click (keep the button pressed down) and move the mouse cursor left or right to change the duration of the task. 10. When moving the cursor you should see this information box showing you the duration. Let go of the mouse button when you are happy with the new duration. 11. Another way is to click in the Dur (Duration) cell of the task in the Activity Table and type a new duration in. Click on the Dur cell for Set out Foundations. Now press 2 and then Enter on the keyboard to change the duration to 2 days.

12. Set the duration of the tasks to be as follows, use whichever method you prefer.

Enter). CHANGING TASK START DATES 13. Your Gantt Chart should now look something like this.

The first is by simply clicking and dragging the activities left or right in the Gantt Chart.

5 12. Set the duration of the tasks to be as follows, use whichever method you prefer. Remember you can also use the down key on your keyboard to move to the next Dur cell (rather than pressing Enter). CHANGING TASK START DATES 13. Your Gantt Chart should now look something like this. The next step is to change the start dates of your tasks which can be done in several ways. The first is by simply clicking and dragging the activities left or right in the Gantt Chart. Move the mouse over the top and middle of the task so that the cursor looks like this: then click, drag and drop when the task is at the required start date. 14. This is what it should then look like.

15. You can also change the start date of a task by double-clicking on the task in the Activity Table, clicking the button next to Target Start and selecting a different date

Changing the start date of a task using one of these methods is simple, but in most cases you will want each task to relate to each other so that if one task gets delayed the

Setting up all of your task start dates using the methods described above will not do this rescheduling automatically so we will now look at linking the tasks together to

6 15. You can also change the start date of a task by double-clicking on the task in the Activity Table, clicking the button next to Target Start and selecting a different date from the calendar. 16. Alternatively you can type a new date into the Start column of the Activity Table. Changing the start date of a task using one of these methods is simple, but in most cases you will want each task to relate to each other so that if one task gets delayed the subsequent tasks, which cannot start until after it has completed, will automatically get re-scheduled. Setting up all of your task start dates using the methods described above will not do this rescheduling automatically so we will now look at linking the tasks together to give you this automation. LINKING TASKS TOGETHER CRITICAL PATH 17. To link two tasks together simply move the mouse over the lower half of the middle of the first task until the cursor change to this:, then left-click and drag to the second task. You should see a line being drawn between the two tasks as you do this.

7 18. When you let go of the mouse button you will see the Add Link window. The Add Link window will show you the tasks you are linking from and to. The next section allows you to select different types of link. Finish-To-Start Start-To-Start Finish-To- Finish Start-To-Finish Links the finish date of the first task to the start date of the next. Links the start date of the first task to the start date of the next. Links the finish date of the first task to the finish date of the next. Links the start date of the first task to the start date of the next. We will leave it as a Finish-To-Start link. 19. The last section allows you to specify a Lag/Lead time for the link. This allows you to overlap or add space between the link. If we wanted Set out Foundations to start one day before Site set up finishes we could click the small down arrow next to the Lag/Lead box so that it shows -1d. 20. Alternatively we might want to allow a gap of one day before we Set out Foundations. To do this we move the Lag/Lead to 1d. For now leave the Lag/Lead for this link as 0d and click OK.

21. Link the rest of the activities as follows: Set out Foundations to Excavation Finish-to-Start 0d Excavation to Formwork Finish-to-Start 0d Formwork to Reinforcement Start-to-Start 1d

of balance of Arisings Start-to-Start 0d CREATING SUB TASKS 22. We are now going to split the main tasks into sub tasks.

8 21. Link the rest of the activities as follows: Set out Foundations to Excavation Finish-to-Start 0d Excavation to Formwork Finish-to-Start 0d Formwork to Reinforcement Start-to-Start 1d Reinforcement to Concrete Finish-to-Start 0d Formwork to Concrete Finish-to-Start 0d Concrete to Strike Formwork Finish-toStart 3d Strike Formwork to Backfill Finish-toStart 0d Backfill to Disposal of balance of Arisings Start-to-Start 0d CREATING SUB TASKS 22. We are now going to split the main tasks into sub tasks. For example In this tutorial we are going to change the Concrete task so that it consists of two separate activities (this could represent two separate pourings for example), but leave it s duration at 3 days. The first thing we are going to do is change the duration of the existing task. We will then add an extra activity lasting two days to represent the second pour. Double click on the Concrete task in the Activity Table to bring up the Activity Details dialog. (Make sure you are looking at the Details tab) 23. Change the duration of the task to 1 day by typing 1 into the box labelled Duration and clicking the OK button. The Activity Table and Gantt Chart should now look like this.

24. To add another activity (or sub-task) to an existing task we need to move the mouse cursor to the

Move the mouse to where you want the additional task to begin, just to the right of the existing

As you drag the mouse you will see the outline of the new activity and a yellow tip display showing

Let go of the mouse button when you see the correct duration displayed (2 days).

9 24. To add another activity (or sub-task) to an existing task we need to move the mouse cursor to the same row on the Gantt Chart as the existing task. Move the mouse to where you want the additional task to begin, just to the right of the existing Concrete bar. Click and drag the mouse cursor to the right to give it a duration. As you drag the mouse you will see the outline of the new activity and a yellow tip display showing you the duration of the new task. 25. Let go of the mouse button when you see the correct duration displayed (2 days). NOTE: Don t worry if you make a mistake, you can change the duration of the new activity by double clicking on it in the Activity Table and entering a new duration, as we did earlier. When you let go of the mouse button you should see this warning box: Click Yes.

After clicking the Open Level button our Activity Table looks like this. The Gantt Chart should look something like this: 27.

10 26. Notice that the Concrete task is now preceded by a plus sign, this tells us that the task consists of multiple sub-tasks. To view or hide these extra tasks, single click on the Concrete task to select it, then click the Open Level button on the top toolbar. After clicking the Open Level button our Activity Table looks like this. The Gantt Chart should look something like this: 27. To hide the tasks ensure that the top level Concrete row is selected in the Activity Table and click the Close Level button on the standard toolbar. Now the Concrete task will only be shown as the summary bar a thick grey line with a triangle at either end.

bar on the chart. To see how to do this, please visit out website www.

11 And that s it for creating a gantt chart ready for printing! There are heaps more features plus you can allocate resources to every bar on the chart. To see how to do this, please visit out website for more Top Tips. Got questions? Interested? Call our team for info

2. create the workbook file

2. create the workbook file Excel documents are called workbook files. A workbook can include multiple sheets of information. Excel supports two kinds of sheets for working with data: Worksheets, which