What’s new in Microsoft Project 2016 – Part 1
I will cover following under “What’s new in Microsoft Project 2016”
- What’s new in Microsoft Project 2016 Professional? – In Part 1
- What’s new in Microsoft Project 2016 Server? – In Part 2
What’s new in Microsoft Project 2016 Professional?
Almost every 3 years, Microsoft launches a new version of Project. Project 2016 is recently launched with some new features. As such there is no change in fundamentals, new features are add-on and make life of project manager simpler.
If you are still working with Project 2010 or 2013, you may continue using them. You are not going to lose a lot. However if you have 2016 version, there are some new features for you to make your life simpler. These features are as follows…
- Tell me what you want to do?
- Multiple Timelines
- Resource Engagement
1. Tell me what you want to do?
Microsoft has introduced a new feature to search the functions easily. As number of features increasing in MS Project with every new version, organizing them is becoming difficult and difficult. This new features will come very handy to locate the feature you need.
“Tell me what you want to do?” is a search box right next to the tabs. You need not to locate the feature you want to use, just start typing a word appear in the name of the feature you want to use and MS Project will start displaying relevant features. As you type, it will narrow down the search for you to select easily. Select the feature to execute.
I personally feel this feature will help a lot and save time in reorganizing the features. It will also make it easy to find those features which are not used so frequently. It will saves you from filling up you quick access from infrequently used features.
2. Multiple Timelines
Timeline view was introduced in Project 2010 and project managers really liked it especially when they had to report the project plan to senior management. However its usages remain limited. In Project 2016 version, timeline view is further enhanced. In 2013 and 2010, you can create only one timeline. Now in 2016 version, you can create multiple timelines. Every timeline has its own start date and end date and can be customized independently.
Now you can present more effectively your project plan to your seniors especially those who do not want to go into details. I feel, usages of this feature will remain limited. To make it a hit, I believe, Microsoft has to introduce tracking details in timeline. That means display baseline plan, current plan and completed in timeline view. I hope Microsoft will introduce this feature in coming version. We need to wait till that time. Still it is a quite useful feature and we should use it to present our plan to stakeholders who do not want to get into details.
3. Resource Engagement
Resou
rce Engagement is a new feature added in Project 2016 version to give more control over resource management. Some resources have limited availability and cannot be assigned freely. With this features introducing, resource manager can identify some resources as requiring approval to be assigned to projects. If a project manager want these resources, he/she can submit an engagement request and seek approval from resource manager. Project manager and resource manage can negotiate and once resource manager approves it, project manager assign the resource in his/her project.
This feature only works when you are connected with MS Project 2016 Server/Online. Therefore I will discuss this in details in my next post which will be focused on server side enhancements. Till that time enjoy these features.
For more on this subject, please refer Microsoft support for Project 2016
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-s-new-in-Project-2016-111BCAF9-BC27-4C15-80E6-85E726307520