SSI Presentation Professional Training Part 2

SSI Presentation Professional Training Part 2

386 Rim Trail, Prescott, Arizona | www.ssitools.com | E-mail: [email protected] Page 1

SSI Presentation Professional ...................................................................................................................................................... 2

Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Advanced Import ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Advanced Import Option: Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes ......................................................................... 4

Advanced Import Option: Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes – for Multiple Projects .................................... 5

Exercise 1 - Using Advanced Import Options for Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes .................................... 8

Advanced Import Options: Project field used to code task types......................................................................................... 9

Exercise 2 - Using Advanced Import Options for Project field used to code task types .................................................... 10

Advanced Import Option: Import onto two or more pages ................................................................................................ 13

Exercise 3 - Using Advanced Import Options for Importing onto Multiple Pages ............................................................ 13

http://www.ssitools.com/



SSI Presentation Professional

Overview

Structured Solutions Inc.’s SSI Presentation Professional is an add-in for PowerPoint that enables importing and updating of

project tasks as PowerPoint shapes like the example shown below. Presentation Professional enables users to create

Microsoft PowerPoint presentations containing objects (shapes) that are linked to Microsoft Project schedule items

(Summaries, Tasks and Milestones). The purpose of this tool is to enable rapid production and efficient maintenance of “to-

the-point”, executive level PowerPoint presentations that convey the status and performance of key and critical schedule

events and life cycle phases.

Example of PowerPoint page made from Project data. For more examples see: https://ssitools.com/ssi-presentation-

professional/


https://ssitools.com/ssi-presentation-professional/

https://ssitools.com/ssi-presentation-professional/



Advanced Import

Clicking the button named Import Shapes is the quick and easy way to make a PowerPoint presentation

from Microsoft Project data. To use additional import options and features, you’ll need to expand the

options by clicking the down triangle in the lower right corner of the Import Shapes button and select

Advanced MS Project Import. This session covers all SSI Presentation Professional Advanced Import

options one by one with examples of how each controls the shapes you import to a PowerPoint page.

Advanced MS Project Import:

1. Open Microsoft Project and select some items

2. Open PowerPoint and click the down triangle

in the lower right corner of the Import Shapes

button on the Timelines and Tasks group of

the SSI Presentation Pro menu and select

Advanced MS Project Import




Advanced Import Option: Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes

Unique ID is the default and preferred option for this setting. Regardless of this setting, the Unique

ID is always captured for imported Microsoft Project items.

Selecting another option, Text1 for example, will cause SSI Presentations Professional to group all

MS Project items with the same value in Text1 as a single shape on the PowerPoint page. Microsoft

Project items with a blank Text1 field will not be imported to the PowerPoint page.

Therefore, selecting Text1 as Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes

With these items selected in Microsoft Project

Produces this result in PowerPoint

WP1.1 is traceable to Task Unique ID 15 only

WP1.2 is traceable to Task Unique IDs 17,18 & 19

WP1.6 is traceable to Task Unique ID 21 only

Unique ID 16 and 20 were not imported to the PowerPoint page since they have no value in Text1




Advanced Import Option: Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes – for Multiple

Projects

“Category + Unique ID” is an option used to imports tasks by their Unique ID and Project Category.

A Project Category enables the placement of tasks from different projects on a single PowerPoint

page. Since two projects can have tasks with the same Unique ID, the Category part of the matching

criteria makes them each unique.

Project Category refers to a Project Property named “Category”. You set this value in any Microsoft

Project file by selecting Advanced Properties from Project Information on the File menu in the

active Microsoft Project schedule.

In this Example Project, the text “PrjEx1” has been entered in the Category property field.




These are the Test & Verification Milestones in a Project with a Category property named “PrjEx1”

Here’s the result in PowerPoint after importing with SSI Presentation Pro using its Advanced MS

Project Import options with Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes set to “Category +

Unique ID”

Open the updater form by clicking the down triangle in

the lower right corner of Update Shapes on the

Timelines and Tasks group of the SSI Presentation Pro

menu as seen on the image to the right.

Notice the column named MSP Category in the form

named Update Shape Dates from Multiple Projects in

the image below.




These are the Test & Verification Milestones in a Project with a Category property named “PrjEx2”

Notice that these have the same Unique ID as those in “PrjEx1” but the dates are different

And here’s the result showing milestones for two projects based on each item’s Unique ID and the

text entered as the Category property for each task’s respective project.

Note - When updating a PowerPoint Page using “Category + Unique ID” as

the option for Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes, SSI Tools

will ask you to browse to the project files having content for the PowerPoint

page.




Exercise 1 - Using Advanced Import Options for Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes

Practice – In Session Exercise Using Advanced Import Options

Practice using Advanced Import Options to import items from two different projects.

1. Open ExampleProjectPrjEx1.mpp and ExampleProjectPrjEx2.mpp from this location:

ExampleProject(PrjE

x1).mpp

ExampleProject(PrjE

x2).mpp

2. Save these files to your SSI Tools folder (the default location is C:\Users\Public\SSI_Tools) and

open them in Microsoft Project

3. Open PowerPoint and click the down triangle

in the lower right corner of the Import Shapes

button on the Timelines and Tasks group of

the SSI Presentation Pro menu and select


4. Set Project field used to match PowerPoint Shapes to “Category + Unique ID”

5. Make a PowerPoint page by importing items from each project

6. Make some changes in each project and

Update your page.

SSI Tools will prompt you to browse to the

location of projects having content on the

current PowerPoint page

End of Practice Exercise




Advanced Import Options: Project field used to code task types

When Project field used to code task types is set to “Auto” (its default setting), SSI Presentation

Professional determines shape attributes based on Microsoft Project’s task type.

• Milestones and Completed Milestones are represented as zero duration shape types (using a

diamond as its default)

• Summaries are represented as shapes with a duration (using a rectangle as its default)

• Tasks and Completed Tasks are also represented as shapes with a duration (using a rectangle

as its default)

Different Task Types have distinct shapes, colors and styles and can have a Legend (see the legend

topic) on the page.

A user can create their own custom task types by placing a user defined name in a Text field. For

example, If I have tasks in a schedule and some are late, some are early and some are on time, I can

enter names in a Text field to identify those three additional attributes of tasks like the example below.

Setting Text 4 as the value for Project field used to code task types will produce the result shown

below.

Legends are automatically created for Late Tasks, Early Tasks and On Time Tasks and any task

having any of those names in Text 4 will use the distinct shapes, colors and styles of their respective

legend.




Exercise 2 - Using Advanced Import Options for Project field used to code task types


Practice using Advanced Import Options to import items from two import user defined task types

1. Open ExampleProjectPrjEx1.mpp from the previous exercise. In C:\Users\Public\SSI_Tools or

your SSI Tools installation folder.

2. Display Text4 in Microsoft Project and add the names Late Task, Early Task and On Time Task

to some of the tasks in Microsoft Project.

3. Select these tasks in the project

4. Open PowerPoint and click the down triangle in

the lower right corner of the Import Shapes

button on the Timelines and Tasks group of the

SSI Presentation Pro menu and select


5. Set Project field used to code task types to “Text4”

6. Click Import Selected Microsoft Project Items from the bottom of the Advanced Import form

Your result may look like this – but it depends on what you entered in Text4




7. Change Text 4 in Microsoft Project to Late Task for all the tasks used in step 2

8. Open the updater form in PowerPoint by clicking the

down triangle in the lower right corner of Update Shapes

on the Timelines and Tasks group of the SSI

Presentation Pro menu as seen on the image to the right.

9. Click Advanced Microsoft Project Update Options on the form named Update Shape Dates

10. Check Update task types and set Task types are coded by: Text4 on the form named Advanced

Microsoft Project Update Options

11. Click Accept on the form named Advanced Microsoft Project Update Options

12. Click Update Task Shapes on the form named Update Shape Dates




13. Click the down triangle in the lower right corner of

Update Shapes on the Timelines and Tasks group of the

SSI Presentation Pro menu and click Match legend

styles

Your result may look like this – but it depends on what you entered in Text4.

Notice that all tasks are shown as Late which matches the task type name given in Text4





Advanced Import Option: Import onto two or more pages

By default, all items selected in Microsoft Project are imported onto one page. The Advanced Import

form provides an option to span two or more pages when importing from Microsoft Project. This

option is particularly helpful if you intend to import a large number of tasks for a PowerPoint

Presentation.

Consider using this option if you need more than 50 Microsoft Project items on a PowerPoint page

With Rows 1 – 106 selected in the Example Project, SSI Tools asks the user for the cut-off row.

Here’s the result in PowerPoint Page 1 in PowerPoint – Rows 1- 52

Page 2 in PowerPoint – Rows 53-106

Exercise 3 - Using Advanced Import Options for Importing onto Multiple Pages


1. Open a project in Microsoft Project and select more than 50 rows

2. Use Advanced Import Options to span your selection between 2 pages using the instructions above





More Advanced Import Options

Basic Options Group

These are the rest of the Advanced Import Basic Options of the Advanced Import form. Refer to the

pointing fingers in the image below the descriptions.

1. Import selcted items as one shape combines all the selected items in Microsoft Proejct into one

shape on the PowerPoint page. SSI Tools will ask for the text to display on the shape in

PowerPoint.

2. Add legend shapes is checked by default for this option. It adds a shape at the botton of a

PowerPoint page for each shape type you import. You can change the color and style of legends

then select Match legend styles from the Update Shapes button on the Timelines and Tasks group

of the SSI Presentation Pro menu.

*See the topic named Using Legends in SSI Presentation Professional Training Part 1 for more

about Legends.

3. Add legend for completed tasks and milestons makes a separate legend item with unique colors

and styles for tasks and milestones that are complete.

4. Import onto current slide places Microsoft Project items on the active slide. If the active slide has

existing shapes, new shapes are added.

Import onto new slide inserts a new PowerPoint page, then adds selected Microsoft Project items

to the new page.




Import Display Options Group

Here are the options in the Import Display Options group of the Advanced Import form. Refer to the


5. Shape height – determines the height of the PowerPoint shape. The width of a Milestone will be

the same as its height. The width of a task or summary is determined by the timeline scale.

6. Top margin for imported shapes – determines where to being importing shapes from the top of

the PowerPoint page.

7. Auto space shapes – If this item is checked, SSI Tools will automatically adjust the space between

shapes to fit the PowerPoint page.

8. Shape Text – determines which Microsoft Project text field to use as the shapes label. The default

is the Task Name field but you can use text fields 1-30, the Contact, Project or Duration field as

well. Only one field can be used for the PowerPoint shape label but you could make a formula in

a Microsoft Project text field that combines many values into a single text field.

9. Display Style – pick from waterfall or Gantt display stype. When using the Gantt style, you can

choose a Gantt lines style, width and color.

10. Additional shape text is an option that is only available with Gantt style pages. Since a gantt chart

has a label in a column to the left of the shape, the shape itself can have a second label. The Gantt

Display Style example below shows a gantt chart with Task Names in a column on the left and

“Duration” as Additional shape text as a shape label in the gantt chart area.

Gantt Display Style example




Add Additional Shapes Group

Here are the options in the Add Additional Shapes group of the Advanced Import form. Refer to the


11. Add Progress bars – displays task and summary performance from Microsoft Project’s “%

Complete”, “Physical % Complete” or any number field. A bar, with its width determined by the

% complete field selected, is added to each summary with performance.

12. Add Reference Tasks and Milestones– displays a secondary schedule shape for tasks, summaries

and milestones. The schedule for Reference tasks can be derived by the Baseline, Baseline 1 – 10

or Start/Finish 1-10. The schedule for Reference milestones can be derived by the Deadline,

Baseline, Baseline 1 – 10, Start/Finish 1-10 or any Date field from 1 through 10.

*See the topic named Add Reference Shapes to Task, Summaries and Milestones in SSI

Presentation Professional Training Part 1 for more about using Reference Tasks and Milestones.

13. The shapes for Reference Tasks and Milestones can display a label you enter in their respective

Text option. You can also clear Text and make a legend on the page for reference shapes

The Progress and Reference Shapes example shows progress bars as heavy black lines through the

center of their respective task and milestone. In the example, the width of the percent complete shape

and its label are determined by Microsoft Project’s % Complete field.

The yellow bar represents the Baseline Start and Finish dates for tasks and summaries and the small

yellow diamond is deadline date for the “System Definition Review (SDR)” milestone.

Progress and Reference Shapes example


Documents

SSI Presentation Professional Training Part 2