Background Information
The use of stoplight indicators is entirely dependent on your organization’s project management methodologies for rating date slippage, cost over budget, and work over budget. Before your Project Server administrator attempts to create stoplight indicators, your organization must decide its tolerance for project and task variance, and describe what levels of variance generate each specific graphical indicator. Beyond this, your organization must also decide where to display the graphical indicators. The choices are as follows: in a View in Microsoft Project Professional, in a Project Center view in Project Web Access, and in a detailed Project view in Project Web Access. The results of your decision-making process will guide your Project Server administrator in creating the stoplight indicators according to your variance reporting needs.
Note: For the purpose of this FAQ, I am assuming the following:
· Your organization wants to use stoplight indicators to show the severity of date slippage (Finish Variance).
· Your organization wants the stoplight indicators to show the severity of date slippage Early/On Schedule, Late, or Very Late.
· Your organization needs to display stoplight indicators in a task View in Microsoft Project Professional and in both a Project Center view and a detailed Project view in Project Web Access.
· Your organization’s project managers save a Baseline for each of their projects before updating actuals into the project. If they are not presently doing so, they must begin baselining their projects immediately; otherwise, the slippage indicators will be useless to your organization.
Create Custom Enterprise Task and Project Fields
To create the Finish Variance stoplight indicators, the Project Server administrator must create a custom enterprise Task field by completing the following steps:
1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server with administrator permissions
2. Click Tools - Enterprise Options - Open Enterprise Global
3. Click Tools - Customize - Enterprise Fields
4. Select the "Task" set of fields, select Duration as the field Type, and select the Enterprise Duration1 field
5. Click the Rename button, rename the field "Date Slippage" and click OK
6. Click the Formula button
7. Click the Field button, select the Date fields, and select the Finish Variance field
8. Click OK and then click the OK button again when warned about overwriting data
9. Select the "Use formula" option in the Calculation for task and group summary rows section
10. Click the Graphical Indicators button
11. Enter something similar to the following, based on your company's methodologies (make sure you order the tests from the largest value to the smallest value):
| Test |
Value(s) |
Image |
| Is greater than or equal to |
20d |
Red stoplight |
| Is greater than or equal to |
10d |
Yellow stoplight |
| Is greater than or equal to |
0d |
Green stoplight |
| Is less than |
0d |
Green smiley face |
12. Click OK
To create the Finish Variance stoplight indicators, the Project Server administrator must also create a custom enterprise Project field by completing the following steps:
1. Select the "Project" set of fields, select Duration as the field Type, and select the Enterprise Project Duration1 field
2. Click the Rename button, rename the field "Schedule Slippage" and click OK
3. Click the Import Custom Field button
4. In the Import Custom Field dialog, set the Field type value to Task, and select the Enterprise Duration1 (Date Slippage) field
5. Click OK and then click OK again
6. Save the Enterprise Global file
Create a Custom Table and View in Microsoft Project Professional
The Project Server administrator must create a custom Table in Microsoft Project Professional to display the stoplight indicators for each task in a project. To do so, complete the following steps:
1. Click View - Table - More Tables
2. Select the Variance table and click the Copy button
3. Name the table something like "_Date Slippage"
4. Select the "Show in menu" option
5. Select the Start field and click the Insert Row button
6. Insert the Date Slippage (Enterprise Duration1) field
7. Set the Align Data value to Center for this new field
8. Delete all of the Start fields (Start, Baseline Start, or Start Variance)
9. Cut the Finish Variance field and Paste it directly below the new Date Slippage field
10. Click OK and then click the Close button (do not click the Apply button!)
11. Save the Enterprise Global file
The Project Server administrator must create a custom View to display the new “_Date Slippage” table. The new View must use the Tracking Gantt screen. To do so, complete the following steps:
1. Click View - More Views
2. Click the Tracking Gantt view and click the Copy button
3. Name the new View something like "_ Schedule Slippage"
4. Set the Table value to the "_ Date Slippage" table
5. Click OK and then click the Close button (do not click the Apply button!)
The Project Server administrator must delete any non-enterprise objects that the system copied into the Enterprise Global automatically while creating the new Table and View. To do so, complete the following steps:
1. Click Tools - Organizer
2. Select the Tracking Gantt view on the right side of the dialog and click the Delete button
3. Click the Yes button when prompted to delete the View
4. Click the Tables tab
5. Select the Variance table on the right side and delete it as well
6. Click the Yes button when prompted to delete the Table
7. Click the Close button
8. Save and close the Enterprise Global
9. Close Microsoft Project Professional
Create Custom Views in Project Web Access
To display the stoplight indicators in a detailed Project view in Project Web Access, the Project Server administrator should complete the following steps:
1. Log into Project Web Access with administrator permissions
2. Click Admin - Manage views
3. Select the Tasks Summary view in the Project section and click the Copy View button
4. Name the new View something like “_Task Stoplight Summary” and click OK
5. Select the new “_Task Stoplight Summary” view and click the Modify View button
6. Add the Enterprise Duration1 (Date Slippage) field to the custom View
7. Select the Enterprise Duration1 (Date Slippage) field and use the Up button to position the field directly below the Task Name field
8. Click the Save Changes button and then click OK
To display the stoplight indicators in a Project Center view in Project Web Access, the Project Server administrator should complete the following steps:
1. Scroll to the Project Center section, select the Tracking view, and click the Copy button
2. Name the new View something like “_Stoplight Summary” and click OK
3. Select the new “_Stoplight Summary” view and click the Modify View button
4. Add the Enterprise Project Duration1 (Schedule Slippage) field to the custom View
5. Select the Enterprise Project Duration1 (Schedule Slippage) field and use the Up button to position the field directly below the Project Name field
6. Select the Baseline Finish field and use the Up button to position the field directly below the Enterprise Project Duration1 (Schedule Slippage) field
7. Select the Finish field and use the Up button to position the field directly below the Baseline Finish field
8. Click the Save Changes button and then click OK
Apply the New View and Publish Each Project in Microsoft Project Professional
Each project manager now needs to open each existing project, apply the new custom View, and then recalculate the project by completing the following steps:
1. Log into Project Server through Microsoft Project Professional
2. Open an existing project
3. Click the View menu and select the _Date Slippage view
4. Press the F9 function key to manually recalculate the project and display the stoplight indicators
5. Click Collaborate - Publish - All Information
6. Repeat steps #2-5 for every project in the Project Server database