Design your own MS Project Filter
Using and Creating Templates
As you go through the various advanced sections, it is highly likely that you will want to save your project files.
You can of course save it as a Template for future use by yourself or others. It is very straightforward to do:
Select File, Save As, and the Save As dialog box opens.
In the Save as type: field, select the pull down menu and select Project Template (*.mpt)
Also, it is worth mentioning, that there are various predefined Template for you to use
Select File, New,
and you have the choice of selecting existing categories or typing in a choice of your own (as I did below using ‘financial services’ as an example, and seeing if a Template already exists.
Alternatively, as you can see, you already have four groups of Template which you can click on to investigate further –
Forms, Planners, Plans and proposals, and Schedules:
Note that when I clicked on the right-pointing arrow above, I was taken to a download screen as shown below:
Design your own MS Project filter
Microsoft project contains many pre-designed filters, but what if none of them fits your purpose and you need to design your own?
To design and tailor your own filter you need to specify a field name, a test, and a value.
Here is a simple example:
Critical (the field name) Equals (the test) Yes (the value)
You can also include additional qualify as to the filter such as:
Actual Cost (the field name) Is Greater Than (the test) 4,400 (the value)
Defining Your Own filter
Choose View, Filter, More Filters
The More Filters dialog box appears:
As an alternative, you may also:
Chose View, Filter, New Filter
The only difference here is that the More Filters option allows you the option of modifying an existing filter as well as the option of creating a new filter.
Select the task or resource filter option (this will depend upon in which view you wish to use it as well as your filtering purpose)
New – click the New button and the filter dialog box appears:
In the Name Field, type a meaningful name for your filter
Click on the first line of the Field Name column, and click the down arrow to see the list of choices as below:
Click a field name to select it, and repeat for the Test and Value(s) columns.
Test describes a condition that must be met such as ‘greater than’ or ‘does not equal’ whereas Value(s) is a value that you enter and can be a date or a cost for example, but you could enter a predetermined value instead, such as a baseline cost for example.
Here is an example filter that I have just created in order to filter out any task that is above 50% complete AND whose actual cost is still below (less than) the planned baseline cost (you could have just used one row to define your filter if required):
Note above that I have checked the Show related summary rows, so that the filter ALSO shows any summary bars that the filtered task relates to, and that I have asked this new filter name to be added to the choices of the original filter list by checking the Show in menu box.
Here is the resultant view when choosing that filter:
Click on the [No Filter] menu selection to return to your full non-filtered view.
Don’t forget to Save your file before closing it if you want to retain your new filter for future use.
[thrive_link color=’orange’ link=’https://www.projex.com/courses/microsoft-project/’ target=’_self’ size=’medium’ align=’aligncenter’]Microsoft Project Masterclass[/thrive_link]
