From: RLAG10@email.sps.mot.com (Gary Gavlick)
Subject: Re: MicroSoft Project Questions
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.apps
Organization: Motorola SPS, Analog Automotive
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:42:29 GMT

In article <lims01.lerc.nasa.gov-040193111405@machine106.lerc.nasa.gov>,
lims01.lerc.nasa.gov (William Tsarones) wrote:
> 
> I am looking into buying MicroSoft Project but have no access to anyone
> that could give me a recommendation.
> 
> I need recommendations on whether this is a reliable and stable product,
> and how good you feel its project management features are.
> 
> Any comments about your experiences with MicroSoft Project--the good, the
> bad, and of course, the ugly, would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Please E-Mail responses. Thanks!
> 
> Bill Tsarones
> sctsar@lims01.lerc.nasa.gov

  I'm using M/S Project 1.0 and I'm not happy with it.  Before Project I
was using Timeline on an IBM.  I found Project easier to get started with
than Timeline but that could also be due to my experience from working with
Timeline.

  I'll list my complaints in no particular order.

 -- Visually Project looks very similar to Excel.  However, one cannot cut
and paste a cell like in Excel.  In Project selecting a cell and copying,
results in the entire row being copied which, to me, makes it almost
useless.

-- Changes made to the calendar (ie, add a holiday) after the project
schedule has been created will not always be reflected in the schedule. 
Say you change a a work day to a vacation day.  A task that was scheduled
to be worked on that day will not have another day added to it (it was
orignally June 1 - June 3 and it doesn't change to June 2 - June 4).  The
program does realize the inconsistency, though, and an error message of
"Late date scheduled before finish date" will flash every time you hit
enter.  I don't know how to make the schedule correct itself.  It has
always updated itself eventually but I cannot predict how long it will take
- very annoying.

--Changes made to the format of one project schedule gets reflected to all
other schedules.  You cannot have a different column width, format, layout,
etc. between different schedules, though, you can have different calendars
for each project.

--I do not like the arrangement of the screens on start-up but I have not
been able to find the way to change this.  Also every time you change the
view (change from GANTT Chart to PERT Chart or to RESOURCE Form) the
screens revert to the startup arrangement and I have to rearrange back to
my preference.

--Project does not calculate Actual duration.  One enters the estimated
start and finish dates and the planned duration is calculated.  If the
actual duration takes longer, however, Project still lists the planned
duration as the actual duration.

  Some caveats.  I am not a power user and some of my complaints may have
fixes I am not aware of.  I have also heard that Microsoft now has version
3.0 of Project and these problems could be corrected. (I read somewhere
that one should never buy version 1.0 of any Microsoft project and wait
till the bugs are worked out.)  The latest version could be heavenly but I
would try and get a copy and enter a schedule before buying (in other words
don't do what I did).      

------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Gavlick
Motorola, Semiconductor - Tempe, Arizona
"The opinions and views expressed here are solely my own and do not
necessarily represent those of Motorola."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps