Seven Reasons to Take a Look at Microsoft Project 2007

So you’re perfectly happy with Microsoft Project 2003 and you can’t think of any good reason to splurge on an upgrade to Microsoft Project 2007. You may want to give it a little more thought because, according to Special Edition: Using Microsoft Project 2007 (ISBN 0-7897-3652-7) by QuantumPM, LLC (Que Publishing), there are seven new features that might make Microsoft Project 2007 worth your money:

Multiple Undo – The Multiple Undo feature is one of the most exciting additions to Microsoft Project 2007. It allows you to backtrack through recent changes or undo the most recent series of changes at once.

Change Highlighting – When you make a change to a project, the Change Highlighting      feature calls your attention to all fields affected by the change. Project managers can now see the impact of the change as it ripples through the tasks in the project.

Visual Reports – Reports have always been an excellent way to examine and share data in Project. New to 2007 are visual reports, which display project information in visual charts, tables or diagrams.

Task Drivers – The Task Drivers feature opens a pane on the left side of the screen that displays information that impacts, or drives, the selected task.

Cost Resource Type – The cost resource type enables users to identify specific fixed costs on a task, such as travel expenses or delivery charges for materials.

Budget Resource – The budget resource feature allows the project manager to define budget at the summary-level task to represent capital budget or overall approved budget for the project

3-D Gantt Chart Display – Three-dimensional display of the taskbars in the Gantt Chart view makes the Gantt Chart view more visually appealing and eye-catching, especially when printed to show as a report.