Microsoft Project was designed with the idea that one might need to set up subprojects, or projects within projects. Think of a set of manuals, or a company-wide reworking of hardware and software, or a movie (such as Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy). …
A fundamental aspect of Access databases is the setup of relationships between tables. It’s usually the nature of business databases to have them. So the actual creation of the relationship isn’t hard to do. But there are a couple of not-so-obvious things the user needs …
When Excel 2007 was introduced, the PivotTable Field List included a “Filter” area, where one could drop a field to use as a filter (for example, year, brand name, size, etc. from a block of sales data). If the user filtered for one year, or …
One small but important feature in MS Project is the Auto versus Manual Scheduling popup. It’s in the Status Bar at bottom. Here’s how it works: Manual Scheduling allows the user to control start date, finish date, and therefore, duration. And the program will not …
The term “normalization” gets thrown about quite a bit in database circles, to try to explain part of data organization. But it’s vague, to someone not acquainted with database-ese. The idea of making data “normal” is not too far from the meaning used by database …
Microsoft Project is fairly easy to use at the basic level–entering tasks and resources, assigning one to the other, scheduling. But there are a few parts of the program that can take a little practice to use comfortably. One of these is the checkmark in …
Working with Microsoft Access can be kind of intimidating when you start, especially because there seem to be so many details to absorb and keep track of. And even fairly experienced database people have to watch out for the little things. One which really drives …
One of the few parts of PowerPoint that isn’t quite intuitive is the Slide Master view. Getting to it is easy–go to the View tab–>Master Views group, and click Slide Master. Then it gets a little more complicated. To some people it looks as if …
…or, Some Ideas for Good PowerPoint Presentations There are people who believe the joke that says, “We have met the enemy, and he is PowerPoint.” I don’t think so. But it is true that some people, through no fault of their own, don’t know where …
One of my wife’s colleagues recently asked about whether it’s possible to track changes in an Excel spreadsheet. It certainly is, though it works a little differently than in Word, say. Turning the feature on in Excel is quite easy–simply go to the Review tab …