About me

Nenad Trajkovski was born in Zagreb in 1963. year. After completion of Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Nenad has started on the development and implementation of enterprise systems (ERP) in companies of various areas (banks, card houses, production companies, auto industry, wholesale businesses, oil companies, and others). He has extensive experience in working with business processes, people and knowledge in information technology and financial accounting activities. Currently, Nenad works as a consultant for the implementation of business systems, and as Project Manager. He is trainer for Project Management and Risk Management in Microsoft Innovation Center in Varaždin. At WinDays08 conference he has been declared as the best speaker, and his session as the best one. He was among TOP 10 speakers in the Microsoft Sinergija 2009 and at the Microsoft Vzija 2009. Shared first place as the best lecturer at KulenDays 2009 and the PMI Forum 2009 in Zagreb. Regular speaker at the Microsoft Community. On WinDays10 conference Nenad was among the top three speakers; at the conference Microsoft Vision 9 in Skopje between the top 5 speakers as well as on Microsoft Synergy 11 which was held in Belgrade. Certified Accountant, PMP (Project Manager Professional), PMI – RMP (Risk Manager Professional), MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional), MCTS – Microsoft Project 2010 (Microsoft Certified Technical PRofessional).  and MCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer).

71 Responses to About me

  1. Wally Galster says:

    Hello.This post was extremely interesting, particularly since I was searching for thoughts on this topic last Saturday.

  2. Tvrtko says:

    Pozdrav
    Hvala na odličnim člancima povezanim s Project Management i MS Project.
    Imao bih samo primjedbu na kategoriziranje članaka pošto primjećujem da svi članci spadaju pod sve kategorije te mi je osobno teško pratiti sadržaj.

  3. Guenter de Vincent says:

    Hello Nenad

    I have a strange problem with Project 2010 In my network diagram, all of the summary and milestone tasks have Start and Finish of 1/1/84, while the detail tasks have the right dates. The dates for the summaries and milestones are correct everywhere else – Task Information shows the right dates. The project does have a start date

    Günter de Vincent

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Hello Guenter!
      I tryed to simulate your situation, but everything work fine here. Would you be so kind and send me your project file (mpp) if you wish so I can examine what is happening! My email iz nenadtrajk@gmail.com

      Nenad Trajkovski

  4. Khurram Jamshed says:

    many congrats for getting MVP honour;
    trying my best to reach the same level, good luck;

  5. Nimmy fisher says:

    hi,
    loved your posts on the wedding project, with all the the nice tips in it.
    would like to download the sample file, but alas the link is returning a 404 massage.

    please send it for review….

    thank you

    Nimmy fisher

  6. murat says:

    Hello
    Do you have any idea about Sharepoint 2010 & Project 2010 integration ? because I could get over an error that
    Server Error in ‘/’ Application.
    Could not get the application proxy object
    Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

    Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: Could not get the application proxy object

    Source Error:

    [No relevant source lines]

    Source File: c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.0.cs Line: 0

    Stack Trace:

    [InvalidOperationException: Could not get the application proxy object]
    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.InternalGetProxy(Guid siteUid) +460
    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.InternalGetRoutingContext(String address, String& endpointUri, Guid siteUid) +140
    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Administration.RoutingContext.GetRoutingContext(String address, String& endpointUri, Guid siteUid) +31
    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.AuthenticationHelper.AuthenticateUserByName(String userName, Guid siteId) +123
    Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.AuthenticateUserForPWA(Boolean needToValidateUser, String username, Guid siteId) +398
    Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.AuthenticateUserForPWA(Boolean newCookie) +907
    Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.GetContext(Boolean isWebServiceCall, Boolean newCookie, Guid siteId, Nullable`1 zone, Boolean useCache) +695
    Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJContext.GetContext(Boolean isWebServiceCall, Boolean newCookie, Guid siteId, Nullable`1 zone) +92
    Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.PJBaseWebPartPage..ctor() +253
    ASP.DEFAULT_ASPX__1514027361..ctor() in c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.0.cs:0
    __ASP.FastObjectFactory_app_web_default_aspx__1514027361_bxuqorsx.Create_ASP_DEFAULT_ASPX__1514027361() in c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\683af5f7\fdf2ad00\App_Web_default.aspx_-1514027361.bxuqorsx.1.cs:0
    System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CreateInstanceFromVirtualPath(VirtualPath virtualPath, Type requiredBaseType, HttpContext context, Boolean allowCrossApp, Boolean noAssert) +138
    System.Web.UI.PageHandlerFactory.GetHandlerHelper(HttpContext context, String requestType, VirtualPath virtualPath, String physicalPath) +50
    System.Web.MaterializeHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +425
    System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +263

    Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.5448; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.5456

    Thanks

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Everything works fine here! I thik you sholud ask your administrator, because I think that is problem for him. Sorry I couldn’t help!

  7. Randy R. Johns says:

    Hello Nenad,

    I read your blog about entering costs by task to track cost to budget variances. The project I am working on is for software implementation. My project gives me a budget by application so for example I have $50,000 to buy and implement AutoCAD across multiple locations. Can I set up a budget for the summary task called AutoCAD Implementation and then track costs by task against the overall project budget of $50,000? I am not new to MS Project but I am new to MS Project 2010. Thanks!

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Hello Randy! Budgeted Resources can be assigned only to PROJECT SUMMARY TASK, but not to Summary Task. If you want to assign Budget to your Sumarry Task you should use custom fields.
      Please read these posts:
      http://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/setting-up-the-project-budget/
      http://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/creating-own-budget-in-ms-project-2010part-1/
      http://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/creating-own-budget-in-ms-project-2010part-2/

      If it does not help, let me know. You can always send me an e-mail to nenadtrajk@gmail.com

  8. jesie says:

    Hi Nenad, i’m thinking of leveling up my career from project engineer into project manager and it was inspired to read your blog. Hope i can dive into your blog. Thanks, jesie

  9. marwan says:

    Hi Nenad,
    I really find your plog very informative about MS project,i actually copied all the posts in my pc..I hope you can help me with this..Is there any way I can remove or costmize the Colour Key at the bottom of the page and insert a table shows the originator and reviewer and the approver and the date. Also I want to show the project title which is too long for the allocated space.
    thanks

  10. Janish Mathew says:

    Hi Nenad,
    Thank you so much for writing this blog. Excellent work.
    I was reading this article – How to apply Overtime, and Double time rates in MS PROJECT 2010.
    After calculating the costing for work and overtime work, I baselined the task and then did tried to do the actuals in the task usage sheet. I did this to check the actual cost and actual overtime cost.

    I was able to enter the actual work (hrs) for each day and was not able to do actual overtime work (hrs). Would you be able to assist as how to feed the actual overtime work in the task usage sheet.

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Hi,

      Please, find answers here: http://ntrajkovski.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/how-to-track-actual-overtime-work-in-ms-project-2010/
      If you have any further question, do not hesisate to contact me.

      Regards,

  11. Reinforcements have arrived! says:

    Hello Nenad!

    Finally found some spare time to check your blog. I am pleasantly surprised with what I see. A lot of useful and detailed information. Keep up the good work.

    Regards … Vladimir

  12. Recep says:

    Hello Mr. Nenad,
    Firstly thank you soooo much for this blog.
    Could you share with us making a study of approval workflow?
    Thanks, Recep

  13. Nicola says:

    Hi Nenad,
    After spending hours trying to resolve a very obscure Calendar issue within MS Project, I am thankful to say that your blog very quickly lead me to identifying the casue of the issue and resolving it! I shall be referring back to it again. Thanks!

  14. luke says:

    Can you help me on recurring tasks problem:
    Assume a recurring task “A” is defined: weekly, every monday, duration 1h.
    If no actuals are reported in the timesheet for “A 1″, will “A 1″ be visible in th enext week timesheet as well in parallel to “A 2″ or will just “A 2″ be visible?
    Thanks a lot for any help!

  15. George SINGER says:

    What type of resource is a software application, e.g., Solidworks?

  16. Frank says:

    Hi Nenad!
    Thank you for your great blog – it’s really helpful!!

    I can’t solve this problem:
    “The task Distribute Boxes will be scheduled according to the task, when the computers are to be disconnected. Boxes will be distributed 5 days before the first computer is disconnected. Enter a task relationship to reflect this.”
    On the Gantt-chard in the solution I can see the “link-arrow” pointing backwards. I have tried “Start-to-start! -5 days on the Computer-task, but it didn’t work out.

    Best wishes from Denmark!

  17. kelechi says:

    Hello Nenad, You are amazing at what you do, I’m a project planner/scheduler for about 5 years now but i still had a lot to learn from your blog. Please keep up the good work.

  18. Brain says:

    A word of praise. It’s not all too easy to find project management exercises revolving around Project 2010 on the net… a job well done!

  19. Peter says:

    Hello Nedad, thanks a lot for the info you are displaying here. I’m not sure if the following can be adchieved with MSproject2010. As some other department (dispatch) of my company is using a tool just for scheduling multiple resources I was wondering if msproject is able to deliver some kind of report showing only dates a resources should work on a certain task. For example if resource A is planned on task A for a duration of 10 days I do not want the report showing dates the resource doesn’t work (like weekends, holidays, execptions recorded in the resource calender etc…). Would this be possible, and if so, can I export this report to excel? This would make the live of dispatch much easier as the do not understand the way msproject works.

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      you can use “who does what” report, or “who dose what when”, or “Resource usage” Report! You can not pput them in Excel! You can try with some Visual Reports as well!

  20. chaitanya chakravarthi gali says:

    Dear Nenad Trajkovski
    your database on MS projects really kick minds off and your tenacity quite remarkable, i do would like to have some classes you might help me out. If you do have any videos of the lectures on start till the end of the projects with multiple advises will be so beneficial in the professional way and it will be so encouraging to the trainees of project management to really kick start off …..
    if do: mail me the website or any posts to my mail…..g.ch.chakravarthi@gmail.com
    Regards …

  21. peter says:

    Good morning, Sir.

    I would like to ask for your instruction on configuring and setting dashboard, and reporting services for BI center. I tried to follow some instructions from Microsoft website, but couldn’t understand all of it. If you know some resources or websites that give us detail instructions or step-by-step configuration with explanation, I will really appreciate it.

    Sincerely,

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      The best solution is to buy a book: Implementing and Administering Microsoft PRoject Server 2010 Second Edition FOR IMPLEMENTERS AND ADMINISTRATIONS By Gary L. Chefetz & Dale A. Howard-

      You will find anything you need in this book!

      Regards,
      Nenad

      • peter says:

        Hello Nenad, I had that book already, but there are some options within the instructions that they presented in the book that I couldn’t understand. For examples, the account that I have to set up for the excel services so all of my students can create the reports using BI center.

  22. Adel says:

    Hello Nenad

    Thanks a lot for your efforts, really helpful. do you have these topic in a book like PDF file. please help

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Hi Adel,

      I’am wrting a book “MS PROJECT 2013 Tips and Tricks” and it will be available (I hope), before summer this year!

  23. Janusz says:

    Good morning,
    Your blog is a very help full please for me to search information about real help for MS Project.
    I would like to ask You a question. I know that You have already solution ;-)

    I’m using Project Pro 2013 (for a 10 projects) and I’m connecting them into SharePoint (foundation). For me it is excellent: I use MS project, see all projects, tasks, have one resource pool ….

    But for a workers which are using SharePoint as a place to see what they need to do (that kind of task they have) it is a problem. Imagine one person (Sysadmin). Each week he need to go to each project in SharePoint and check task for him. A really nightmare in to go for each subtask inside projects to see todolist.

    The question is (maybe) for a SharePoint ….
    1) How worker (which is working in 10 projects) can see all task for him in a project’s.
    2) Or it will be enough how to see all task for one project – without going inside for all of subtasks.

    Thank You in advance for Your help.

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Hmmmm…. I will suggest to use Project Server! what do you think?

      • Janusz says:

        I know that this should be so, but I have no chance;-(
        The only thing I was able to convince management to buy MS Project 2013 for me as a project manager.

  24. Kevin H says:

    Hi, You have some great Project info here that I have not seen anywhere else. So I have a MS Project 2010 question for you:

    How late is Bill?

    I have a project plan that I am tracking, and I can easily see what tasks are late/on time/early.

    However, how do I do this for resources? Or to put it another way: “Is Bill late?”

    Let me give an example:

    I set up a simple project. My resource, Bill, has 5 tasks of 5 days each. We are about half way through the project so, in theory task 1 and 2 and half of task 3 should be done. Tasks 4 and 5 should not have not been started yet.

    However in reality Bill has actually done 2 days on each task since the tasks are not dependant on each other, just assigned to bill sequentially.

    I can manually add this up to 10 days of booked time. And since we know 12 days of the project have passed, I can see that Bill is 2 days late on what I expected, or running at 83% of plan (10 days / 12 days).

    But how do I get MS Project to do this for me?

    I can go to the resource sheet and see that Bill had 10 days of ‘Actual work’. But no-where can I find the value ‘Days since start of project’, or some other laps time equivalent.

    Is there any way to get this data? Is there any other way to work out how late Bill is?

    This question has been vexing me for ages so I hope you can shed some light on it.
    Thanks
    Kevin

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      You can do it with puitting Actual start an Actual Finish date for the task, and then compare that with previous saved Baseline, or you can make a custom field(s) to calculate how late are Tasks!

  25. Dieter says:

    Good morning Nenad,

    just a little question: i am working on a Project plan and i will use several technicians as resources. But how to set up a Team of them to avoid overload? E.g. Network Team: 3x People Tick, Trick and Track, rollout Team Tic, Tac and Toe. They are external and internal workers so there will be no AD assignment. Any idea? ( I am using Project Pro 2013)
    Regards,
    Dieter

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      you can use generic resources like Network team with 300% units, and rollout team as well!

      • Kevin H says:

        Hi Nenad, Yes I understand how to do it for a task, it is working out if a resource is late that I am struggling with. On the resource sheet (rather than the task sheet) I can add ‘Actual Work’. And that includes all of the work tracked on that resource. But I can’t find out ‘expected work up to today’ that would then allow me add a new field with the calculation in that I want.
        I have been trying to do it via cost by using Schedule variance (sv), but that only included cost up to today (or the status date). It does not include any tracked days to the right of today.

      • Nenad Trajkovski says:

        Maybe to try VBA Script? don’t ask me how, but that might be a solution!

  26. Kevin H says:

    Yes, someone else suggested exporting to Excel and analysing it there. The thing that puzzles me is this seems such a fundamental question to project management (in general) that I can’t believe that there is not a solution. My boss is always asking ‘is bill late’ and I can only guestimate an answer, I can show him.

  27. Ivan says:

    Hi Nenad,
    I am looking for a way to have a resource team have a set number of hours they can work in a month, so that every time a resource is assigned to a task it subtracts away from the monthly available hours. Is there any way to set this up in MS Project 2013?
    Thanks,
    Ivan

  28. Pedro S says:

    How can I report the following?
    imagine two objectives that could be cover with a stacked bar:
    in the x line would be calendar (hours, days, weeks, whatever) and in y would be the resources names (John, Robert, etc), finally the stacked bar for each resource would show in which tasks are working the resources (with task name or colors to distinguish between the tasks) – this to know as to when the work resources are available and in which tasks are the resources working so that a next task can be assigned or to move an efficient resource to a other task.

  29. James says:

    Hi. I was wondering if MS Project Server would enable us to manage around 400 to 500 unrelated projects at one time? We need to query certain tasks on these projects. Could we query a specific task among the 500 unrelated projects? For example, one task might be assigned to a Division or Section. Also, how could we easily find the right project number in the sea of projects?

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      Yes you can. And a project number can be used via Lookup toble and a custom field if you like this way!

      • James says:

        Very good, Thank you. Another question, can a set of data related to a project number such as project description, length, PCN, etc. be automatically uploaded from another data base into MS Project? If so, could it be made to work somewhat seemlessly so that each time you open MS Project, it would contain the new project numbers? Or would new project numbers need to be set up in MS Project? We are constantly creating new project numbers or pushing them out to a holding tank or moving to different bid openings. The project numbers and related project data need to be shared with a cost estimating program. So we need one source for the basic project information to share with other programs.

      • Nenad Trajkovski says:

        Hmmm, importing from another database in MS PROJECT is not Recomended! Databases provided are explained here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc973099(v=office.14).aspx
        So, be very careful to protect PRoject Server for crashing, by using the Report Database only!

        Regards,

  30. James says:

    Could an interface or program be built to connect a data base containing basic project information with MS Project? If so, how much effort? How reliable? Would not be loading templates, only would be loading basic project information. Also, would you be willing to have a teleconference for some Q/A?

  31. Volker Sonnabend says:

    Hello,
    short question: You have 2 tasks which own different task calenders (STandard 5day and 7day calender). They are connected FS and have a lag, lets say 5 days. Which calender does the lag use? Seems like that MS Project uses for the lag the calender of the successor. Correct? Is there any setting under options to define this for the whole project (like in primavera)? What is the idea behind it of MS Project (i suppose there is one)?

    Thanks a lot.

    Volker

  32. Thanh Ha Nguyen says:

    Hi Nenad, I am new student in project management. I am so happy to find you i cyberspace – MS Project professor.
    Today I have had 4 hours with MS Project 2010 taught by a norwegian project manager. It was just enough to know what MS Project is. So I have to learn by my selv. I will be your student for the next several months, mostly just reading your lectures and not able to ask you yes. A faithful student

  33. Volker Sonnabend says:

    Hello Nenad,
    i have a question regarding highlighting tasks. Suppose we have a construction project and different task owners, that means lets say 3 task owners who are responsible for their tasks (for example: project owner, project control and architect). To show the responsibilities in the gantt table you could built a user-defined text field called “responsible” with a look-up-table. In the coulumn “responsible” you could choose for every task the corresponding task owner.
    Is there a way to do that graphically too, like automaticallyhighlighting the tasks in the gantt table with different coulours (background colours or/and font colours) corresponding with their task owner (for example all tasks with architekt are blue, all tasks with project control are green)? Maybe using a filter or a formula?

    thanks for considering my question.
    Volker

  34. Peter says:

    Good morning, Sir.

    I have a slight problem with my project. For some tasks the cost of one resource for tasks is 0$. We have the resource standard rate is 75$/hr for that resource in Resource Center section.
    When I tried to create new sample task such as “paint the wall “with the same resource, we assign 1 day of work, and the cost is show up for 600$.

    So what is the reason for the missing cost-tasks? and How can we fix it?

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      When you have a standard rate for the Resource you can not for some task make different cost (or 0$)! Whar you can do is make a different cost rate (for example, Table B with 0$), and that will fix your problem!

  35. Kay says:

    Your blog is a great help to me daily! I just want to let you know.
    I’m a PM at a construction company and new challenges are thrown my way all the time. Your blog has pulled me out of some tough situations.
    Thanks so much and keep it up!

  36. john Becker says:

    Nenad,

    I am working with a small company that is putting off acquiring an ERP system. The company’s key constraint is it’s engineering department. Today, it has no means of looking at its man loading to understand the total demand for it’s staff. Consequently almost everything is late.

    The company uses a rudimentary PDM system with an embedded work flow to track engineering activities. The department is work 30 – 40 small projects at one time. Most project are executed with 2 -4 people, last 4 weeks or less and have 6 of less tasks. I am considering using MS Project as a way of tracking work and forecasting workloads. I would create a project for each engineering activity.

    A few questions:

    1) Based on what I have read, I will need to use MS Project Server to make this work. Is this true?
    2) I will have to create an individual project that shares a common resource table in order to use the embedded resource analysis tool in MS Project. Is this true?
    3) What version will I need to accomplish my goal? The company currently uses MS Project 2007?
    4) I want to map data from the PDM work flow and or File Maker to MS Project that facilitate the creation of MS Project tasks and durations. Have you had look using VB to map data into MS Project?
    5) Have you heard of the use of Project for this purpose? If so, are you aware of any best practices or lessons learned?

    Your thoughts would be appreciated.

    • Nenad Trajkovski says:

      1) You can use MS PROJECT SERVER if you can afford it. Or You can use PROJECT PROFESSIONAL with RESORCE POOL (max resource in pool is 50)
      2) If you use only MS PROJECT PRO, than answer is YES!
      3) MS PROJECT 2013 is best!
      4) You can make your own workflows in MS PROJECT SERVER!
      5) I heard about this but I didn’t use that!

  37. john Becker says:

    Thanks for taking the time to reply and for your insights.

  38. chaitanya chakravarthi gali says:

    Dear Nenad,
    Today it’s real tough for me to manage my projects (2010)
    hope you’ll find the solution for my head break
    1. my question is weather i can share the resources between multiple projects
    2. If do,can i get the resource tasks (i.e. pending tasks, completed tasks and ongoing tasks) of all projects in a single sheet of particular resource.
    Please provide me the solution in your window it will be so help full.
    Best regards,
    Chaitanya

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