1 00:00:00,04 --> 00:00:02,09 - [Instructor] So now that we know how to use Excel tables, 2 00:00:02,09 --> 00:00:05,06 let's talk about what types of things we want to track. 3 00:00:05,06 --> 00:00:06,08 Now, you don't want to put everything 4 00:00:06,08 --> 00:00:08,08 in your Project Management table 5 00:00:08,08 --> 00:00:11,03 because there's going to be too much data, 6 00:00:11,03 --> 00:00:13,03 and some things just aren't relevant. 7 00:00:13,03 --> 00:00:15,00 The best part about an Excel table 8 00:00:15,00 --> 00:00:17,06 is that it has a lot of the things that we really want 9 00:00:17,06 --> 00:00:18,07 already built in. 10 00:00:18,07 --> 00:00:20,06 So let me show you. 11 00:00:20,06 --> 00:00:23,01 Go ahead and place your cursor on cell A3. 12 00:00:23,01 --> 00:00:24,04 You're going to type in a 2 here. 13 00:00:24,04 --> 00:00:25,09 The table's going to automatically grow. 14 00:00:25,09 --> 00:00:29,00 So your project ID is a numeric field, and we like that. 15 00:00:29,00 --> 00:00:31,05 We usually want some sort of unique identifier 16 00:00:31,05 --> 00:00:32,06 for each project. 17 00:00:32,06 --> 00:00:34,02 And then under task description, 18 00:00:34,02 --> 00:00:39,03 I want you to type in Project Execution. 19 00:00:39,03 --> 00:00:41,05 And under Assigned To, you can type in your name, 20 00:00:41,05 --> 00:00:45,00 and under the Date, you can put a date like the one above. 21 00:00:45,00 --> 00:00:50,04 So we'll do May 1st, 2024. 22 00:00:50,04 --> 00:00:51,07 And then if you feel like it, 23 00:00:51,07 --> 00:00:52,08 you can put in today's date 24 00:00:52,08 --> 00:00:55,05 or just something that has a sufficient amount of time 25 00:00:55,05 --> 00:00:57,01 after that start date. 26 00:00:57,01 --> 00:00:59,00 And then finally, we can add comments. 27 00:00:59,00 --> 00:01:01,00 Project will be executed. 28 00:01:01,00 --> 00:01:03,03 Ideally, you would do a better job 29 00:01:03,03 --> 00:01:04,08 putting those comments in. 30 00:01:04,08 --> 00:01:07,01 You do something a little bit more specific. 31 00:01:07,01 --> 00:01:10,01 Okay, so if we take a look at what's in this table, 32 00:01:10,01 --> 00:01:11,06 we have categorical data. 33 00:01:11,06 --> 00:01:12,09 That's who it is assigned to. 34 00:01:12,09 --> 00:01:15,06 We have text fields that explains comments. 35 00:01:15,06 --> 00:01:17,01 We have date fields, beginning and end, 36 00:01:17,01 --> 00:01:18,06 very important for a project. 37 00:01:18,06 --> 00:01:21,05 And then we also have numeric fields, like the project ID. 38 00:01:21,05 --> 00:01:25,03 Now, there's a additional type of numeric field 39 00:01:25,03 --> 00:01:26,02 that I want to show you, 40 00:01:26,02 --> 00:01:27,03 and this is really important, 41 00:01:27,03 --> 00:01:29,07 and Tables take care of this for us. 42 00:01:29,07 --> 00:01:36,00 So in cell G1, I want you to type in Days Between. 43 00:01:36,00 --> 00:01:37,08 Like that, and you see it automatically creates 44 00:01:37,08 --> 00:01:38,08 a new column. 45 00:01:38,08 --> 00:01:39,07 And then what we're going to do 46 00:01:39,07 --> 00:01:41,06 is we're going to type in equals in cell G2, 47 00:01:41,06 --> 00:01:43,02 we're going to select End Date. 48 00:01:43,02 --> 00:01:46,06 Note that this pops up with table structure syntax, 49 00:01:46,06 --> 00:01:47,04 that's what this is called. 50 00:01:47,04 --> 00:01:49,02 So you see it's End Date minus Start Date 51 00:01:49,02 --> 00:01:51,00 versus cell references. 52 00:01:51,00 --> 00:01:52,07 And you also note the @ symbol here. 53 00:01:52,07 --> 00:01:54,04 That means at this record. 54 00:01:54,04 --> 00:01:55,03 So when I hit Enter, 55 00:01:55,03 --> 00:01:57,06 it's just going to do that for each record. 56 00:01:57,06 --> 00:01:59,09 And you can see that it made a little lightning bolt here 57 00:01:59,09 --> 00:02:01,08 to let us know that it did that. 58 00:02:01,08 --> 00:02:04,00 So that's the type of information we want to store on a table. 59 00:02:04,00 --> 00:02:05,01 And in particular, 60 00:02:05,01 --> 00:02:08,01 we are going to use these calculated columns a lot 61 00:02:08,01 --> 00:02:09,07 to come up with our different metrics 62 00:02:09,07 --> 00:02:12,04 to understand how our projects are going. 63 00:02:12,04 --> 00:02:13,08 Now, before I move on, 64 00:02:13,08 --> 00:02:16,07 I just want to give a very simple discussion 65 00:02:16,07 --> 00:02:18,08 about going down versus going long. 66 00:02:18,08 --> 00:02:20,01 So what does that mean? 67 00:02:20,01 --> 00:02:22,00 Right now, our table is building down. 68 00:02:22,00 --> 00:02:25,04 So we have a project ID here that says 1 or 2, 69 00:02:25,04 --> 00:02:27,01 but in a certain sense, 70 00:02:27,01 --> 00:02:28,03 we define the project scope, 71 00:02:28,03 --> 00:02:30,05 and then project execution is next. 72 00:02:30,05 --> 00:02:32,00 So, in this case, 73 00:02:32,00 --> 00:02:34,00 both of these are actually referring 74 00:02:34,00 --> 00:02:37,00 to projects that are part of a bigger plan. 75 00:02:37,00 --> 00:02:39,03 So you do one sequentially after another. 76 00:02:39,03 --> 00:02:40,06 Some people might consider that 77 00:02:40,06 --> 00:02:42,03 all part of the same project, right? 78 00:02:42,03 --> 00:02:43,05 So in this case, 79 00:02:43,05 --> 00:02:46,03 the data that we're working with is going down, right? 80 00:02:46,03 --> 00:02:48,04 So even though these are referring 81 00:02:48,04 --> 00:02:50,05 to steps in a larger project 82 00:02:50,05 --> 00:02:52,07 and are themselves smaller projects, 83 00:02:52,07 --> 00:02:54,03 the way we understand that 84 00:02:54,03 --> 00:02:56,06 is that each project gets its own line. 85 00:02:56,06 --> 00:02:58,08 So that's one way to do this work. 86 00:02:58,08 --> 00:03:00,09 Another way is to go long, 87 00:03:00,09 --> 00:03:02,04 in which case you have one project 88 00:03:02,04 --> 00:03:06,06 and then each one of these steps is defined as a column. 89 00:03:06,06 --> 00:03:08,06 Now, which one is better? 90 00:03:08,06 --> 00:03:10,04 In general, going down is better, 91 00:03:10,04 --> 00:03:13,01 and then you would add some sort of other unique identifier 92 00:03:13,01 --> 00:03:15,09 just to indicate that it was part of the same project. 93 00:03:15,09 --> 00:03:17,07 Going long is just a lot harder 94 00:03:17,07 --> 00:03:21,06 because if you wanted to understand the start dates overall 95 00:03:21,06 --> 00:03:22,07 and you wanted to analyze them, 96 00:03:22,07 --> 00:03:24,09 you'd have to analyze two different columns. 97 00:03:24,09 --> 00:03:25,09 Whereas when you go down, 98 00:03:25,09 --> 00:03:28,05 you only have to analyze one column. 99 00:03:28,05 --> 00:03:31,02 In some instances, it'll just make more sense to go long. 100 00:03:31,02 --> 00:03:32,07 But for the rest of this course, 101 00:03:32,07 --> 00:03:34,02 we're generally going to go down 102 00:03:34,02 --> 00:03:37,06 as we add more projects to our table. 103 00:03:37,06 --> 00:03:40,06 Well, now that we know how to identify project metadata 104 00:03:40,06 --> 00:03:41,07 and to track it, 105 00:03:41,07 --> 00:03:42,06 in our next video, 106 00:03:42,06 --> 00:03:45,03 we're going to talk about how to identify risks and trends. 107 00:03:45,03 --> 00:03:47,00 I'll see you there.