Akram Najjar 
How to Track Schedules, Costs and Earned Value with Microsoft Project 

Microsoft Project hits a steep learning curve climb when the project manager starts tracking the actual values of schedules, costs and analyzing earned value. It has a wide range of options to be configured. These affect one another, sometimes in drastic ways, and hence your results. You need to setup pre-requisites before you can track and control execution.Secondly, although Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is available out of the box, its use requires elaborate procedures and reporting functions. Both schedule and cost reporting as well as EVA fall under the "tracking" activities a PM has to address during the complex task of project execution. (Planning a project is presented in a companion e Book by the author: Click Here).This e Book concentrates on tracking, only, i.e., all execution activities that commence after the approval of a project plan. Procedures presented in terms of focused workouts are provided to allow you as the PM to track schedules and costs. These are tracked at both the Task and the Assignment levels. Material and Cost assignments also tackled. Each of these procedures requires elaborate "dancing" through the options provided by Microsoft Project. These are discussed in detail. Related facilities such as progress lines, updating groups of tasks and baselines are also addressed. 39 Workouts are presented in a step by step fashion, supported by screen captures. The download also contains a good number of useful templates and supporting documents.