Project Planning and Scheduling Using Primavera Contractor Version 4.1

This book is may be used for learning Primavera 4.1 - for IT Project Office and New Product Development software as either: a self teach book, or a userguide, or a training manual for a two day training course. The book is aimed at: project management companies in industries such as IT, Banking and Marketing, who wish to run their own software training courses or provide their employees with an alternative text to the vendor supplied user manual; training organizations who require a training manual to run their own training courses; people who wish learn the software but are unable to attend a training course but find the software manual reference manual hard going. A user guide written for Project Management Professionals in any industry who wish to learn or improve their Planning and Control skills using Microsoft Project in conjunction with the PRINCE2 Project Management Pethodology and discover how to get the most out of the software up to an intermediate level. This book was written using Microsoft Project 2003 but may be used with Microsoft Project 2000 and 2002 and the differences in the versions are outlined in the book.
This book was written for people learning to use Primavera Contractor Version 4.1, an upgrade of Primavera Enterprise P3e & P3e/c. Primavera Contractor differs from other Primavera versions as it creates projects in a single project environment rather than an established Enterprise environment, with the option of assigning Resources only (Roles are not available). This book tackles the difficult issues of how the software calculates with the different options which are often not addressed in the Reference Manual supplied with the software.
The book provides advice on how on how these options may be applied to projects environments and it aims to teach readers how to plan and progress projects created within the software package and stays focused on explaining how to use Primavera Contractor to schedule projects by: concentrating on the core functions required to plan and schedule a project in a single project environment; providing command lists at the start of each chapter as a quick reference; omitting advice on project management methodology and/ or theory, which the target audience may not be interested in, and would tend to pad the book out; providing a comprehensive index of all topics. This publication is ideal for a person who would like to quickly gain an understanding of how the software operates and explains how the software differs from Primavera - Team Play P3e and P3e/c, SureTrak, P3 and Microsoft Project, thus making it ideal for people who wish to convert from other products. The book was written so it may be used as: a training manual for a two day training course, or a self teach book, or a user guide/reference book.
Training organisations or companies who wish to conduct their own training may have the book tailored to suit their requirements. This may be achieved by removing, reordering or adding content to the book and by writing their own exercises. Please contact the author to discuss this service. As a project controls consultant I have used a number of planning and scheduling software packages for the management of a range of project types and sizes. The first books I published were user guides/training manuals for Primavera SureTrak, P3 and Microsoft Project users. These were well received by professional project managers and schedulers, so I decided to turn my attention to Primavera Enterprise. This book follows the same proven layout of my previous books. I trust this book will assist you in understanding how to use Primavera Contractor on your projects.