Initially Published on July 11th, 2015 | Updated on Sept 9th, 2022

See the LinkedIn Pulse version of the article here at Using Indicator Symbols in Task/Resource Tables in Graphical Reports

Please first see Disclaimer section at the bottom. This document is related to the standalone desktop editions of MS Project Professional/Standard 2013 and later.

In this example, we will create a custom graphical report containing a task table that displays graphical indicators based on the values that a custom number field holds for the tasks in the active project plan (see the picture above). It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to create such a report, but that will be a one-time job. Then you can use the report for all the project plan files in your desktop. Let us start with creating the custom graphical report; follow the steps below:

Watch the video here. The project plan template used to test the custom graphical report at the end of the video demonstration has been obtained from the product website.

• Open a blank project plan. Do not save it.
• Create three tasks just by entering task names. We will populate the custom number field with values entered by typing in, but you can enter any formula to that field, for example, a formula interpreting variances according to certain thresholds in the schedule. Enter the values 1, 0 and -1 to the Number1 field for the tasks.
• Enter the following formulas to the task custom text fields Text27, Text28, Text29 and Text30, respectively:

Text27:           Left( [Name], 70 )

Text28:           iif( [Number1] > 0, "▲", "" )

Text29:           iif( [Number1] = 0, "▬", "" )

Text30:           iif( [Number1] < 0, "▼", "" )

 

Formulas.txt file contains the formulas.

 

• Insert those fields to the table in order to verify that formulas are working correctly.
• Open a blank report named “INDICATOR_DEMO” (REPORT | New Report | <select Blank> and enter the report name).
• In the report, create three tables as follows and set [Outline Level] to All Subtasks:

Table #1: a table with the fields Text27, Text28

Rename Text27 column as “Task Name” and reposition it as the 2^nd column, enter a proper width, such as 7 inches, in order to eliminate any text wrapping of the task names trimmed to 70 characters. Text wrapping will destroy the alignment of the rows.

Rename Text28 column as “Indicators” (it is now the 1^st column), align its content including the header to center, set the font color to green for the content, double-click the right border for best fitting.

Table #2: a table containing the field Text29

Table #3: a table containing the field Text30

Align content to center in both tables. Set the width of both tables to the width of the Indicators column in Table #1. In both tables; remove the headers by entering space and set style to the preset style “No Style, No Grid”.  In Table #3, set the font color to red in Text30’s column.

• Now reposition the transparent tables (that is, Table #2 and #3) to the same position as the first one (that is, Table #1). 
• Next split the view and show the Task Sheet view on the bottom pane; or open new windows (use <Shift+F11>) and arrange them. Then add new tasks, change Number1’s values in order to see how the indicator symbols change.
• Copy the custom text fields and the custom graphical report to the Global template and close the project plan without saving. The graphical report is now ready to use.

This is the Graphical Indicators dialog box for the task custom number field which displays indicators in the task table: