Question about enhancing the appearance of a roadmap in MS Project Online

[meperlman]

I created a few projects in MS Project online. Then I created a roadmap based on these projects. All of this was easy to do and worked fine. My manager asked me if I can enhance the view of the roadmap. For example, use different colors for some tasks. Make bolder lines to divide each row that represents a project. Increase the size of the font to emphasize the year that is viewed. I can't see anyway to make these changes. Am I correct or is there a way to do these? Thank you.

Michael

[#2]

meperlman --

The Roadmap app is very simple, and is primarily aimed at showing projects from multiple Microsoft PM applications, such as from Project Online and Project for the Web. Because it is so simple, as you have found, there is no way to format it.

On the other hand, if you are reporting on projects and tasks from Project Online, a much better application for you would be to set up the Timeline view at the top of the Project Center page in PWA. Since the Timeline is a more powerful version of Roadmap, you can format your custom Timeline view. Just a thought. Hope this helps.

[#3]

Thank you! That is very helpful!

[#4]

@Dale_HowardMVP, thank you again for your follow up! I am not an administrator in our version of Microsoft Online and don't have access to PWA. So I sent an email to the person who is our administrator and requested that he set up the Timeline view at the top of the Project Center page in PWA for me. That probably won't happen until tomorrow. I did look at YouTube videos of using timelines and it certainly has more features to improve the display of the timeline. But the video is showing a full blown version of MS Project. The version of MS Project online I have seen clearly does not have this timeline feature, so I am interested to see how this will work out once I get access to the Timeline view with MS Online.

Michael

[#5]

meperlman --

The Timeline view in Project Web App has most of the features of the Timeline view found in the Microsoft Project desktop application. However, I doubt anyone has done a YouTube video on using the Timeline view in PWA. Your Project Online application administrator should be able to create a Timeline view at the top of the Project Center page that will meet your specifications. He/she needs to add you to the Project Managers security group in PWA so that you can access the system.

Project Web App, by the way, is the web-based user interface to Project Online. Hope this helps.

[#6]

Dale,
Thanks for the additional detail! I am still trying to get access to PWA. I will let you know when I can get there and look around.
Michael

[#7]

@meperlman - It just dawned on me that even though you said you are using Project Online, you might actually be using Project for the Web.  When you created your projects, did you use a web-based user interface that looks something like this?

If yes, you are using Project for the Web and NOT Project Online.  And in that case, you can disregard my comments about Project Web App and the Timeline view in the Project Center page.  The answer to your question is that you cannot apply much in the way of formatting to the Roadmap application.  Hope this helps.

[#8]

Dale, you are correct, I was using Project for the Web and the project does look like the image you show. So, I should use Project Online instead? How do you get access to Project Online so that I can create the MS project there? If I have access to PWA will that give me access to Project Online?

Michael

[#9]

meperlman --

First of all, you would need to have a Project Plan 3 license or higher. And second, someone in your organization would need to create the Project Online instance and then configure it for use. And third, you would need to install the Microsoft Project desktop application. My advice? Just keep using Project for the Web and the Roadmap application. Hope this helps.

[#10]

Dale,
Actually, my organization had the Project Plan 3 license and just upgraded to Project Plan 5. I have the Microsoft Project desktop application in my workspace in AWS. So, I need someone in my organization to create the Project Online instance and configure it for use. Sounds like I can then use Project Online to create a timeline and use as a roadmap. I would then need the other project managers to create their respective project plans in project online. Then we could have a roadmap across projects. Sounds like a plan?

Michael

[#11]

Michael --

Your plan would work. Go for it, my friend! 🙂

[#12]

I have had access to Microsoft Project Online for a while. I can see how to create a timeline across projects, but each row in the timeline is at the project level, not at the task level within the project. Separately, if I go into an individual project, I can create a timeline at the task level, but only for that one project. The only was I can see to view selected tasks across projects is to use the roadmap. But the roadmap has very limited ability to change color and format properly. Am I missing something? Also, I don't see any good guides or you tube videos on doing this. Any suggestions? Thank you.

[#13]

Hello @meperlman ,

You are not missing anything, Roadmap doesn't not support any configuration options, it is a simple visualization tool to visualize projects (Project Online, Project for the Web and Azure Boards) with a row per project. Some blog posts that might help: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/project-roadmap-cds-app-overview-ppm-projectmanagement-msp... 

https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/05/27/sync-msproject-roadmap-row-item-status-with-projectonline-... 

Paul