Use Excel to track your projects

Troy Chollar is a designer and the owner of TLC Creative Services, Inc., a multimedia and graphic design firm located in San Diego, CA. Troy is also a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Microsoft PowerPoint.

Many of Troy's clients require high quality, visually dynamic PowerPoint presentations.  Troy uses Microsoft Excel 2010 to track his company's design projects. Below is one example of how he has set up a worksheet to track multiple design elements in a project that are spread among three designers.

Above:

1. The worksheet is online, so anyone in the office can access it using Microsoft Excel Web App.
2. Rows 1 and 2 remain the same for all client worksheets. He generally adds more rows with specific design elements pertinent to the larger project.

Above:

1. Troy maintains a separate tab for each project, with the most recent project on top.
2. The 'Master' tab, shown here, is the template that he duplicates and renames for each new project.
3. Everyone in the office can review and update the worksheet - simultaneously! 

To download a copy of the template Troy uses, go here:  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=Joy+MIller&origin=FX101741961&AxInstalled=1&c=0%23ai%3ATC102382690#ai:TC102382690|

--Joy E. Miller

  Joy E. Miller is a writer for PowerPoint.