Free Microsoft Project Templates
Other project managers have been down the road you’re traveling. You can save a lot of time by building on their work — existing projects and templates — when setting up your new project.
- These Project Management Templates are FREE to download in commonly used Microsoft Office programs like Word, Excel, PPT and Visio. Most are also available in PDF format. They are used on real-world projects and are easy to edit and change for your specific project.
- Project Plan Template. Scope your work and break it down into manageable components; then schedule and assign the tasks needed to complete your project. You can also use this template to manage workloads and tasks as changes occur. A project plan template is the foundation of all the work you do in leadingRead More ».
Start with an existing project
Apr 25, 2018 Project management templates can make it much easier to get your project off the ground. Use our list of communication plan templates, project status report templates, and project charter templates to make it easier to manage your projects.
Open the project or template you want to use as the basis for the new project.
Click File > Info.
Under Project Information, change the project’s start date and finish date.
Click Save As and pick a new name and a new home for the project.
You can start working on your new project right away, but chances are you’ll need to clean up some of the existing project information before you do.
One way around this clean up work, especially if you want to use the old file to create more than one project, is to save the old project as a template. You have the option of stripping out all that progress information as you save it, leaving only tasks and resources behind.
Start with a template
Free Microsoft Project Plan Templates
Click File > New.
Search for templates in the box or click the template you want below.
In the preview dialog box, click Create.
Make sure that the resources, tasks, and durations in the template are right for your project. Of course, you’re now free to change them as you see fit.
These instructions are specific to Microsoft Project 2007.
Create a new project from a template
Project 2007 includes many default templates that you can use. Additional templates are available on Microsoft Office Online. If your organization has its own custom templates, it may store them on its corporate intranet. Follow these steps to access any of these templates.
On the File menu, click New.
In the New Project task pane, under Templates, click On computer.
- OR -
If your organization stores templates on a Web site, under Templates, click On Web sites.
Tip: Additional Office Project 2007 templates may be available on Microsoft Office Online. In the task pane, under Templates, click Templates on Office Online.
In the Templates dialog box, click the tabs to see the templates available.
Click the template that you want to use, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Save As.
Type a name for the new project in the File name box, and then click Save.
Available templates
There are several categories of templates available to help you begin planning your project. Use the following sections to help identify the right template for your project.
Customer service templates
The following templates provide starting points for customer service projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Customer Feedback Monitoring | Provides a framework for developing processes to monitor customer feedback as part of a continuous improvement effort. This template is focused on processes to monitor feedback after it has been collected. It has a limited amount of direction on data collection. |
Customer Service Ramp Up | Helps a customer service organization set up a support structure for a new product. This is a complex topic that can require several schedules to cover all of the components. |
Post-Manufacturing Customer Service Planning | Provides the basic steps needed to establish a post-manufacture support service for a new consumer packaged good (CPG). CPGs are consumable goods, such as food and beverages, footwear and apparel, tobacco, and cleaning products. |
Finance and accounting templates
The following templates provide starting points for finance and accounting projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Annual Report Preparation | Addresses the general financial and accounting activities that define a typical effort to prepare the Annual Financial Report. Activities include obtaining information from multiple departments, working with other departments (for example, Legal and Public Relations) to ensure that all required information is presented accurately, printing, and distribution. |
Finance and Accounting System Implementation | Outlines the steps needed to implement a finance and accounting system. It assumes an existing system or process is in place and a new system will be replacing it. It also assumes that the new application software system has already been chosen. |
Preparation of an Opening Balance Sheet at the Date of Transition to IFRS | Addresses the significant financial and accounting activities required of companies to prepare their opening balance sheet at the date of transition to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), within the context of a conversion from previous Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). |
Human resources and resource management templates
The following templates provide starting points for resource management projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Develop Skills Needs - Hiring Plan - Hiring Forecast | Provides a framework for the general human resources activities needed to perform an analysis of forecasted skills needs and to develop the potential hiring and training plans needed to address the gap. |
Evaluating Offshoring Strategy for HR Functions | Addresses the general activities needed to evaluate an offshoring strategy for human resources functions. It includes phases for analyzing your current situation, doing preliminary research, performing a deep analysis, and rolling out a pilot program. |
Human Resources Information System Implementation | Outlines the high-level steps needed to implement a Human Resources Information System (HRIS). It is not specific to any commercial software system. |
Performance Reviews | Addresses the general activities that define the typical quarterly or annual performance review cycle. This template assumes a performance review process has been established and that performance is not tied to compensation. |
Vendor Evaluation and Consolidation | Addresses the process for identifying preferred vendors. |
Vendor Request For Proposal (RFP) Solicitation | Provides a standard process for creating, distributing, and evaluating requests for proposals from potential vendors. It is intended for use by organizations that require formal compliance with an approved process to obtain the services of vendors. |
Sales and marketing templates
The following templates provide starting points for sales and marketing projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Financial Service Offering Launch | Helps track the planning, execution, post-launch, and closedown of a financial service offering launch. This template focuses on the launch of the offering, not its development. |
Internal Readiness Training | Presents a plan that helps to identify training needs, develop training solutions, and deploy internal training programs. The template focuses on internal training for sales purposes, but the general framework can be used for other training as well. |
Managing Incoming Requests For Quotes (RFQs) | Provides sales managers with a regimented method of managing the request-for-quote (RFQ) process. |
Marketing Campaign Planning | Outlines the various considerations that you might need to plan a marketing campaign in your organization, including understanding your position in the marketplace, collecting data, and analyzing campaign effectiveness. |
Marketing Event Planning and Execution | Outlines the main categories that you should consider when planning a marketing event. |
Tradeshow Planning, Execution, and Wrap-Up | Provides an outline of the steps involved with trade show planning. Tasks should shorten as you perform more trade shows and develop a rhythm. |
Product development life cycle templates
The following templates provide starting points for projects within the product development life cycle.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
External Technical Readiness Training | Covers planning through deployment of external training programs, with regards to assessing needs, developing materials and content, generating demand, and executing activities. |
MSF Application Development | Comes from the Process Model for Application Development, a key component of the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF). This flexible model improves project control, minimizes risk, improves product quality, and increases development speed in the software industry. |
New Product | Provides the framework for developing a new product, using a disciplined approach that should increase the success rate. |
New Product Launch | Helps define and manage the key components in a strong product launch plan: clearly defined sales objectives; assured sales channel readiness; promotional functions (public relations, marketing, and advertising); and resources to track, monitor, and account for execution. |
Product Development Planning | Outlines a strategic approach for product development. By working with your business position in the marketplace, establishing product infrastructure, and leveraging knowledge of your targets and competitors, this template establishes a framework to begin product development. |
Product Evaluation Post Launch | Outlines key areas of evaluating a product's performance after it has been placed in the marketplace. |
Software Development | Focuses on the steps and processes required to successfully initiate a software development process. You can use the template as is, or modify it for recursive development. |
Software Localization | Focuses on the steps and processes required to successfully localize software. |
Process streamlining and compliance templates
The following templates provide starting points for projects that track process streamlining and compliance activities.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
ISO 9001 Management Review | Guides you through the management review process for audit compliance with ISO 9001, including planned intervals and strict guidelines for review. |
Project Office | Focuses on the required steps and processes to successfully initiate, monitor, and establish an enterprise project office. |
Six Sigma DMAIC Cycle | Outlines the phases, key activities, and deliverables in the standard Six Sigma life cycle. |
SOX Compliance and Technology Options | Addresses the general activities for reviewing existing internal controls and evaluating potential technology options for more efficient Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404 Compliance. This project assumes that the organization is already SOX compliant. |
IT templates
The following templates provide starting points for IT projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Infrastructure Deployment | Focuses on the required steps and processes to successfully initiate, design, and deploy a new infrastructure. |
Security Infrastructure Improvement Plan | Provides an approach for identifying, planning, and rolling out infrastructure improvements. It focuses on security infrastructure to illustrate a plan that requires a balance between two driving needs: maintaining security and maintaining the ability to do business. However, this approach can be used on many infrastructure initiatives. |
Strategic business development templates
The following templates provide starting points for strategic business development projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
New Business | Outlines the process of developing an entrepreneurial opportunity into a new operating business. It can be customized to be used for a wide range of specific business situations. |
Strategic Merger or Acquisition Evaluation | Addresses the general activities that a company goes through to determine its business growth strategy. The road map includes understanding market position, evaluating trade-offs between mergers and acquisitions and internal development, evaluating merger and acquisition candidates, and placing valuation on target companies. |
Other templates
The following templates provide starting points for several other types of projects.
Template | Description |
|---|---|
Commercial Construction | Includes the basic tasks required to construct a multiple-story commercial space, and shows the relationships between those tasks. You can use the template strictly as a training tool or to guide development of custom schedules for your projects, or you can modify the template and use it as the basis for an initial project schedule. |
Electronic Government (E-Gov) Project | Provides a sample E-Government application for a state or local government agency. The sample application is an electronic payment system, an example of a Government to Citizen e-Gov project. It is organized as a program with three projects (Technical Architecture, Security Extranet, and e-Payment), demonstrating one way of organizing complex projects. |
Engineering | Helps you identify the normal activities required for an effective engineering project and link them into a typical schedule format. You can use this template for training, or modify it and use it as the basis for an initial project schedule. |
Home Move | Focuses on the steps to successfully move to a different home. |
Insurance Claim Processing | Outlines property and casualty insurance claim processing from the point of view of the insurance company. It was designed for automobile insurance, but can also be used for homeowner's insurance. |
Office Move | Focuses on the required steps to successfully move your office from one location to another. |
Residential Construction | Includes the basic tasks required to construct a single-family home and the logical relationships between those tasks. You can use this template for training, to develop custom schedules for your projects, or as the basis for an initial project schedule. |
Microsoft Excel is a commonly used spreadsheet software for organizing and managing data. Like all other spreadsheets, Excel allows you to calculate data with formulas, use graphing tools, build charts, create macros and design pivot tables. Whether you have a large scale business or a small one, Excel spreadsheets are excellent to analyze data, plan events, produce charts, calculate budget and expenditure, and many more.
Project Management Templates for Excel
Project management is an important criterion to meet any business goals. You can use Microsoft Excel as a project management tool in addition to using it as a spreadsheet. Excel has some of the best project management templates that allows you to turn simple spreadsheets to the project management dashboard. The Excel project management templates allow you to manage projects, plan events, manage inventory, manage budgets, analyze the data, effectively manage and schedule the project by time. Depending on the projects you undertake, you can make use of the most suitable project management tools to start your project. In this article, we round up some of the best Excel Project Management Templates for building a well managed and structured project.
1. Work Plan Timeline
A well-planned work is crucial for organizing a project task. Most of the organization rely on the project management lifecycle to address the essential milestone and key tasks in the multiple phases of the project. The Work Plan Timeline allows you to represent the essential milestones of a project or a program in chronological order on a timeline. It is a free project planning tool that comes preinstalled in Excel and allows you to easily showcase the project plans to the stakeholders, teams, and colleagues. Get this template here.
2. Simple Gannt Chart
Free Microsoft Project Management Template
Simple Gantt Chart is a free graphical tool preinstalled on your Microsoft Excel. It gives a bird’s eye view of the ongoing project. It allows you to set a particular duration for your work to complete and, displays the chart with the amount of work done for a pre-planned period. This way, the Gannt chart is extremely useful to the business to get a clear picture of how the tasks are performed and, how well they are suitable for a specified period of time. Additionally, this template also includes project phases. You can download it here.
3. Event Planner
Event planner template from excel is a great tool to remember all the important details of an event. It is used to outline how an event is planned for a business or an organization. It proposes the tasks to implement for the successful completion of a project from the initiation of an event until the end. Download this template here.
4. Activity-based Cost Tracker
Activity-based cost tracker is a free template for excel used to calculate the acute costs for the products or services. The template gives a clear picture of general, administrative, direct and indirect costs for producing a product or a service. This activity-based cost tracking identifies the activities in an organization and, the resource needed for each activity. Based on the actual resource consumption of each activity, it determines the cost of your products or services. Get this template here.
5. Idea Planner
Idea planner allows you to frame your own planner in Excel. This free template allows you to set a goal and plan your tasks step by step from the initiation of the project till the end. The Idea planner is the must-have template to organize your day-to-day work. The template allows you to plan the tasks, assign the tasks to the team members, set the task status, due date and plan a resource list. Download the template here.
6. Group Project Task List
Group project task list is a free template for Excel that allows you to organize and manage an entire team in the project. It allows you to assign a task for everyone on the team, assign target date for every resource, set task priority and task statuses. This task list template is easily accessible by everyone on the team. It helps for team collaboration and streamlines your work operations. Download this template here.
7. Project Performance Tracking & Reporting
Project performance tracking and reporting is a template used to manage and organize a project. It allows you to create tasks, set priorities, add deadlines, track cost and set task duration in order to streamline your workflow. Get this template here.
8. Invoice Tracker
Invoice tracker is a simple and free template for Excel that helps to maintain the record of all the invoices. It is useful to monitor accounts and track the invoice statuses. This free invoice tracking tool is useful to track account names, due amounts, paid amounts, outstanding amounts, payment dates, and other account details all in one central place. You can download this template here.
9. Daily Task List
The daily task list is a free Excel template that allows you to plan, and schedule a bunch of tasks that you have to complete throughout the day. This template lets you organize and streamline your workflow by setting priority for the important tasks. This is a must-have tool to stay focussed. Get this template here.
10. Weekly Assignment Schedule
Weekly Assignment Schedule is a free template for excel that helps to plan your week and manage your project related assignments by date. It helps to create a detailed list of tasks for the week and allows you to add notes for each assignment by date in a week. Download this template here.
Suggestions most welcome!
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