Microsoft Project. Showing several fields near the task bars

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I personally like to show Task name near the task bars in MS Project. To me it makes it much easier to read a Gantt chart because you do not need to try to read on the left wich is the task that bar belongs too. Lately I though of showing more data, almos as to make the text columns of the left innecessary. To do that it would be necessary to show several fields near the task bars. And I wondered if that was possible. The answer is yes. Let's see how.

By default, MS Project doesn'nt show any text near the tas bars, lthough ont he standard template, it will show the Resource name on the right of the task the moment you add this information on the resources column. The standard way to add other texts or to change this is this:

1. Either right click on the gantt chart and select Bar Syles or go to the Formatt Gantt Chart Tab and on the Format group select Format ->Bar Styles.
2. A window where you can edit how each type of Bar is shown appears. On the lower part, click the Text tab
3. On this text tab, you can choose which text you want to show on the right, on the left, above, below or even inside the bar.

If you try to add text this way you will notice you can only select one field for each of the positions. What if we want to show more than one field on one of the positions? well the solution is not that complicated, you need to create a Custom field with all the information you want to show.

To create a custom field yo need to:

1. Go to Project -> Custom Fields
2. Select one of the Fields available and change its name so you know is the one you need to use. You could for instance select Text 1 and change its name to End-Name-Resource-%Complete. I would name it this way as this is the data I would like to show on this field on the right of the task bars.
3. Then on the Custom Attibutes section, click the bullet point in front of Formula, accept the dialog box that pops up and click the Formula button
4. Here you will be able to Concatenate several fields using the & Operator. Use that and even add some separating values if you wish like a "-"
5. After you have created you custom field, go and select it fromt he Edit Task Bar window on the position you want to show.

On my example this is the result:

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