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Microsoft 70-178 (Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects) exam dumps vce, practice test questions, study guide & video training course to study and pass quickly and easily. Microsoft 70-178 Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects exam dumps & practice test questions and answers. You need avanset vce exam simulator in order to study the Microsoft 70-178 certification exam dumps & Microsoft 70-178 practice test questions in vce format.

A Guide to the 70-178 Exam and Project Initiation

The Microsoft 70-178 Exam, "Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects," is designed to validate the skills of professionals who use Microsoft Project to manage their work. This exam leads to the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) credential, a certification recognized globally as a benchmark of proficiency. The target audience includes project managers, project coordinators, schedulers, and any team member responsible for creating, maintaining, and tracking project plans. It is a practical exam that focuses on the real-world application of the software's features to manage a project throughout its entire lifecycle.

Passing the 70-178 Exam demonstrates a deep understanding of how to leverage Microsoft Project 2010 to define project scope, estimate timelines, manage resources and costs, and track progress against a plan. The exam covers everything from initiating a project and building a work breakdown structure to resolving resource conflicts and reporting on project performance. Success requires not just memorizing features, but understanding the underlying project management principles and how they are implemented within the tool, making this a valuable credential for any project management professional.

Navigating the Microsoft Project 2010 Interface

A key prerequisite for the 70-178 Exam is a thorough familiarity with the Microsoft Project 2010 user interface. This version introduced the Ribbon UI, which organizes commands into logical tabs like "Task," "Resource," and "View." This replaced the traditional menus and toolbars of older versions. The Backstage View, accessed via the "File" tab, is where you manage the project file itself, with options for saving, printing, and setting project information. The Quick Access Toolbar provides a customizable space for your most frequently used commands.

The core of the interface is the collection of views that allow you to see your project data in different ways. The 70-178 Exam will expect you to be comfortable switching between these views. The most common is the Gantt Chart view, which provides a timeline visualization of your tasks. Other important views include the Network Diagram for analyzing task dependencies, the Calendar view for a monthly overview, and the Resource Sheet for managing your project's resources.

Creating a New Project Plan

The journey to pass the 70-178 Exam begins with knowing how to correctly initiate a new project plan. The first and most critical decision is whether to schedule the project from a fixed start date or a fixed finish date. Scheduling from a start date is the most common and flexible approach, allowing the project's finish date to be calculated by the software. Scheduling from a finish date is used when there is a hard deadline that cannot be missed, and it calculates the latest possible start date.

In the Backstage View, under the "Info" tab, you can enter key project properties, such as the title, author, and keywords. This is also where you set the project's start or finish date. Once these initial parameters are set, it is crucial to save the project file. This act of creating and saving the initial plan is the first step in building a comprehensive schedule and is a foundational skill for the 70-178 Exam.

Defining the Project Calendar

Every project schedule is governed by working and non-working time, and the 70-178 Exam requires you to know how to manage this using calendars. The project calendar defines the default working days and hours for the entire project. Microsoft Project 2010 comes with three base calendars: Standard (8 am to 5 pm with a one-hour break, Monday to Friday), 24 Hours, and Night Shift. You can use one of these as is or, more commonly, use one as a template to create a custom calendar for your project.

Creating a custom project calendar involves setting the specific working hours for each day of the week. You must also define any non-working time, such as public holidays. This is done by marking specific dates as exceptions. An accurately defined project calendar is essential for the software to correctly calculate task durations and finish dates. It is the foundation upon which all scheduling is built, making it a critical topic for the 70-178 Exam.

Entering and Organizing Tasks

Once the project framework is in place, the next step is to enter the tasks. The 70-178 Exam places significant emphasis on the two task modes introduced in Project 2010: Manually Scheduled and Auto Scheduled. Auto Scheduled is the traditional mode, where Project automatically calculates start and finish dates based on dependencies, calendars, and other factors. Manually Scheduled is a new, more flexible mode that allows you to enter dates or even text (e.g., "To be determined") without Project immediately changing them, giving you more control during the initial planning phase.

To build a structured plan, you must organize tasks into a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). This is done by creating summary tasks and indenting the detailed work packages, or subtasks, beneath them. Summary tasks automatically roll up the duration and work information from their subtasks. You also use milestones, which are tasks with zero duration, to represent significant events or deliverables in the project timeline.

Estimating Task Durations

For each task in your plan, you must provide an estimate of how long it will take to complete. The 70-178 Exam requires you to understand how to enter and interpret task durations. Durations can be entered in various units, such as minutes (m), hours (h), days (d), and weeks (w). Project then uses the defined calendar to calculate the finish date. For example, a 5-day task starting on a Monday will finish on a Friday.

For tasks that are not constrained by working hours, such as a concrete curing process, you can use an elapsed duration (e.g., 3ed for 3 elapsed days). This tells Project to schedule the task over a continuous 72-hour period, including weekends and non-working time. It is also crucial to understand the relationship between a task's duration (the time it takes), its work (the effort required), and the units of the resources assigned. This scheduling formula is a core concept for the 70-178 Exam.

Linking Tasks and Establishing Dependencies

A project plan is more than just a list of tasks; it is a network of interconnected activities. The 70-178 Exam will test your ability to establish these logical relationships, known as dependencies. There are four types of task dependencies. The most common is Finish-to-Start (FS), where a task cannot start until its predecessor is finished. The other types are Start-to-Start (SS), Finish-to-Finish (FF), and Start-to-Finish (SF), each defining a different logical link between the start or finish times of two tasks.

You can create these links using several methods, such as dragging the mouse between the task bars on the Gantt Chart or entering the predecessor's ID number in the Predecessors column. To refine the schedule, you can apply lead or lag time. A lag is a delay between tasks (e.g., waiting for paint to dry), while a lead is an overlap (e.g., starting to write a report before the research is fully complete).

Preparing for the 70-178 Exam's Initiation Topics

To succeed in the project initiation section of the 70-178 Exam, you must master a few key concepts. The single most important new feature in this version is the distinction between Manually Scheduled and Auto Scheduled tasks. Be prepared for questions that test your understanding of how each mode behaves. Secondly, focus on the mechanics of building a robust Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). You should be comfortable creating summary tasks, subtasks, and milestones to represent the project's scope.

Finally, practice linking tasks. You need to be able to identify and apply all four dependency types and understand how to use lead and lag time to accurately model the real-world relationships between tasks. A solid, hands-on understanding of these foundational skills is essential, as every other aspect of project management in the software, from resource management to progress tracking, depends on a correctly structured initial plan.

Creating and Managing Resources

Once the project's tasks are defined, the next step is to identify and manage the resources needed to complete the work. The 70-178 Exam requires a thorough understanding of the different types of resources you can manage in Microsoft Project. There are three primary types. Work resources are the people and equipment that perform the work on tasks. Material resources are the consumable supplies used by the project, such as steel or concrete. Cost resources are used to track financial costs that are not associated with work or materials, such as travel expenses or training fees.

All resources are created and managed in the Resource Sheet view. For each resource, you enter its name, type, and other key information. For material resources, you must specify a material label (e.g., "tons" or "liters"). For work resources, you can set standard and overtime pay rates, as well as any cost-per-use, such as a setup fee for a piece of equipment.

Defining Resource Availability

A key aspect of resource management, and a topic for the 70-178 Exam, is defining when your resources are available to work. By default, all work resources follow the project calendar. However, you can assign a specific resource calendar to an individual to account for their unique working schedule. For example, you can use a resource calendar to define a part-time work schedule or to block out specific dates for a planned vacation.

You can also manage a resource's availability over different time periods. In the Resource Information dialog, you can specify a resource's maximum capacity (Max. Units) for different date ranges. This is useful for situations where a resource's availability changes during the project, for example, if a team member is only available 50% of the time for the first month and then becomes available 100% for the remainder of the project.

Assigning Resources to Tasks

After defining your resources, you must assign them to the tasks in your project plan. The 70-178 Exam will test your knowledge of this process and its implications. There are several ways to make an assignment, including using the Assign Resources dialog box or the Details pane. When you assign a work resource to a task, Microsoft Project uses its core scheduling formula: Duration x Units = Work. Duration is the time span of the task, Units is the percentage of the resource's time dedicated to the task, and Work is the total effort required.

Understanding how this formula works is critical. When you make an assignment, you provide two of these values, and Project calculates the third. This behavior is controlled by the task type, which can be Fixed Units, Fixed Work, or Fixed Duration. For example, on a Fixed Duration task, if you add more resources (increase the units), the work will increase, but the duration will remain constant.

The Concept of Effort-Driven Scheduling

Effort-driven scheduling is a specific task setting that works in conjunction with the task type. It is an important concept to understand for the 70-178 Exam. An effort-driven task is one where the total work (effort) is the primary driver of the schedule. For these tasks, if you add or remove resources, the total amount of work remains constant, and Project adjusts the task's duration accordingly. For example, if a task requires 80 hours of work and you assign one person, the duration will be 10 days. If you add a second person, the duration will be reduced to 5 days.

This setting is typically used for tasks where adding more people can genuinely speed up the completion time. It is enabled by default for all new tasks. However, you can turn it off for tasks where adding more resources would not decrease the duration, such as a review meeting or a testing cycle.

Managing Project Costs

The 70-178 Exam requires you to be able to manage and track project costs within Microsoft Project. Costs are calculated automatically as you build your plan. For work resources, the cost is calculated by multiplying the amount of work they perform by their defined pay rate. For material resources, the cost is calculated by multiplying the number of units consumed by the cost per unit.

In addition to these variable costs, you can also assign a Fixed Cost to any task. This is a specific cost that does not change regardless of the task's duration or the work performed, such as the cost of a permit or an equipment rental fee. To track other types of financial costs, you use Cost resources. When you assign a cost resource to a task, you are prompted to enter the specific monetary value for that expense.

Identifying and Resolving Resource Overallocations

A common challenge in project management is resource overallocation, which occurs when a resource is assigned to more work in a given period than they are available to perform. The 70-178 Exam will test your ability to identify and resolve these conflicts. Microsoft Project automatically detects overallocations and indicates the affected resources, typically by highlighting them in red in the Resource Sheet.

To investigate the overallocation, you can use several specialized views. The Resource Graph provides a visual representation of a resource's workload over time, clearly showing the periods of over- and under-allocation. The Resource Usage view provides a detailed, time-phased table of a resource's assignments. A powerful new view in Project 2010 for this purpose is the Team Planner, which provides a drag-and-drop interface for visually rescheduling tasks to resolve conflicts.

Resource Leveling

While you can resolve overallocations manually by reassigning or rescheduling tasks, Microsoft Project also provides a powerful automatic tool called resource leveling. A solid understanding of this tool is essential for the 70-178 Exam. Resource leveling automatically resolves overallocations by delaying tasks until the assigned resource has enough free time to work on them. The leveler works by using the available slack (or float) in the schedule first.

If a conflict cannot be resolved by using the available slack, the leveler will delay the project's finish date. The tool provides many options to control its behavior. You can specify the order in which tasks should be leveled, and you can control whether the leveler is allowed to split tasks. While very powerful, it is important to understand that resource leveling almost always has an impact on the project's timeline, a trade-off that a project manager must carefully consider.

Preparing for the 70-178 Exam on Resource and Cost Topics

To master the resource and cost management section of the 70-178 Exam, you must internalize the core scheduling formula (Duration x Units = Work) and the behavior of the three task types (Fixed Units, Fixed Work, Fixed Duration). This is the most complex and most frequently tested concept in this domain. Be prepared for scenario questions that ask you to predict how the schedule will change when you modify one of the variables for a specific task type.

Also, ensure you can clearly differentiate between the three types of resources: Work, Material, and Cost. For resource conflicts, focus on the purpose of resource leveling. You should be able to explain what the tool does (delays tasks) and what the primary trade-off is (a potential delay to the project's finish date). Hands-on practice with the Resource Sheet, Team Planner, and the Leveling tool is the best way to prepare.

Setting a Project Baseline

Before you can track progress on your project, you must first save a snapshot of your original plan. This snapshot is called a baseline, and it is a fundamental concept for the 70-178 Exam. The baseline captures all the key initial values for your project, including the planned start and finish dates, planned durations, planned work, and planned costs for every task. It serves as a benchmark against which you can measure your project's actual performance as it progresses.

Saving the initial baseline is a simple but critical step. It is typically done once the initial planning phase is complete and the project plan has been approved. Microsoft Project allows you to save up to 11 different baselines. This is useful for projects that undergo significant, approved changes in scope. Saving a new baseline after a major change allows you to track performance against the most recently approved version of the plan while still preserving the original baseline for historical comparison.

Tracking Project Progress

Once work begins, you must regularly update the project plan with actual progress information. The 70-178 Exam requires you to be proficient in the various methods for tracking this progress. The simplest method is to enter a percentage complete for each task. While easy, this method can be subjective and does not provide a lot of detail. A more precise method is to enter the actual start date, actual finish date, actual duration, and remaining duration for each task.

For even more detailed tracking, especially when costs are involved, you can enter the actual work performed and the remaining work. This is particularly useful for tasks where the effort expended does not directly correlate with the elapsed time. A critical element in the tracking process is the Status Date. You should always set the status date to the day up to which you have collected progress information before you enter any updates.

Using Different Tracking Views

Microsoft Project provides several specialized views to facilitate the tracking process. The 70-178 Exam will expect you to be familiar with these. The Tracking Gantt view is one of the most useful. It visually compares the baseline Gantt bars (the original plan) with the current, actual Gantt bars, making it easy to see which tasks have slipped or progressed ahead of schedule. The view also includes columns for actual start and finish dates.

For entering detailed, time-phased work, you can use the Task Usage or Resource Usage views. These views show a table with tasks or resources on the left and a timescale on the right, allowing you to enter the actual hours worked by a specific resource on a specific task for each day or week. For quick updates, the "Update Project" dialog allows you to mark all tasks that were scheduled to be complete as of the status date as 100% complete.

Understanding the Critical Path

The critical path is one of the most important concepts in project scheduling, and it is a core topic for the 70-178 Exam. The critical path is defined as the sequence of tasks that has the longest total duration from the project's start to its finish. Any delay in any task on the critical path will directly delay the overall project completion date. Microsoft Project automatically calculates and highlights the critical path based on the task durations and the dependencies you have created.

Related to the critical path is the concept of "slack" or "total float." Slack is the amount of time a task can be delayed without affecting the project's finish date. Tasks on the critical path have zero slack. Tasks that are not on the critical path have some amount of positive slack, which gives the project manager some flexibility in scheduling them. Monitoring the critical path is a key responsibility for any project manager.

Managing Task Constraints

Task constraints are restrictions that you can place on the start or finish date of a task. The 70-178 Exam requires you to understand the different types of constraints and their impact on the schedule. Constraints can be categorized into three groups. Flexible constraints, like the default "As Soon As Possible," give the scheduling engine the most freedom. Semi-flexible constraints, such as "Start No Earlier Than" or "Finish No Later Than," provide a boundary date but still allow for some flexibility.

Inflexible constraints, such as "Must Start On" or "Must Finish On," lock a task to a specific date. While sometimes necessary for external deadlines, using inflexible constraints should be done with extreme caution. They can override task dependencies, disrupt the logical flow of the critical path, and make the schedule much more difficult to manage. A key principle for the 70-178 Exam is to rely on task dependencies rather than constraints to drive the schedule whenever possible.

Analyzing Project Variances

The primary reason for setting a baseline and tracking actuals is to be able to analyze variances. A variance is the difference between what was planned (the baseline) and what has actually happened. The 70-178 Exam will test your ability to interpret these variances. Microsoft Project automatically calculates variance values for duration, work, cost, and start and finish dates.

For example, the Finish Variance is calculated as the difference between the current scheduled finish date and the baseline finish date. A positive finish variance indicates that the task is finishing later than planned. By applying variance tables to your views, you can quickly identify the tasks that are deviating most significantly from the original plan. This analysis is the foundation for taking corrective action to bring the project back on track.

Introduction to Earned Value Analysis (EVA)

Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is a sophisticated project management technique for measuring performance, and a basic understanding of its concepts is required for the 70-178 Exam. EVA integrates the project's scope, schedule, and cost into a unified framework. It is based on three key metrics: the Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS), which is the baseline cost; the Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP), which is the "earned value"; and the Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP), which is the actual cost.

From these metrics, two critical variance indicators are calculated. The Schedule Variance (SV = BCWP - BCWS) tells you if you are ahead of or behind schedule in monetary terms. A positive SV is good. The Cost Variance (CV = BCWP - ACWP) tells you if you are over or under budget for the work that has been done. A positive CV is good. Microsoft Project can calculate these EVA metrics automatically if you have set a baseline and are tracking actual costs.

Preparing for the 70-178 Exam Tracking and Analysis Topics

For this section of the 70-178 Exam, your study should be focused on the core concepts of project control. You must be able to clearly explain the purpose of a baseline and why it is essential for performance measurement. The concept of the critical path is non-negotiable; be able to define it and explain its relationship to slack. Understanding the different types of task constraints and the risks of using inflexible constraints is also a key area.

While Earned Value Analysis can be a complex topic, for the 70-178 Exam, you should focus on the basic definitions. Know what SV and CV stand for and how to interpret them (i.e., is a positive or negative variance good or bad?). Hands-on practice with the Tracking Gantt view and applying variance tables will be the most effective way to prepare for the practical, scenario-based questions in this domain.

Customizing Views and Tables

While Microsoft Project comes with many built-in views, the 70-178 Exam requires you to know how to customize them to meet specific reporting needs. A view is a combination of several elements, with the most important being the table that displays the data in a spreadsheet-like format. You can easily modify any existing view by changing the table it uses or by inserting, hiding, or reordering the columns within its current table.

For more significant changes, you can create a completely new custom table. When you create a table, you select the specific fields (columns) you want to display, define their alignment and width, and set other formatting options. You can then create a new custom view and apply your new table to it. You can also apply a specific filter and group to your custom view, creating a reusable, purpose-built perspective on your project data.

Creating Custom Fields

Often, you will need to track information that is specific to your organization or project for which there is no standard field in Microsoft Project. The solution for this, and a key topic for the 70-178 Exam, is to use custom fields. Microsoft Project provides a large number of spare fields that you can rename and configure for your own use. These fields can be of various types, including Text, Number, Date, Duration, Cost, and Flag (Yes/No).

To enhance data quality, you can create a lookup table for a custom field. This provides a predefined list of valid values that users can choose from, preventing data entry errors. You can also define formulas for custom fields. A formula can perform calculations based on other fields in the project plan, allowing you to derive and display custom metrics or key performance indicators.

Filtering Project Data

When working with a large project plan, you often need to focus on a specific subset of the data. The 70-178 Exam will test your ability to use filters to achieve this. The quickest way to filter is to use the AutoFilters, which are the drop-down arrows that appear in the column headers, similar to Microsoft Excel. These allow you to quickly filter the list of tasks based on the values in a specific column.

For more complex requirements, you can create a custom filter. The filter dialog allows you to build criteria to find tasks or resources that meet specific conditions. For example, you could create a filter to show all critical tasks that are over budget and are assigned to a specific resource. You can also create an interactive filter, which will prompt the user to enter a value each time the filter is applied, making it more flexible.

Grouping Project Data

While filters are used to show a subset of data, grouping is used to organize and summarize your data in a different way. A solid understanding of the grouping feature is required for the 70-178 Exam. Grouping allows you to collapse and expand your project data based on the values in a specific field, providing a hierarchical, outline-style view. Microsoft Project comes with several built-in groups, such as "Group by Critical Tasks" or "Group by Resource Name."

You can also create your own custom groups. For example, you could group your tasks by a custom "Department" field to see a summary of all the tasks assigned to each department. You can create multi-level groups, such as grouping first by department and then by priority within each department. This is a powerful way to analyze and summarize your project data from different perspectives without changing the underlying task structure.

Formatting the Gantt Chart

The Gantt Chart is the most recognizable and widely used view in project management. The 70-178 Exam will expect you to know how to format its appearance to improve clarity and communication. The primary tool for this is the Bar Styles dialog box. This powerful dialog allows you to control the appearance (the shape, pattern, and color) of every type of bar on the Gantt Chart, from standard tasks and milestones to summary tasks and the baseline.

You can also format the timescale at the top of the chart. You can add or remove tiers and change the time units displayed, for example, showing months on the top tier and weeks on the bottom tier. Other formatting options include changing the style of the gridlines, adding text to the Gantt bars to display key information, and formatting the non-working time to make it more visible.

Creating and Customizing Reports

Effectively communicating project status is a key responsibility of a project manager, and the 70-178 Exam covers the reporting capabilities of Microsoft Project 2010. The software includes a set of standard, pre-formatted reports that can be printed or saved. These are basic, tabular reports that cover topics like project overview, costs, and resource assignments. You can customize the content and formatting of these reports to some extent.

A major new feature in Project 2010, and an important one to know for the exam, is Visual Reports. This feature exports project data to either Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Visio, using pre-defined templates to automatically create sophisticated graphical reports. In Excel, it creates a PivotTable and a corresponding PivotChart, allowing for powerful, interactive data analysis. In Visio, it can create cross-functional flowcharts and other diagrams based on the project data.

Using the Organizer

As you create custom views, tables, filters, groups, and calendars, you will often want to reuse them in other project files. The Organizer is the tool that facilitates this, and its function is a topic for the 70-178 Exam. The Organizer allows you to copy these custom elements from one project file to another. More importantly, it allows you to manage the elements stored in a special template file called Global.MPT.

Any custom element that you copy into the Global.MPT file becomes available by default in every new project you create on your computer. This is the best way to standardize your project management environment and ensure that your custom configurations are always available. The Organizer provides a simple, two-pane interface for copying elements between the Global.MPT and your active project files.

Preparing for the 70-178 Exam on Customization

For the customization section of the 70-178 Exam, your study should be focused on the purpose of each tool. Develop a clear mental model: you use custom fields to store new types of data, you use filters to find specific data, you use groups to organize and summarize data, and you use tables to display the data. Understanding this logical flow is more important than memorizing the location of every button.

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the major new reporting feature, Visual Reports, and its ability to integrate with Excel and Visio to create dynamic charts and diagrams. Finally, understand the role of the Organizer and the Global.MPT file as the mechanism for standardizing your environment and sharing customizations between projects. This demonstrates a more advanced understanding of how to manage the software efficiently.

Working with Multiple Projects

In many organizations, project managers are responsible for more than one project at a time. The 70-178 Exam requires you to know the tools and techniques available in Microsoft Project for managing these multi-project environments. One of the initial challenges is simply being able to view information from several independent project files at once. You can open multiple project files and arrange them to see their Gantt Charts side-by-side, but this does not provide a truly integrated view.

For a more consolidated perspective, you can create a master project. A master project is a special type of project file that contains other projects, known as subprojects. This approach allows you to see all the tasks, milestones, and dependencies from multiple projects within a single, unified plan. It provides a program-level view that is essential for coordinating related projects and understanding their combined impact.

Creating a Master Project

The process of creating a master project is a key skill for the 70-178 Exam. You start with a blank project file, which will become your master project. Then, you use the "Subproject" command on the "Project" tab to insert existing project files into the master plan. When you insert a subproject, it appears as a single summary task in the master project's task list. You can then expand this summary task to see all the detailed tasks from the original subproject file.

When inserting a subproject, you have an important choice to make. You can link to the subproject, which means that any changes made in the master project will be saved back to the original subproject file, and vice versa. Alternatively, you can insert a read-only copy, which is useful for reporting purposes when you do not want to risk accidentally changing the source plan.

Managing Inter-Project Dependencies

One of the most powerful reasons to use a master project, and a key concept for the 70-178 Exam, is the ability to manage dependencies between different projects. In a real-world program, a deliverable from one project is often required before a task in another project can begin. In Microsoft Project, you can create these external, or cross-project, links.

Once you have inserted your subprojects into a master project, you can create a dependency between a task in one subproject and a task in another subproject, just as you would for tasks within the same project. This is critical for calculating a true, program-level critical path. This consolidated critical path shows you which tasks across the entire program of projects are driving the final delivery date, allowing for much more effective program management.

Resource Sharing and Resource Pools

A major challenge in a multi-project environment is managing a shared group of resources. If you define the same resources in each individual project file, you have no way of knowing if a resource is overallocated across different projects. The solution for this, and a major topic for the 70-178 Exam, is the resource pool. A resource pool is a central project file whose only purpose is to contain the list of shared resources and their information, such as calendars and pay rates.

Once the resource pool file is created, individual project files, known as sharer files, can be linked to it. When a project is connected to the resource pool, it no longer uses its own local resources. Instead, it uses the shared resources from the central pool. This ensures that all projects are working with the same, up-to-date resource information.

Managing a Shared Resource Pool

The resource pool provides a single, consolidated view of all assignments and availability for your shared resources across all the projects that are connected to it. When you open the resource pool file, you can use views like the Resource Usage view to see the combined workload for each resource from all the sharer projects. This makes it possible to identify and resolve cross-project resource overallocations.

If a resource is overallocated, you can resolve the conflict by leveling the resource pool. The leveling tool will look at all the tasks assigned to the resource across all the sharing projects and will delay tasks based on their priority and available slack to resolve the conflict. Any updates to the resource information, such as a change in pay rate or a new vacation day, are made once in the resource pool file and are then automatically available to all the connected projects.

Review of Key Exam Topics

In your final preparation for the 70-178 Exam, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive review of the most critical concepts that have been covered throughout this series. The exam is practical and scenario-based, so your focus should be on the core mechanics of the software. Pay special attention to the difference between Manually Scheduled and Auto Scheduled tasks, as this was a major new feature in the 2010 version.

You must have an expert-level understanding of the scheduling formula (Duration x Units = Work) and the behavior of the three task types (Fixed Units, Fixed Work, Fixed Duration). The concepts of the critical path, slack, and baselining are also non-negotiable. Ensure you can confidently explain what these are and why they are important for project control. A final review of these core principles will serve you well on the 70-178 Exam.

Final 70-178 Exam Preparation Strategy

The single most important strategy for passing the 70-178 Exam is extensive hands-on practice. This is not an exam you can pass by simply reading books or watching videos. You must spend significant time working with the Microsoft Project 2010 software. Create projects from scratch, build a WBS, assign resources, track progress, and resolve problems. The more you use the tool, the more intuitive its logic and behavior will become.

Supplement your hands-on practice with official study materials, such as the Microsoft Press exam prep book for the 70-178 Exam. These resources are specifically designed to align with the exam objectives. Finally, take high-quality practice tests. This will help you get accustomed to the format of the questions, test your knowledge under time pressure, and identify any remaining weak areas that you need to focus on in your final days of study.

Conclusion

On the day of the 70-178 Exam, remember to stay calm and manage your time effectively. Read each question and all of its answers carefully before making a selection. The questions are often scenario-based, so you will need to apply your knowledge to solve a practical problem. Passing the exam and earning the MCTS credential is a significant achievement that provides formal recognition of your skills as a project management professional.

The skills you learn while preparing for the 70-178 Exam are highly transferable. While the interface and some features have evolved, the core principles of scheduling, resource management, and progress tracking in Microsoft Project have remained remarkably consistent through subsequent versions. The deep understanding you gain from this certification will provide a solid foundation for your entire career in project management.

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