Exam Profile MCTS 70-632: Microsoft Office Project 2007, Managing Projects

Date: Sep 11, 2012

This article profiles the Microsoft Office Project 2007, Managing Projects (MCTS 70-632) exam, meant to be taken by those who use Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 or Microsoft Office Professional 2007 standalone desktop features to build, maintain, and control well-formed project plans. Pearson IT Certification provides a variety of exam preparation tools to help our customers in their quest for certification. As part of our service to you, we have developed this Exam Profile series. Each profile is developed based on the testing experience of one of our trainers or authors. You won’t get exact questions or answers, but you will get a real feel for the exam. Each profile describes question forms, trouble spots, hints for exam preparation, and recommendations for additional study resources. Find out what you can expect to see on the exam and how you can better prepare for it.

The 70-632 exam is meant to be taken by those who use Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 or Microsoft Office Professional 2007 standalone desktop features to build, maintain, and control well-formed project plans. If you plan to take this exam, you should have experience scheduling, estimating, coordinating, controlling, budgeting, and staffing projects and supporting other users of Office Project. Familiarity with key project management concepts and terminology is recommended.

After you pass the Microsoft Office Project 2007, Managing Projects exam, you complete the requirements for the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 certification.

The 70-632 exam counts as credit toward the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Enterprise Project Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 certification.

Exam Details

Number of Questions: Approximately 55 questions (Since Microsoft does not publish this information, the number of exam questions may change without notice.)
Type of Questions: This test format is multiple choice.
Passing Score: 700

This passing score does not mean that you must answer 70 percent of the items correctly in order to pass the exam. The actual percentage varies from exam to exam and may be more or less than 70 percent. There is no penalty for guessing. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. If a question specifies that you must choose multiple correct answers, you must choose the exact number of correct answers specified in the question in order to earn a point for that item. Some of the questions on the exam may not count toward the calculation of your score. Microsoft will often throw a question in that is meant to gather data that will help them improve the exam.

Time Limit: 120 minutes
How to Register: Prometric.com

Trouble Spots

As with any exam, it will vary from person to person as to what is deemed to be difficult. Be sure you are familiar with each of the topics in the exam objectives listed below.

Templates—Microsoft Project 2007 provides a wide range of predefined templates to help speed your project management process. Templates give you a quick start to automatically populate a new project with useful information. A template, in Office Project’s .mpt file format, can capture task and resource information, formatting, macros, and other project-specific settings. In addition to the built-in and Microsoft Office Online templates, you can create your own templates based on previous projects. You can take advantage of your previous projects by creating your own custom template. This enables you to reuse an existing project as the basis for future projects. You can also send templates to other users in e-mail to share your work and to create consistency.
Reports—There are several built-in reports that allow you to simply select, preview, and print the most frequently used information needed to manage projects, track resources, maintain costs, and communicate. Microsoft Project 2007 includes predefined task, resource, and cross-tab reports for you to print. You can customize any of these reports to present the specific information you want to display. You can also specify the format of details such as column totals, gridlines, or borders.
Exporting and Importing Data—You can export project information to Office System Programs. When you export data, you choose or create a map that specifies the relationship between the fields in Project and the columns in the output file. The output file could be Microsoft Excel, comma-separated values (CSV) or Extensible Markup Language You can use an existing export map from another project if the map is available in the global file. By using the Organizer, you can copy an export map from a project file to the global file. Office Project Standard 2007 and Office Project Professional 2007 no longer support the OLEDB format.

You can import or transfer data into Project from a source program such as Excel. When you import data, you choose a map that defines how the data in the source program should be mapped to information in Project. Different programs use different file formats and file name extensions to indicate the format. Although you can enter values in some calculated fields Project 2007 may recalculate these values, either automatically or when you specify. If you import information from another file format into an enterprise project that requires you to enter specific information for tasks, you won't be able to save the project until all required information is entered.

You will be able to answer some of the questions using your project experience in handling resources, budgeting and defining tasks. You can usually eliminate some answers that are obviously incorrect. You should have a good understanding of the menus and the options contained in them. An example of this is provided in the sample question below:

Your boss has just asked you to align the items on your Microsoft Office 2007 project schedule with a new chart of account codes produced by the Budget Office. What is the proper sequence of steps in the Gantt Chart view to display the custom codes next to the relevant task items?

a. Click File. Click Properties. Click View Tab. Type in the custom code.

b. Click Insert. Click Custom Codes. Type in the custom codes.

c. Right-click a table heading. Click Insert Column. Select WBS. Type in the custom code. (Correct answer)

d. You cannot display custom codes in Microsoft Office Project.

You will probably see many questions about budget and cost resources as well as questions about defining the task such as fixed units, fixed duration, fixed work and effort driven.

Both Office Project Standard 2007 and Office Project Professional 2007 can open files created in previous versions of Project. You can save project plans in prior formats, for example Microsoft Project 98 .mpp file format or Project 2003, Project 2002, and Project 2000 file formats. Any features that do not map to prior file formats will be discarded when a project is saved in that older file format.

Another useful feature of Microsoft Project 2007 is the multiple Level Undo, which enables you to test what-if scenarios and then undo the changes. You can undo actions or sets of actions from macros or non-Microsoft applications, enabling you to test several what-if scenarios in order to fully understand the implications of each choice while making scope changes. As you test each scenario, the effects of the most recent change automatically become shaded with Visual Change Highlights. Now you can quickly see how the schedule reacts as you alter resources and tasks.

Preparation Hints

Review the Exam Objectives below and make sure that you are familiar with them. The Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring exam is designed for those who have experience in this environment. Always check the Microsoft site for the specific exam you are going to take. In this instance, the site is http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-632.

There are many web sites and blogs that can help you to research topics, but be careful to fully research the information you read. It is not advisable to try to find sites that list questions and answers for several reasons. First, you don’t know if you will be asked a specific question and second, the answers given in a blog may be inaccurate and third, you need to understand the information to adequately prepare.

When taking the exam, read each question carefully. Microsoft is notorious for adding a lot of unneeded information in their questions. Make sure that when you click on a choice, that it is really marked. Be careful clicking anywhere on the screen. I found that by inadvertently clicking near the scroll bar on the right of the screen, I actually changed an answer. You get a single piece of paper and a marker for writing. You can use a small amount of time before you even start the exam to make notes once you enter the test area. Sometimes there is even a questionnaire at the beginning of the test that does not count against your test time. You can even use this time to write down notes, facts, tables or other information by taking your time between answers.

Recommended Study Resources

MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-632): Managing Projects with Microsoft Office by Joli Ballew, Deanna Reynolds, and Bonnie Biafore (Paperback[md]2008)

Microsoft Project 2007 Bible by Elaine Marmel

Exam Objectives

The exam objectives are broken up into five different categories. The 70-632 exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.

The percentages indicate the relative weight of each major topic area on the exam. The higher the percentage, the more questions you are likely to see on that content area on the exam.

The objectives for Exam 70-632 as stated by Microsoft are as follows:

Configuring Tools and Options (12 percent)

Set up Schedule options.
Set up Calculation options.
Set up Interface options.
Set up View options.
Set up General options.
Set up Calendar options.
Set up Security options.

Setting Up a Project (10 percent)

Create and modify a template.
Select a template.
Enter project information.
Manage calendars.
Import and export data.

Estimating, Scheduling, and Budgeting Tasks (30 percent)

Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
Create and modify tasks.
Estimate and budget tasks.
Sequence tasks.
Identify and analyze critical tasks and critical path.
Manage multiple projects.

Resourcing Project Plans (24 percent)

Forecast time-phased generic skill or role requirements.
Create, modify, and use resource pools.
Add, change, substitute, or remove resource assignments.
Predict durations and work calculations.
Optimize resource utilization.

Updating and Reporting on Project Performance (24 percent)

Save and modify baselines.
Enter task updates.
Reschedule incomplete work.
Track project progress.
Analyze variance.
Create, modify, and delete objects.
Create reports.

Where to Go from Here

After you pass the Microsoft Office Project 2007, Managing Projects exam, you may want to take the following exams:

TS: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects Exam 70-633
Pro: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects and Programs Exam 70-634