One of the great new features in the latest version of Project Management Central, PM Central 4.1, is its ability to allow for the configuration of your columns like never before. With the Show or Hide columns of list forms (introduced in 4.0) and the Reset Order Columns features, customizations can be completed much more easily, and without taking unnecessary amounts of time.

Show or Hide Columns of List Forms

With PM Central 4.1, you are able to show or hide columns in the Tasks list or Project Health list in New Form, Edit Form, View Form, and List Settings.

To begin, go to the project site and select Central Actions > PM Central Control Panel.  Under Application Actions, select Show or Hide columns of list forms.

To customize the Tasks list, simply follow these steps:

1. Select Tasks from the List Name drop-down.

2. Under the List Name section, a table that stores all of the Tasks list’s columns will be displayed.

• Some of the columns will be checked by default in list forms and List Settings, and the ability to uncheck them has been disabled. The reason for this is that they are needed in order for PM Central to compute data related to schedules, key performance indicators, etc. using the Project Health list and the Tasks list. As a result, you are unable to hide these columns.

3. At the top of your screen, you will notice a button labeled Reset All. You can click on this button if you wish to return all of the columns to their default settings.

• After clicking the Reset All button, the following pop-up form will display:

• Click OK. A message will appear confirming that your reset was successful.

4. To customize the columns that will be displayed for your task items, check the boxes for the items you would like shown. For example, you can select task items such as Title, Priority, Status, %Complete, Start Date, Due Date, Assign to, and more.  When filling out a New Form, you will have the option of updating information for the custom columns you select in this step.

• In the Show in New Form column, you will check the below fields and uncheck the other ones.

• Once you have finished selecting the items that you would like displayed, click OK. A pop-up form will display asking you if you want to save your changes. Click OK to save changes.

• A message will appear confirming that your update was successful.

5. Next, to verify that you correctly customized your columns, go to the Tasks list and click Add new item. You will see that the New Form only shows the fields that you checked above in the List Customization.

Reset Column Order

The Reset Column Order feature allows you to reset the position of the columns to the PM Central defaults. NOTE: This feature is only supported for the Tasks list and Project Health list.

On the Web Part, you can reset the position of the columns by clicking the Reset Column Order button at the top of your screen.

Additionally, you can change the column order by going to the List Settings link on the Web Part and arranging the columns by SharePoint function.