Access to MS Project files via IE without MS Project

[Greg]

Hi,

I´m looking for a way to get access to *.mpp-files without having MS
Project installed to my computer.
My idea is to create a website with links to the files and to show the
files.

Has anybody done this job before?

I only want to read the data.

Thanks in advance for your help

Greg

 

[Sarah]

Greg,

It's very easy to save a project plan as an HTML page. Then you could
just link the HTML pages for each project to a master web page.
Whoever maintains your schedules just needs to select File>Save As Web
Page and select a location. You can also tweak the HTML to get
whatever colors and stuff you want.

Sarah

 

[Greg]

Hi Sarah,

thanks for your note.
My idea is to minimise the work for my colleagues, who modify the
files.

I am looking for a viewer.

If my colleagues have to create *.html- or *pdf-files, they would have
one more step to complete their job. This I want to avoid. I want to
keep it as simple as possible.

Thanks again for your reply,

regards,

Greg

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Your post is a bit confusing because in one breath it seems you say you only
want a viewer which would allow users to see the files, i.e. read-only
viewing, then in the next breath you say you want them to be able to modify
the files. Which is it?

If you have multiple users, some of whom need to modify files and others who
just need to view them, and you want to do all this over an intranet or the
internet, how about using Project Server? People who need to create/modify
the project files would use Project Professional and publish the result to
the Server. Uses needing only to view the data, update their own hours,
etc, would use Project Web Access.

 

[Sarah]

Greg,

Another option is to use Project Server, which includes Project Web
Access. Any project that is published on the server is available for
viewing on the web, without having Project installed on the viewer's
system. It also allows web-based time reporting by all project
resources. Not really any extra work for the project managers, but
it's a tricky implementation.

Sarah

 

[Greg]

Hi Sarah,

you´re right, my text is quite confusing. Sorry.
What I was trying to say is that two colleagues create and modify the
files for another group to read them.

The first two guys already have MS Project.
The other group does not have MS Project.

To keep it cheap and simple, I´m looking for a viewer.

I´ll have a look at Project Server. The main thing is to keep it
cheap,
otherwise I can´t convince our people to buy it.

Thanks for your help Sarah,

regards,

Greg

 

[Rob Schneider]

See http://www.mvps.org/project/faqs.htm#Project Viewer

Based on my experience, I think it always a bad idea to send out mpp
project files for others to "read" even if have Project. You should be
"publishing information/knowledge" about the project, not the "source code".

Consider sending out PDF if you need rich raw data. Save as HTML and
view with a browser. May ways to present this data in useful ways.
Think what you need/want to communicate. This all can be automated with
macros once you figure out what you want to convey (which is the hard
and expensive bit). If not willing to pay for thinking time on this,
then is it really worth it?

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Server will work but alas it's not cheap. It requires the Server software
itself plus Windows Server, IIS, and SQL Server. There is also a steep
learning curve that far exceeds that with having the PMs print selected
views to PDF for viewing. That really might be the best bet for you and
since there are free PDF writers available, the price is right.