Additional features in Project Professional 2007

[Maurice]

Just installed the software and would ask:
- Is there any synergy between Project Pro 2007 and Office Pro 2007?
- Is there any guidance on the web for novices who might like to develop
somethng simple while cultivating skills in XML Much thanks for support.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Maurice,

There is much synergy between the Office tools (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
most of which is beyond what can be written here, e.g. copy/paste,
graphics, export, import, familiar look and feel, etc. You've asked a
wide open question impossible to really answer without knowing what you
have in mind. Heck, it's all Office and Windows so synergy occurs by
default.

Re XML ... XML is not simple, and Project's XML is complex. I would
guess that it's beyond the skills of novices to do much more than just
let Project use it. I would find it unlikely you need to use it for much
other than perhaps automated integration with other systems. But again,
I don't know what you have in mind. Documentation about Project's XML,
is available on Microsoft web site somewhere (I think).

Project 2007 does an awful lot of things and for novices I would urge
you to learn it instead of finding ways to use the "edges" of the
product to make "improvements". Learn how Project works and how to use
it as tool for managing complex information associated with project
cost/schedul data. Project is a big calculator with a bespoke front-end
with a back-end relational database--all specifically designed for
project cost/schedule data.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Maurice]

Rob:

Much thanks for the timely reply. If I could find some material on how
to use XML to upload project status, alerts, etc. to a webpage that would be
a major advance for me. Ideally, I would want to upload 'dashboard' type
information to the "Live" Small Business Website. Continued guidance
appreciated.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Sorry, I don't have any links to do this sort of thing to guide you. XML
with Project is not something I've ever found any need to explore. XML
way too complicated for my taste (for Project and everything else I've
had to do).

A way for you to find what you are looking for is to use Google,
including searching this newsgroup for past postings (again, Google can
help with this at groups.google.com). Check also the newsgroup
microsoft.public.project.developer.

When I publish to web sites, I normally produce PDF reports from Project
(and Word) and annotate them with commentary. I am a firm believer in
publishing project reports, not project "data".

Over the years, when needed, we had great success in using Project VBA
to generate HTML pages which were automatically copied to web servers
for publishing. HTML is a lot simpler than XML and relatively simple to
generate with VBA for reading using regular web browsers.

There are some third party products that do some 'pretty' dashboard type
summaries that are appropriate for publishing.

My hunch is you'll not find much for what you are looking for since it's
bespoke and probably relatively few people do it. As I said, Project
does an awful lot already and it can easily be supplemented by third
party add-ins.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com