Best use of Project Server and Professional 2007

[Rodrigo Souza]

Hi All!
I need some guidance of what would be the best method for tracking time in
my company.
Scenario:
1. My company's core business is to sell IT projects. We have over 100
consultants working in several projects. Many of those consultants work in
more than one project at the same time.
2. We pay our consultants based on the time reported on their timesheets and
submitted in a weekly basis. The timesheets must be approved only by Project
Managers.
3. We also bill our customers based in time entered by the resources.

Constraints:
1. Once the resources submit their timesheets they must not be able to edit
them.
2. The Project manager must be responsible for approving reported time
concerning only tasks related to projects they own.

Any idea how can I set up Project to achieve that?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Dave]

Hi All!
I need some guidance of what would be the best method for tracking time in
my company.
Scenario:
1. My company's core business is to sell IT projects. We have over 100
consultants working in several projects. Many of those consultants work in
more than one project at the same time.
2. We pay our consultants based on the time reported on their timesheets and
submitted in a weekly basis. The timesheets must be approved only by Project
Managers.
3. We also bill our customers based in time entered by the resources.

Constraints:
1. Once the resources submit their timesheets they must not be able to edit
them.
2. The Project manager must be responsible for approving reported time
concerning only tasks related to projects they own.

Any idea how can I set up Project to achieve that?
Thanks in advance!

Project Server can do all you describe but the installation and setup
mechanisms are far too complex and involved to describe here. To set
that up requires considerable commitment on the part of your company and
you will probably have to pay some consultants to do the work.

If you have an existing timesheet application which can export actuals
into something sensible (XML, Excel etc) then it is relatively
straightforward to import these into Project. You can probably sort out
access controls and that sort of thing within your existing IT
infrastructure although it may well be a bit clunky.

It is not clear from what you wrote however what role Project is playing
in the above. It is the timesheet application together with its
integrity and access controls that seems to be exercising you the most.
Project is not a timesheet or accounting application, but a scheduling
appication. The only benefit of importing the timesheet information
into Project would be to track the progress of a plan.