Client Project Consolidation on Server

[iPSova]

Hello
Can somebody guide me how to consolidate projects from different clients on
Server? Consolidation means getting a global view.
Further to elaborate, we can add/insert projects/subprojects in client
machines (ProjectPro) but how to do the same thing on Server side?
For some of you this question might be easy .. but I am new to this
environment.
Hoping for help!
Pranay

 

[Reid McTaggart]

The simple answer is that you import the .mpp files to Project Server. Tools

Enterprise options.

The more complicated answer is that after you import the projects you must
set permissions appropriately and secure the proper licenses so that the
right people can see the right projects. You also must determine who will
manage each project, and how. If you want external clients to be able to see
or interact with their projects on PS, you have a lot of planning, design,
configuration, and management to do, and some expense for licenses.

Tell us more, and we will try to help you more.

--
Reid McTaggart
(e-mail address removed)
Alegient, Inc., Houston
Project Server Experts
Microsoft Certified Partner

 

[iPSova]

Thanks... but the projects does not show up on Web Access.
I wanted to do the following:
• Create 5-6 projects from 2 different clients (for the moment, 1 project =
1 MSP file on the client)
• Publish them onto the server
• Try to consolidate indicators at a global level (all the projects
together), for example: man/days, progress, number of unfinished tasks, etc.
• Export it in excel and create a table

Do we need to develop a macro for exporting this? or just "Export the grid
in Excel" will do?
Pranay

 

[jonathan_sofer.....]

Pranay,

If you want to be able to show a high level consolidated view of
projects in PWA, then you can do that through project center. It will
not, however, show task detail information such as progress, unfinished
tasks, etc.

It sounds like you are asking how you can see a master project type
view in PWA the same as if you create a master in Project Professional
client side. The answer is you can't. Publishing a master on the
server will cause issues like double assignments and double data
counting in Project Center and Portfolio Analyzer. And even if you do
publish master projects to the server, you will not see desired result
you are looking for. In the master project detail it will only show as
a one line progress bar.

Ways to get around this is to write macros like you said if you want to
export to excel. The Portfolio Analyzer could potentially be used as
well but might require some extending to get all the desired
information you need. That could then easily be exported to Excel.

You could also attempt to export the data to excel directly from
Project Professional. If you get the desired master plan view in
Project Professional, you can export using MS Project export wizard to
save the project plan as an html file. You can then manually change
the file extension from .htm to .xls and open with Excel. Excel will
automatically convert the file to a spreadsheet, preserving all
formatting.

Jonathan Sofer

 

[iPSova]

Thanks Jonathan... that will help. Can you tell me more about portfolio
analyser? Is there any way out not to develop macros?
PS

 

[Jonathan Sofer - MCP]

Pranay,

It would be hard to tell you exactly how you would get the data you want out
of multiple projects without really understanding your requirements.
Portfolio Analyzer can be used to slice and dice project hours by resource,
projects and any attributes associated to those resources and attributes.
This can be done over time phased data. In Portfolio Analyzer which comes
with Project Server out of the box you get a chart and a pivot table views.
You can export the pivot table data into excel.

If there are some task level codes you need to slice data with, you can
extend the Portfolio Analyzer to do so. But it does not have the task codes
available out of the box.

 

[iPSova]

Hi Jonathan

Here is a little background: We are all Integration students and we have a
real client. He has specific needs such as having a consolidated report for
all departments having 5-6 projects/dept:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Department SAP SAP1
ISP1 TOTAL
__________
Indicators
(for all projects in a dept
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Duration estimate 100d 98d
198d
Duration consumed 120d
Projected Cost 25000€ 10000€
35000€
Real Cost 37000€ 13000€
50000â‚
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can we do something like this using portfolio analyser, or do we need to
extract reports from individual projects for each department in excel and
consolidate the data (by developing macro for automation) per dept and then
again consolidate to have a global view ?
Moreover I am not able to use the Portfolio Analyser, I get following
message (I have administrator rights):

"There is no Portfolio Analyser View. The Administrator didn't assign you
any view for Portfolio Analyser to consult. Please contact your administrator
to get permissions for consultation of Portfolio Analyser Views." -- The
message was in French, its a translated version

Thanks for help
Pranay

 

[Jonathan Sofer - MCP]

Hi iPSova,

Yes, I believe you can get this kind of information from the Portfolio
Analyzer.

In order for the Portfolio Analyzer to work you must have an administrator
set up an OLAP cube to generate. You do this under PWA's Admin>Manage
Enterprise Resources.

You must give it a name and specify the name of the analysis server that
should have been set up during the initial installation of Project Server.

Once you have successfully created an OLAP cube the administrator must set
up the appropriate permissions on the cube one time so that it can be used
within Project Web Access.

Then you must go to PWA's Admin>Manage Views and "Add View". Select the
view type of Portfolio Analyzer and you can then create the reports you are
looking to create.

Hope that helps a bit...