Fastest way to deploy changes

[Sebastian Cordoba]

Hi everyone.

I'm giving some advises to certain company. They have a Project STANDARD
Environment (2007) and I've created several custom fields for their Projects.
Since they have between 20 and 30 projects, I need to find the fastest way to
deploy changes in that custom fields.

So far I've followed these steps:

1.Make changes to the custom field in the project template.
2.Copy modified field to the global (overwriting the existing one)
3.Copy field from global to EACH project (have to open one by one)

Changes include: formulas, lookup tables values, graphic indicators, etc.

Is there an easier way? why isn't automatic tha changes in the global for
the rest of the projects?

Thanks.

 

[Rob Schneider]

I don't know the full setup of your company's computer environment, but
what I would propose is that you standardize on a specific global.mpt
file. You be in charge of managing updates to that global.mpt file
(making changes, keeping old copies in some sort of way to remember
versions so that you can go back if necesessary, etc.).

Make a standard place for that global.mpt to reside. Deploy new
versions to that standard place. This place could either be a shared
LAN folder, or someplace on people's own computers (for example, it
could be that they are doing their work on remote desktops or laptops or
something).

You "tell" project to use that specific global.mpt file (rather than any
others) if when you start project you make the "start-in" folder for
Project that folder. To do this, you create a special startup icon on
the user's desktop. Copy/Paste the existing Project startup icon to a
new icon called "Project Ventura" (or whatever your project is called).
Change the "start-in" folder to be the folder where you put the
standard global.mpt file. Probably good to put all the 20-30 project
mpp files there too. Then launch Project with this icon.

Project will use that global.mpt files. No need to copy the information
from global.mpt into each individual file. However, you may have to
delete thse custome fields from each individual file to force Project to
use the ones in global.mpt.

Then, in future, when you have updated fields ... just roll out a new
version of global.mpt.

I usually put a comment at the top of the modules in the global.mpt to
record the version and significant changes.

Using this approach, we have many different versions of global.mpt each
customised for each client/project.


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Sebastian Cordoba]

Hi Rob.

Sorry for the late reply.

Rob, this might be a dumb cuestion but I was wondering how do I Change the
"start-in" folder to be the folder where I put the standard global.mpt file.
Can you tell me how?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Sebastian,

As mentioned above:

"To do this, you create a special startup icon on the user's desktop.
Copy/Paste the existing Project startup icon to a new icon called
"Project Ventura" (or whatever your project is called). Change the
"start-in" folder to be the folder where you put the standard global.mpt
file."

I said "startup icon" on desktop. These are called "shortcuts" in
Windows. Right mouse click on the shortcut to see the place for "start
in".


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Sai]

Sebastian,

As mentioned above:

"To do this, you create a special startup icon on the user's desktop.
Copy/Paste the existing Project startup icon to a new icon called
"Project Ventura" (or whatever your project is called). Change the
"start-in" folder to be the folder where you put the standard global.mpt
file."

I said "startup icon" on desktop. These are called "shortcuts" in
Windows. Right mouse click on the shortcut to see the place for "start
in".


--rms

www.rmschneider.com

Good one Rob Schneider

Sai

 

[Sebastian Cordoba]

Hi Rob.

Everything clear. I knew how to create shortcuts but I hadn't changed the
"Start in" option, that's why I wasn't sure about it.

Thank you so much!!