General Comment

[yann]

Dear all,
After posting several messages through this forum,
For my particular purpose, i want to use Ms Project Server for both a
Workflow management and a planning monitoring.
I wanted for a user to be as simple as possible to update task progress and
precise forecast in case of delay with the field "End". Moreover, not having
a full dedicated planer or PM, i have tried to automize as much as possible
valdiation "automaticaly update taks" but there were the publish issue which
i solved.
The Last issue were related to the slippage between one project to the other
one as i have different project linked together.
THe only way i understood to see the consequences of a slippage of one
project to the other one is that the PM (which in my case is the owner of all
the project) open Microsoft Project Plan so then he "accepts" the
modification so then the user can see the changes on PWA.
I needed initialy to have a real time update but i guess the PM will not
open Microsoft Project Plan every minute.
In our case, we plan so the PM to open all the projects every 2 hours so
update will be seen by the users.
Anybody got a better solution for my specific case,

Thanks

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Yann --

Here's what I don't get in your environment: Why in the world would the PM
need to open the project every two hours? Why don't you have team members
submit progress on a WEEKLY basis, such as every Friday by 5:00 PM for
example? And then have your PMs accept updates once a week, such as on
Monday by 3:00 PM? If you followed a methodology like this, it would be a
lot less work for everyone. Or, if you absolutely needed to shorten the
reporting cycle, you could require task updates at the end of every day?
Hope this helps.

 

[yann]

Dale,

Why, just because our process concern a closing (financial or accounting)
that occurs every months. Duration of this process is around 10 days and we
have to monitor the progress on an hourly basis. So doing the update once a
day will not be suitable for our organization, we need a frequent update so
user can see changes and re-act in case of slippage.

 

[Ben Howard [MVP]]

Hi Yann, so you have a 10 day duration process that you monitor (and hence
potentially modify) each hour. That is 8 monitoring points a day, 80 in
total, over 10 days. After each monitoring point you'll potentially
initiate, implement and communicate changes to your team in the remaining
tasks (or why monitor). I personally do not see how this can be workable in
one hour timescales, and I suspect whichever tool you use, you'll have some
issues.
--
Regards, Ben.

http://www.applepark.co.uk
http://appleparkltd.spaces.live.com/

 

[Mike Mahoney]

Dale,

Why, just because our process concern a closing (financial or accounting)
that occurs every months. Duration of this process is around 10 days and we
have to monitor the progress on an hourly basis. So doing the update oncea
day will not be suitable for our organization, we need a frequent update so
user can see changes and re-act in case of slippage.







- Show quoted text -

Hi Yann

It's impossible for a planning system to be "real time". Each progress
update is generally a planning exercise in its own right.
There has to be an update cycle whether it is 1 hour or one week.
having cross project dependencies increases the complexity of this.
If project c is dependent on task in project b which is dependent on a
task in project a, then you have a waterfall update process which you
may have to iterate thru each update to get plans back on track.
A master project containing all the linked projects will show
immediate effect of slippage, It does not give you the chance of
"accepting" link beteween project diffrences, it just does it.

rgds

Mike

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Yan:

One might say you're "micro managing."<g> Truly, you are managing a very
time-intensive micro process requiring hourly updates. Project handles
daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and other macro tracking processes very
well. Because the system design expects *people* to be involved in the
update process, it falls short of a good out-of-the-box fit for an
application like yours. With that said, you can apply this technology, but
you must also be committed to some custom development to make it a right
fit. The good news is that Project Server is as much a development platform
as it is an out-of-the box solution. So, if you really want to make this
happen, secure some funding and engage a capable Microsoft Project Partner
to help you get there.