How do I achieve effective reporting in MSP ?

[Clive]

Hi

I am still using MSP2000 as I find it OK for the project planning
and tracking.

I find the reporting facilities limited

I have experimented saving the msp file to Access format (mdb) and
writing queries from that. That approach works but it is very trial-
and-error to work out the meaning of particular fields and more
importantly the "links" between the tables

I have also often resorted to copying and pasting data into Excel
directly and editing the extraneous characters such as the currency
symbols and time symbols ("d", "hr", etc) - so I can get the data in a
format against which to write simple functions

Now I have some time, I want to find an approach to writing
queries against my project data

So my questions are:

1. Is it worth upgrading to MSP 2003 to improve report in the base
product?
2. Is the "best" approach to save the mpp file to Access, manually
work out the meaning of each field in each table (!!) and start
writing queries in Access?
3. Is there a product that has already done the hard work of 2 so I
can just import the data into access (or Crystal Reports ??) and start
writing queries?
4. Is there some other approach to writing complex queries that avoids
a lot of manual editing of the data?

The sort of things I want to achieve include:

1. produce project budgets which can be reported on a month-by-month
basis, grouped into Resource Groups and separating out one-off costs
such as equipment purchase
2. Produce projected project spend, on a month-by-month basis, from
the spend to date and the incomplete tasks
3. Generate work packages by storing standard information with each
task - then producing a pdf to draw together information about the
tasks: start date, end date, expected effort, that can be printed into
a pdf and emailed to the resource.
4. Produce a "work profile" for all resources in a group that can be
sent to a resource manager showing my expected demands for a resource,
including known holiday dates

I think there is potentially a lot a data that could be stored in my
project, e.g. RAID register linked to mitigating tasks, that I am not
exploiting but am currently storing in spreadsheets.

I won't invest in Project Server because I can't guarantee where I
work will have that infrastructure.



Regards

Clive

 

[John]

Hi

I am still using MSP2000 as I find it OK for the project planning
and tracking.

I find the reporting facilities limited

I have experimented saving the msp file to Access format (mdb) and
writing queries from that. That approach works but it is very trial-
and-error to work out the meaning of particular fields and more
importantly the "links" between the tables

I have also often resorted to copying and pasting data into Excel
directly and editing the extraneous characters such as the currency
symbols and time symbols ("d", "hr", etc) - so I can get the data in a
format against which to write simple functions

Now I have some time, I want to find an approach to writing
queries against my project data

So my questions are:

1. Is it worth upgrading to MSP 2003 to improve report in the base
product?
2. Is the "best" approach to save the mpp file to Access, manually
work out the meaning of each field in each table (!!) and start
writing queries in Access?
3. Is there a product that has already done the hard work of 2 so I
can just import the data into access (or Crystal Reports ??) and start
writing queries?
4. Is there some other approach to writing complex queries that avoids
a lot of manual editing of the data?

The sort of things I want to achieve include:

1. produce project budgets which can be reported on a month-by-month
basis, grouped into Resource Groups and separating out one-off costs
such as equipment purchase
2. Produce projected project spend, on a month-by-month basis, from
the spend to date and the incomplete tasks
3. Generate work packages by storing standard information with each
task - then producing a pdf to draw together information about the
tasks: start date, end date, expected effort, that can be printed into
a pdf and emailed to the resource.
4. Produce a "work profile" for all resources in a group that can be
sent to a resource manager showing my expected demands for a resource,
including known holiday dates

I think there is potentially a lot a data that could be stored in my
project, e.g. RAID register linked to mitigating tasks, that I am not
exploiting but am currently storing in spreadsheets.

I won't invest in Project Server because I can't guarantee where I
work will have that infrastructure.



Regards

Clive

Clive,
Project 2000 most likely still has all the capability you will need,
but, if you will be working with others in your infrastructure that have
newer versions (e.g. Project 2003 or Project 2007), you may find that
you won't be able to access additional features. Furthermore, Project
2007 is not directly compatible with previous versions. However, newer
versions of Project do not have any better built-in functionality to
produce the specialized reports you want.

You can automate the SQL queries on the Access database, but from my
viewpoint, you can get everything you want using VBA directly on
Project. If you do not know VBA but are willing to learn, fellow MVP,
Rod Gill has an excellent book out of that subject. He also does on-line
classes. For more information see, http://www.projectvbabook.com,
and, http://projectservertraining.com/learning/index.aspx.

If you don't have the desire or time to learn VBA, you can hire someone
to create the macros for you.

John
Project MVP

 

[Jim Aksel]

The Visual Reporting features in MS Project 2007 in conjunction with MS Excel
should get you most of what you need. Skip 2003, it does not have the extra
reporting features.

You can also utilize the export to Excel features that should get things put
together for you. Other than Crystal Reports or going through a 3rd party
program (like Excel), I don't see a way to directly produce your pdf files as
you describle. Remember, PDF will only be created from what you can print so
you are limited by the source program, not the writer.

You can also generate nearly any report desired from MS Project 2000 and
later by using Visual Basic for Applications which is included with the
products. We routinely use data in Project here and wake up PowerPoint to
produce metrics, etc. all on the fly.

There is a 30 day free trial for MS Project 2007, give it a try.
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Jim
It''s software; it''s not allowed to win.

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