How to achieve Master/Subproject in Project Server

[Peter Williams]

What is the best way to accomplish the following ? I have a large project (1
year) with 5 main phases/components (i.e. Soft Dev, Security,
Infrastructure..etc). There is a total budget and each phase has a fixed %
of the total. This includes man hour estimates. Anyway...each Phase will be
made up of several different projects as the year progresses.

If I want to view how the overall project is doing by Phase do I create a
Master project with these 5 Phases and then insert subprojects as necessary
under each phase and publish to Project Server ? Is this the only way to
make sure the numbers (progress %, cost, etc) from the individual projects
will roll up to each Phase of the main project ?

I tried another technique in Project Server by adding a custom project field
which held a "project type" value (Soft Dev, Security, Infrastructure, etc.)
and then created a Project Center view which grouped by project type.
So..all Soft Dev projects showed under the Soft Dev grouping, all Security
projects under Security, etc. This looked nice but this method doesn't roll
up numbers (cost, duration, etc.).

I hope this is clear. Thanks in advance.

Peter

I tried another technique to display

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Peter --

You can use a master project for this purpose, and even save the master
project in the Project Server database, but under no circumstances should
you ever publish a master project. Publishing a master project in Project
Server can lead to duplicate task assignments for all resources assigned to
tasks in the subprojects. The default permissions in Project Server 2003 do
not allow PM's to either save or publish a master project. You would need
your Project Server administrator to enable the permission to save master
projects in the Project Server database (in PWA, the permission is on the
Server Configuration page). Hope this helps.

 

[Peter Williams]

Thanks Dale. I am confused because in a previous post you implied that
publishing Master Projects appears to work fine.

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...q=project+server+master+projects&rnum=3&hl=en

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Peter --

Contrary to my previous post, at least one user indicated that publishing a
master project in Project Server 2003 caused duplicate assignments. Given
this fact, I do not recommend that you publish a master project. If you
elect to do so, do it at your own risk. Hope this helps.

 

[Reid McTaggart]

Dale's more recent advice is correct. Do not publish Master Projects.

More precisely, do not publish assignments from a MP. You could save the MP
to the server, and even publish the plan; but if you slip up and publish
assignments, there will be double bookings.
--
Reid McTaggart
EPM Architect
Microsoft