Limitations Managing Projects for Multiple Groups?

[Jeff L]

Keep in mind while reading this that although I have extensive experience
with competing products, I know very little about Project Server...
A group at our company currently utilizes Project Server 2003. The Projects
Managed by this group are often related to Projects Managed by my group. As
a result, I would like to utilize the existing Project Server environment
based on the following extremely high-level requirements among others:
• Associate the appropriate tasks of our related project
• Utilize the web interface to collect task updates from resources
• Secure the environment so that projects managed by my group are not
modifiable by the other group and vice versa
I have been told that the primary issue that prevents us from sharing
Project Server in this manner relates to the fact that all changes made via
the web interface funnel through a single administrator and that there is no
way to configure Project Server so that it knows specific projects belong to
specific PMs and direct web updates to the appropriate PM. I wish I could
explain more clearly but as I said above I don't have much experience with
Project Server. I do know this is something I could do in other tools and
would be surprised if this is a real limitation.
Is this limitation real? If so, are there any known workarounds? Any input
you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jeff L --

Whoever gave you the information about Project Server 2003 is sadly
mistaken. The system can absolutely meet your requirements. Here's the way
it works:

1. A PM launches Project Professional 2003 and connects to Project Server.
2. The PM creates a new enterprise project, adds enterprise resources to
the project team, and assigns them to tasks.
3. The PM publishes the project.
4. Team members in the project get an e-mail message notifying them of the
new project.
5. Team members go to the View My Tasks page and enter progress updates on
their project tasks on a regular basis, such as weekly.
6. Team members submit their task updates to their PM.
7. The PM for each project sees the task updates for his/her own projects
and can approve/reject each update.
8. The system "pushes" the task updates into the relevant project.

From there the PM can analyze variance, revise the plan as needed, and
publish the project changes. Isn't this what you want? If so, go for it,
my friend! Hope this helps.

 

[Jeff L]

Thank you very much for your response. That explanation was much more in
line with what I was expecting. For some reason, the original explanation I
received dealt with exporting projects back out to an MPP and exporting the
projects back into the server. I believe that is the reason the Admin
account was required. From what you are saying, I should be able to
completely manage projects with in Project Server, receive updates, make
manual changes to the Gantt, etc.

Thank you,


Jeff