MS should provide a FREE MS project viewer............

[jt]

We paid so much money for MS project and we want to be able to share the file
with out buying even more software. I don't understand why they do not offer
a free veiwer.

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

Generally people who would use a viewer to see the plan only need to see
selected parts of it or certain views like the Gantt chart and there are
usually parts, like resource salaries for example, that most of them should
not be allowed to see. A file viewer would be an all or nothing
proposition, in the worst case risking proprietary information becoming
public knowledge. So the workaround is, print off the views you want them
to see into a PDF file and send the result to them. Printing the Gantt
chart in its entirety, for example, to a PDF gives you a read only view of
the whole project that is precisely the sort of thing you'd want to use a
viewer for if one existed.

 

[JulieD]

an alternative if you don't have a PDF writer is to use the file/save as
webpage option AFTER you have taken a picture of the gantt chart itself
(with the little camera icon) and stored this somewhere on your computer.
You can then include this picture in the resulting webpage.

Cheers
JulieD

 

[John]

Steve,
Just curious, why would a viewer have to be "all or nothing"?

John

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi jt,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

Please see FAQ Item: 16. Project Viewer.

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: http://www.mvps.org/project/

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

My impression is all - I'd expect a viewer to open the data file and let you
see most everything you would in Project itself but in a read only format.
At least that's the way the viewers in other apps like Word, Visio, or
Powerpoint work, more or less. I can't imagine how you could code the mpp
file so that, for instance, the viewers installed for users X, Y, and Z
could view the resource sheet but those for users A, B, and C could not.
That's the sort of access control that calls for Project Server.

 

[John]

Steve,
I'm not sure why the viewer would need to limit the accessible data but
I can certainly conceive the feasibility of doing so if necessary.
Perhaps one reason Microsoft has not developed a "read only" Project
viewer is that several other companies already have filled that niche.
Just guessing.

John

 

[Steve House [MVP]]

I'm guessing that a) it's far more complex than a simple file viewer for
products like Word due to the large number of views etc to be accomodated;
and b) it would compete with Project Server/PWA. I've always thought Server
should be a lot cheaper and simpler to implement than it is, a small
fraction of its current costs and include in the package everything that is
required to install and run except the hardware and OS, but they didn't ask
me <grin>. OTOH, as a student of mine said when I mentioned server was a
relatively expensive product when you took into account everything that has
to go with it like SQL Server and licenses "Our typical project budget runs
between 15 and 25 million dollars. 25K for the software and another 25K in
consulting or IT overhead costs to get it up and running is mere pocket
change."

I don't know why users should want to limit data access within the file on a
user by user basis but they do whether it makes sense or not. There's a
thread posted just this morning from someone who wished to distribute copies
of the mpp file to users in accounting and engineering with cost data only
visible to the people in accounting. Another post was seeking to hide
salary info for full-time resources while letting it be displayed for
part-timers. Neither makes a lot of sense to me because it seems they are
circulating the working file way too widely but different strokes and all
that.