MSProject Web Access

[James Laurenson]

My team is looking for a dynamic scheduling option derived
from one master MSProject plan which in itself is derived
from several smaller MSProject plans. So, as a result of
changes made to any number of the smaller project plans,
the master is dynamically updated AND several, individual
team member schedules are dynamically updated from that
updated master plan. Therefore end users wanting to see
what they are scheduled to do for the upcoming week need
only check their individual schedules.

 

[David Hunsberger]

James --

In my experience, Project does an excellent job of
consolidating multiple small projects into a large master
project. Managers can get global information based on
what is going on in all the subprojects. I helped do this
integration for a large multi-state communications
company, integrating 30 subschedules into one master
schedule every week, and seeing where the "push" changes
occurred that affected everyone.

If the subproject Project files live on the same network
as the consolidated master file, and if the administrative
permissions are set so the PM can make changes to the
subprojects, then the PM should be able to do what you
say -- integrate and modify the projects, and "push" the
changes out to the individual subproject files, from which
team members can draw their assignments.

If, however, the owners of the subprojects live in
different locations not on the same network, or the PM
does not have "write" permission to those files, then the
PM may have to email the modified individual schedules,
and the subproject managers may have to overwrite their
local schedule copies with the PM's copies to capture the
latest effects of the integration, such as where one
schedule pushed key milestones in another schedule. This
process obviously will take some coordination so that the
local subfiles don't lose recently entered information
when they are overwritten.

I hope this gives you some background. If you have more
specific integration and "push" questions, I hope you will
post them here.

Regards,
David Hunsberger
MS Project Instructor
Arlington, VA
www.it7.com
(e-mail address removed)