Mutli-Projects with Attirubtes?

[FtlGuy]

I'm looking into Project and Project Server as possible solutions for our
organization.

We need a web-accessible solution to manage multiple projects. Each project
has a set of required attributes (like purpose, method, and end-state). Each
task in a given project has other attributes (which I believe we can set up
by creating our own project templates). Some tasks will include travel for
all those involved, and we will need to add specialized travel tracking (to
note trip locations, various projected and actual costs, etc). Finally, we
may want to customize some calendar-type outputs (e.g., list each individual
in the organization and show a left-to-right calendar in which colored blocks
indicate when a given individual is involved in a given project--color coded
by project).

Some of that may be confusing, but can anyone give me a clue as to how close
Project Server will get us towards these goals???

Thank you very much for any info!


-Jason

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

FtlGuy --

Excellent questions about the capabilities of Project Server 2007. Here is
how the software might be able to meet your needs:

1. "Each project has a set of required attributes (like purpose, method,
and end-state)." Your Project Server administrator can create custom
enterprise Project fields to track this information.

2. "Each task in a given project has other attributes (which I believe we
can set up by creating our own project templates)." Your Project Server
administrator can create custom enterprise Task fields to track this
information. You can also create enterprise project templates that have
this information already applied for each task.

3. "Some tasks will include travel for all those involved, and we will need
to add specialized travel tracking (to note trip locations, various
projected and actual costs, etc)." Your Project Server administrator could
create one or more Expense Cost resources for this purpose. Your PM's would
need to assign the Expense Cost resources to tasks involving travel, would
need to specify an anticipated budget for each travel item, and would then
need to enter actual expenses once the travel is completed on a task.

4. "Finally, we may want to customize some calendar-type outputs (e.g.,
list each individual in the organization and show a left-to-right calendar
in which colored blocks indicate when a given individual is involved in a
given project--color coded by project)." Project Server 2007 does not have
this capability "out of the box" so to speak, but your Project Server
administrator could create a custom Data Analysis view that would come
pretty close to what you want. He/she could also use SQL Reporting Services
to create a custom report as well.

Hope this helps.

 

[FtlGuy]

Thanks for the info!

I was looking into downloading the trial version, but I noticed it only runs
on Windows Server 2003. We host our web site via Apache on a Windows XP
machine. I could convince management to spend some time testing out a free
version, but it will be much harder if it means licensing another OS on a new
machine. Ugh.


-Jason

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi Jason,

Alternetavily you may want to think about having Project Server hosted by
another company. That is most interesting for organisations who do not run an
Microsoft environmnet like your organisation.

There are several companies out there offering this. Check out
www.epmlive.com
I am sure if you google a little, you will find more.
Hope this helps
--
Marc Soester [MVP]
State Manager: EPM
http://marcsoester.blogspot.com