Jamie --
Naveen gave you some good tips. I would strongly recommend that you do what
he recommends in all three steps, however, I would recommend that you do the
steps in the following order.
1. Edit Global Template -- The Enterprise Global template is the
respository of all of your company's enterprise Views, Tables, Filters,
Groups, Reports, etc. It is also the repository of all of your company's
enterprise custom fields, including enterprise Project, Task, and Resource
fields. It is important that you define these custom fields before you move
to the Project Server environment, as doing so in advance will spare you
much pain. A very important field is the RBS field, which is Enterprise
Resource Outline Code30 field. This field is used by Project Server
security model to determine "who works for whom" in your organization.
2. Define Enterprise Resources -- You will probably not need to type all of
the resources into your Enterprise Resource Pool. A much easier method
would be to import resources from those 80 projects into the database using
Tools - Enterprise Options - Import Resources to Enterprise. I must warn
you to not "get in a rush" about getting your resources into the pool. Take
your time and make sure that you synchronize the names of people when one PM
uses the resource "Dale Howard" in a project, another uses "Dale A. Howard",
and still another uses "dhoward". All three instances refer to the same
person, so develop a standard naming convention for your resources before
you begin the importing process. If you have completed step #1 above, you
will also need to set any enterprise custom Resource fields for your
resources during the import process.
3. Import the Projects -- You can import each project, one at a time, into
the Project Server environment by clicking Tools - Enterprise Options -
Import Project to Enterprise. During this process, you will be using the
Import Projects wizard to convert the project from a nonenterprise project
into an enterprise project. Again, take your time during the import process
and read every page of the Wizard carefully. You will need to set the
proper enterprise fields for the project during this project, including
Project and Task fields. You will also need to match local resources from
the project with enterprise resources in your Enterprise Resource Pool.
As you can see from my notes above, moving from a Microsoft Project 2003
desktop application environment to an enterprise Project Server 2003
environment isn't a simple one-step process. Generally speaking, it takes a
serious amount of time and study to determine the enterprise project
management needs of your company, and to implement them in steps #1 and #2
above. This is why Microsoft recommends that companies partner with someone
who specializes in implementing Project Server 2002 and 2003. Hope these
notes are a help to you.
