Project Center to reflect status based on month end by project

[Peggy Cornett]

MS Project 2003 (11.2.2005.1801.15) SP2 Project Server 2003 SP2

Currently I have a view in Project Center that will work well for a monthly
meeting we have. The projects are statused weekly. We have this meeting mid
month to review the previous fiscal month project schedules. By that time
the view that would work well now has current information since they have
been statused weekly. I want to have this view to reflect the project
information as it was at month end. Is the best way to do this is add a
version and at the end of each month save a copy with this version and then
have my view filtered only to include this version? I would want to
overwrite these each month end as to not clutter up the server. I could do
something like this as well with a master project but I would still have the
issue of needing to have a snapshot of the schedule as it is at month end.
Currently we do not use versions, only published.
Thank you,
Peggy Cornett

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Peggy:

I think your idea of using versions is a solid one. It will require a bit of
maintenance! Because you state that you need a "snap shot" I can't help but
wonder why you don't simply take one. What's preventing you from dropping a
screenshot of the view into a PPT or Word document?

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
For Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
For Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi Peggy,

I assume that you could use the Version function within 2003, but I would
probably consider the Portfolio Analyser. It depends on what inforamtion you
want to display for your status, but all the information captured in a
schedule ( work, cost ) is kept timephased within the Portfolio Analyser.

If this doesnt do the job, you may want to consider a "workaround" and
extract the Project Center view into Excel and save it. At least you would
have some kind of "snapshot" that allows you to compare previous month values
with current values.
Hope that helps

 

[Peggy Cornett]

I want to show all projects within a product line in order by priority with
the name, last status date and maybe another field. Mainly I want all
project names listed and Gantt chart to show baseline start and finish at the
project level, preformance taken, and schedule start and finish. I want this
to be a easy, quick visual to scan for such things as finish date pushed
beyond baseline finish and preformance taken to date. I would also like to
format the current status date line to show in the Gantt chart in Project
Center view.
Thanks,
Peggy

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi Peggy,

well all the "wants" are not possible in the Project Center out of the
box unfortunatly

Generally you should easily create a Project Center view with all the
information. Each month you can then extract this information for your
"snapshot report" as I described in my last post.

In regars to formating the gantt chart in Proejct Center, unfortunatly you
cannot include the progress line ( I know that is a shame).

Hope this helps Peggy
--
Marc Soester [MVP]
State Manager: EPM
http://marcsoester.blogspot.com

 

[Peggy Cornett]

Thanks. I figured I wouldn't be able to add a status line in the Gantt chart
in project center but it would be nice. I think I can customize all the
other things I want in order to utilize the version for this Project Cneter
view.
Thanks,
Peggy Cornett

 

[Peggy Cornett]

1) The maintenance should be low shouldn't it? The version I create will be
set to archive so we can overwrite it each month with the current month end
state. As a project is finished/closed it will be deleted from project
server. Perhaps in the future we would add another version to archive closed
projects on the server but not for now.
2) I want a snapshot of a list of project names with the Gantt chart. The
Gantt chart will represent each project at the project level showing
baseline, schedule and preformance. You probably think I can make a snapshot
at month end after all project leads have statused their schedule. However,
all project leads don't get their schedule statused by the deadline (I don't
care for deadlines that are not, but I don't control this one). We also have
"fixes" come in later for schedules that were in the processed of being
replanned at month end. We manage "fixes" for 10 days or so past the fiscal
month end and work them into the final report. Of course by this time most
of the project schedules have already been statused for the first week of the
new fiscal month so therefore the "snapshot" won't work.
Now about the "snap shot", how would I do that in Project Center? Are you
meaning a screenprint? I know I could paste that into a slide but won't that
only get what is visible on the screen? I may have 40 projects in the list
and all do not show without scrolling down in the project center view. I do
use the simple iu sometimes to give me more screen space but that won't
really solve my delima with needing all the schedules statused for use in our
monthly report.
Thanks,
~Peg

 

[Peggy Cornett]

In testing a version with archive set to yes, I discovered the archived
version will still allow changes to be saved. Is there a way to make this
read only so as to preserve the exact state at month end? I do like being
able to copy over it with the following month end. I also notice the new
version does not show in PWA until you published the project plan.

I read the version archived option prevents updates of summary resource
assignments. What exactly does that mean?
Thanks,
Peggy