Project Central

[Bob Truetken]

Our company is starting a new initiative and one of my tasks is to research
Project Central. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Project
Central? I have done some research on it but would like some feedback from
actual users who have implemented it. We are going to have a PMO who will
manage all the projects. Does everyone who is on the project team have to
have Microsoft Project? Our company does not want to have to buy a copy for
everyone if Project Central will work. I am currently giving my customers
an html of the project and works good for them.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Bob --

The current version of the product of which you speak is Microsoft Project
Server 2003. The advantages of using this software include a stable
enterprise resource pool and an enteprise global file that is the
respository of all of your organization's Views, Tables, Filters, Groups,
Fields, etc. Another advantage is the ability to manage resource
utilization across the organization's portfolio of projects.

If your organization implements Project Server 2003, only those who actually
plan/manage projects (normally your project managers or PMO staff) will need
to use Microsoft Project Professional. Everyone else will use Project Web
Access to collaborate on projects of interest to them. Using PWA, team
members will be able to report their actuals during each reporting period,
for example.

As one who assists with the implementation of Project Server, I would
strongly recommend that you seek the assistance of a Microsoft Project
Partner in your organization's implementation of this product. Hope this
helps.

 

[Steve House]

I would very strongly suggest you bypass Project Central in favour of the
current version, Project Server. Central's purpose, as you know, is to give
web access to your project files. It was bundled free with Project 2000 but
anything you get for free is usually worth exactly what you've paid for it.
I've heard rumours that some people have been able to use it successfully
but I have never personally known anyone who was able to get it to work
reliably in a production environment. Once it matured and became a stable
and usable product, it became a separate product and was no longer free, MS
Project Server 2002. The current release is Project Server 2003 and is
getting quite wide acceptance for EPM and PMO environments. With Server,
your project managers, the ones who will be developing and managing the
project plan, use Project Professional. They then publish the plans to the
server where other users - resources, functional managers, etc - that need
to view it and update their portions of it access it via Project Web Access.
Deploying Server is not a trivial task (but unlike Central, at least it
works when you get done LOL) ! I'd suggest you look at the MS web site to
download and read their White Papers and case studies.

Oh, and Project Central was similar to Server in that it did not replace the
need for a full copy of MS Project in the hands of anyone creating or
managing the project plans. You still needed enough licenses for that. Web
access allowed for viewing and updating progress but not actually editing
the plans.