Recurring tasks - many resources

[Leon Milbeck]

I am presently using PS/PWA 2007.
Our team comprises of Development, Client Services, SQA and Tech Writers.
Dev, SQA and Tech Writer tasks are assigned via projects at a version level
of the software.
Client Services have specific customers and generic tasks that they
accomplish (Customer Support, Installation, Upgrades, etc) with our Customers.
SQA performs testing on many different versions.

The issue I have is how do I share certain tasks with all teams to log hours
against?

Happy path:
1. Developer A opens My Tasks (PWA) and records hours and submits results.
2. Developer A then opens Timesheets reviews tasks and submits timesheet.

Side path:
3. Developer A had 5 hours of Customer Support to Customer X.
4. In item 2 above, Developer A in Timesheets (PWA) should be able to Add
Line, select "Customer X - Customer Support" and add to Timesheet. This is
not possible, unless for that task I include all team members to that task. I
have tried this and it is not pretty after running through one weeks' worth
of timesheets (which we do via Excel now). I have also tried creating Project
Customer X (30 of them) with tasks and that got crazy too.

How can I configure Project to:
Establish a Global task list that all resources have access to. From
Timesheets (PWA) the users are able to Add Line, add the task for that week
and record time. Also, every week that task may have different resources
logging hours to it.

Any help or suggestions are welcome.

 

[Stephan Steiner]

We only use PWA 2003 for the moment but we had a similar problem -
it's basically the problem of any ERP software when you're dealing
with tasks that are unplannable and may occur at any moment and be
assigned to 1-n resources.

There is one way that is built-into Project Server and that's giving
resources the ability to create their own tasks. That means that every
resource can create whichever tasks they need.. but it also means that
those tasks are barebone (e.g no enterprise fields filled and no way
you can make them enter certain enterprise fields.. ) and there's no
uniform naming scheme.

Hence we developed our own approach: Based on the orders and
maintenance contract we havet (imported from SAP) we developed our own
frontend which allows resources to book themselves on a certain item
if need be (we have some people whose task it is to assign resources
to projects and divide the hours according to skills and need.. but
especially in support cases this can be too involved and slow) - so
depending on whether somebody is already booked on the same order /
contract, this will create a new assignment (using PDS in Project
Server 2003.. for you it would be the PSI interface which is a lot
more flexible and less of a PITA to work with), then publish that
assignment. It is not immediate (should be better for you though since
Project Server 2003 is extremely inefficient.. you need to open the
client and save the project and 2003 lacks the ability to do deltas
and takes an awful lot of time to save a project with more than a few
lines.. even when you run the client on the server itself) but with
2007 it should be sped up considerably (or so MS claims.. I'm still
pushing my colleagues to do a 2007 pilot to see for ourselves). And
that way we can ensure that all required enterprise fields (we need
e.g. the order number, the contract number, customer name, whether
tasks need to be billed by the hour or if there's a flat fee) are
filled out and that there won't be X different tasks created by X
different resources that all refer to the same thing.. and since we
have the reference to SAP throughout the system, we can in the end
export the hours delivered and base our billing on that without ever
having to enter anything manually anymore.

It was pretty involved getting there but we've had a mostly stable
system for a while now and especially all our manager and financial
types love all the graphs and stats we deliver them based on this end
to end time management solution (we also integrated our case
management system into this.. when a customer logs a case and it is
assigned to somebody, they automatically get the appropriate entries
in their timesheet so they can log hours. and we're considering
synching with the case system during the lifetime of a case (automatic
closing and the likes))

Hope that gives you an idea of some of the options you have.

Regards
Stephan

 

[Leon Milbeck]

Thanks for the reply, but it really does not help me with what I want to do.
I am glad that you were able to find a solution but I guess that I must
accept the fact that PWS is a waterfall driven application and not an agile
one. When I sold the company on it I was under the impression it could handle
our workflow.

There was a Post in the Project Server Group (Subject: Non-billable
activities/tasks in TimeSheet?) that I thought may work but you still have to
allocate all resources to all tasks.

Thanks again for your help.
Leon Milbeck

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Leon:

If you've already made an investment here, I suggest that you don't throw
the baby out with the bathwater until you've discussed your issue with a
competent Project Server consultant who can spend enough time with you to
understand your problem. It's unwise to draw conclusions on large problems
based on small posts in a newsgroup.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[Leon Milbeck]

Thanks ... I have been the strong advocate here for PWS over other Open
Source ones and am getting beat up because of the apparent "mis-givings" of
the application. Will continue to try other solutions for the workflow.

Leon Milbeck

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Leon:

Open-source proponents often carry that banner in every parade they can
find. I'm all for open source, when it's best of breed. I'll take the latter
over the former every time providing the economics make sense.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com