sharing Project

[zooeyhallne]

I am the IT person for a small business. I am only generally familiar with
MS Projbect. My boss has been researching Project and asked me a question
about sharing the application.

He wants to have 4 users both within and without the company collaborate on
a project. However, he wanted to know if he bought 1 copy of Project and it
would allow this.

I told him I wasn't too sure about how to answer him. I said that it
probably wouldn't work but would do more research.

So I guess the question is: what is needed to allow several users to
collaborate on a project using Microsoft Project, and some of those users are
outside of the company? Are there any strategies to allow this?

PS--we use Microsoft Small Business Server in our company

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

To edit a project file will require a copy of MS Project. My understanding
of the typical EULA (End user licence agreement) is that users can "share" a
copy.

I just saw that a new free open source project scheduling tool which is
compatible with the MS Project file format is available. This might be an
alternative for users outside your company who don't have a copy of project.
More details here:

http://zo-d.com/blog/archives/microsoft-project/openproj-first-look.html

It is not as full featured as Project, but it is cross-platform and free and
is one of the first of the open source scheduling tools which was built by
people with real experience in the domain.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[zooeyhallne]

Thanks Jack. However I am a little leary of open-source stuff and the words
"free" preceeding something. While it may have its place I am reminded of
something my mentor told me about buying anything in the computer world:

It's cheap
It's reliable
It's configurable

He said it is a law that for any products you can only get two out of the
three.

 

[Jack Dahlgren]

Look at internet browsers.
They are for the most part free.
Openproj is not configurable, but for a cheap easy file editor it is fine.
There is no requirement that it be configurable. It just needs to read .xml
files. Configurability is over-rated in my opinion.

My feeling is that scheduling is going to increasingly move to a networked
model and the client will be the free sample. This enables a large number of
potential business models which have advantages over shrink-wrapped
software.

Openproj is just a teaser for people to sign up for hosted networked based
scheduling.

Microsoft is slowly eliminating the need for the client app as well.
Activities and Proposals can be created in Project Server through the
browser. Server-side scheduling is now built-in. I can't see this trend
turning around as the benefits of having a networked schedule are very high
and the cost is increasingly lower.

-Jack Dahlgren

 

[John Milan]

You might want to take a look at IntelliGantt from TeamDirection. They have
an Add In for MS Project that lets you publish the project plan to a
SharePoint site. People can use a web browser to view and update their tasks
and the results will be synchronized in the original project.

They're in the Microsoft Office Systems Solutions Directory:
http://directory.partners.extranet.microsoft.com/SolutionPage.aspx?SolutionID=6325

Or go to their website:
www.teamdirection.com