Using Project with multiple users

[J.S. Peters]

Hi,
I was recently put in charge of finding project management software to help
our company run more efficiently when a work order is issued. I have looked
primarily at Project to solve this problem, but I have a question. I would
like to be able to connect with other departments here on site. Would I need
to get Project installed on all computers to accomplish this? My goal is to
have each department update their progress or give explanations for delays in
real-time. I know I could send e-mails in Excel and they could update it and
send it back, but that would seem to be awfully tedious work.
I have seen some of the web-based applications, but would prefer not to have
the monthly fees that are associated with them. However, buying the Project
software for all the computers that would require it would be costly as well.
Any suggestions?

 

[Rod Gill]

Firstly, you are probably never going to get all users up to speed to
firstly do a weekly upgrade and secondly do it to a required standard. I
suspect the most effective solution for you is to use a part time project
administrator to collect updates then accurately update your schedule. This
will give you accuracy, timeliness and someone to offload some of your work
re reporting and chasing others for updates. They would need their own copy
of Project for their PC, but that's it.

If your users are good users of Project then you could look at solutions
like Microsoft Project Server or other tools, but there is an overhead that
would be greater than a project administrator.

--

Rod Gill
Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Project VBA, see:
http://www.projectvbabook.com