View multiple published projects

[JCG]

Greetings:

I have 5 Project Managers (PM) that each manage multiple projects. Each PM
tracks their projects in a single MS Project file (therefore, there are 5
Project files). For each project, they track 4 different tasks; 1) Funding,
2) Report, 3) Design, and 4) Construction. These four tasks roll up to a
summary task which is the name of the project. If a PM manages 4 projects,
then there are 16 tasks and 4 summary tasks in the file. Each one of these 5
files are published to Project Server 2003.

My primary objective is to view/sort/filter/report across all 5 published
files at the same time. One approach I have taken is to pulish a blank
master project file to the server and use "insert file" to insert the other 5
published files. When I try to save, and error window comes up that
indicates the administrator won't let me save the file.

Question 1 - Why can't I save the file?

Question 2 - Is my approach to reporting across multiple files the correct
approach. As an example, a filter I would like to develop would show all
projects (accross the 5 files) that have the construction task starting
within a certain period.

Hope you can help...thanks

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

JCG --

1. The default settings in Project Server 2003 do not allow anyone to
either save or publish a master project to the Project Server database. It
IS safe to save a master project in the Project Server database, however,
but it is NOT safe to publish a master project, as doing so can double the
resource assignments of every resource assigned to tasks in the subprojects
of the master project. If you wish to save the master project in the
Project Server database, your Project Server administrator can log into PWA,
click Admin - Server configuration, and enable the permission to save master
projects. He/she should NOT enable the publishing of master projects,
however.

2. Yes, you can do this type of cross-project reporting in a master
project.

Hope this helps.