What is the best way to handle Support Projects in MS Project Serv

[JP]

We are in the process of implementing MS Project Server 2003. How have other
companies handled support in the it Department. We have multiple projects but
we also have support work on apps already in production. It is as easy as
creating a regular project and add tasks for individual support work?

 

[Marc Soester]

Hi JP,

Project Server 2003 is a Project Tool and Support tasks are not necessarily
handled niclely. By saying that, you can solve this in different ways. Here
are some ways that you can concider:

1. One Poject per department with pre-definded tasks. Create a Template with
the pre-definded tasks and each period (week, month etc) you close this
project and create a new support project. This will allow you to have a
history per period.

2. if the support doesnt require many tasks, create a project called
something like "Support Tasks". Assign the resources as required. ( same
concept then above, but different level, like longer period ( anually ) and
accross the organisation ( not per department).

3. Project Server has the concept of Admin Projects ( which captures all non
project work) Depending on your requirements ( you may only want to capture
actual work for Support) you could use an Admin Project. Please note that
Admin Projects are "special" proejct wich will have some implications ( for
example, if you assign a resource to a task within admin projects, the
availability is not considered).

I hope this will give you some ways to work with

 

[JP]

Marc,
Thanks. We are in the process if implementing MS Office Project Server.
Since I read your response we were concidering the same. We started out with
the admin projects route, then went back to the create your option 2. For our
business analysts and PM's we are thinking this option 1 or 2. As for the
development group of which for some of the workis @50% support the other 50%
is project work. I like the admin project route. However, When I create an
admin project the resource cannot add a task via the PWA. Is that because of
a security setting? If they could add a task, I could set up a admin project
say Development Support. Assign all the development resources to a task on
the project. As a support issue comes the resource would go to the admin
support project add the task via PWA use the line number and project as the
support number. I believe that they can alos add a note to the PWA task line
number?

So the question is can the resource add a task to an admin project? And if
so what do you think?

 

[Marc Soester]

Hi JP,

To be honest I am not quite sure if you can add tasks to Admin Projects. The
best way is to try this with an Admin account.
My personal experience with Admin Projects was always kind of negative. If I
can I try to avoid them. Admin Projects are special projects that do not
behave like normal projects. Additionally Admin Projects can be fairly slow.
I always try to do option 1 or 2 since you are able to analyse your projects
in a more comprehensive way.
By all means, if you are able add tasks to admin projects, than this may be
the best solution for you.
I hope this helps Please let me know if you have any furhter questions.

 

[JP]

Marc,

Thanks.

It doesn't appear that you can add tasks to an admin project. What I ended
up doing was to create a project called Development Support for example.
Added tasks like SQL Support, Linux support, .net support etc. Then I created
a dummy subtask under each task. With out creating a subtask PWA would not
let me add tasks to an existing task. Then this allows the resource to
categorize the different types of support for reporting. The resource can add
a new task or make the task a subtask of one of the above tasks. I am hoping
that this will work for us.