Enterprise Project Management Overview

Article
02/20/2014

Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.

Introduction to Enterprise Project Management

Microsoft® Project 2002 has expanded its product family to include a complete enterprise project management solution. Integrating the enterprise functionality previously provided by eLabor.com into Microsoft Project enables enterprise-level management of projects and resources for business results.

The enterprise project management solution includes the following products:

Microsoft Project Professional The desktop client that allows project managers to create and edit project plans and enterprise resources. Project plans and resources are saved to the Microsoft Project Server database.

Microsoft Project Server A Microsoft Project Server database that provides timesheets, status reports, portfolio reporting and modeling, enterprise resources, an enterprise global template, and templates to quick-start new projects.

Microsoft Project Web Access A browser-based client that allows team members, project and resource managers, and stakeholders (such as executives) to view or work with Microsoft Project Server data, such as timesheets and portfolio reports.

Building an Enterprise Project Plan

All companies work from plans, which are blueprints for short-term or long-term future development and growth. Independent of the exact time frame, companies generally have a strategic or directional plan.

Corporate planning occurs when an executive committee defines, assigns, and oversees a collection of a corporation's major projects. By successfully completing these projects, a corporation can then reach the goals it sets to compete in an industry-specific area.

Corporate plans typically contain information about:

The financial resources available for the life of the plan (budget).

The resources and skills required to accomplish the plan (people and equipment).

The consumable resources necessary for successful completion of the plan (materials).

The time constraints for the plan (start and finish dates).

The plan's overall project objectives and measures of performance.

Organization Standards

Standardization is a requirement for working with projects on an enterprise level; standardization provides a common language for all project managers. In Microsoft Project Professional, the enterprise global template ensures that all projects within an organization adhere to standards, such as a common use of views, tables, and fields.

The enterprise global template is a collection of default settings, such as views, tables, and fields that are used by all projects across the organization. The enterprise global template exists in the Microsoft Project Server database and are used in all of the organization's projects.

The enterprise global template can be customized for an organization by someone with administrative privileges on the server. A custom enterprise global template establishes project management standards and ensures that project data is consistent throughout an organization.

Enterprise Calendars

Calendars are the scheduling mechanism that determine working time for resources and tasks. Microsoft Project uses four types of calendars:

Base calendar Base calendars are calendars that the project calendars, resource calendars, and task calendars are based on. Microsoft Project provides Standard, 24-Hours, and Night Shift base calendars. By default, the Standard base calendar reflects a traditional work schedule: Monday through Friday, 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M, with an hour off for break.

Project calendar By default, the Standard base calendar is the project calendar.The project calendar designates the default work schedule and specifies standard working and nonworking times for all resources assigned to a project.

Resource calendar By default, the working and nonworking times of resources are based on the project calendar. A resource calendar can be customized to reflect specific working hours, vacations, leaves of absence, and planned personal time of individual resources.

Task calendar By default, tasks are scheduled based on the project calendar. A customized task calendar is especially useful for tasks that need to be scheduled outside the normal working times defined by the project calendar or assigned resource calendars.

Project and resource calendars can be customized in the enterprise global template so that projects and resources are scheduled in a standard way throughout the organization.

Enterprise Outline Codes

Organizations often require a particular work breakdown structure (WBS) or organizational breakdown structure (OBS) format for their projects. A WBS is a hierarchical structure used to group and describe projects in successively greater levels of detail. Similar to a WBS, an OBS typically represents a company's organization. These breakdown structures allow you to identify and categorize project, task, and resource information to make it easier to view and report project information.

When using Microsoft Project Professional to build an enterprise project, you can use enterprise outline codes to apply your organization's WBS or OBS to projects, tasks, and resources. Enterprise outline codes are custom tags for projects, tasks, or resources that share traits; they can be used to group projects in a variety of ways and also to see summarized, or rolled-up, information about a project grouping.

Enterprise outline codes are defined by the project management administrator or someone with administrative permission. These fields are then made available to all users throughout the organization.

Enterprise Custom Fields

Microsoft Project has always included extra fields (for text, flags, numbers, dates, cost, start and finish dates, and durations) to store custom data. You can customize these fields to obtain the information you want using formulas, specific value calculations, or graphical indicators.

Enterprise custom fields are custom fields specific to a particular project server and available in enterprise projects. Much like custom fields in projects that aren't enterprise projects, they can include custom formulas and outline codes and allow the use of value lists and graphical indicators, all tailored to the needs of the organization. Using enterprise fields, organizations can customize project management based on their own structure and processes. All users in the organization have access to a standard set of enterprise fields, allowing operations to be done across entire sets of projects.

Enterprise custom fields (including their definitions and lookup tables) are stored in the enterprise global template. Values entered in an enterprise field, however, are not stored in the enterprise global template. For security purposes, users must have permission to check out the enterprise global template to change enterprise custom fields.

Enterprise custom fields can be set for the project and have specific attributes. For example, they can be required fields so that users are prompted to enter information in that field. To maintain consistency across the organization and ensure that fields and their lookup tables are the same for all projects and resources, enterprise custom fields are set up in Microsoft Project Server.

Custom Enterprise Assignment fields are available in the Task Usage and Resource Usage views. Because they are based on custom Enterprise Resource field properties, they are listed with custom Enterprise Resource fields. These fields cannot be required, and values set for tasks do not apply to them. Enterprise Assignment and Enterprise Resource fields are useful for resource substitution.

Resources for Enterprise Projects

Resources are the people, equipment, and materials used to complete tasks in a project. In Microsoft Project Professional, before resource requirements can be specified for a task, resources must be defined in the enterprise resource pool and added to the team for a particular project.

Enterprise Resources

Enterprise resources can be shared among multiple projects. Using the group of enterprise resources, you can schedule resources' work across projects, identify conflicts between assignments in different projects, and see how a resource's time is used in multiple projects.

To find resources among the enterprise resources, use the Build Team from Enterprise command on the Tools menu to enter resources into your project. For more information about entering enterprise resources into your project, see Microsoft Project Help.

Resource Types

In Microsoft Project Professional, you can use the following resource types:

Local resources These are resources that are assigned to tasks in an enterprise project or in a local .mpp file. These resources do not exist in the enterprise resource pool in Microsoft Project Server.

Enterprise resources These are resources that are part of the enterprise resource pool. Enterprise resources are set up centrally for your organization and can be shared across projects in the enterprise. Enterprise resources are different from resources in the local resource pools set up for individual (non-enterprise) projects.

Generic resources These are placeholder resources, not specific individuals. You can use generic resources to specify the skills required for an assignment before you know which individual resources are available. Microsoft Project schedules generic resources as if they were work resources, and they behave similarly to work resources.

Resource Substitution Wizard

Microsoft Project Professional provides the Resource Substitution Wizard to help you optimize your project plans by recommending the best resources for tasks based on their skills, current workload, and availability. The wizard can make skills-based resource recommendations by analyzing resources across an organization or within a department.

Enterprise Project Options

It is best to establish standards for the way projects are created and how they appear in your organization's projects. Review each property in the Options dialog box (Tools menu) to determine if a standard should be established for all of your organization's projects. It also may be appropriate to establish different standards for different types of projects. For example, information technology (IT) projects in an organization may set the default task type to Fixed Units and have tasks be effort-driven, while field construction projects may have a default task type of Fixed Duration and not be effort-driven. Multiple standards can be accomplished by creating different project templates for each set of options.

Enterprise Project Versions

A project version is a full copy of the project saved to Microsoft Project Server that you can use for archiving or modeling. When a project is created and published to Microsoft Project Server, the first version is established. Microsoft Project Professional automatically publishes a project when it is saved. This published version becomes the current version and uses the file name extension .published.

Two types of project versions can be created:

Published versions Published versions are copies of the current project that you can modify for modeling and reporting. You cannot use a version to schedule assignments. If you want to continue using a version as the current project, you must save it with the name of the current project (project.published). Before overwriting the current project with a version of a project, you may first want to create an archived version of the current project.

Archived versions Archived versions are snapshots of the current version at specific times during a project's life cycle. You may want to create them regularly, for example, every month. You can use them to create backup copies of a project or to compare progress for each time period.

Multiple baselines

For comparison, you can also save multiple baselines of a project. Baselines are useful for viewing scheduling differences in a project. They don't, however, include all information that a version of a project contains. Also, changes in task dependencies cannot be determined from a baseline comparison. Interim plans are similar to baselines but store only changes to start and finish dates.

Tracking and Managing an Enterprise Project

Tracking progress and keeping a project current is an essential part of project management. As you track the actual progress of tasks, you can review your schedule to identify issues or potential problems. Identifying or anticipating problems allows you to take care of any issues that may affect the project's finish date as they arise. After you have identified problems in your schedule, you can use a variety of strategies to manage your project.

Though Microsoft Project makes tracking easy, there are several steps to take before you can begin tracking progress. You need to decide which tracking method to use and which items you want to track, such as start and finish dates of tasks, work, and resource costs. You also need to make sure your team is set up for the tracking method you've chosen.

Tracking Method for Enterprise Projects

With Microsoft Project Professional, you can use Microsoft Project Server to track progress through your organization's intranet. To collect and incorporate task status information from team members who don't have Microsoft Project Web Access, you can also use your e-mail system.

Earned Value Method for Enterprise Projects

Earned value analysis is a method for measuring project performance. It indicates how much of the budget should have been spent, in view of the amount of work done so far and the baseline costs for the tasks, assignments, or resources.

For enterprise projects, you need to determine whether earned value analysis will be used and establish standard earned value reporting methods.

Enterprise Team Collaboration

Microsoft Project Professional offers an effective solution for team collaboration with Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Project Web Access. Together, they provide great flexibility and numerous benefits for communicating efficiently with team members, other project managers, and stakeholders such as other project managers or executives.

Using Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server, project managers can:

Assign tasks to team members and keep track of work that's completed.

Automatically accept task updates from team members to incorporate updated information in their projects.

Request and receive status reports in the format they want and consolidate individual status reports into one project status report they can then present to stakeholders.

Perform what-if analysis on different versions of the project and compare costs, schedules, and resource allocation.

See the effect of schedule changes on resource availability, resource allocation, and costs.

Using Microsoft Project Web Access to access information on Microsoft Project Server, team members can:

Review their task assignments, respond to the project manager about their assignments, and send updates about completed work at regular intervals.

Create new tasks and send them to the project manager for approval and incorporation into the project file.

Delegate tasks to other team members.

View their tasks in a Gantt Chart and group, sort, and filter their tasks to focus on specific details.

Depending on the permission given to them by a Microsoft Project Server administrator, team members can also view the latest information for the entire project, not just their assigned tasks.

Using Microsoft Project Web Access to access information on Microsoft Project Server, stakeholders can:

Review project, task, and resource information to get a glimpse of how all projects are progressing across an organization.

Analyze data within a project or across projects with a PivotTable and PivotChart using the Portfolio Analyzer.

Model different project scenarios to determine the feasibility of a new project, prioritize projects and resources, or find potential problems using the Portfolio Modeler.

Status Reporting

With Microsoft Project Server, you can design status reports, which are forms that team members can fill out in Microsoft Project Web Access with text describing the status of their work. Unlike task updates, status reports do not contain numerical information about the project and cannot be used to update it. Status reports can be used to provide detailed information about accomplishments, goals, issues, and other factors that affect the team member's work. You can distribute status reports to other people in your organization or post them in a central location where others can see them. You can also consolidate individual reports from your team members into one larger status report for your whole team.

For effective status reporting, you can define the content sections of status reports, specify how often team members should submit status reports, and request that individual team members send you status reports.

Although you can request status reports directly from Microsoft Project, you can only review the submitted status reports in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Project Views

In Microsoft Project Web Access, you can view portfolios of projects or individual projects that have been published to Microsoft Project Server. You can see summary information about multiple projects and review detailed information about specific projects.

You can define or customize Microsoft Project Web Access views. You can also add new centers and activities for team members and stakeholders or change existing ones and set permissions for your entire organization.

Document Management and Issue Tracking

With Microsoft Project Server, you can easily manage project-related documents and track issues that arise throughout the project.

Before you can work with documents and issues in Microsoft Project Server, a server running SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft must be set up, and a subweb must be created for your project on this server. For more information about setting up SharePoint Team Services to manage documents, see your server administrator.

Documents

Documents can provide others with helpful information about the project from start to finish. For easy access, an administrator can set up a document library. There are two different document library types:

Project document library This document library stores documents that are related to a specific project. Access to documents in this library depends on permissions set for project managers, team members, and other stakeholders. Required document properties are defined by an administrator for the organization. Authorized users can create additional document libraries for the project. Project managers, who by default have design list permission, can make changes to specific document libraries.

Public document library This document library stores documents that are available to all users in an organization. Access to documents in this library is defined by the server administrator. Although any user can contribute documents to this library, only an authorized user can create and customize public document libraries.

You can access the document library through the Documents page in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Issues

Issue tracking improves the efficiency and effectiveness of project management because it allows you to communicate about problems and related actions with team members and stakeholders. When you enter issues, you can assign ownership, track progress, record resolutions, and create related reports and store it all in Microsoft Project Server.

Issues can be associated with projects, tasks, and documents so that you can keep track of their status, and they are clearly marked by an issue indicator. Depending on actions taken to resolve issues, issues appear as active, closed, or postponed. E-mail notifications can alert you that issues have been opened, assigned, or updated.

You can access issue tracking through the Issues page in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Other subweb lists

A SharePoint Team Services subweb contains lists other than the documents and issues, such as events, announcements, discussions, and other custom lists. These other SharePoint lists are not accessible from Microsoft Project Web Access. With their web browsers, users can navigate directly to the specific subwebs that contain the other lists. For easier access, a URL pointing to the subweb link can be placed on the Microsoft Project Web Access Home page.

Permissions

For security purposes, an administrator can assign permissions to specify and control the task, resource, or project information people can see and work with in Microsoft Project Web Access views.

You can allow or deny permissions to individuals or groups of Microsoft Project Web Access users. You can create security templates that define sets of permissions, and then assign permissions to users and groups based on the templates. You can use categories to define which specific projects and resources the various users and groups are allowed to view. You can also set permissions for Microsoft Project Web Access features to make them available or unavailable to the organization as a whole.

Microsoft Project Web Access permissions work similarly to permissions in Microsoft Windows® 2000 and Microsoft Windows NT®. Users and groups are the security principals. Categories and organizations are the security objects. You can use permissions to allow or deny security principals access to security objects.

Permissions can be set for the following security principals and objects:

Users Each individual user must be granted permission to view or access the data in a particular area of Microsoft Project Web Access. You can grant permissions at the user level or you can assign users to groups (recommended) and grant permissions at the group level. A single user can be a member of any number of groups.

**Groups ** A group of users is simply a collection of individual users who are assigned the same permissions. You can combine individual users who have common security requirements into a single group to reduce the number of security principals that you need to manage. Create custom groups when you need to provide new ways to access data within your organization; for example if your company employs contractors, you may want the contractors to have a different set of permissions than regular team members.

**Categories ** A category is a collection of projects and/or resources that a user or group is granted permission to see. You can create custom categories when you have a need for providing new ways to access project and resource data. Microsoft Project Web Access includes the default categories for the organization, projects, or tasks.

Security Templates A security template is simply a predefined set of permissions. Use security templates to simplify granting permissions to groups of users who need access to the same data. You can associate any number of individual users and groups with a single security template.

Integration with Outlook

Microsoft Outlook® items can be integrated into Microsoft Web Access. You can:

View (but not edit) Outlook tasks.

Incorporate Outlook Busy and Out of Office calendar entries and send some or all of these nonworking time entries to the project manager to update their calendars in Microsoft Project.

Update Microsoft Project Server views and status reports from Outlook.

Include Web Parts from Microsoft Project Server on Outlook digital dashboards.

Digital dashboard

Outlook digital dashboards provide a Web-based information portal and customized workspace that gives users easy access to crucial data and tools, strips away irrelevant information to help focus on relevant information, pulls together key information sources in a consolidated view, and provides a personal and collaborative team workspace for users.

Web-based information and services from different sources are delivered to a digital dashboard through Web Parts, reusable XML components that standardize how content is delivered.

The Project Guide

To make Microsoft Project easier to use for beginning users, Microsoft Project 2002 provides the Project Guide as a new user interface element that complements the existing, and still familiar, Microsoft Project user interface.

The Project Guide gives new users a clear path to follow through the primary steps of the project management process, increases the discoverability of primary Microsoft Project features, and integrates the decision-making context and domain knowledge with an interactive user interface.

The Project Guide can be customized and extended for your organization. For example, your organization may want to change particular steps within a project management process, outline their own unique processes, and add links to additional information.

Project Guide Components

The Project Guide has the following components:

Project Guide toolbar Displayed by default, this command bar for top-level navigation contains buttons for the main goal areas of the Project Guide.

Side pane This pane displays tasks within each goal area of the Project Guide and provides instructions on how to carry out the activities. Actions in the side pane affect the views and information displayed in the main view area.

Main view area As the primary area for viewing and editing project information, this is the place where users perform their work.

Custom Project Guides

Each project can have its own Project Guide, with different layout, functionality, and content. An organization can customize part or all of the Project Guide for each individual project. For example, a company or solution provider could create one Project Guide for finance projects and another for engineering projects. Project Guides can also be based on different user roles that can be verified when a user opens a project. The properties defining the Project Guide for that project can then be changed dynamically.

To create a custom Project Guides, you can:

Add a goal area to the default Project Guide.

Add a task or tasks to a goal area in the default Project Guide.

Change all goal areas and tasks in the Project Guide.

Change the layout and functionality of the Project Guide.

Conclusion

Microsoft Project Professional, Microsoft Project Server, and Microsoft Project Web Access provide an integrated enterprise project management solution that combines ease of use, a centralized database for projects and resources, and powerful reporting and analysis features. Microsoft Project Web Access provides Internet Explorer users with reporting, analysis, and modeling tools for projects and resources across an organization.