Progent's Application Experts

Microsoft Project is one of Microsoft’s oldest home-grown applications and has for almost three decades been the leading desktop solution for project management. Microsoft Project is a collaborative tool for planning and managing projects using critical-path scheduling, Gantt-chart visualization, and other techniques to track progress and costs and to allocate human resources, and equipment.

Microsoft Project Server 2010, which is built on SharePoint 2010, centralizes Microsoft Project information in a common SQL Server database and offers greater management control, enhanced security, and improved collaboration. Project Server 2010 also supports web-based clients as well as users running the Microsoft Project desktop application.

While Project is very strong as a tool for managing people-intensive projects such as product development, Project is not intended as a materials requirements planning (MRP) solution for manufacturers, which is addressed by several applications within the Microsoft Dynamics family of business software.

Progent's Microsoft-certified engineers offer in-depth expertise in deploying and using Project and Project Server and can provide a broad range of cost-effective online consulting services based on industry best practices to help businesses of any size to take full advantage of this powerful platform. Services available from Progent include project design, software configuration and upgrades, strategies for secure collaboration among local and remote users, network infrastructure optimization, and customized webinar training.

Microsoft Project 2007
Microsoft Office Project 2007 provides a robust project management solution with a powerful combination of usability, power, and flexibility, allowing you to manage projects efficiently, collaboratively, and successfully. You can stay informed and control project work, schedules, and finances, keep project teams aligned, and be more productive through integration with familiar Microsoft Office system programs, extensive reporting, guided planning, and flexible tools.

The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution streamlines the management and prioritization of projects and resources across your organization. The EPM Solution includes Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007, Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Project Web Access. Important features of Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management include:

• Manage Multiple Sub-projects as a Single Object. Project Professional lets you manage multiple sub-projects as a single object. This means you can generate key performance indicators (KPIs) and analysis across multiple sub-projects.
• Import Project Task Lists from Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services. When you want to capture a project idea, you can use Windows SharePoint Services to begin creating a project task list. You can later import your project task list into Project Web Access, or convert it into a complete project plan.
• Plan for Activities that Follow the Completion of a Project. Project Web Access supports activity plans, which help you to manage the activities that often follow the completion of a project.
• Identify Specific Owners for Each Task Assignment. By identifying Assignment Owners, individuals other than the assigned resource can provide status updates on a work or material resource's assignment.
• Track Your Project's Budget. Budget tracking permits Project to support the method with which many organizations allocate their budgets to specify the amount of resources and money that each project or program should use.
• Undo and Redo Multiple Changes. Reverse the most recent series of changes by undoing changes to views, data, and options with Multiple Level Undo. With this functionality, you can also undo actions or sets of actions from macros or third-party applications.
• Assign Cost Resources Across Multiple Tasks and Projects. Cost resources allow you to monitor project financials and synchronize your project with data in your accounting systems. For each task, you can assign multiple arbitrary costs (not based on work time) and use custom fields to specify cost type or financial code.
• Develop High-level Resource Plans. Resource plans provide information about high-level or summary resource allocation when detailed resource assignments do not exist; for example, in proposed and anticipated projects, task-only projects, and for projects where assignments do not accurately reflect resource distribution.
• Assign Work to Entire Teams of Resources. Team resources allow work to be assigned to a team rather than an individual. Any member of the team can accept the assignment and report time against it.
• Identify Factors Affecting Task Schedule. Tasks drivers show which factors are affecting the start date of a task. Examples of possible drivers are predecessors, constraints, and calendar exceptions. Simply click these drivers to link to relevant information.
• Track Project-related Documents and Information by Using Project Workspace Sites. Integration of Project Server and Windows SharePoint Services enables central management and tracking project-related documents and information.
• Report on Tasks from the Outlook Calendar or Tasks Folder. Team members can view and report progress on tasks directly from their Outlook Tasks folder or their Outlook Calendar.
• Track Administrative and Non-project Tasks Using Timesheets. Timesheets provide the basis for this information in Project, but they also extend beyond the basics to serve as input for financial systems and analyzing progress. Users can report how they spend their time on project and non-project activities by entering their hours against project tasks, summary tasks, or non-project administrative tasks.
• Track Task Status Separate from Actual Work Hours. When tracking task status, team members can report effort on their task assignments separately from their actual work hours.

• Improved User Interface
  – More efficient navigation based on the Microsoft Fluent user interface and Microsoft Office Ribbon
  – Microsoft Office Backstage view simplifies saving, printing, sharing, and publishing projects
  – Better integration with Microsoft Office Word and Excel for publishing information
  – More pre-built project templates plus greater ability to share new or customized templates
  
• More Powerful Scheduling
  – Users can schedule tasks manually with custom Start, Finish, and Duration fields
  – The new Task Inspector tool helps you detect and resolve resource and scheduling conflicts
  – New support for Inactive tasks simplifies what-if analysis to facilitate more thorough planning
  
• Enhanced Monitoring
  – A new Timeline view of tasks, milestones, and phases highlights key dates and possible problems
  – Manual task scheduling lets you create summary plans for later comparison with detailed results
  – Projects can be saved in PDF and XPS format for sharing or documenting how a project evolved
  
• Easier Resource Management
  – A new interactive Team Planner tool simplifies resource management and detects overload issues
  – Enhanced leveling helps isolate and mitigate resource allocation problems
  – Visual Reports improvements help you produce summary charts for more detailed data analyses
  – An enhanced Compare Projects tool supports what-if analyses for evaluating project scenarios
  
• Better Collaboration
  – Connection to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 synchronization allows shared status updates
  – A new wizard turns SharePoint lists into projects by mapping SharePoint task list fields to Project fields
  – Project files can be saved directly to a SharePoint Foundation 2010 site for better collaboration and control
  – Integration with Project Server 2010 enables centralized project management and web-based scheduling
  

Microsoft Project Server 2010
Microsoft Project Server 2010 utilizes SharePoint 2010 to provide an advanced, collaborative Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution. Project Server 2010 incorporates the capabilities of Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 to help prioritize projects and optimize portfolios by allocating resources across the enterprise based on strategic business values. Project Server 2010 also includes Project Web Access to allow mobile workers to use a web browser for project scheduling with a client application feature set equivalent to Project Professional 2010.

Because it is built on SharePoint Server 2010, Project Server 201o makes it easy to create reports and dashboards, use workflows to control document review and approval, and collaborate via Wikis, blogs, discussion groups, and My Sites. Project Server 2010 also takes advantage of SharePoint's powerful search capabilities for finding people and mining resources, tasks, documents, and other project data.

By including the capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, Project Server 2010 is able to provide comprehensive project and portfolio management (PPM) functions in a single server that streamlines administration and does away with the need for a Project Server Gateway.

For more information about Microsoft Project Server, visit Progent's Project Server 2010 consulting services.

How Progent Can Help You with Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server
Progent's Microsoft Project consultants are available online to provide affordable expertise for all facets of Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server technology from emergency troubleshooting to project design and management. Progent can help you maintain, manage, enhance, and troubleshoot your existing Project environment or migrate to a newer version of Project. Progent can show you how to follow industry best practices to plan complex projects, select or customize existing templates or create new ones, and use Microsoft Project to manage and monitor a project to a successful conclusion.

Progent's Microsoft-certified engineers can help you integrate Project with Project Server and with other Microsoft applications including SharePoint, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE engineers can help you build a fast and dependable network infrastructure to support your Microsoft Project environment and to allow authorized users to access Project files easily from local or remote desktop computers or smartphones. Progent's certified network security experts can help you define and enforce security policies that keep you Project information safe and allow you to comply with industry and regulatory standards. Progent can also provide custom webinar training to help individuals or groups manage and use Microsoft Project efficiently.

Contact Progent for Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server Support
If you are looking for a Microsoft Project or Microsoft Project Server consulting specialist, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or send email to experts@progent.com.

Attention Application Experts
If you are a skilled specialist with proven ability in any of the technologies supported by the Experts Group, ask about how to join Progent by going to Join the Experts Team.