ms project server

8/7/2019 Ms Project Server

1/30

What's new in Office Project 2007

Microsoft Corporation

Published: March 2009

Author: Microsoft Office System and Servers Team ([email protected])

Abstract

This article examines what is new in Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Project Web Access

2007, and Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007. It will be useful to executives, project

managers, resource managers, and IT Professionals who have experience with previous versions

of Microsoft Project and who want to know what is new or has changed. There are several new

features in Microsoft Project 2007 and there are a number of existing features that have been

improved. Both new features and improvements are covered.

The content in this book is a copy of selected content in the Project Server Technology technical

library(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740) as of the date above. For the most current

content, see the technical library on the Web.
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84740


2/30

2


3/30

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation

on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to

changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of

Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the

date of publication.

This White Paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES,

EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the

rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written

permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual

property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any

written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any

license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail

addresses, logos, people, places and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association

with any real company, organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person, place

or event is intended or should be inferred.

2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Access, Active Directory, Excel, Groove, InfoPath, Internet Explorer, OneNote, Outlook,

PowerPoint, SharePoint, SQL Server, Visio, Windows, Windows Server, and Windows Vista are

either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or

other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their

respective owners.

ii


4/30

Contents

What's new in Office Project 2007 ............................................................................................1

Abstract..............................................................................................................................1

Contents ...................................................................................................................................iii

Getting Help .............................................................................................................................iv

What's new in Office Project 2007 ............................................................................................5

Office Project 2007 family .........................................................................................................6

Office Project 2007 feature list..................................................................................................7

Desktop features ................................................................................................................7

Server features .................................................................................................................11

Office Project 2007 project management capabilities .............................................................20

Teams and tasks ........................................................................................................ ......20

Office Project 2007 EPM capabilities ......................................................................................21

Quick start with project portfolio management.................................................................21

Managing portfolios ..........................................................................................................23

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 ..................................................................24

Managing programs ................................................................................................... ......25

Extending the Project family .............................................................................................27

Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................29

iii


5/30

Getting Help

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this book. This content is also availableonline in the Office System TechNet Library, so if you run into problems you can check for

updates at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/office

If you do not find your answer in our online content, you can send an e-mail message to the

Microsoft Office System and Servers content team at:

[email protected]

If your question is about Microsoft Office products, and not about the content of this book, please

search the Microsoft Help and Support Center or the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:

http://support.microsoft.com

iv
http://technet.microsoft.com/officehttp://support.microsoft.com/http://technet.microsoft.com/officehttp://support.microsoft.com/


6/30

What's new in Office Project 2007

In this article:

Office Project 2007 family

Office Project 2007 feature list

Office Project 2007 project management capabilities

Office Project 2007 EPM capabilities

Conclusion

The Microsoft Office Project 2007 family of products provides a range of software tools that

support a variety of approaches to work management, levels of process maturity, and business

goals. On one end of the spectrum, Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 provides enhanceddesktop tools for small teams or individuals tasked with managing projects, but who are not

necessarily project managers. These individuals or companies are not positioned to build a

Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) competency, or simply lack business

justification for it, yet they still need tools for managing work. The projects they manage are not

complex and the most efficient approach is to use ad hoc scheduling and tracking processes. In

this case, Office Project Standard 2007 provides simple, intuitive tools that enable operational

control with minimal overhead.

At the other end of the spectrum, Office Project 2007 provides the tools to build an EPM

competency that integrates software tools and technologies with their people, processes, and

organizational policies and governance. When these elements are developed and aligned with

business objectives, they enable capabilities for managing work, time, resources, and budget.This form of project management is critical for executives who want operational efficiency. Project

provides the visibility, insight, and control to help bridge the strategic and operational worlds,

while leveraging existing software systems.

Office Project 2007 addresses the needs of sophisticated project management organizations that

require centralized and strategic financial control in addition to support for rigorous project

management methodologies. Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 delivers key performance

enhancements for large organizations that manage complex programs and portfolios with a

globally distributed workforce.

This article examines what is new in Office Project 2007. It will be useful to executives, project

managers, resource managers, and IT Professionals who have experience with previous versions

of Microsoft Project and who want to know what is new or has changed. There are several new

features in Office Project 2007 and there are a number of existing features that have been

improved. Both new features and improvements will be explored.

5


7/30

Office Project 2007 familyThe Office Project 2007 family includes the Project client applications, Project Server, the client

and server APIs, and the necessary infrastructure such as Microsoft SQL Server and Windows

SharePoint Services. The Office Project 2007 family offers redesigned and extended Project 2003

core client and server applications to take advantage of improvements in the Windows platform.

The core Office Project 2007 family is described in the following list.

Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 continues to be the desktop application for stand-

alone project management. As with Project Standard 2003, Office Project Standard 2007

cannot be used with Office Project Server 2007.

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 is the desktop client application for Enterprise

Project Management, and it is the primary application for use with Office Project Server 2007.

Office Project Professional 2007 now includes an active cache on the client side that reduces

the amount of data sent over the network between the client and the server. Office Project

Server 2007 requires Office Project Professional 2007 as the standard desktop client. Project

Professional 2003 cannot be used with Office Project Server 2007 because of changes in theplatform architecture.

Office Project Server 2007 is built by using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and

provides improved functionality, security, reliability, and extensibility. The Office Project Server

2007 architecture has an efficient multi-tier design that includes the new Project Server

Interface (PSI), Microsoft Office Project Web Access, discrete business objects, server-side

events, a common data access layer (DAL), queuing services, multiple databases, and close

integration with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. In Project 2003, the scheduling engine is

available only in the client. Office Project Server 2007 now also includes a scheduling engine

to enable project updates without requiring the use of Office Project Professional 2007.

Office Project Web Access provides Microsoft ASP.NET applications that use the Project

Server Web services through Microsoft Internet Explorer and Project Server Web Parts in

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. You can install Project Web Access front-end components

and the Project Server application-tier components on the same or separate hardware; the

front-end and application tiers can be load-balanced for increased scalability and

performance.

The Project Server Interface (PSI) is the new managed-code API for Office Project Server

2007. The PSI replaces the Project Data Service (PDS) in Project 2003 and provides a

complete API for Office Project Server 2007. The PSI also provides functional parity for the

XML-based PDS methods in Project Server 2003, which enables easy porting of solutions

built with the PDS. Office Project Professional 2007 and Project Web Access interact with

Office Project Server 2007 only through PSI Web services. The Office Project 2007 databases can be built on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with

Service Pack 4 or on Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Office Project Server 2007 takes advantage

of some of the new features in SQL Server 2005, such as security enhancements and

improved Analysis Services and Reporting Services.

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is more closely integrated in Office Project Server

2007 than in Project Server 2003. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides the

6


8/30

administrative and user interface framework for Project Web Access, the infrastructure for

user management, single sign-on, team collaboration, and integration with Office Project

Server 2007 reporting features.

Office Project 2007 feature listOffice Project 2007 delivers project management tools for small ad hoc teams or large

organizations with mature management processes and methodologies. These tools are made up

of many new and enhanced product features that have been designed in response to feedback

from partners and customers. The new and enhanced features address specific needs and

scenarios, and they enable EPM capabilities. The rest of this section discusses these features.

Desktop features

Office Project 2007 includes many new and enhanced client-side features for managing project

plans and schedules. Office Project Standard 2007 is designed as a stand-alone tool for

individual contributors who can be but might not be project managers. Office Project

Standard 2007 makes it easier to create and maintain single project plans and provides

enhanced desktop reporting, which enables a contributor to more effectively communicate project

information.

Office Project Professional 2007 includes all of the enhancements found in Office Project

Standard 2007, but also includes features for professional project managers and for organizations

that adopt the Microsoft EPM solution. Office Project Professional 2007 includes performance

enhancements for connecting to Office Project Server 2007 over a wide area network (WAN).

Communicating and tracking project plans

Office Project 2007 helps users plan and communicate faster and better than ever. For smaller

teams with established project management practices and methodologies, there are enhanced

desktop tools in Office Project Standard 2007. Using Office Project Standard 2007, a project

manager can make a project plan to communicate a timeline, key deliverables, and resource and

budget requests. Improved Gantt charts and background cell formatting create professional-

looking reports of the project schedule. Additionally, the new financial features in Office Project

2007 help the project manager accurately plan for costs and budgets over the life of the project.

Office Project 2007 enables users to find problems in a project and easily model alternative

solutions to the problem. For example, if a scheduled resource becomes unavailable, the project

manager can easily adjust the schedule with powerful what-if planning. By using the new

multilevel Undo feature, the project manager has the flexibility to try new options and scheduling

assignments. Additionally, the Recalc Change Highlighting feature highlights all of the values in

the project that were changed by the most recent edit. This makes it much easier for the project

manager to determine how changing an assignment affects tasks, dates, costs, or any other

value. Furthermore, the View Task Drivers feature enables a project manager to isolate the root

cause of schedule delay. This feature exposes the logic in the Microsoft Project Scheduling

Engine by showing the user the calendars, assignments, and predecessor tasks that influence

the start date of any task.

7


9/30

Following are new and enhanced client features.

Feature Description

Multilevel Undo Unlimited levels of the Undo command

Allow what-if experimentation with

scheduling changes

Easy-to-use drop-down list of Undo

actions

Programmable model to allow undo use

by add-ins

Visual Reports Easily export Project data to Microsoft

Excel and Microsoft Office Visio 2007 to

produce charts, graphs, and diagrams of

things such as resource allocation or project

status against plan

Define custom report templates to

share with other Project users

These templates and reports can be

previewed from a dialog box in Project

Publish report templates to shared

folders and Windows SharePoint Services

3.0

Change Highlighting Highlights changes to a schedule that

have been caused by Project calculations Visible indicators provided for all tasks

affected by calculations

Task Drivers Provides quick access to factors that

affect task dates

Enables easy browsing of the critical

path in a project plan

Cost resources New resource type

Enables multiple planned and actual

costs to be defined by task across time

Supports integration with accounting

systems

Custom fields can be rolled down to the

assignment level to allow better task reports

of costs in a given cost center, type, or

category

8


10/30

Feature Description

Budgeting Defines a budget at a high level

(program or project) so that the project

manager can allocate funds and track costs

against the budget

Supports budget variance reporting

Calendars Named calendar exceptions

Definition of recurring exceptions and

different work weeks

Hijri (Arabic) calendar support

Calendar View enhancements Updated look and feel familiar for Office

users

Supports daily, weekly, and monthly

views

Monthly preview pane puts schedule in

context

Gantt chart view enhancements 3-D texturing of Gantt bars supported

Enables you to call out important dates,

costs or tasks by changing the background

color of cells in the table portion of the view

Enables you to highlight categories of

cells, such as critical tasks, external tasks,

highlighted tasks, marked tasks, noncritical

tasks, milestone tasks, summary tasks, and

changed cells

Desktop OLAP cube Create customer reports or archive

Project values with data exported from

Project into an Access database and OLAP

cubes

Five cubes are generated:

a. task timephased

b. task nontimephased

c. resource timephased

d. resource nontimephased

e. assignment timephased

Multivalue custom fields Custom fields support multiple value

selections

New templates Over 25 new templates, including:

9


11/30

Feature Description

Annual report

Hiring forecast

HRIS implementation Marketing event planning and

execution

Performance reviews

Strategic merger or acquisition

evaluation

Vendor evaluation and

consolidation

Insurance claim processing

Internal readiness training

ISO 9001 management review

Right-to-left support for Arabic and Hebrew Project now supports right-to-left

display throughout desktop application

10


12/30

Following are new and enhanced client/server features.

Feature Description

Active cache Improved performance and reliability

when connecting to server

Seamless online/offline experience

similar to caching in Outlook 2003

Allows quick access with Project

desktop over a wireless or slow connection

Only available in Office Project

Professional 2007

Deliverables Task pane provides visibility into key

deliverables in related projects

Supports publishing key tasks anddeliverables in a project

Enables linking of deliverables from

related projects to tasks in a project plan

Linked deliverables indicate changes in

other projects but do not change project

plan without project manager's involvement

Only available in Office Project

Professional 2007

Resource substitution Improved support for in-progress tasks

Team Builder Improved skills and resource searching

Create filtered views that are specific to

Team Builder

Use filtering and searching when

accessing Team Builder in Project Web

Access

Server features

Office Project Server 2007 redefines the Microsoft EPM Solution. Office Project Server 2007 hasbeen re-architected to provide enhanced EPM capabilities for managing programs and portfolios

in large-scale, distributed environments. Office Project Server 2007 enables organizations to

track billable and non-billable time independent of progress reporting. Office Project Server 2007

provides performance enhancements in the form of asynchronous data transfers, separation of

access and business logic, and a new logical database design that isolates cube building and

reporting functions.

11


13/30

Extensibility

Following are new and enhanced server features related to extensibility.

Feature Description

Project Server Interface (PSI) Comprehensive support for creating,

reading, editing, and deleting projects,

resources, tasks, assignments

Provides access to Office Project

Server 2007 data by using ADO.NET

recordsets

Supports programmatic access to

Office Project Server 2007 administrative

functions

Server-side events Over 200 Before and After events

supported

Enables non-Microsoft applications to

"listen" for changes to data in Office Project

Server 2007

Supports development of business

processes using Office Project Server 2007

data and methods

Windows Workflow Foundation integration Built-in support for workflows

Server-side events and PSI methods

are accessible within Windows WorkflowFoundation

Supports non-Microsoft business

process applications

12


14/30

Project management

Following are new and enhanced server features related to project management.

Feature Description

Server-side scheduler Enables scheduling of projects on the

server, rather than having to make round

trips through Project Professional

Queuing Transactional queue based on SQL

Server

Used to increase availability and

reliability of Office Project Server 2007 for

high-volume or high-load transactions

Jobs can be monitored and priority can

be modified by users

Server-side filters Server-side filters enable Office Project

Server 2007 views to be filtered on the

server instead of on the client

Provides faster performance and

reduced network traffic

Activity plans and project proposals Activity plans are designed to track

work with minimal tasks or maintenance

projects

Proposals are similar to activity plans

but must go through a workflow approval

process, either a manual workflow or

integrated to Windows Workflow

Foundation

Simple, Web-based user interface for

creating project proposals and activity plans

Takes advantage of all Office Project

Server 2007 features, including reporting,

timesheet, and project workspaces

Supports calendars, limiteddependencies, server-side custom fields

Supports server-side scheduling but not

leveling

13


15/30

Feature Description

Programs Supports master projects to be saved

and published to Office Project Server 2007

while protecting report accuracy

Program hierarchy available in Office

Project Server 2007 reports

Program portal and program/project

workspace hierarchy can be provisioned by

project managers

Program portal supports cross-project

views of issues, risks, and documents

Programs (tasks in master projects plus

inserted projects) can be viewed within a

single Project Center view

Commitments New feature in a project workspace that

allows key deliverables with finish dates to

be identified for projects

Can be created before any tasks exist

in the project

Office Project Professional 2007 users

can view commitments and link them to

tasks in their project plans

Are available in Office Project Server

2007 reports

Custom fields Unlimited number of custom fields

Can be defined through Project Web

Access or PSI

Calendars Support for named calendar exceptions

Multiple currencies Supported in each installation of Project

Server

Currency is set for each project.

14


16/30

Resource management

Following are new and enhanced server features related to resource management.

Feature Description

Resource plans Enables resource demand to be

specified independent of assignments in a

project plan

Supports start date, finish date, and

units of resource allocated to a project

Allows project summary resource

assignment to pull from the resource plan or

project assignments

Resource plans are available in Office


Team resources Allows assignments to be published to

a team

Team members can view and take

ownership of assignments published to the

team

Team capacity and demand can be

viewed in Office Project Server 2007

reports

Resource editing Enterprise resources can be definedthrough Project Web Access or PSI

Supports availability, rate tables,

custom fields, and standard fields

15


17/30

Reporting

Following are new and enhanced server features related to reporting.

Feature Description

Reporting database Denormalized database created with

project, resource, task, and assignment

data in Office Project Server 2007

Provides fast access to large volumes

of Office Project Server 2007 data

Simplifies development of reports from

non-Microsoft applications

Cube-building service Redesigned to support incremental

updates versus full rebuild, which enhancesperformance

Supports all project, task, resource, and

assignment fields

Report Center Supports integration with SQL Server

Reporting Services and Excel Services in

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Lists available reports in Project Web

Access

Reports can be viewed from Project

Web Access

Supports upgrade to Office SharePoint

Server 2007 Report Center

16


18/30

Infrastructure

Following are new and enhanced server features related to infrastructure.

Feature Description

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 integration Project Web Access has been

redesigned and implemented on Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0

Project Web Access views provided as

Web Parts

Authentication integrated with Windows


Backup/restore integration with

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

Forms authentication Shared logon for Office Project Web

Access and Project Professional

Authentication integrated with Windows


Supports a variety of forms-based

authentication schemes

17


19/30

Team member experience

Following are new and enhanced server features related to team member experience.

Feature Description

Timesheet Supports integration with general ledger

systems

Supports accounting rules and is

capable of compliance with Defense

Contract Audit Agency (DCAA)

Enables reporting of project and non-

project work

Time can be reported at a summary

(project) or detailed level

Timesheet categories can be created

by an administrator or a user

Timesheet categories do not create

projects, and they allow time reporting

independent of time or statusing reported

against a project

Supports prior-period adjustments

Timesheet data is available in Office


Timesheet data can be imported intoOffice Project Server 2007 tasks

Supports single entry (timesheet, task

statusing)

Supports access through a Web

browser, Outlook, or non-Microsoft

applications that use the PSI for access

18


20/30

Feature Description

Non-working time Supports reporting non-working time as

calendar exceptions or as an assignment

categories of non-working time can becentrally defined by using a Web browser

categories of non-working time do not

create projects

Time entered into non-working time

categories is available in Office Project

Server 2007 reports

Supports access through a Web

browser or Outlook

Assignment owner Enables individuals other than the

assigned resource to provide statusupdates on an assignment

Supports changing the assignment

owner to allow assignments to be switched

to new individuals

Task statusing Enables comments to be exchanged

between a team member and project

manager

Comments are persisted

Supports import from timesheets

Task updates and previews 100 percent server-based

Supports previewing an updated

schedule by using a Web browser

Updates made to Office Project Server

2007 without round-trips to Office Project

Professional 2007

Status reports Web-based status-report requests and

forms

Supports report aggregation and

routing Supports exporting of status reports to

Word 2003 and Word 2007

19


21/30

Office Project 2007 project managementcapabilities

This section discusses how Office Project 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 features

are used by people who are not primarily project managers, or by teams managing project-basedwork without established methods and practices.

Teams and tasks

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 helps teams easily get started with ad hoc collaboration and

communication. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides built-in task tracking features in the

form of project workspaces. Users can quickly create a team workspace to help build and

communicate shared task lists, collaborate in creating documents, and track key issues and risks.

When team processes mature, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Office Project 2007

together provide a simple upgrade path to project management.

Individual users can use Office Project Standard 2007 to read and create custom reports basedon the project task lists in Project workspaces. This ad hoc method works well for companies that

are not ready for EPM, but still need tools for managing their work. Teams or organizations that

want to take the next step with project management can upgrade workspaces to Office Project

Server 2007 so project tasks, documents, and issues are visible and connected to users across

an organization. Following are key features for this area:

Feature Description

Project tracking list New list type in Windows SharePoint Services

3.0. The project tracking list extends the

standard task lists with custom fields and a

DHTML Gantt chart. Finish-to-start

dependencies are supported. The tracking list is

designed to support communication of key

dates and deliverables to a project team.

Import from project tracking list (Project client

applications)

Supports importing the tasks from a Windows

SharePoint Services 3.0 project tracking list.

This feature is designed to support printing and

custom reporting of a project tracking list.

Import from Project tracking list (Project Server) New feature in Office Project Server 2007.

Supports importing a Project tracking list into a

Office Project Server 2007 project. This feature

is designed to support migration of ad hoc team

projects to managed projects.

20


22/30

Office Project 2007 EPM capabilitiesThis section discusses Office Project 2007 features in terms of EPM capabilities. Many

organizations use EPM as a strategic business tool in a global or WAN-connected environment.

Organizations are at various stages of process maturity, but are developing competencies that

would be enhanced by adopting EPM.

Office Project Server 2007 delivers a work-management solution built for the enterprise that

connects people and information. The benefits of adoption are summarized in the following list.

Connect people and teams to project information Office Project Server 2007

connects people and tools with project information through integration with Office SharePoint

Server 2007. Office Project Server 2007 delivers accurate and timely project information to

decision makers, provides project teams with visibility into commitments made to executives

and dependencies across teams, and lowers costs and reduces time for project managers to

gather updated status from teams and deliver reports to executives.

Enable work management Office Project Server 2007 enables organizations to

manage all their work and people in a single system. Office Project Server 2007 supports the

reporting and tracking of status on all the work within an organization, including project

proposals, in-progress projects, and maintenance work. Office Project Server 2007 also

enables people to report all of their time, including time off, non-project time, and project time.

By providing a flexible solution for managing work and time, Office Project Server 2007

enables project managers to make better business decisions by understanding how their

employees spend time on their work.

Support enterprise deployments Because client/server connection performance is

dramatically improved from previous versions, Office Project Server 2007 supports distributed

teams working in multiple languages and multiple currencies on some of the worlds largest

projects. Office Project Server 2007 provides built-in support for custom workflows and

integration with line-of-business systems.

Quick start with project portfolio management

Office Project Server 2007 enables organizations to quickly get started with a project portfolio

management (PPM) solution that solves billing, invoicing, and resource management challenges.

PPM can help organizations to:

Use resources more effectively.

Track consultant time for billing purposes.

Enhance knowledge management and team collaboration during the entire lifecycle

(proposal, execution, close) of an engagement.Typically, successfully implementing PPM requires established process maturity and

organizational readiness. With Office Project Server 2007, organizations can start quickly with

PPM by using simple, Web-based tools while their project management processes mature. The

benefits of using these quick-start tools are summarized in the following list.

Working on opportunities Office Project Server 2007 enables organizations to quickly

alert executives to upcoming projects by using Web-based project and resource plans. Teams

21


23/30

can use the features in the Project workspace to identify key dates and create shared

deliverables.

Using the timesheet Office Project Server 2007 delivers a new time-tracking

application that can be integrated with general ledger systems. Users can report time at any

level in the project. The new timesheet system supports the reporting of non-working timeand non-project time.

Managing the pipeline Office Project 2007 provides a rich set of reporting and

decision-making tools that enable executives to track the status of key projects, manage

resource usage, and make decisions about proposed projects.

Following are key features for PPM:

Feature Description

Timesheets Enables an organization to track time posted to

the general ledger system Timesheets support

accounting rules, fiscal periods, financial audits,and prior-period adjustment.

Outlook integration Users can leverage existing knowledge of

desktop applications to view project

assignments and report time.

Project workspace A Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site that

provides a place for collaboration and

communication.

Web-based projects A simple, Web-based user interface for creating

project proposals and maintenance projects.

Web-based projects use many Office Project

Server 2007 features, including reporting and

timesheets.

Resource plans Provide information about high-level resource

allocation for proposed or anticipated projects,

task-only projects, and for projects where

assignments do not accurately reflect resource

distribution.

Resource Center The portal site for resource managers or

functional managers. These users can view

their assigned resources and resource-specific

attributes, review availability, assignments, and

access the resource reporting cube.

Report Center A real-time reporting database with all project

data (including data from project workspaces

such as issues and risks) in a report-friendly

22


24/30

Feature Description

format. The server builds several cubes for rich

analytics by using Portfolio Analyzer. To

leverage these data sources, Office Project

Server 2007 uses Reporting Services to provide

enterprise reporting, including report authoring,

scheduled report delivery, and a variety of

report output formats. Office Project Server

2007 integrates with Microsoft Office

SharePoint Server 2007 to provide a Report

Center with dashboards, scorecards, and key

performance indicators (KPIs).

Managing portfoliosOffice Project Server 2007 enables organizations to quickly understand how work and resources

align to business objectives. Office Project Server 2007 provides a comprehensive view into how

time is being spent, and can help improve the process for proposing and evaluating projects.

Furthermore, organizations can get better insight into key strategic projects, in addition to

inventory active maintenance and development projects. Key benefits include:

Defining the portfolio Build or customize the metrics, reports, and categories for a

portfolio.

Integrated statusing

Portfolio reporting and review Business intelligence (BI) and reporting features of

Office Project Server 2007 can be used to track the health of a portfolio, evaluate projectproposals, and assess the alignment of projects and resources to business priorities.

Maintenance work Build a simple project to capture maintenance work on a completed

application. Timesheets enable actual work to be tracked; reports enable planned versus

actual time to be viewed.

Following are key features for managing portfolios:

Feature Description

Project proposals Enable a functional manager or other user to

establish a rough project outline. This

proposal's details can then be elaborated,providing the key project deliverables and

resource demands.

Resource plans Provide information about high-level resource

allocation for proposed or anticipated projects,

task-only projects, and for projects where

assignments do not accurately reflect resource

23


25/30

Feature Description

distribution.

Team resources A new work resource type in Office Project

2007. Gives a roll-up of total utilization inresource usage view. Team resources can be

used on projects like regular enterprise work

resources. Other enterprise work resources can

be associated with the team resources.

Edit resources Edit resource data by using Office Project Web

Access.

Resource Center The portal site for resource managers or

functional managers. These users can view

their assigned resources and resource-specific

attributes, review availability, assignments, andaccess the resource reporting cube.

Report Center A real-time reporting database with all project

data (including data from project workspaces






enterprise reporting, including report authoring,


report output formats. Office Project Server

2007 integrates with Office SharePoint Server

2007 to provide a Report Center with

dashboards, scorecards, and KPIs.

Task statusing Team members can status tasks without

downloading an ActiveX control. Task statusing

can be done by using Project Web Access and

Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007In addition to the portfolio management features and capabilities that are available in Office

Project Server 2007, Microsoft now offers Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. Office

Project Portfolio Server 2007 integrates with Office Project Server 2007 to provide organizations

with an end-to-end project portfolio management solution. The bidirectional gateway enables

administrators to link multiple Microsoft Office Project Servers to Office Project Portfolio Server

2007, providing executives with a consolidated view of all projects within the organization.

24


26/30

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 provides the following advantages to your EPM deployment:

Gain visibility and control Consolidate all investments (for example, projects,

programs, and applications) within an enterprise repository to help ensure executives gain

visibility, insight, and control over all portfolios. Define multiple workflows to standardize,

communicate, and enforce the portfolio governance framework across the organization.

Objectively prioritize and evaluate competing investments Use best practice

techniques to objectively prioritize the organizations business strategy, automatically derive

prioritization scores, and build charts that effectively evaluate the competing investments from

varying angles.

Optimize budgets and align investments with business strategy Embedded best-

practice portfolio analytical techniques help analysts to optimize budgets and recommend

portfolios that best align with the organizations business strategy. This objective process

enforces a rational rather than emotional approach to portfolio selection, helping ensure that

the selected investments are aligned with the organizations strategic priorities and will

maximize return on investment.

Tightly integrate with Office Project Server 2007 Office Project Portfolio Server 2007

integrates with Office Project Server 2007 to provide organizations with an end-to-end project

portfolio management solution. The bidirectional gateway enables administrators to link

multiple Office Project Servers to Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, providing executives

with a consolidated view of all projects within the organization.

Learn more about Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and the Microsoft Office system at

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?

LinkId=78276&clcid=0x409) on Office Online.

Managing programs

Office Project Server 2007 provides support for large organizations by using programs to manage

large projects and subprojects in geographically dispersed sites. This includes the ability to track

and report on projects in multiple languages and currencies. Using the Program Center in Project

Web Access, a program manager can create a new top-down program, assign dates, define

commitments, and even define any required custom fields. This program can be built from

scratch, or built from a previously submitted proposal. Key features and capabilities include:

Building top-down or bottom-up Users can build a program at a high level, including

the committed deliverables and required resources. Alternatively, details can be progressively

added as users move from Web-based projects to Office Project Professional 2007.

Program-level reports Program dashboards capture high-level status. Users can view

high-level indicators of a problem, view the details of the specific problems, or view details onthe causes of and proposed solutions for problems.

Managing change Commitments provide a means to track and report dependencies.

Changes can be modeled in Project Web Access and Office Project Professional 2007.

Changes to plans can be communicated across the program.

Integrated statusing Team members can update projects and the program by using

their productivity tools, such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Visual Studio.

25
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=78276&clcid=0x409http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=78276&clcid=0x409


27/30

Integration with line-of-business systems Office Project Server 2007 can reuse

information thats already in line-of-business systems for example, by synchronizing with

the Human Resource department resource pool and can push information to line-of-

business systems for example, from the timesheet to the general ledger.

Following are key features for managing programs:

Feature Description

Master projects Enables large programs to be broken down into

a hierarchy of projects that can be scheduled,

tracked, and reported.

Commitments Communicates key project dates. Uses the

Project workspace to store the dates, and

enables:

Key deliverable dates for projects to be

defined and reported.

Program dates to be communicated

down to sub-projects.

Dates and dependencies to be

managed between projects.

Project Center Supports display of master projects. It enables

views that range from a top-level program to the

detail tasks in a subproject, while supporting

real-time calculation of KPIs.

Report Center A real-time reporting database with all projectdata (including data from project workspaces,






enterprise reporting including report authoring,


report output formats. In addition, Office Project

Server 2007 integrates with Office SharePoint

Server 2007 to provide a Report Center withdashboards, scorecards, and KPIs.

Task publishing Enables the project manager to decide which

tasks to publish and when. When multiple

project managers are publishing tasks from the

same project, it is easy for each project

manager to see at the task level what other

26


28/30

Feature Description

project managers are doing.

Task statusing Team members can submit task status without

downloading an ActiveX control. Tighterintegration with Outlook and Visual Studio

enables team members to work in the tools they

are familiar with, while providing up-to-date

status on tasks to the project manager.

Task updating and preview New server-side scheduling engine supports

updating of projects without the need to round-

trip through Microsoft Office Project

Professional 2007. Project managers can

preview and accept updates from a browser or

they can define rules to automatically accept

updates. Projects are recalculated and

published directly from the server, which

enables organizations to monitor projects in real

time.

Extending the Project family

Office Project Server 2007 provides a rich set of tools for customers and partners to extend the

Microsoft EPM solution. The new tools dramatically lowers the costs of developing EPM and PPM

value-added solutions by providing a rich set of open Web services and a server-side

programming model that build on the Microsoft platform (ASP.NET, Windows Server 2003, SQLServer). It supports rapid application development by using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Extension opportunities include:

Timesheet integration Office Project Server 2007 delivers a time-tracking solution

designed for integration with general ledger systems. Customers and partners can customize

the Office Project Server 2007 timesheet to import accounting codes and cost categories

from the general ledger system and then export reported actuals captured by the timesheet

application to the general ledger system to track project costs.

Line of business integration Office Project Server 2007 supports integration between

line-of-business systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) in Human Resources

and Finance, customer relationship management (CRM), and directory services. Customersand partners can synchronize existing repositories of resource and project information by

using Office Project Server 2007.

Business process automation Project Web Access is hosted in Windows SharePoint

Services 3.0 and provides an extensible Web Part framework. Office Project Server 2007

provides server-side events, a rich set of Web services, and integration with a new Microsoft

27


29/30

workflow engine. Customers and partners can design business process solutions that

integrate Project Web Access, custom UI, and custom business logic.

Proposals Office Project Server 2007 includes a project-proposal process that

illustrates how the new EPM platform can be used to integrate project management and

business processes. Extensions of this business process might include project stageworkflow in which a review and approval process is required to move the project between

stages (for example, idea, proposed, approved/rejected, milestone 0 to milestone N, closed)

and in which resource requests have additional controls based on cost and availability to

work.

Reporting Office Project Server 2007 provides Web services, a rich reporting database

that is optimized for banded reports, in addition to high-performance, enhanced online

analytical processing (OLAP) cubes that enable custom views and reports to be designed

and delivered by using Office Project Server 2007. The reporting database is closely

synchronized with currently published projects and resource capacity and contains data that

was previously unavailable without considerable custom coding, such as multiple baselines

and timesheet data. Customers and partners can use this data to develop a wide range of

custom reporting by using SQL Server Reporting Services, Analysis Services, and Excel

Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the Office Excel 2007 client

application (or other end-user reporting tools). Because Office Project Server 2007 has new

features supporting project proposals and programs, reports that track the project pipeline

and program commitments and dependencies are likely to be popular customizations.

Additionally, partners can continue to develop custom program and portfolio dashboards (by

using custom KPIs).

Custom project management tools Office SharePoint Server 2007 introduces the

ability for partners to add project management tools to Office Project Server 2007 (extending

the desktop-only capabilities of Project 2003). The Project Server Interface, node

consistency, and server-side formula field calculation enable partners to build rich scheduling

and calculation extensions. Example extensions include earned value calculation

enhancements to support projects conforming to government procurement and monitoring

rules, costing enhancements to support construction projects, and buffer scheduling

enhancements to support alternate project management methods.

Project Server eventing service The eventing service provides a mechanism to

extend Office Project Server 2007 by adding new business logic. Developers can write event

handlers that check business rules and cancel an operation through a pre-event (for example,

before a project is published), or extend Office Project Server 2007 and integrate it with other

applications such as workflow by using a post-event (for example, after a project is

published).Following are key features for this area:

Feature Description

Project Server Interface A set of APIs that are invoked by using Web

services or by managed or unmanaged code

28


30/30

Feature Description

Server-side events Office Project Server 2007 provides a secure

infrastructure for registering pre-event and post-

event code, implemented as managed code.

Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) integration Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides a

workflow API that is available to client and

server applications. This API sits on top of the

WF workflow engine and supports both

bespoke and document lifecycleintegrated

workflow.

Reporting database When projects are published, resources

created, custom field data changed or

timesheets submitted, data is transformed and

moved into the reporting database. The

reporting database is continually updated,

providing near real-time access to operational

data.

Reporting cubes The Office Project Server 2007 administrator

can control the scheduling and creation of

cubes that contain pre-aggregated views of

project data. Custom fields can be selected for

inclusion to the cubes as both measures and

dimensions, offering full flexibility for custom

data. The cube processing provides events that

allow for customization of the cube.

Reporting Services integration The Office SharePoint Server 2007 Report

Center or SQL Reporting Services can be

installed to provide an infrastructure for report

and model definition, in addition to a run-time

report environment.

ConclusionOffice SharePoint Server 2007 provides the tools to build an EPM competency that integrates

software tools and technologies with their people, processes, and organizational policies and

governance. The Office Project 2007 family offers work management solutions for a wide range of

teams and organizations, offering simple steps for ad hoc project management or a complete

program management solution that includes business intelligence and scorecards for executives.

29

ms project server

Documents