EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By:  Tanya Foster

The following are some of the questions that arose from a Portfolio Server webinar that Tanya Foster did on Microsoft Portfolio Server.  Included are her answers that were sent to the attendees.

1.       How does Portfolio Server help me in my organization?

·         Portfolio Server can help you in several ways.  Because Portfolio Server allows you to group all of your projects and programs together, you get a quick snapshot of your entire portfolio.  This helps you to ensure that your organization is working on  the projects that will bring the most value and are aligned with corporate criteria

·         It also helps to create a standardized method for collecting data for your projects and programs.

·         And it allows you to measure the performance of each portfolio as it’s progressing along.

2.       What are the modules that were mentioned during the webinar and what do they do?

The three modules are the Builder Module, Optimizer Module, and the Dashboard Module.

·         The Builder Module- This is where you enter the bulk of your information.  This module helps to standardize the data that is collected.  The data that you put into the Builder Module is what the other two modules use to provide you with information, charts and much more.

·         The Optimizer Module – Takes the information that you provided in the Builder Module and uses complex algorithms to come up with the top portfolio’s that would benefit your organization.

·         The Dashboard Module – Provides you with a visual way to see how your projects and programs are doing by creating charts and graphs, or a simple dashboard view with traffic light indicators.

3.       Who in my company would be most likely to use this?

It’s great for Project and Program managers as well as top level management.  Anyone on the PMO staff would find this to be a great tool to help effectively compile and manage the organizations entire portfolio. 

4.       If I have Project Server and I get Portfolio Server, do I need different licenses?

·         Portfolio Server is licensed separately from Project Server, so you will have to have a separate license.  You will need one license for each server that Portfolio Server is installed on and then you will need a CAL (Client Access License) for each computer that will be accessing Portfolio Server.

5.       My company has several Project Servers all serving different departments.  Can we link all of these servers to Portfolio Server so we can see the big picture?

·         You can link multiple Project Servers to one Portfolio Server.

6.       What information in Project 2007 is transferred to Portfolio Server?

The following information can be exchanged back and forth between both Project and Portfolio Server.

·         Custom fields

·         Schedule information such as budget, actual and forecast

·         Resource availability, resource budget, resource actual and forecast

7.       You can store documents in Project Server on the Windows Sharepoint Workspace.  Does Portfolio Server have something similar?

·         Portfolio Server uses Windows Sharepoint Services just like Project Server.

8.       Can you export information from Portfolio Server to Excel?

·         Yes.  Portfolio Server is tightly integrated with most Microsoft Office 2007 applications.

9.       My company doesn’t use Microsoft Project 2007, we’re still on 2003.  Can we use Portfolio Server with Microsoft Project 2003?

·         No. Portfolio Server 2007 is only compatible with Microsoft Project Server 2007.

10.   Where can I get help on installing or training for Portfolio Server 2007?

·         PMP Specialists can help you

·         http://www.pmpspecialists.com/contact_us.html

By:  Collin Quiring

If you view our website, you know that we specialize in Microsoft Project Server.  You also can see that we are PMP (Project Management Professionals) certified.  As PMP certified individuals, we are demonstrating that we understand that there is a body of knowledge that exists to assist an individual with Project Management.  This is tool agnostic; but having the right tool that integrates well with the principles and body of knowledge of Project Management can make implementing and using those principles much easier.

There are other valid Project Management (PM) tools on the market today.  In fact, the number of PM tools numbers into the 100’s with some very specialized, some home grown that are now being sold and some are variants on more common products.   And, some companies use Excel or pen and paper for the PM needs.  So, why do we concentrate on Microsoft Project Server?

We understand that there are many tools and we have some experience in a number of them, but, we realized that we needed to be specialists in one tool, and able to use others; rather than trying to claim that we are experts in all tools.  This might be a good reason for us, but why would an organization want this tool?

Of course, if you go to Microsoft’s website, you can find all sorts of lists of why this is the best choice but I am going to give a few high level reasons here that seem to recur as I talk to clients.

 “One Source of Truth, Part One” – by this I mean that you can have one centralized location for all your project information and it is accessible by the browser.  All the schedule information is in one place.  This means that EVERYBODY (who has been given security permission) from a single task person to the CEO can see the same information, in real time.

“One Source of Truth, Part Two” – all the documentation, issues, risks and other pertinent data can be associated with a Proposal, Project or Portfolio in one place.  No more email chains with attachments that are being modified by different people at different times for various reasons – the most recent version of the document is in one place.

Resource Management – the ability to understand who is available (or not) and when they are available is becoming more and more important and this tool delivers.  Depending on the amount of setup detail that an organization wants to provide is directly related to the amount of benefit that they receive.  From a company’s perspective, the ability to understand their resources can be an invaluable area of information.

Integration – for a Microsoft dominated IT department, the ability to integrate Project Server with other tools is relatively easy.  And, if you use Portfolio Server as well then it is all designed together.  And, since Project Server uses SQL, there is often already a database server running that can be used for Project Server.  If you are using Microsoft Dynamics, there are connections between Project Server and the Dynamics products that allow for information to flow between systems.  And, there are connectors to non-Microsoft products that have been built as well.

There are numerous other reasons, but these are some of the ones that seem to keep popping up about why a company should use Microsoft Project Server.

By:  Collin Quiring

We have already talked about SaaS in various levels of detail here on this blog.  However, recent conversations have me thinking about it again.  The basic point of the conversation was around the subject of “What size company is the right size for SaaS?”

One of the common theories seems to be that only small companies benefit from SaaS.  This is because of issues like affordability, internal capability, and speed of implementation or similar topics.  However, more and more news stories are about the other extreme size of company.  These are the companies that have multi-national presence, definitely have the capability and could afford to implement their own applications and yet they are using SaaS.

Everybody has an opinion about if SaaS is right and there are mathematical models, ROI models, countless organizational reasons for a company to lean one way or the other when thinking about using SaaS.  But, while the question we discussed was more about the company size then it was about specific reasons, we decided that our question had the answer of :  “Any size.”

In the end, the question of “What company is the right size for SaaS?” is much more about the internal situation of each organization AND of the application in question.  There are a myriad of reasons to use SaaS, and a company of any size might use SaaS for one or more applications.  A large company might need SaaS for one application and no others just as much as a small organization.

By: Tanya Foster

Welcome to another installment in our Portfolio Server Series.  I thought about starting at the very beginning with these Portfolio Server blogs, which would be all of the settings, but then I decided, well… there may be a lot of people out there who just want to know how this thing works.  So… we’re going to start there instead.  We’ll get to the settings, but that will be later in the series. 

Let’s start with the default main page.  Once you log in, Portfolio Server opens up to the Builder module.  Portfolio Server has three modules, the Builder module, the Optimizer module, and the Dashboard module.  You will spend most of your time in the Builder module.  That’s where you will input most of the data.  You will also notice that we have another default in this screenshot.  It’s the My Scorecard view.  This is the main view for the Builder module.  The My Scorecard view is set up by the Portfolio Server Administrator so you have someplace to start from when you first log in.  Now the nice thing about the My Scorecard view is that the rows and columns are completely customizable for each individual user.  You can store several Scorecard views if you want to.  To create your own Scorecard view, simply go to Preferences and choose the appropriate link. 

On the left hand side of the screen, you see a “Name” column with names listed underneath it.  This is the Portfolio Server hierarchy.  This helps to organize the information and also helps to roll up cost and resource data.  There are five types of entities: organizations, programs, projects, applications and custom portfolios.  Project information can be rolled up to the program or to the application level.  Programs and applications can be rolled up to the custom portfolio or organization level.  The Administrator can configure multiple levels of organizations, but keep in mind the more organizations there are, the more complex the configuration will be.  You can click on the plus sign (+) and it will expand the list to show the different levels of the hierarchy. 

The top top level of the hierarchy is the Organization level.  You’ll know it’s the Organization level by this icon:

Here are the other four levels denoted by their respective icons:

Each level can be sorted in ascending or descending order.  To change the sorting order, just click the correct up or down button located in the Name column.  You’ll also notice another icon on this page.  This icon shows whether something is checked in or out.  If the little padlock is open, then the project is checked in, if the little padlock is closed, the project is checked out. The last topic for this blog will be the “tabs” at the top of the screen.  This tab structure shows you roll up information on your Project or Program.  The tabs shown here are default to Portfolio Server.  Your Administrator can customize this based on the needs of your organization. 

Please stay tuned for more upcoming blogs on Microsoft Project Portfolio Server 2007!

By: Collin Quiring

I’m a detail oriented person and that is part of why I enjoy being a Project Manager – I get to dive into all the gory details and nuances.  But, like many people, I am busy and anything that isn’t a Project that I am involved with, I just want the high-level overview.  I read the headlines on the news websites and if a story interests me, I will drill down on it but may still only read the first few paragraphs.  Today, I was scanning a case study by Apple about Twitter and I read a sentence that jumped out at me:  “Twitter’s meteoric rise to ubiquity is proof positive that the world, in all its complexity, is eager to embrace simplicity.”

While this was about Twitter specifically, it struck me that this really is the point of Project and Portfolio Management.  One of my goals as a Project Manager is to summarize information for users of all levels – I like to use dashboards.  At one glance, an Executive can see a summary of a Project or Portfolio of Projects based upon criteria that is important to them.  Or, a Team Member can see information that is important to them.  And, since it is a dashboard view, they don’t have to get too involved or wade through too much information.  This is simple complexity – a Project can be a very complex set of interdependent tasks, processes, work flows, organizations, people and a myriad of other variables that create a complex labyrinth.  We simplify all those variables with a few colored symbols on a dashboard.

In recent months I have seen articles about the rise of Twitter.  And, I have seen articles by Project Managers talking about how they can use Twitter to send information to interested parties.  I am not there yet – but I see that this is one more way to produce simplicity from the complex.  So far, I let Microsoft Project automatically email my users and Executives that I have created a new dashboard, or that an existing dashboard is updated.  Maybe one day I will provide something more simple – sending a Tweet with a tiny url pointing to the dashboard.  But, then my users will want something even more simple – a dashboard summary in their Tweet; perhaps where a character represents what I now put into the dashboard.

At some point, we are trying to oversimplify the complex though.  What do you think?

Apple Case Study referenced: http://www.apple.com/business/profiles/twitter/