Implementing Enterprise Portfolio Management with Microsoft Project Server 2002

Understanding Project Server’s Language

Two constructs you must immediately understand to grapple with Project Server configuration and management are “enterprise project” and “enterprise resource.” Very specific criteria establish the enterprise pedigree of a project or a resource. You must learn these.

Enterprise Project

A project is an enterprise project when one of the following two conditions is true:

• The project was created using the Project Professional client while connected to a Project Server with enterprise features enabled.

• The project was imported to the enterprise using the Import Project to Enterprise Wizard.

No other method of creation is possible. Many Project Server novices will attempt to open a project in Project Professional from a drive or file share while connected to a Project Server thinking that they can then publish it to the server. Depending on server settings, the Project Server may actually accept the publishing command; however, a well-configured sever doesn’t permit a mix of enterprise and nonenterprise projects and should reject these with an error advising that the users are attempting to publish a nonenterprise project. Users who attempt this are unwittingly attempting to publish a project that appears to Project Server to reside in a directory not within in its database. All enterprise projects are stored in the Project Server database.

Enterprise Resource

A resource is an enterprise resource when one of the following two conditions is true:

• The resource was created within Project Professional client after acquiring write access to the enterprise resource pool.

• The resource was imported to the enterprise using the Import Resource to Enterprise Wizard.

Like its enterprise project counterpart, a rigid requirement is in place for creating an enterprise resource. You may have already noticed that Project Web Access has its own user account creation and management interface; you may not be aware that this interface provides access to logon and account type information only. Know that having a Project Web Access account doesn’t necessarily make a user a resource. Executive users, for example, will likely not have an enterprise resource record. Understand that there’s a difference between “user” and “resource” in the Project Server vernacular.

Check In and Check Out

The terms check in and check out apply to the enterprise global file, enterprise projects, and enterprise resources. A user may check any of these out for editing in a manner such that others may have only read access to these items until they’re checked back in. Check in and check out are not offered through the services that STS provides, including documents and issues in Project Web Access. Likewise, there’s no version control through these services either.