Microsoft Office Project 2003 Inside Out

The enterprise portfolio is the full set of projects that is stored to your project server. Individual project managers initially add their projects to the project server and then they check their own projects out and in. Team members might participate on one, two, or more projects in the enterprise portfolio at one time, or transition from one to another over time. Executives and other managing stakeholders can review aspects of all projects managed by the project server by using the Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler. As the project server administrator, you can control multiple versions as well as archive versions of projects in the portfolio.

Publishing Projects to the Server

Individual project managers are responsible for adding projects to the project server. They can create a new enterprise project entirely from scratch. They can also import a local project; that is, one they've been working on that's stored on their own computer or elsewhere on the network. Importing a local project essentially copies the project to the project server, and that copy becomes the live enterprise version.

After a project is added to the project server, it is considered published to the enterprise. The new enterprise project becomes available to be viewed and checked out by users with the proper permissions.

If a published project is checked out by a project manager or other user , and you need to check it in (usually because of some extenuating circumstance), you can force a project check-in as follows :

1. In the Admin page of Project Web Access, click Manage Enterprise Features in the left pane.

2. Under Enterprise Options in the left pane, click Check In Enterprise Projects.

   All projects that are currently checked out are listed in the table.

3. Select the project for which you want to force a check-in, and then click Check-In above the table.

As project server administrator, you might be called upon to intervene in projects when baselines are involved.

In many organizations, baseline information is the basis for proposals, contracts, and payment. Variances might be tracked in minute detail. Earned value calculations, which rely on baseline information, might be crucial to measuring project success. In any of these cases, the project is carefully planned and built, and then the details are approved by all the managing stakeholders. At that point, the baseline can be saved and should never be altered .

 New  Feature     By default, project managers are allowed to save and edit baselines using the Save Baseline global permission. However, to protect the integrity of the baseline information, allowing no subsequent edits, your organization might ask you to deny project managers the Save Baseline permission.

Some organizations might choose to prevent project managers from saving baselines at all. When a baseline needs to be saved, you might be instructed to check the project out, save the baseline, and then check the project back in again.

Other organizations might prefer to have the project manager save the baseline, but then instruct you to change the project manager's user profile to deny Save Baseline permission thereafter.

Configuring Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler

Through the use of Portfolio Analyzer , managing stakeholders can review a high-level picture of tasks , resources, assignments, schedule, progress, costs, and other information across all projects in the enterprise.

With Portfolio Modeler , managing stakeholders can create what-if scenarios involving current projects, without impacting live project data.

Both Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler are implemented through the use of online analytical processing (OLAP) tools provided by SQL Server Analysis Services in conjunction with Project Server and Project Web Access.

For Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler to work properly for users, you need to have the following in place:

• Resources added to the enterprise resource pool

• Enterprise project and resource outline codes defined in the enterprise global template

• Values for any outline code lookup tables stored in the enterprise global template

• Enterprise outline code values associated with enterprise resources as appropriate

• Enterprise projects created and published to the project server

• Enterprise resources assigned as team members to enterprise projects

• Project server user accounts created for users of Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler

  Cross-References

  For more information about carrying out any of these tasks, refer to the appropriate sections throughout this chapter.

After all the prerequisite conditions are met for enterprise projects and enterprise resources, you're ready to configure the OLAP cube and enable Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In the Admin page of Project Web Access, click Manage Enterprise Features in the left pane.

   The Update Resource Tables And OLAP Cube page appears (see Figure 21-26).

   Figure 21-26: Click Manage Enterprise Features to start configuring the OLAP cube.

2. Scroll down to the Build The OLAP Cube section (see Figure 21-27) and make sure the Yes option is selected.

   Figure 21-27: Specify that you want to build an OLAP cube.

3. Under OLAP Cube Name And Description, complete the Analysis Server, Cube Name , Cube Description, and Analysis Server Extranet Address boxes.

   You might need to obtain some of this information from your SQL Server administrator.

4. Under Date Range, select the date range for which the OLAP cube is to built.

5. Under Update Frequency, specify how often you want the OLAP cube to be refreshed.

   You can specify an automatic update at regular intervals or manually when you specify.

6. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

At this point, managing stakeholders who are members of the Executives user group or who are allowed the View Portfolio Analyzer and View Models permissions can work with the Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler in the Project Center of Project Web Access. By default, users defined as project server administrators, executives, and portfolio managers have these permissions set.

Setting the Enterprise Project Version

When a project is published to the project server, it is defined with a particular project version . By default, the version is published . The version is appended to the project name as a second filename extension, for example, Design.mpp.published . The version, which must be selected when a new project is published or imported to the project server, specifies all the projects that are a member of a given portfolio of projects.

Users can compare and analyze all projects in a given version. They can also compare the same project in different versions, particularly useful for analyzing what-if scenarios.

As the project server administrator, you can create additional versions, as follows:

1. In the Admin page of Project Web Access, click Manage Enterprise Features in the left pane.

2. Under Enterprise Options in the left pane, click Versions.

   The Versions page appears (see Figure 21-28).

   Figure 21-28: Add, modify, or delete a project version using the Versions page.

3. Above the table, click Add Version.

4. In the Version box, type the new version name.

5. In Version Archived, select Yes or No.

6. In the Gantt Bar Name list, select the Gantt bar you want to use to display information about this project version in views showing multiple project versions.

7. Click the Save Changes button.