Microsoft Office Project Server

Microsoft Office Project Server is a project management server solution made by Microsoft. It uses Microsoft SharePoint as its foundation, and supports both a web interface and Microsoft Project as the client application.

Versions for Windows

• 2010 – Office Project Server 2010
• 2007 – Office Project Server 2007
• 2003 – Office Project Server 2003
• 2002 – Project Server 2002
• 2000 – Project Central

Description

Microsoft extends the capabilities of Microsoft Project with Project Server and Project Web Access. Microsoft Project Server stores project information in a central SQL Server database, protected from unauthorized access and corruption. A Project Administrator can control security defining users and access rights.

The Project Center supports reports across an organization at the project level. Managers can drill down into project details. Tasks, Projects and Resources can have Enterprise Custom Fields defined (similar to Custom Fields in the Microsoft Project desktop application).

The project manager needs to communicate project plans and to distribute task assignments to team members. The assignment of tasks can be distributed to team member home pages in Web Access. They need to communicate status and changes to keep the project manager up to date. Project Server supports electronic communication over the web via Web Access. Team members can update their tasks' status via Project Web Access and the My Tasks list or via a Time Sheet.

Resource workloads can be analyzed by project and by resource with the Resource Center, allowing organizations to forecast future resource requirements and make more efficient use of resources.

The view definition is easier to understand and more robust with Web Access than with Microsoft Project. Views can be protected to assist standardization. Project Server stores custom calendars, views, tables, filters, and fields, in an Enterprise Global area where users have access to the latest version every time they restart Microsoft Project.

For each published project in Microsoft Project a Project Workspace can be created. A Project Workspace is a Microsoft SharePoint Teamsite where the Project team can share documents, issues and risks.

Changes in Office Project Server 2010

MS Project 2010 will have "ribbon" functionality as can now be seen in the Office 2007 products. The ribbon will be visible in MS Project as well as in Project Web Access. There are a range of other features available as well. One of the most obvious is the inclusion of a "Timeline" view, which graphically represents key tasks and milestones. Another view that helps with resource management is the Team Planner, which provides a graphical view of assignments of tasks to resources. The Team Planner also shows unscheduled and unassigned tasks.

Other features now in Project Server 2010 is the inclusion of Project Portfolio Server.

Changes in Office Project Server 2007

The architecture of Project Server 2007 contains significant changes.

The 2003 Microsoft Project version employed ODBC to connect to the server, which is problematic over low bandwidth and high latency connections. This problem is often skirted by remotely using a PC with the same network (LAN) as the server.

The 2007 version uses SOAP to access the server. Although this facilitates clients over low bandwidth / high latency connections, it adds a level of complexity (in the form of a Queue) that must be managed by an administrator. Specifically, a job in the queue could get stuck and block other jobs from completion. The advantage of the queue is that MS Project uses a local cache, enabling the user to continue to work on his project plan even when he is not connected to the server.

The 2007 version has 14 OLAP cubes which can be used to do Data Analysis with. It is an improvement over the 2003 version which only had 1 OLAP cube. With the new cube Calculated measures can be added to the cubes, which enables reporting on custom created fields.

Project Server 2007 features a local cache which effectively allows the user to have 2 copies of a Project Schedule. Changes made after the first save will just be synchronised rather than replacing the server copy which speeds up response times. But currently there are known cache issues.

See also

• Microsoft Project
• Microsoft Office
• Windows Server System

External links

• Project Server Website