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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 -
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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.
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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
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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:
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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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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:
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
Project Server 2007 reports
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
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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
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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
SharePoint Services 3.0
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
SharePoint Services 3.0
Supports a variety of forms-based
authentication schemes
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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
Project Server 2007 reports
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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
such as issues and risks) in a report-friendly
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 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.
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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.
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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,
such as issues and risks) in a report-friendly
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. 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
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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
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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
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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.
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