Hierarchy structure in MS Project

[schemr]

hi,
there was a question posed during a meeting with the top level execs
yesterday. the execs want the Projects of all PMs to be listed under the
respective Sales Managers that brought the Job into the company. the workflow
in our company is: The Sales Managers bring the job into the company @ which
point the SM(sales Manager) secratary books it into a system and this is
forwarded to the Project Managers who open that project in MS Project. now
how is it possible to let the people in PWA to sort all projects by sales
manager then their respective PMs. there mite be a setup that has to be
performed. i am not sure what that setup is. i know how to setup RBS codes
but am a little confused with this. please help. thanx in advance.

schemr

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

The outline heirarchy in MSP follows the classic WBS structure where the
various levels represent the decomposition of the project's deliverables
into their respective components. The project's major deliverables are
broken down into smaller and small blocks until you get to the level of one
discrete block of activity performed by one resource to create one single
distinct ouput. It is NOT what I call an "administrative outline" based on
the management or responsibility heirarchy, vendor lists, time periods
during which the work should be performed (like trying to use a summary task
for each quarter of the year, for example) or some such structure based on
anything other than the decomposition of the physical work activities into
smaller and smaller blocks. To accomplish what you want you're going to
need to get a little creative. Build the project files using proper WBS
breakdown techniques. Use some of the user-definable text fields to capture
data such as the names of the sales people who brought the project in and
the project manager handling the case. Then it's possible to sort and group
reports and task views on those fields so you can see the plans organized in
whatever structure you'd like. But fight tooth and nail to avoid seeing
SalesMgrs names as top level summary tasks, PM names as indented next level
down summary tasks, and other project data indented under that. In the long
run such a structure will make the projects almost impossible to effectively
manage.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

schemr --

In the Enterprise Global file, create a new custom enterprise Project
outline code called Sales Manager. Make this a required field and list all
of our sales managers in the outline code structure. Save and close the
Enterprise Global and then exit and relaunch Microsoft Project Professional.
Ask each PM to open all of his/her projects and click Project - Project
Information, select the Sales Manager for each project, and then save and
publish each project using Collaborate - Publish - Project Plan. Add the
new Sales Manager field to each Project Center view in PWA. You might also
want to create a custom Project Center view called Sales Manager that has
grouping applied by default on this outline code. You might also want to
create a custom Portfolio Analyzer view that summarizes project data by the
Sales Manager outline code.

After you and the PM's complete the above series of steps, anyone who can
view the Project Center page will be able to apply grouping or sorting on
the Sales Manager outline code. Hope this helps.