Master Projects using SharePoint

[Pratta]

Using MS Windows Sharepoint 2.0 and MS Office Project Prof 2003.
Is it possible to use Master Projects with inserted projects on Sharepoint?
After creating a Master Project and loading the Master and the inserted
projects on to Sharepoint, I opened and updated one of the inserted projects
but the changes are not reflected in the Master.
It appears Project won't allow web addresses in the path for the inserted
project.
So it looks like Master projects won't work on Sharepoint in MS Project Std.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Using MS Windows Sharepoint 2.0 and MS Office Project Prof 2003.
Is it possible to use Master Projects with inserted projects on Sharepoint?
After creating a Master Project and loading the Master and the inserted
projects on to Sharepoint, I opened and updated one of the inserted projects
but the changes are not reflected in the Master.
It appears Project won't allow web addresses in the path for the inserted
project.
So it looks like Master projects won't work on Sharepoint in MS Project Std.

That's the same conclusion I came to, caused by Project not recognisging
web address for the inserted project. I haven't tried, but I wonder if
there is a way to "map" a drive letter to a SharePoint server?

What we ended up doing is agreeing as team the owner of each individual
file. They send to the PM. PM keeps the collection and creates a zip
of the set and uploads to SharePoint. Everyone takes an update of the
set of files from SharePoint at intervals.

 

[Pratta]

Hi Rob
Thanks for that.
We are trying something similar. Whereby we create the Master schedule
locally, and upload the master, sub-plans and respool file to sharepoint. The
teamleaders will then checkout their subplan to update, and check back in. If
they need to add to resources from the resource pool they will download a
copy, but not check out.
When we update the Master Plan we check out all the files, update, and then
can save the new Master which will update the respool. It will then save
historical versions of the master on Sharepoint , which is good..
However, the whole thing is ugly, and it really defeats the purpose of
having the Master plan; which works well when a local server is available.
But unless MS Project recognises web versions, I can't see how else to make
it work when we have to operate on the web.
Its probably the best reason I can think of for going to Project Server, but
the overhead of managing Project Server is massive (advice of server
experts).
Best Regards............Pratta

 

[Rob Schneider]

Hi Rob
Thanks for that.
We are trying something similar. Whereby we create the Master schedule
locally, and upload the master, sub-plans and respool file to sharepoint. The
teamleaders will then checkout their subplan to update, and check back in. If
they need to add to resources from the resource pool they will download a
copy, but not check out.
When we update the Master Plan we check out all the files, update, and then
can save the new Master which will update the respool. It will then save
historical versions of the master on Sharepoint , which is good..
However, the whole thing is ugly, and it really defeats the purpose of
having the Master plan; which works well when a local server is available.
But unless MS Project recognises web versions, I can't see how else to make
it work when we have to operate on the web.
Its probably the best reason I can think of for going to Project Server, but
the overhead of managing Project Server is massive (advice of server
experts).
Best Regards............Pratta

That does sound complicated. We didn't do that. We relied on people
having copies of the full set of plans on their own computer (in a
subfolder under c:\temp). They only were able to send the file they are
responsible to back to the central PM. Central PM collected all the
files and put up on SharePoint in a versioned zip file. Everyone
unziped from SharePoint, accepting all updates (including their own).
People were distributed around the world. About two dozen people with
two dozen files making up the full set. Surprisingly, worked well.
Microsot Server would not have worked as too complicated. I can see a
need for it, but it is complicated due to work process.

 

[Pratta]

--
Pratta

That does sound complicated. We didn't do that. We relied on people
having copies of the full set of plans on their own computer (in a
subfolder under c:\temp). They only were able to send the file they are
responsible to back to the central PM. Central PM collected all the
files and put up on SharePoint in a versioned zip file. Everyone
unziped from SharePoint, accepting all updates (including their own).
People were distributed around the world. About two dozen people with
two dozen files making up the full set. Surprisingly, worked well.
Microsot Server would not have worked as too complicated. I can see a
need for it, but it is complicated due to work process.

Hi Rob
Sounds interesting. Were you resource sharing via a resource pool? I am
concerned about PMs adding resources at the local level, and password protect
the respool. I suppose they can unzip the res pool and update their schedule
from a read-only version of the respool, and when we update the lot we update
the respool, and then re-zip.
Will test it out.
many thanks...........Pratta

 

[Rob Schneider]

Yes, we shared resources. It was the files resources.mpp which was one
of the files in the "pack". The file was loaded with all the resources,
and the central PM was responsible to manage that file. All the other
PM's emailed that person with the changes they required, and she did it.
The changes were small and infrequent. No big deal. When bigger
changes required, the Central PM and PM agreed how to do it (usually the
Central PM asked the PM to make the changes and submit a new
resources.mpp ... that happened very infrequently, but it was a neat way
to solve the perception of possible overload of PM).

If PM's wanted to link to another project file, the rule was they had to
call or email their colleague and talk about it before just doing it.
That way they knew (the most important part), and they coordinated in
that telcon the changes to the files so that the next version of pack
contained those links.

May sound a bit of a manual process, but not really. The hardest part
was the management of the project part.

 

[Clive]

We've just started to use Sharepoint in my company and came across the same
issue. One thing I did was creat a shortcut to the *.mpp files on Sharepoint
and used these links to create master project. Seems to work ok.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Cool Idea (as I slap my head). Didn't think of that. I guess what I know
I'll be experimenting with tomorrow. Thanks!

 

[Jon]

OK - I may be being incredibly dim here, but I don't fully follow how this
will work. Are you saying that you create a local shortcut (ie on your
machine) to the *.mpp project files that are stored on the sharepoint, then
link your Master Project to these local shortcuts?

What do you do then when/if you want to share your masterplan?