Merge Project Plan Updates

[bc5611]

I manage a very large professional services project plan template
(about 9,000 lines, which gets trimmed down by a series of VBA wizards
to about 1,500) to which about 50 people provide routine updates.
Getting tired of either a) having to "check out" the template to each
content provider or b) using a human-to spreadsheet-to human-to MS
Project interface to put in the updates personally. Anyone have any
fantastic ideas on how to merge updates to a project plan template
into the original so multiple people could actually work on updates at
the same time? I have both MSP 2003 and MSP 2007 available to me if
there's anything new I'm not aware of.

thanks in advance,
-brian carter

 

[JulieS]

Hi Brian,

What I think you are asking -- can several people be updating the same
project file at the same time -- is not possible with Project. Only one
person can have a project file open with read/write access at a time.

A couple of questions for you however -- you mention that you have a 9k line
project but have the need for people to work on their portion. Have you
thought about breaking the project into smaller pieces and then creating a
master project by inserting the smaller pieces? By having the large project
broken into smaller project files, each person could manage his/her portion.
The master project then can be used for reporting/printing as needed.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get along.

Julie

 

[bc5611]

Hi Julie...yeah, i've thought about that. The problem with using sub
projects is a function of what kind of template this is. It is a project
plan for enterprise software implementation projects where customers will
select anywhere from one to sixty different products they want our
consultants to implement during any particular project (hence the wizard that
figures out which tasks to nix). Each of these products has its own related
tasks sprinkled throughout the duration of the project. The feedback we get
from our consulting project managers is that whenever we try breaking out the
different products into different WBS's they get confused and can't keep
track of what's happening very well (they really like having a solid WBS that
follows the methodology, rather than the products).

My group has a team of about 40 people that are each expert in one of those
products, and they all own the tasks that correspond to that product. Those
tasks get augmented/changed/removed as our products and methodology evolve.
Day-to-day management of the template is not difficult, but whenever we have
a concerted effort to all do updates at the same time, managing those updates
into this template is a nightmare.

If anyone else has thoughts, I am all ears. Thanks again!

 

[Rod Gill]

Looks like you need a timesheet program that updates Project. Project Server
is obviously one such solution. Using it everyone can update their tasks via
web and you receive all the updates to approve before the schedule is
automatically updated.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

Project VBA Book, for details visit:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

NEW!! Web based VBA training course delivered by me. For details visit:
http://projectservertraining.com/learning/index.aspx

 

[JulieS]

Hi Brian,

You're welcome and thanks for the feedback. After your more detailed
explanation and description, I have to agree with Rod and say I would
start exploring some sort of timesheet add-in or Project server.

For a list of some of the companion products for MS Project, see:

http://project.mvps.org/comprods.htm
Julie
Project MVP

 

[bc]

Yes, we actually have Project Server as well...the problem is that i'm
wanting to manage updates to the *template* that we send out to project
teams, which has all generic resources in it until it's customized by the PMs
on the actual project teams...we do use PWA to mange the active projects that
were created from the templates, and that works well. Just need to find a
way to manage updates to that darn template.

I've been unable to find anything that lets everyone on PWA take a "project
manager" view and do simple functions like add task, delete task, change task
duration/predecessors/work, etc...seems you can only do this for "my tasks".
Does this exist? I also took a look at the companion products Julie sent,
along with some Googling, and just don't really see anything that will do
what I need.