Project Standard vs. Professional

[Jennifer]

I am trying to decide whether to purchase Project Standard or Project
Professional version for our organization. In my opinion, two of the major
advantages of Project Professional are the ability to:
1. understand resource workload and availability across projects, whether
managed by me or by others in the organization
2. report across projects in the organization and roll-up scorecard reports

Can you recommend, preferrably, free online resources for tutorials and
courses for how to use these more advanced features of Project Professional?

Thanks

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jennifer --

I think you are misunderstanding the difference between the Standard and
Professional versions of Microsoft Project 2003. The Professional version
is used with Project Server 2003, while the Standard version is used as a
standalone tool. If you are not planning on implementing Project Server,
then you should simply purchase the Standard version. Hope this helps.

 

[Jennifer]

I was hoping to avoid having to implement Project Server, so to rephase, is
it possible to get the two benefits I want - seeing resource workload and
availability across projects and reporting across projects in the
organization - in Standard?

Jennifer

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Jennifer --

Yes, but you would need to use a shared resource pool to do so. The shared
resource pool is an old and unstable technology, that too often results in
corrupted projects or a corrupted pool. If you really need the features you
describe, you should probably implement Project Server to get the results
you wish. Hope this helps.