Reporting tools and add ons

[SBelling]

Greetings:

We are finding the Portfolio Analysis tools in Project
Server 2003 inadequate and non-intuitive for our reporting
needs.

I am wondering what others are doing or using to extract
customized and configurable reports out of Project Server
2003. We are currently exporting POrtfolio Analysis views
out into Excel and manupulating them there. Other ideas
include creating a Business Objects reporting universe.

DOes anyone know of add-in/plug in software for Project
Pro/Project Server 2003 that facilitates customized
reporting?

Thanks,
SBelling

 

[Herve Clement]

We have arrived at the same conclusion with the Portfolio Analyzer. We have
been investigating SQL Reporting Services which seems to be really
promising: we have been able to generate a couple of reports with a kind of
"Excel" graph attached in a very short timeframe.
The good thing as well with this tool is that you can do
computation/business logic on the fly (as an example, display a red
backgound cell if the value is > criteria) when generating the report. You
can as well export the report as an Excel file where you can amend it if you
need to.
Bad thing about the tool is that you don't query Project Server using an API
but you talk directly to the database. If MS modified the data model in
futur SP or release then the report would have to be modified to fit the new
data model.

Hope this will help.

Cheers.
Herve.