Usefulness of My Timesheets after Infrastructure Update to My Task

[Peter Dunn]

I have been reading the details of the Infrastructure Update as we want to
implement a timesheeting/task updating mechanism inside our Project Server
2007 environment.

I have been worried about getting staff to enter their actual work into PWA
because I wanted them to use a timephased grid interface to do so but I
didn't want them to have to use the existing My Timesheets sheet view and
ALSO the My Tasks view (via either (a) manual update of My Tasks, (b) Manual
importing of My Timesheets data to My Tasks or (c) use of the automatic
update of the My Timesheets data into My Tasks). To me, having to rely on
staff to update and synch and submit and get approved both of these was going
to be a recipe for creating two sets of unsynchronised truth (aka disaster)
no matter how vigilant we were.

With the IU I see that the My Tasks view has been enhanced to expose the
underlying timephased grid of data which is EXCELLENT. I am now of a mind to
centralise on ONLY this method of actual work entry so as to avoid any use of
the My Timesheets view. Note that we capture all time (including
administrative time such as leave, etc) as tasks within projects, and so have
no need for the special categories of time available in the TimeSheeting view.

But I expect that this decision isn't as simple as I am making it out to be
and that there may still be My Timesheets functionality that is not in the
timephased grid features of My Tasks.

So my question is ... what might this extra functionality be. That is, why
would I still want to consider having staff use both, when it might seem that
only My Tasks with the IU applied would be sufficient?

 

[Paul Conroy]

My Tasks was enhanced with a timephased view in SP1. The setting to enable
the view is in the properties of the web part. The infra update simply adds
a check box to the UI.

The decision as to whether you use timesheets along with my tasks is
principly driven by whether you want to capture none project related time.
If you don't then using timesheets adds little value (imo the exception being
the ability to manage administrative time).

 

[James Fraser]

So my question is ... what might this extra functionality be. That is, why
would I still want to consider having staff use both, when it might seem that
only My Tasks with the IU applied would be sufficient?

In addition to Paul's response, the Timesheet functionality was
designed for auditability and reporting on all steps of the workflow.
My Tasks updates are difficult to report on until they are accepted
into a project and published.


James Fraser

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Peter:

So far Paul and James have given you excellent information, and I'm going to
cofirm that you are right in thinking that this is a more difficult decision
than you're making it out to be. You really need to uderstand both your
business requirements and the capabilities of the system to do this decision
justice. Understand that the timesheet also exposes some functionality like
booking vacation time on resource calendars and administrative time capture
that you lose when you use My Tasks alone. Depending on your business rules,
you might even want to consider deploying the Codeplex solution that allows
you to run the Timesheet system as the single point of entry skipping the
two-step default behavior. Whatever you decide, make sure it maps to the
business need.

--
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Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[Peter Dunn]

Thank Paul, James and Gary for your feedback. I'll look hard at the My Tasks
area first to see if it satisfies what I need (taking into account your
advice and cautions). I'll let you know what I end up deciding.