What Microsoft Project solution should I buy?

[GaryGen]

I've recently become project manager for a seven-person company with multiple
projects. I can enter all of my projects with a shared resource pool in the
Microsoft Project Standard demo. However, it would be nice if I could have
everyone view/update status directly from their computers. Can I do this with
just Standard or Professional? I also read somewhere about Outlook
integration. From the Microsoft site, it sounds like I need Project Server /
Windows Server/ SQL Server/ CALs and an entire staff of IT professionals,
which is obviously overkill.

 

[JackD]

If you store the file on a shared drive you can all open and view the file.
If you want to work on it at the same time you will have a problem though. A
file (in any version of Project) can only be open for writing by one person
at a time. You could simply break the project file into a bunch of
sub-projects and create a master project which consolidates them when you
need to look at them all at the same time.

Personally, with just seven people I'd go with the standard version of
Project. Project Server would likely be overkill and does take some skilled
setup/admin.