SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

I am a Project Server and SharePoint consultant but my main focus currently is around Project Server. I have been working with Project Server for nearly five years since 2007 for a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the UK, I have also been awared with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award 2011. I am also a certified Prince2 Practitioner. This article has been cross posted from pwmather.wordpress.com (original article)

This is part 8 of the “Getting started with Project Online” series. I was hoping to get this post published before now, sorry for the delay. In this post we will look at the various places in the Project Web App that data can viewed and edited. In the last post we looked at populating the enterprise resource pool and various ways to create projects. If you missed the last post, see the link below:

http://bit.ly/LHGQfq

Firstly navigate to the Project Web App homepage:

As you can see there are various ways to get to certain areas in the Project Web App. You can use the quick launch or the tiles. We will look at the Project Center, the Tasks page, the Resource Center and the project site. The first area we will look at is the Project Center, this can be accessed either from the Projects link on the Quick Launch menu (left hand side of the page) or by clicking the Projects tile on the “Track your work” web part. This page will look something the image below:

Different views can be configured for this page, we covered this in part 4, we created a new Project Center view called “Project Status by Programme”. To switch to this view or another view click the PROJECTS tab at the top of the page then click the drop down menu next to view:

Here you will see all the Project Center views that you have access to. Click a different view and the page will refresh:

The data is now grouped by our Programme field. The view filtering and grouping can be changed on the fly using the filter and group by options on the ribbon. You will see there is also a timeline that currently contains no projects. Projects and tasks can be added to the timeline using the two buttons on the ribbon, Add Project and Add Tasks. To add a project, select the project row and click the Add Project button:

To add a task, select the project and click the Add Tasks button. A new window will appear that will allow you to select the tasks:

Select the task or tasks and click OK:

We now have the project and two of the project tasks on the timeline. The timeline can be formatted. Selecting the timeline will show a TIMELINE ribbon tab:

The colour formatting of the bars and fonts can be changed, the data / information displayed and how the information is displayed (callouts etc.):

Clicking the project name will load the project detail pages for that project:

On the left hand side menu you will see the different PDP’s associated with this enterprise project type (EPT’s). We covered PDP’s and EPT’s in part 5. Clicking one of the PDP’s will load different information and display different information that can be edited. Below shows the Project Status Information PDP:

The project plan can be edited on the schedule PDP, click the Task tab then Edit > In Browser to edit in the Project Web App

The project then checks out to you and the ribbon buttons are active:

Once the changes are complete you have the save and publish options.

We will now take a look at the Tasks page, this is where team members see their assignments. Starting on the Project Web App homepage, there are two links to the Tasks page, either the Tasks link on the quick launch or the Tasks tile. The tasks tile will also give a count of new tasks, notice “Tasks: 1 New” below on the 3rd tile on the “Track your work” web part:

Clicking either the Tasks tile or the Tasks quick launch link takes you to the Tasks page below:

Here team members can either just view the assignments using the different views, update progress or even delete assignments. Any changes such as updating progress or deleting has to be approved by the task status manager, they will get notified of the change. Clicking the task name loads the task details page:

Next we look at the Resource center page, from the Project Web App homepage click the Resources link on the quick launch menu. The following page will then load:

Here you can create new resources or edit existing resource providing you have the correct permissions. Different views are available here, we will switch to the “Full Time Resources” view that we created in part 4:

From the Resource center we can quickly see resource availability and assignment details. Check the resource/s that you want to review, in this case I will look at myself:

You will then see the two end buttons on the ribbon become active. Click the Resource Assignments button to see the assignments:

From this page I can also click the Resource Availability button to see the resource availability:

Different view options can be set to see data. Below the graph is a table displaying the details:

The next area we will look at is the project site. There are several ways which the project site can be access. Either from the Project Web App site site cog > Site contents option:

Then scroll down to subsites:

The second method is from the project center, click the ellipsis next to the project then click the ellipsis on the pop up then click “Go to Project Site”:

Another method is from the project details view, click the project site link under the PDPs:

Once on the project site you will see the following:

You will see different lists etc. based on the template you created \ chose, this example site is based on the site template created in part 6. Here you can update the lists and documents related to the project. Below a new Issue has been created, set to active and assigned to myself:

The Issues and Risks list tie in closely to the project in the Project Web App. If I look at the Project Web App homepage I will see 1 Active Issue now:

Notice the 4th tile on the “Track your work” web part. I edited the “Track your work” web part to display Issues and Risks. Clicking the Issues or Risks tile loads the follow page:

You can click the project name to load either the issues or risks lists on that project site.

Also the project center will display an icon next to the project to indicate an issue:

You can click the icon to load the issues list for that project site. The same functionality exists for risks and documents. Issues, risks and documents can also be linked to tasks or other list items, I have covered that previously here.

Next up, we look at creating reports to surface data in Excel / Excel Web App. I have previously covered creating Project Online reports, the links are below:

http://bit.ly/OuoiRB

http://bit.ly/1dq1BDq

The next post will look at creating the ODATA feed URLs then using the same process described in the links above we will create reports.