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)

Following on from my previous post on getting started with the portfolio analysis / strategy functionality where we looked at setting up the drivers and prioritisations we will now look at the analysis part. If you missed the first part, see the link below

http://bit.ly/1N0J4Co

In PWA, click the Portfolio Analyses link from the quick launch menu:

Firstly you might want to set up any project dependencies using the Project Dependencies button on the ribbon:

Dependencies are used to include or exclude projects, there are four options:

A “Dependency” is used if you have a situation where one project is selected (primary project) another group of projects are then required. A “Mutual Inclusion” is used if you have a situation where you have a group of projects that all need to be selected if one is selected. A “Mutual Exclusion” is used in the opposite situation to the Mutual Inclusion, if one of the projects is selected then the other projects in the group must not be selected. A “Finish to Start” is used if one project is selected (primary project) then the other projects in the group can’t start until the primary project is finished.

For this post, I have not set up any project dependencies as my data set is very small so we will now create an analysis.

Click the Portfolio Analyses link from the quick launch menu then click the New button on the ribbon and complete the details on the page, this includes a name and description, choosing the prioritisation type, selecting the projects to include and the cost custom field to use for the cost constrain analysis:

As you can see, there is also the option to analyse resource constraints, we will check this check box and more options will appear:

The options here include setting the start and end dates for the planning period to review, the planning granularity (months or quarters), the role custom field – in this example this was updated the “Primary Skill” custom field that was created. There are other settings to filter the resources either by department or RBS, the assignment booking type to use (committed only or committed and proposed assignments) and the project start and finish dates. In this example these were left as default apart from the role custom field.

Next click the Prioritize Projects button in the bottom right corner, this will show the project driver impacts as previously set on the Strategic Impact PDP:

The values can be changed here if needed by clicking in the cell. Click the Review Priorities button in the bottom right corner and the project priorities will be displayed:

Next click the Analyze Cost button in the bottom right corner:

The “Budgeted Cost” field will include the total from all of the projects in the analysis – this is the baseline scenario. If cost wasn’t a constraint we could just leave it there as all projects are selected. What we will do now is reduce the cost limit to $400,000 and recalculate:

Now a project has been moved out of the selection and the strategic value has reduced from 100% to 78%.There are two different charts to view, the default is the Efficient Frontier but there is also a Strategic Alignment chart:

You can also switch from a grid view (default) to a Scatter chart view:

Back on the grid view we can see it moved out the “Migrate Project Server to Project Online” project:

This might be a project we need to run so at that point we can force it in:

Now click the recalculate button on the ribbon to see the impact, it moved out the “New Document Management Solution” project but this also reduced the overall strategic impact to 76%:

This might be the scenario we need so as this point click the Save As button on the ribbon:

You can create multiple scenarios and compare these using the Compare button on the ribbon, this will give you a report like below:

Click close to return to the analysis. You can switch between the scenarios using the Scenario drop down menu:

Now the cost analysis has been done the resource analysis can be reviewed if required, click the Analyze Resources button on the ribbon:

As you can see, analysing the resources has also de-selected another project, the “Migrate Project Server to Project Online” project. This is due to lack of resource availability. At this point you can view the Deficit and Surplus reports:

In the screen shot above you can see that I have negative availability values for the IT Admin role in September and October. Detailed screen shot below:

You can also use the Requirements Details report – this is useful to see where there is a lack of resource availability for the projects, you can see in the resource availability grid the IT Admin role has 0 for September and October and project requirements grid highlights the resource deficit for the de-selected project in red:

You can also highlight the deficit in the resource availability grid using the check box in the top corner:

So now we have two options, we can either change the start date for one of the projects or hire additional resources. Switch back to the Gantt Chart view and in the Metrics sections, add 1 in the hired resources field:

Then press the recalculate button on the ribbon and both projects will be selected:

I will save this scenario as 1 hired resource:

In this example we know we needed an IT Admin for two months but in a large real world portfolio it is likely you would need many resources, the Hired Resource report will detail the type of resources you need, what projects they need to work on and how long you need them for:

Hiring resources is a great option if you are able to do so and when the project deadlines can’t slip.

The other option without hiring resources is to change the start of a project, switch back the the Gantt Chart and change the scenario to the baseline:

We are now back to the original resource analysis where only one project is selected, in the New Start date column for the de-selected project, change the date to July 2015 and recalculate:

Now the project is selected as the IT Admin role has availability then. This scenario can then be saved if required.

The next steps would be to commit the selected portfolio using the Commit button:

This action updates certain fields for the project and can also be used in a project workflow event for moving a project between stages – workflow will be coved in the next mini series of getting started.

Clicking on the quick launch link for the Portfolio Analyses will show all of the scenarios you just saved with links to each:

That is it for the getting started series for the Portfolio Analysis / Strategy functionality – a very quick intro but hopefully enough to get you started if you haven’t used this feature before.