Situation Assessment
For a major global alternative energy supplier, efficiently tracking multiple project teams in real-time and accurately forecasting project milestones and task completion dates is critical for staffing of projects and keeping projects within budget. They were quickly outgrowing the capabilities provided by Microsoft Excel worksheets and decentralized Microsoft Project plans. An enterprise-wide project management and resource scheduling solution was needed that could also integrate with their new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Portal.

Solution Overview
After initial requirements gathering sessions with the client’s management team, Microsoft Project Server 2007 was selected as a best-of-breed enterprise wide project management software solution.  Project Server 2007 provided a powerful project management tool that could be hosted on the same server as SharePoint and also allow for a single sign-on security solution. It also gave them the ability to expand project planning and reporting capabilities by leveraging Project Server’s full suite of project management tools to accommodate future growth of the company.

While Project Server’s functionality seemed an ideal fit, the client was concerned about the additional licensing costs associated with providing each team member with direct access.  Risetime was given the challenge of seamlessly integrating Project Server project plans with the corresponding SharePoint Team Site for each project.  This would allow them to fulfill their desire to maximize functionality while also optimizing licensing costs.

The solution had the following requirements for internal staff:

• Project coordinators needed the ability to efficiently create new team sites for their projects using a standard template that included the project plan details from Project Server.
• Project managers needed to update project plans on a regular basis in Project Server and make this data available to their project teams.
• Executive and management staff needed the ability to create and view reports about project schedules, resource assignments, and resource forecasts on a scheduled and ad-hoc basis.
• Project Managers needed the ability to efficiently view overall resource availability, reserve project resources with the required skill sets, and schedule the appropriate project resources for each new project.
• Project team members needed to view real-time project plan data directly from their SharePoint Team Site.

Solution Details
Following installation of Project Server, Risetime’s SharePoint Architect designed a custom web part that would pull data from Project Server web services. Real-time Project Server data was then integrated with the client’s standard SharePoint Team Site template.

The new system was designed to allow project managers to use Project Server’s resource availability functionality to staff new projects.  All project plans are stored in a central location, which allows the Master Scheduler to maintain control over scheduling and resource assignments while also providing project managers with access to the full suite of data and reports tracked in Project Server.  New project team sites that integrate with Project Server are created by following standard SharePoint site configuration procedures.  Updates to the project plan performed in Project Server are available in real-time from project team sites, allowing all team members to track project progress from anywhere at any time.

Because project plan data is displayed through a web part on the SharePoint Team Site, an individual license was not required for each project team member, greatly reducing the overall licensing costs for this solution.

From the executive management team’s perspective, the new Enterprise Project Management solution allowed accurate project data and resource usage to be analyzed and reported on using Project Server’s powerful reporting engine and dashboards.

Value Measurement
The Project Server 2007 and SharePoint 2007 integration solution has allowed the client’s management and project resources to access project schedules and data in real-time, regardless of where they were located.  The accuracy of the project data was greatly increased by replacing huge, manually updated spreadsheets with up-to-the-minute project plan data. In addition, the project plans were now stored securely in one central location, allowing easy access for editing, updating or reporting on the data. The data was also now safely backed up on a regular basis using standard backup procedures.

With its new capability to track/forecast resources and project status, they are expecting to enjoy an annual benefit of over $300,000 per year.  Anticipated benefits include:

• The flexibility to temporarily redeploy resources to other projects when part shipments are late or other project schedule issues arise.  This is expected to save over $150,000 per year.
• With better resource demand forecasting, the client is able to hire ahead of demand so projects do not stand idle waiting on new resources.  This is expected to save over $100,000 per year.
• Better communication and more efficient project status reporting are expected to add efficiency savings of over $50,000 per year.

To find out more on how Risetime can provide similar high-quality results to your business, contact us