Web Application Development with Microsoft Technologies

We started using Project Server 2007 in our software development company sometime ago, in order to unify the project management activities. When configured properly, this is a powerful tool, as it integrates into SharePoint to create pre loaded project workspaces whenever a new project is added to the project center.

It also integrates Microsoft Project  which means you would be able to use all its features for schedule, performance, costs and resources management (among many others). Microsoft Project can connect to the Project Server to retrieve the available enterprise resources and schedule for each of them, which is very useful when multiple PMs are working in project management across the enterprise.

A crucial aspect in every company is tracking the effort spent by the employees in project activities. We have been using different web tools in the past, but still not happy enough with the results.

Some months ago we decided to use Project Server features for time management. Project Server exposes a web access interface so resources can create their timesheets to report time spent in the assigned or not assigned tasks.

Managers have the ability to approve timesheets and generate dynamic reports by project, by resource, by task, by period and export it to Excel if needed.

So far the experience with Project Server features for time management has been really good. But configuring it for supporting all these, is not so trivial.

It requires to set up cubes and data views for reporting, build the enterprise resources library, internet explorer configuration, and many other steps. For those who are interested in configuring this powerful tool, visit my post about configuring project server timesheets in the asp.net weblogs.