Project Team Collaboration Tools

Beyond the core workflow, Project Server provides a complement of features enabling improved team communication. Some of these features are native to Project Server, whereas others leverage integration with SharePoint Team Services.

Status Reports

A status-reporting tool allows managers to establish single or periodic status reports that team members must respond to. The interface provides tools for creating standardized status report formats with an option that automatically consolidates reports submitted by a team. Resources respond to these reports in Project Web Access, which provides rich text editing. Status reports interact with timesheets so that respondents may conveniently insert assignments from their timesheets into their status reports. Status reporting isn’t limited to those requested by a manager. Team members may create their own ad-hoc reports and submit them to a manager at any time.

Nonworking Days and Nonproject Time

Project Web Access allows team members to communicate working day changes to their managers such as vacations and personal days. Application administrators can set up categories to capture nonproject working time for overhead tasks such as meetings and maintenance work. Resources report these hours through the timesheet along with task work.

Document Libraries

The system automatically creates Web-based document libraries, provided by SharePoint Teams Services, each time a user adds a project to the server. Managers have the ability to add additional libraries within the individual project libraries to add custom organization the workspace. Users access document libraries through a Web browser, allowing them to upload or download items into the repository. The system captures descriptive information, such as revision state, author name, and dating information, through the upload process. Administrators may extend the information captured by adding fields to the interface using the provided customization tools. Full-text searching is a standard feature and you can link uploaded documents to tasks in the project. Further, tasks in the project itself can be linked to the document and exposed in Web views so that a user browsing the project can click a task field and instantly open the document in a Web view, providing the user has the necessary security permissions.

Issues Management

Like document libraries, the system automatically creates issues lists for each project. Issues lists include a number of data fields that describe the issue, rate its priority, and capture its status and resolution. Users can link issues to affected and resolving tasks. Issues creators assign issues to resources through Project Web Access. Once assigned to an issue, this information articulates to users through their home page in Project Web Access as well as their personal tasks area. Administrators may add fields to capture additional information such as risk-management characteristics.

Automated Reminders and Notifications

Project Server features an automated reminder system that is interactive with almost every function, event, and entity within the system. The notification engine generates e-mail notices for upcoming and overdue task work, and status reports. It also integrates to document libraries and issues, allowing users to subscribe to specific documents and issues triggering notifications when changes to these occur. Each user has the ability to set reminders for him- or herself, and managers have the added ability to set reminders for their resources.