Microsoft Project Version 2002 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

Chapter 24

The enterprise features of Microsoft Project Professional are designed to be used with multiple project plans and by multiple managers and executives across the enterprise. As such, it is a management tool in the super class; it facilitates management of multiple projects and great numbers of resources. It functions on a higher level than Microsoft Project Standard, the management tool for the individual projects, in that it can store and provide data from many individual projects. It also can work as a planning tool for project and resource managers who need to see information about projects and resources across the entire enterprise. Because there is so much enterprise information to manage, standardizing the information so it can be compared and contrasted is very important.

Executives and upper-level managers use the enterprise features as a method of monitoring and measuring the work and resources in their entire organization. They can see information about dozens of projects and thousands of resources, presented in a way that is most relevant to their requirements. Each executive can have a unique set of views and presentations of the enterprise information. There is no need to sift through extraneous data to get to what he or she really needs to know. And as the needs and preferences of an individual user change, his or her access and views of the enterprise information can change as well.

At the heart of the system is the individual project plan, created and controlled by a project manager using Microsoft Project Professional, which is the edition that provides the enterprise features. The project manager accesses the enterprise features through Microsoft Project Server and Web Access, and is responsible for regularly checking in enterprise updates. The enterprise project files are different from those of the stand-alone desktop application, but are easily built from them. The project manager continues to use Microsoft Project Professional for project planning, and can continue to send and receive updates through Microsoft Project Web Access, if applicable. The transmittal of the enterprise project information to Microsoft Project Server is done with special operations that are built into Microsoft Project Professional.

For more details about how the enterprise features work with Microsoft Project Professional, Microsoft Project Server, and Microsoft Project Web Access, see Chapter 23, "Understanding the Enterprise Features."