Working with Enterprise Versions

By using Enterprise Project versions, you can create complete copies of a project schedule and label each copy with a unique version name . These versions can be for your internal use, or they can be made available to others in the organization for performing the following:

• Full comparisons between versions, including added and deleted tasks and assignments, constraints, and other changes not saved in baselines.

• Trend analysis between schedule snapshots taken at regular intervals.

• What-if analysis separate from the current (or published) version.

There is no limit to the number of versions that an organization can create; however, only versions that have been predefined by the administrator are available to project managers.

The first time a new project schedule is saved to a Project server, it must be saved with the system version called Published. This is because the Published version is associated with system features such as timesheet reporting (timesheets only show assignments from the Published version).

NOTE

Because of its importance and the necessity for it to exist, the version Published is protected and cannot be deleted.

After the Published version of a project is saved, other versions of the project can also be saved. For example, if you have predefined a Test version and a What If version, then only those versions are available for use through Microsoft Project and Project Web Access. If the organization decides that a copy of each schedule in the organization should be saved at the end of each quarter, you can create Q1 2003, Q2 2003, Q3 2003, Q4 2003, and other versions, as necessary.

TIP

Your organization might want to define several types of version definitions that reflect business processes. The Published version is the default production version when you save a project plan into the enterprise repository. You can also create versions such as Suspended, Preliminary, Pending Approval, and so on, as defined by the project approval and tracking processes established by your business.

You can view project versions in the Professional edition's Open File dialog box or at Project Web Access Project. When viewing projects at Project Web Access, you can sort , group , and filter by version.