How This Book Is Organized

This book is divided into 10 parts designed to be of interest to a wide variety of readers. Some of the chapters focus on planning and organization, whereas others are focused on technology details. The following information should help you decide which chapters are important for your role.

Part IEnterprise Project Management Overview

Part I is an introduction to the software application and to the philosophy of approach to EPM. It is intended for all audiences to provide context for successfully planning and managing the EPM environment.

Chapter 1, "Enterprise Project ManagementThe Philosophy," describes enterprise thinking and what it takes to be successful with deployment of a software tool. The tool is not a silver bullet that will solve all problems regarding people, process, and environment.

Chapter 2, "Using Microsoft Office Project 2003 As an Enterprise Project Management Solution," is an overview of the major features of the EPM tool and how these features are integrated within the tool.

Chapter 3, "Knowing Product Limits and Overcoming Them," addresses the limitations of the tool. Although feature-rich, the tool does have limits and will not fit all organizations with the "out-of-the-box" functionality. Chapter 3 addresses these limits and provides an overview of other tools available to meet specific needs and custom approaches to solving specific problems.

Part IIPlanning Your Enterprise Project Management Implementation

Chapter 4, "Planning the Organizational Processes," helps the reader approach the implementation of this tool realistically.

Chapter 5, "Understanding Project Server Architecture," provides the high-level view of the software components, the solution architecture, and considerations for scalability and security.

Chapter 6, "Designing the Enterprise Project Management Solution Architecture Details," provides an in-depth look at design requirements that need to be considered when planning an EPM implementation.

Part IIIImplementing Microsoft Office Project Server 2003

Chapter 7, "Enterprise Project Management System Deployment Considerations," focuses on the key components of the software that will be configured to match the business processes and standards of the organization. Because the software is highly configurable, it is important for the team to spend planning time making sure that the configuration decisions are appropriate to the organization's maturity and its capacity to manage change.

Chapter 8, "Establishing Security Model Settings," addresses the security options and capabilities of the software. This important chapter helps the reader create a security model that is both robust and flexible so that it does not require a great deal of administrative time to maintain.

Chapter 9, "Enterprise Global Codes," describes the core configuration elements of the software. Configuration models vary from organization to organization based on the complexity of the setup and the needs of the business. This chapter discusses the options available for the user.

Chapter 10, "Creating Project Web Access Project and Resource Views," explains how an organization can set up views of the data that will meet the needs of different users of the system. The data within the system can be depicted in an almost limitless variety of views.

Chapter 11, "Completing the Implementation and Configuration," describes the final components that need to be considered when developing a robust solution for the organization. It includes discussions of calendar uses, time reporting methods, and administration projects.

Part IVValidating the Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Implementation

Chapter 12, "Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Validation," stresses the importance of performing thorough testing of all the system components and configuration to ensure that the system produces the expected results. Special attention must be paid to the roles and permissions, the security model, and the business and operational processes that surround this software.

Chapter 13, "Troubleshooting Business Process Implementation in the Application," provides a guide to common problems and their potential causes.

Part VUsing Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003

Chapter 14, "Project Web Access Collaboration," discusses the capabilities of the system from a user perspective and provides insight into how the Project Web Access (PWA) interface can be used to improve the way in which the organization gets its work done.

Chapter 15, "Time Tracking in Project Web Access," describes the capabilities provided in the system and the various methods that can be used to measure project progress. The chapter includes information regarding entry and approval of project progress.

Chapter 16, "Using Project and Resource Centers," helps users understand how to use the software to manage their project and resource data.

Chapter 17, "Portfolio Management Using Portfolio Analyzer and Portfolio Modeler," helps users understand how to manipulate the data in the system to help them make business decisions and determine the real-time status of projects and portfolios of project or resource data.

Chapter 18, "Risks, Issues, and Documents Using Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)," describes the capabilities of the system to help the project teams with day-to-day management of their projects and project artifacts.

Chapter 19, "Using the Project Web Access Admin Menu Tab," describes the administrative capabilities managed via PWA. Although some portions of the software are administered via Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003, many of them can be administered via PWA.

Part VIUsing Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 Enterprise Features

Chapter 20, "Building Custom Enterprise Configuration," provides information regarding the enterprise features built into the desktop scheduling engine of this software. These features are controlled by the application administrator of the system. Additional topics in this section include publication and version features.

Chapter 21, "Building Project Team and Resource Substitution," describes the resource management features of the desktop software that help the project manager build and manage the project team.

Chapter 22, "Project Team Collaboration," provides insight regarding the project team collaboration features that the tool provides for risk management, issue management, project progress tracking, and document management.

Part VIIEnterprise Project Management Integration with Microsoft Office Applications

Chapter 23, "Project Web Access and Project Professional Integration with Office," describes the features of the software that allow integration between this software and other Microsoft Office software, such as Outlook, Excel, and Visio.

Chapter 24, "Project Workspace Integration with Office," describes how the software is used to enhance team communication via web discussions and document sharing.

Part VIIIServer Maintenance and Configuration Management

Chapter 25, "Server Maintenance and Configuration Management," provides a technical description of the server components and the typical maintenance activities that should be set up for proper management of the servers and the data they contain.

Chapter 26, "Capacity Planning," provides information on how to plan for and monitor growth of the system as usage of the software expands through the organization. It addresses different methods of system management as well as ongoing support requirements.

Part IXIndustry Configuration Examples

Chapter 27, "Industry Examples for Microsoft Office Project 2003 Configuration," was written to provide the user with a variety of examples of how we have seen the system configured for different industry verticals and applications. It is not meant to be a complete picture of all possible configurations but rather to serve as a set of possibilities.

Part XCustomizing Microsoft Office Project Server 2003

Chapter 28, "Enterprise Project Management Customization," provides some insight into methods and approaches to customization when the organization decides that it needs additional capabilities not available from the basic system.

Chapter 29, "Extending Enterprise Project Management Through Customization Overview," explains the application programming interface (also known as Project Data Services or PDS) and also provides information regarding other common customization requests such as integration with SharePoint Portal Services and extension of the OLAP cube.