Introducing Project Web Access

 Server  If you used Microsoft Project 2000, you may be familiar with Project Central. Project Central was Project 2000’s server-based component, and was accessed via web pages in a web browser. You can think of Project 2002’s Web Access as a major upgrade to Project Central; they share many of the same screens and features. Although they’re certainly not identical—Web Access offers more functionality and easier-to-navigate pages—but if you’ve used Project Central, you’ll find that using Web Access is similar.

Who should use Project Web Access? Project and portfolio managers in your organization can use Web Access to post reports, views, and other information for their team members; they can also make use of workgroup features to send the task assignment and project status messages previously discussed in Chapter 15. Stakeholders and senior management can log on to see reports and views for which they have permissions. Additionally, team members can see their task assignments and deadlines for all projects; they can send status updates to their managers, and look at certain views from the Project files for which they have assigned tasks.

When you first log on to Web Access, it looks and acts like any normal website. The difference, of course, is that the Web Access “website” exists on your company’s internal network, and is powered by your installation of Project Server. The operations and reports available on the Web Access site can be accessed by anyone in your organization who has been assigned a username and password, and granted the appropriate level of access. Users don’t have to be running the Microsoft Project software to use Web Access.

Note 

Most organizations use Web Access as a collaboration tool. Yes, you can use Web Access for tough project management chores, but those activities are best undertaken by a qualified project manager from within Project Professional. Use Project Professional (in conjunction with Project Server) for your enterprise management operations, and use Web Access (also in conjunction with Project Server) for collaboration and communication between team members—and senior management.