Datasheet
What Is Project Server?
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✦ Manage resource allocation across your organization
✦ Carry out basic issue and risk management
✦ Attach supporting documentation, such as budget estimates or feasibil-
ity studies, to a task or project
Although Project Server works in conjunction with Project Professional, only
project managers need to install Project Professional; the project manager
uses Project Professional to create projects using the techniques we’ve
described throughout this book. In the Project Server environment, your
organization can create projects that use identical custom settings to help
you manage projects in a consistent manner because Project Server uses the
Enterprise Global template the same way that Project uses the Global.mpt
template file. The Enterprise Global template contains all the fields, maps,
views, tables, reports, filters, forms, groups, and calendars that are stored in
the Global.mpt template file that’s included in Project Professional, along
with additional enterprise-only fields. You can define whether fields are
required, and you can create look-up tables and value lists for fields.
In addition to setting up the Enterprise Global template, use Project
Professional to create a resource pool that contains all the resources avail-
able in your entire organization using the same techniques described in
Book III, Chapter 4. Because the resource pool contains all the resources
available in your entire organization, it’s aptly named the Global Resource
Pool in Project Server.
You then publish (that’s “upload” in Project Server lingo) the resource pool
and all the organization’s projects to the Project Server database. To work
with the information in the Project Server database, you can use Project
Professional or Project Web Access, an Internet Explorer browser-based
client-side interface that installs when you install Project Server. Figure 1-1
shows you a typical home page in Project Web Access.
The way in which you use the Project Server database depends on your role
in your organization, because different people have different needs for proj-
ect information. For example, project team members can use Project Web
Access to see the assignments that they’ve received, enter time spent on
various project tasks, update work assignments, send status reports to the
project manager, and even set up to-do lists. Chapter 4 of this minibook
describes how a team member might use the Project Server database.
Project Server can exchange information with Outlook. Resources can
import tasks from Project Server and export work information from Outlook
to Project Server.
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