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How many sub projects?

4 replies [Last post]
Sat, 2010-04-03 08:46
Craig Adams
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Dear Planners,

Have a dilemma, have about 20 development projects that run consecutively, some 3 years some 5 some about to finish.

Need to track and re-schedule as we go and for many we use internal resources (shared pool).

Should I then put them all into one file and allow the Project Managers access to do their individual projects status or do I put them in separate files?

Is anyone doing this now and if so how well is it going?

Is anyone using remote/web access, if you are would you mind sending me your URL so I can have a look at how this is presented.

Thanking you,

Craig Adams
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Replies

Mon, 2010-04-05 08:41
#1
Mike Testro
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Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Content Moderators, GPCCAR Editors
Hi Craig

First Thread

The three months is not too long.

Having purchased the software and the number of liscences needed you need to set up a suitable server that will cope with the amount of data.

Your IT guys will then have to arrange secure access routes and passwords.

What takes the time is:

Training - 1st yourself and then the Users - some will be quite anti because they will be closely monitored and exposed - one seminar will not be enough you will have to arrange 1 to 1 desktop sessions.

Updating - Projects in progress need to be brought up to the current date.

When it is set up and running your main tasks will be:

Arranging access rights.
Setting up the date line.
Setting rolling lookaheads.

Your template idea is sound but keep your templates in a different file otherwise they will affect any resource histograms.

Don’t try and set up user access rights on the templates because they will be lost in the copy / paste procedure.

In Enterprise you can set up Project Views and User Views so there will be an infinite assembly of pre set views for easy user access and filtering.

If you don’t set up these views and filters a three week look ahaed filter will pull out every task for every user and they will lose interest.

Second Thread

Every project is set to "Is A Project" status which means -inter alia - it will have its own critical path.

The projects can be grouped under a summary bar for whatever category you wish.

All the summary bars can be grouped under a Compay Wide heading.

You can link limited resources between projects - if you only have three peices of kit for 10 sites then you can link tasks in order of prioriy.

Management resource will be allocated to the respective summary bar - it is anything that carries a time expended cost.

When you set up the Red Amber Green priority column you will only have to chase the delinquents - you can set up a HTML link that sends a warning email to any Amber culprit.

The last one of these that I set up was for Suffolk County Council road maintenance department which had 40 users in 4 zones managing 600 hundred project each 18 to 24 months.

When I handed it over the system was 93,000 tasks and growing.

Best regards

Mike Testro
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Mon, 2010-04-05 08:14
#2
Craig Adams
User offline. Last seen 13 years 1 week ago. Offline
Joined: 11 Oct 2006
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Mike,

Just went back and read one of your previous answers, you’ve answered the capability question for me but I’m a little confused about how I’m going to fudge the enterprise environment or concept booking the file in and out, what happens when it’s booked out, take it no one else will be able to access and work on it.

Also you said this previously;

"There is no need for a Master Schedule as each project is set up in its own right.

You can have the projects set up under zones or mamagement resource headings."

What do you mean by the first paragraph, how do you share resources if each project is in it’s own file?

By Management Resource do you mean each Prime or Responsible person for the project like Project Managers?

I’m thinking if I have to gather information by creating a copied relevant section I’m going to create a lot of work for myself, formulating emailing then chasing up their replies Man I’ll have 30 to 40 people to chase up for information multiplied by 4 other states!

Regards,

Craig
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Mon, 2010-04-05 07:08
#3
Craig Adams
User offline. Last seen 13 years 1 week ago. Offline
Joined: 11 Oct 2006
Posts: 71
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Hello Mike,

Thanks for your reply.

What’s this though three months to implement, why does it take so long, surely it’s just a matter of server, then switch over software over to Enterprise and you’re away?

I’m hoping prepare the files side of things as far as APP is concerned by mirroring the different MSP schedules into one APP file. Thought I’d list the template first then enter each of the different project files (up to 5000 tasks) schedules as sub files.

Hoping I understand right, once you create access rights, each PM can open the main file (at the same time) and be looking only at their schedule (sub file) and there should be no conflict of access as they’ll be working in different areas of the same file. If that’s not the case then I need advice quick.

Thank you for your advice, hope to repay someone in the future once I feel confident enough.

Regards,

Craig
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Sun, 2010-04-04 14:32
#4
Mike Testro
User offline. Last seen 35 weeks 6 days ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Content Moderators, GPCCAR Editors
Hi Craig

You are talking about Powerproject Enterpise which allows webb access to any number of users - depending on the number of liscences you have in ratio to the number of users - 40 users > 10 liscences seems to be the rule.
This option howver will take about 3 months to implement and work will be going on so think ahead before taking this relatively costly route.


Alternativel you can use the Book In Book Out system with the standalone software - this needs careful control and will take a lot of your time booking things in and out and checking what has been reported.

If your Managers input is limited to weekly progress / resource reporting then you can set up an excell proforma for the data that you want recorded and copy/paste into the Powerproject columns for the report updates.
If it is set up correclty this method will also give you a rolling weekly As Built Record - invaluable for the future.

If you need to keep a global control of pooled resources then you do need to put all projects under one banner.

Each project can be set as stand alone but all resource deployements can be summarised under one top level.

Use of a Red - Amber - Green column will give early warning to potential resource overload.

Hope that helped.

Best regards

Mike Testro
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