Project Plan 365 Collaboration with Microsoft Project Files (MPP) Shared on Network Folders White Paper Housatonic Software - Project Plan 365 App 2014
Contents 1. Introduction... 3 2. Prerequisites... 4 3. What Is Project Plan 365?... 5 4. Collaboration Scenario... 6 4.1 Team Collaboration Big Picture... 6 4.2 Create New/Edit MPP Project Plan with Project Plan 365... 7 4.3 Publish & Save Plan to Network Folder... 8 4.4 Assign Users and File Rights in Network Folder... 11 4.5 Open Project Plan with Project Viewer 365... 13 4.6 Edit... 13 4.6.1 Recalculations made when changing % complete field of a task... 18 5. Conclusion... 25 www.projectplan365.com Introduction 2
1. Introduction The purpose of this document is to present how sharing functionality works across a range of products such as Housatonic Project Plan 365 and Housatonic Project Viewer (Housatonic Project Viewer for PC), in order to facilitate collaboration between the Project Manager (PM) and Team Members (TM). In this way the whole team will be on the same page when working together on shared Microsoft Project files stored on network folders. The proposed collaboration scenario is based on the assumption that already a lot of people use a storage service to manage projects and within a team there is already a shared folder on a network folder and they can add there several mpp files. The sharing feature will be described in the context of the current flow and existing user interface in Project Plan 365 and Housatonic Project Viewer (Housatonic Project Viewer for PC). The sharing concept was inspired from how sharing is done in Microsoft PowerPoint 2013, but adapted to our existing user interface and meant to work with Microsoft Project mpp files, which may reside in various locations: cloud storage services, internal network folder and mpp files received as email attachments. The current document will focus on how sharing is done in case of a free demo application, when no licenses and purchase fees will be involved. Therefore there will be no need of a login phase, where the PM/TMs enter their email address or other login credentials to be validated by our system. Also there will be no PIN generated for the PM or TM when purchasing the license, as part of the authentication step and there will be no restriction regarding the maximum number of concurrent users that can use the application. This whitepaper is organized as follows: in Section 2 (Prerequisites) there will be presented what products and software applications will be necessary to be used by project managers and team members, whereas the Section 3 (What is Project Plan 365?) will give an overview of the features offered by Project Plan 365 product. Section 4 (Collaboration scenario) will be dedicated to present in detail the necessary steps to accomplish an end-to-end collaboration across a team. In the last section (Conclusion) several conclusions will be offered regarding how collaboration can be achieved by using our products. www.projectplan365.com Introduction 3
2. Prerequisites In order to use the collaboration functionality it is assumed that the whole team uses internal network folders as their chosen storage solution and that both Project Managers and Team Members already have accounts created by the network administrator in that scope. Project Managers will use the Project Plan 365 product, whereas Team Members will use Housatonic Project Viewer product (Housatonic Project Viewer for PC). If you visit http://projectplan365.com/ website, you can access the free demo version of Project Plan 365 product, which can be used without needing a purchased license. From this webpage if you click on Free Demo link you will see the link corresponding to the Project Plan 365 (Create or Edit a Project) product, in the left side of the page. www.projectplan365.com Prerequisites 4
3. What Is Project Plan 365? Project Plan 365 is an intuitive solution for creating, opening and sharing Microsoft Project compatible files (MPP) from any storage, platform or device. The Housatonic Project Plan 365 application supports a wide range of users and is designed to support the Microsoft Project viewing (MPP files) needs of the entire project team or organization: 1. Project Team Members can view project information right from their desktop using any standard browser. 2. Project Managers can easily publish or email project information and make it available in a matter of seconds to the entire project team. 3. Executives can view project plans and get quick access to project reports, status reports and other critical information. Features it offers: Teams: Perfect for teams working in fast-paced collaborative environments which may include across disparate geographic locations Save & Share: Save as MPP or XML & share via live presentation, email, OneDrive, Google Drive, Office 365, Dropbox, SharePoint, etc. View: Team Members can view, sort, filter, print, zoom, read notes, etc. Feedback: Team Members provide updates such as: work completed, notes, etc. Overview: Create a consolidated view across multiple projects with an "executive" dashboard Reports: Generate cost, allocation, schedule, "who does what, when" reports www.projectplan365.com What Is Project Plan 365? 5
4. Collaboration Scenario 4.1 Team Collaboration Big Picture A typical collaboration scenario between the Project Manager and Team Members consists of 3 steps: Step 1: Project Manager creates or edits a Microsoft Project (MPP) file using Project Plan 365 (PP365) and shares it with the team via Network Folder Step 2: Team Members access the Microsoft Project (MPP) file from various devices and browsers, look through it and each make some small edits using Housatonic Project Viewer (Housatonic Project Viewer for PC) Step 3: Project Manager gets email notifications when something was modified, compares what was changed meanwhile and possibly makes several changes As you can see from the above picture Step 1 (PM creates or edit an Microsoft Project plan with PP365, then publishes and shares the file via Network Folder) and Step 3 (PM receives email notifications from TM when plan was changed, compares with original project file) corresponds to the Project Managers from the team that will use Project Plan 365 product, whilst Step 2 (TM access the Microsoft Project file and perform small Edits using viewer applications) belongs to the Team Members. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 6
4.2 Create New/Edit MPP Project Plan with Project Plan 365 For demonstration purposes let s take for example the case of a Project Manager that creates from scratch an mpp file with Project Plan 365 describing a building construction process. To create a new project plan he must select from the File menu, New option that will create an empty mpp file. At the end, the construction project plan will look like below: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 7
You can skip this step if you have already a Microsoft Project license and you decide to create an mpp file using Microsoft Project. 4.3 Publish & Save Plan to Network Folder Next the Project Manager chooses to publish the currently opened project plan. To do this, he selects the Publish option under the File menu, where the user can find in the right side some explanations regarding this option. The same functionality can be accessed from the Team menu. After clicking on the Publish option a Publish window will be displayed, with options for doing the publish: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 8
As can be noticed there are two MPP file publishing options: Read Only: this option will lock the file and mark it as read-only, so no edits can be performed Collaboration (Task Name, Task Notes, % Complete): this option allows selected columns to be updated by all project Team Members. By using this option, the Project Manager will be able to choose what fields can be edited by the Team Member using the Edit feature from Housatonic Project Viewers products. If for instance the Project Manager selects Task Notes field beneath the second option, the project plan will be published only with notes field being editable, so that in Housatonic Project Viewers Team Members could only change the notes field for a task. After the publish is done, a dialog will be shown informing that file was published successfully and from where the user can choose the location for the file to be saved: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 9
When clicking on the save it text, the save dialog will be displayed, where he clicks on the Device option: After this, from the Save As dialog the user chooses to save the project plan with the name ProjectWorld under his network folder called ProjectWorldFolder: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 10
4.4 Assign Users and File Rights in Network Folder Add team members as collaborators on the network folder and give them appropriate rights. In this way, ProjectWordFolder becomes shared with the team members and the entire team can collaborate on the files within it. Let s suppose that the team consists of 2 team members, having the accounts: projectwolrd.user1, projectwolrd.user2,that will be used by Project Manager to add users on the shared network folder. For instance to assign rights for users on the ProjectWorldFolder network folder: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 11
: For demonstration only purposes, we will refer to 2 access permissions (Reader and Contributor) available as File Sharing options for a network folder. Team Member 1 will correspond to Reader permission and Team Member 2 will correspond to Contributor right. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 12
4.5 Open Project Plan with Project Viewer 365 The file indicated by Project Manager can be opened by Team Member on any device (PC, laptop, tablet) using Housatonic Project Viewer application for PC. The file to be used in collaboration will be opened with viewer application installed on their machine. Team Members are able to open and view the Microsoft Project mpp file and even perform small changes by using the Edit functionality. All standard and custom Microsoft Project views, reports and functionalities like print, sort, filters, time scale, reports are available. 4.6 Edit If the file was published as editable (see Step 3 Publish & Save Plan to Network Folder) and the project has editable fields, a notification window appears and the Team Member can update the fields via Edit option: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 13
In case the file is published as read-only, a corresponding notification will be displayed: To enter the Edit view and perform small changes, the team member must click on the correspondent menu option, available under 2 places: File Edit menu and Task menu: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 14
In case the file is not editable, Edit option will be disabled and Team Members cannot perform changes: If the file was published as editable, when clicking on Edit option, Team Member will be presented with Edit view. If authorized by the Project Manager, team members can update progress for tasks, add notes and adjust task names. Every time a user is successful in entering Edit, he is presented with the latest version of the project (including changes that might have been committed between the moment of opening the project and the moment of entering Edit). This means that the Edit view ensures synchronization between the actual state of the project and the data displayed to the user, so that no progress committed by another team member is lost. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 15
Team Member 2 who has edit permission on the network folder, decides to change the name of task 7 and add a note for task 13. Clicking on an editable selected cell, allows modifying its content: Changes made to a project file are not saved and not visible to others unless they are committed, so Team Member must press Update button to commit his changes: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 16
After clicking on Update button, a Save dialog is displayed to let the user know where to save the newly changed file: www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 17
A Edit takes place only if something was changed, so nothing it s invoked if there are no changes performed by the Team Member. Pressing the Exit button will cause a switch to the Gantt Chart view. The file is saved in standard mpp format compatible with MS Project 2010 and higher. We need to make sure that if the Project Manager is giving Edit rights to somebody, that person has the proper edit rights setup in the network folder, otherwise the system should prevent the Team Member to perform a Edit, by disabling the Edit button in Housatonic Project Viewers. In this way, it will be avoided a situation in which a Team Member that accesses a mpp file with edit rights, finds out after performing a Edit that his action was in vain, since he hasn t edit rights in the network folder and his changes cannot be saved. In case of Team Member 1 that have Reader permission on the shared network folder called ProjectWorldFolder he cannot perform a Edit since he hasn t edit permission and a check is made at the beginning to try to open the file in edit mode. Although the file is editable, Team Member 1 cannot perform a Edit since he hasn t enough rights set in network folder (he has Viewer permission only). Thus it is accomplished a synchronization with the rights a user has in the network folder and warn him if something goes wrong, before he proceeds and performs some forbidden operation. Only one team member at a time is allowed to edit the shared project (via Edit feature) - all other team members attempting to make changes will receive a warning message: Click on Exit button to avoid keeping the shared file locked for editing by team member on Edit view. 4.6.1 Recalculations made when changing % complete field of a task Hereinafter we will describe the computations that take place when changing % Complete field of a task as part of a Edit. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 18
When a Team Member updates some values for % complete field, some live computation are made in Housatonic Project Viewers, so that Project Manager stays in loop with the latest changes performed by the Team Members. As part of the Edit functionality the entire project is recalculated if the Team Member changes % complete field of a task and this section will document what changes occurs and based on what formulas. All of these computations are integrated across all Housatonic Project Viewers products (Housatonic Project Viewer for Web, Housatonic Project Viewer for PC and mobile client viewers viewer for iphone, Android and Windows Phone platforms, native viewer for Mac, etc.). In Housatonic Project Viewers when % complete field of a task is modified, actual and remaining duration for a task changes, actual and remaining work and actual and remaining cost are also updated correspondingly. Also the value for % work complete changes according to the % complete field, in most of the cases these 2 fields will have the same values. Their values can be different in some cases on summary tasks. This happens in our application because you cannot have resources assigned non uniform to a task as in MSP (i.e. in MSP you can set % complete different for an assignment, which in Housatonic Project Plan 365 is not possible). More specifically, when % complete field for a task is edited in Project Plan 365, the following changes occur: - % complete, actual and remaining duration, actual and remaining cost, actual and remaining work and % work complete for the above summary tasks - actual and remaining cost, actual and remaining duration, actual and remaining work and % work complete for that respective task with edited % complete field - actual and remaining cost, actual and remaining work and % work complete for all the resources assigned to that task - actual and remaining cost, actual and remaining work and % work complete for all resource assignments of that task - actual and remaining cost, actual and remaining work and % work complete for each task assignment of the resources assigned to the task with edited % complete field For the purpose of demonstration we will consider the case of Team Member 2, which wants to perform a Edit on the editable ProjectWorld.mpp file. Let s suppose that he sets for task with ID = 41 (Form elevator pit walls) % complete to be 50% (previously the value of % complete was 0%). www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 19
Cost Table applied to Gantt Chart view reveals the new values for actual and remaining cost fields for the modified task and for the project summary task. To choose a different table, go to Project menu and select Table option: Then in next dialog select Cost in order to apply the Cost table to the Gantt Chart view: Initially the value for Actual Cost was $0, since no progress was reported. Now that progress of the task changed to 50%, the values for Actual Cost field will be $800, meaning half of the Total Cost of this task. Since Remaining Cost = Total Cost Actual Cost Remaining Cost = 1600-800 = $800 Also values for Actual and Remaining Cost in case of parent summary tasks and for the project summary task are updated accordingly. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 20
Tracking Table applied to Gantt Chart view reveals the updated values for actual and remaining duration, actual cost and actual work fields for the task with ID 41 and for the project summary task. Since the duration of the task is 4 days and RemainingDuration = Duration ActualDuration Actual Duration = Remaining Duration = 2 days www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 21
Work Table applied to Gantt Chart view reveals the new values for actual and remaining work and % work complete fields for the modified task and for the project summary task. Percent Work Complete = 50% Actual Work = Work * Percent Work Complete / 100; Actual Work = 32 * 50% / 100 = 16 hrs Remaining Work = Work Actual Work; Remaining Work = 32 16 = 16 hrs Cost Table applied to Resource Sheet view shows the new values for actual and remaining cost fields for the resource assigned to task with ID 41 (G.C. Rough Carpenter Crew). Resource Actual Cost = $800 Resource Remaining Cost = Resource Cost Resource Actual Cost Resource Remaining Cost = 4800 800 = $4000 Work Table applied to Resource Sheet view shows the updated values for actual and remaining work and % work complete fields for the resource assigned to task with ID 41 (G.C. Rough Carpenter Crew). Resource Actual Work = 16 hrs Resource Remaining Work = Resource Work Resource Actual Work Resource Remaining Work = 96 16 = 80 hrs www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 22
Resource Percent Work Complete = 100 * Resource Actual Work / Resource Work Resource Percent Work Complete = 17% Cost Table applied to Task Usage view reveals that new values for actual and remaining cost fields for the resource assignment (denoted by the resource G.C. Rough Carpenter Crew) for task with ID 41. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 23
Work Table applied to Task Usage view reveals the values for actual and remaining work and % work complete fields for the resource assignment (denoted by the resource G.C. Rough Carpenter Crew) for task with ID 41. www.projectplan365.com Collaboration Scenario 24
5. Conclusion Project Plan 365 facilitates collaboration between Project Managers and Team Members, where Team Members can view read only or perform small Edits like % Complete, Notes or Task Name. Team Members can perform Edits from any device (PC, laptop, tablet). Project Plan 365 products are compatible with all platforms and mobile devices so that Team Members are able to provide their current status from tablets by using the Edit Feature. The Team Collaboration feature ensures synchronization between the actual state of the project and the data displayed to the user, so that no progress committed by another Team Member is lost. For more information please visit our web site: www.projectplan365.com www.projectplan365.com Conclusion 25