Enterprise Custom Fields in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010

 

Hi,

In this Post, I will show you how to create and manage Enterprise Custom Fields in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010.

First of all, why do you need those fields? The answer is simple: To suit your needs! Let’s suppose that you need to track information about cost center! Where can you enter this cost center? In the custom field!

There are four types of Custom Fields:

1. Custom Fields in which you can enter any value (depends on type of field, which I will explain later)
2. Custom Fields that have predefined values (via Lookup table)
3. Custom Fields with formula
4. Custom Fields that displays graphical indicator

You can access Custom Fields here:

and then:

and you will get:

 

As you can see there are several default custom fields (twenty of them)!

I will now create the brand new field, Profit Center. When I click on the New Field button, I will get:

This is only the first part of the screen! In the Name field I will put the name of this custom field. In the description field I will enter description of thist field.

In Entity field I can choose: Project, Resource or Task.

• If I choose Project, this custom field is applied to the PROJECT LEVEL.
• If I choose Resource, this custom field is applied to the RESOURCE LEVEL
• If I choose Task, this custom field is applied to the TASK LEVEL

The next field is Type. Here I can define what kind of field do I want to create:

• Cost – It is used for fields in which you will enter MONEY (e.g.. currency amount), for example if you want to have a Bonus field in which you will enter bonus for Resource, you should use this field type
• Date – It is used for fields in which you want to enter date, for example, Date of Birth for your resources
• Duration – It is used for fields which contains durations, for example duration between planned and actuals (of course, you should use formula for that)
• Flag – It is used when you have to decide between two values (yes or no), for example if you want to have field like disabled for your resources
• Number – It is used for any number except Cost, for example, here you can put the shoe number of your resource if you have protective footwear for your resources
• Text – You can enter whatever  you want here!

When you choose Type you have to choose Custom Attributes, too:

Those attributes are not the same for every Type of custom field. The picture above displays custom attributes for the Text type:

• Single line of text – you will choose that if you want to enter only a single line of text in this field
• Multiple lines of text – you will choose that if you want to enter multiple lines of text in this field. If you choose that, you will not see in Project information Tab in MS PROJECT PROFESSIONAL 2010!
• Lookup Table – is available with Text type! I will explain usage of Lookup Table  in my next Post!
• Formula – if you want to use a specific formula which you can define for this custom field. I will explain this in one of my next Posts.

In Department field if you department, then only users which belongs to that particular Department will be able to see this custom field. If you leave this field empty, all users will see this custom field!

Behavior controlled by workflow – if you choose this option than the behavior of this field will be controlled by workflow

Require that this field has information – If you select Yes than this field can not be blank, and you will have to fill it! Be careful with that!

For my example, I will choose Resource entity and Text type, because I want that every Resource belong to Profit Center, no matter on which Projects or Tasks will they work on! I will also make this field as Required!

Now I will save this custom field:

You can see it here:

OK! Now what? Where is this field applied? Let us go to the Manage Users:

and I will get:

Now I will choose, for example, Project Manager #1 and I will get:

On the middle part of this screen, I am getting this new Enterprise custom field:

I will now, try to save this without putting anything to this field:

I can not do it, because this custom field is required! The conclusion? BEFORE you start to add your resources, tasks, or project, first define, and crate your custom fields. In my case, I should go from one resource to another, and fill this field, which can be very annoying!

So I will put, for example, abc123 in that field!

and I will save it!

It works! But you will say: “YOU ARE MORON! What does abc123 mean?”. It means nothing. I just show you that in this type of custom field I can put whatever I want!

Of course if you have predefined Profit Centers in your company, you should use a lookup table! How? Read my next Post!

 

Regards,

Permissions Cumulative Behavior in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010

 

Hi,

this post will be a short one! I will show you Permissions Cumulative Behavior in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010. First I will open, for example, Manage Categories view:

and I will get:

When I click on My Projects, I will get:

Now I I will choose Project Managers Group:

Let us look, for example, on the Create New Tasks or Assignment permission. It is set to Allow. What does it mean? It means that every user will be able to Create new Task or Assignment in CASE THAT THIS PERMISSION IS NOT DENIED in some other Group which this user belongs!

I will choose the Resource Managers group and I will set this permission to Denied:

Now, user has set that permission to Deny in Resource Managers group, and Allow in the Project Manager group, and that means that the user will NOT BE ABLE to Create New Task or Assignment!

But what if I choose to set this permission neither to Allow nor to Denied in Resource Managers group:

Because this permission is not set to Allow nor to Deny it means that it is set to Not Allowed! But! There is a huge difference between Deny and Not Allowed Permission set. If you choose Deny then user will not be able to Create New Task or Assignment even if this Permission is set to Allow in some other group. But if this permission is set to Not Allowed (e.g. neither Allow nor Deny), the user will be able to Create New Task or Assignment if this permission is set to Allow in some other group.

So cumulative behavior, for Create New Task or Assignment (for example) will be:

Project Managers Group	Not Allowed	Not Allowed	Denied
Resource Managers Group	Denied	Allowed	Allowed
Permission is:	Denied	Allowed	Denied

For the end of this Post, be vary careful with Deny permission setting. Use in only if you are 100% sure that you want to prohibit user to use this functionality from anywhere. In any other case use the Allowed – Not allowed combination instead!

 

Regards,

How to manage Group permissions for Categories in MS PROJECT 2010!

Hi,

I will show you how can you manage group permission for category, and vice versa in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010.

I will choose Manage Categories form Server Setting page:

and then:

Finally I will get:

For example, I will choose My Projects category:

As you can see, in this Category are, by default: Project Managers, Resource Managers, and Team Leads groups. And there are also Users which belongs to this groups in this Category, also by default! I will now click on the Project Managers group and I will get:

Here are default permissions for this Category! You can choose what you can do with permissions! As you can see My Projects category is about What you can access, and with Group permissions  you can choose what can you do with that!

As you can see Project Managers group with My Projects  category can Open Projects and Publish Project, as well. What Projects? Those who are defined here:

This was explained in my previous post!

Now, I will choose Resource Managers group within My Project category, and I will get:

As you can see users in Resource Managers category can not Open Project, nor they can Publish Project. You can change those permissions if you want.

One advice! You can select any particular group in Users and Groups, and then change permissions for this group, and you can choose any User which belong to that Category, and then change permissions to this particular user for this category! DO NOT DO THAT! Do not change permission per user, because in Enterprise Project Management you will probably have hundreds of users, and if you manage permissions for each of them, you’ll get in trouble, because you will forgot which user has special permissions.

If you want to have some special permissions for a group of users, make your own group or category, or both, and then manage permissions there.

You can manage permissions per group if you choose Manage Groups:

and then:

When I choose Project Managers group, I will get:

When I choose My Projects category within Project Managers group I will get:

I have same set of permissions. So you can do the permission settings from both Groups and Category. Choose one method, and stick to it. I recommend that you manage those permissions through Categories!

When you are, from example, in Manage Categories screen for My Project category, and I choose Project Managers group, you can manage security from templates. For example, I want that Project Managers group, for My Project Category has permissions from Project Manager Template:

If I do that this Group will inherit permissions from that particular Template!

And templates with permissions are defined here:

You can see Security templates:

When I choose  Project Manager security template, I will get:

Here you can change permissions, and then apply them through Categories via Security template. It may seems complicated, but once you’ll try it, you will soon be familiarized with them.

Once again, NEVER SET PERMISSIONS PER USER, BECAUSE YOU WILL GET CONFUSED VERY SOON! Use groups, categories and security templates instead!

Regards,

Groups and Categories in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010–Part 2

 

Hi,

in this Post,I am going to explain Categories! Default categories (built-in) are:

1. My Direct Reports  – They are intended for users who need to approve timesheets in Projects
2. My Organization – This Category has almost all permissions to access all information
3. My Projects – User can access to all projects that his owns
4. My Resources – This is very useful for Resource Managers. It is linked with Resource Breakdown structure, which I will cover in the near future
5. My Tasks –Intended for users who have tasks assigned to them

As you remember, Group is What you can do (open Project, for example). On the other hand, Category is what can you access! Strange? Let me show you that it is very simple!

I will open Manage Categories:

and I will get:

Now, I will click on My Projects category, and I will get:

On the upper side of the screen you can put Category name, and Description. You can also choose which groups are part of this Category. Now Advice. You can assign Groups to the Category here, in the Manage Categories screen, and you can assign Categories to the Group in the Manage Groups screen, choose one! I have a habit to assign Group to the Category, from the Manage Categories screen, and I stick to it!

Next part of Manage Categories screen is:

Here you are choosing which Project will be granted to access in this particular Category. If you choose All and future projects in Project Server Databases, than every user with this category will have access to EVERY PROJECT! If you choose Only the projects indicated, then you can choose which project can the user in this group access, by choosing from Available Projects (I do not have any, so far), and add them to the Selected Projects. There are five other options for Only the projects indicated:

The user is the Project Owner or the user is the Status Manager on assignments within this Project. This gives users to access to the Project that they owns, or to the Status Managers to access to the Projects that contain assignment they manage

The User is on that project’s Project Team. This gives permission to access any project to the users there are on that project Project Team

The Project Owner is a descendant of the User via RBS (Resource Breakdown Structure). Suppose that I am below you in the RBS, and I am the owner of the Project. By choosing this option, you can access this project which I own, too.

A Resource on the project’s Project Team is a descendant of the User via RBS. Suppose that I am below you in the RBS, and I am a member of the project team which you do not own. By choosing this option, you can access (see) this project which I own, too.

The Project Owner has the same RBS value as the User. Suppose that you and I are on the same RBS level, and that we are using resources from the same pool for our projects. By choosing this option, we can access (see) project from each other.

 

Now next part of the screen:

Here you are choosing which Resources can User in this category View! If you choose All current and future resources in Project Server database, user can access any Resource in the resource pool. If you choose Only resource indicated, then you can choose which resources can the user in this group access, by choosing from Available Resources, and add them to the Selected Resources. There are five other options for Only the resources indicated:

• The user is the resource. User can see his own resource and assignments
• They are members of a Project Team on a project owned by the user. User can see all resources for the Projects that his owns.
• They are descendants of the User via RBS. User can see all resources which are below him on the RBS
• They are direct descendants of the User via RBS. User can see all resources which are below him on the RBS, but only ONE LEVEL BELOW
• They have the same RBS value as the User. User can see all other users which has the same RBS value.

The last part of the screen is:

 

Simple, here you can choose which views you want the user who belong to this category, can see!

OK! you think that was complicated? Read my next Post. I will show how to manage Group Permissions for Category, and Vice Versa!

 

Regards!

Groups and Categories in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010–Part 1

Hi,

as I promised I will start with Groups and Categories in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010. When you install MS PROJECT SERVER 2010 it comes with seven built-in groups, and five built in categories.

Groups are:

1. Administrators  – Users in this group have all permissions to do everything. BE VARY CAREFUL when you assign user to this group!
2. Executives – They can view project data, but they can not do any changes. This is very useful for high-level users to see what is going on, but who are not a part of the project team
3. Portfolio Managers – They can change and add data, but they do not have administrators privileges! They can see and edit all projects and resources as well
4. Project Managers – They can manage Projects, but they have limited resource permissions
5. Resource Managers – They are mainly responsible for maintaining resources, and they performance on the projects
6. Team Leads – Those people are team leaders and usually they do not perform any task on the projects. They have also limited permissions about adding tasks to the projects, and status reports
7. Team members – They can use Project Webb Access, but they have limited permission on the project-level permissions. When you add new user on the system this is the default group for him/her!

Categories are:

1. My Direct Reports
2. My Organization
3. My Projects
4. My Resources
5. My Tasks

Before I explain the difference between them, you must know that each built-in category is in “relationship” with one ore more group. Defaults are:

• Category: My Direct Reports is in Resource Managers group
• Category: My Organization is in Administrators, Executives, Portfolio Managers, Project Managers, and Resource Managers group
• Category: My Projects is in Project Managers, Resource Managers, and Team Leads group
• Category: My Resources is in Resource Managers group
• Category: My Tasks is in Team Members group

  So, where is the  difference between Group and Category? Let me show you. I will open Groups:

and I will get:

Now I will click on Project Managers group, and I will get:

On the first section of the screen you can enter Name and Description of the group. You can also add Users that belong to this group. You can see that users Project Manager #1, and Project Manager #2 are already in this group. Keep in mind that I did not add them to this group from this screen, but I added them when through Manage Users screen, which will be part of some of my next Posts! Also notice that this group is in “relationship” with My Organization, and My Project Categories, which I mentioned before.

I will now expand Global Permission section on this screen, and I will get (I can grab the whole picture at once, so I will show you in more than one picture):

Now, the explanation!!! Group permissions are Project Web App Permissions (which I had explained in my previous post), and you can change them here for each group!!! And those permissions are what can you do as a, in this example, Project Manager. You can see at the bottom of the screen Set permissions with template where you can choose predefined Templates and apply permissions from this template to specific group! I will cover that also in some of my next posts!

For example, Project Managers group has New Project, Open Project, and Publish Project permissions, but NOT Approve Timesheet permission. If you want him to have that permission click on Allow!

OK! Now we know that particular group tell you what can you do! What are Categories?

Categories are…. read my next Post!

 

Regards!

Project Web App Permissions in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010

Hi,

I am starting with Permissions in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010. There are various types of Permissions in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010!

Project Web App Permissions – Those are high level permissions. If you exclude (disable) any permission from here, no one can do anything with that from anywhere. For example, if you uncheck Clean up Project Server Database, no one will be able to delete any Enterprise object from anywhere. If you include (enable) any permission the user will be granted to that permission if this permission belongs to the group where user belongs

To get Web App Permissions I will log on to PWA (Project Webb Access) with Administrators privileges and I will choose:

I will get:

This is only a part of all permissions! I suggest that you keep all Permissions ON here (which are default) and then disable any of them in Category Permission, which I will cover in my next posts! You should disable permission only if you are 100% sure that you will not need it anywhere! I will not cover what each of these permissions means, because it will take me a lot of space, and by the way, you can find it on the Microsoft TechNet sites, and in the book I have recommended to you in my previous post!

I will show you what happens if I, for example, disable the New Project permission.

First I will show you how can I access this feature (Open Project) through PWA, with Project Manager account. The very first screen, after I log on is:

I will click on the Project Center, and I will get:

As you can see I can open a new Project:

Now, I am going to use my Administrator’s account and I am going to disable the New Project permission:

Now, I am going to try to make a New Project:

As you can see, it is DISABLED!

For the end of this Post I must say that managing permissions in MS PROJECT SERVER 2010 is very complicated, but if you have define the Plan you can save a lot of time and trouble. In my next post I will talk abut groups and categories!

Regards,

How to successfully implement MS PROJECT SERVER 2010 in your Company

Hi,

from now on, I will write about MS PROJECT SERVER 2010! I will not write about Project Server Installation, but about “how to use it” with and without MS PROJECT 2010 Professional! Before you start to use it you must ask yourself three major questions:

1. What can PROJECT SERVER 2010 do?
2. What do I need from PROJECT SERVER 2010?
3. Where are the differences between what it can do, and what do I need?

Answer on the third question will lead you to the FIT-GAP analysis, and that means that you will have document which can you use for customize PROJEC SERVER 2010, BEFORE YOU WILL USE IT!

Do not get me wrong, I strongly recommend MS PROJECT SERVER 2010, and I do not want to discourage you, but customizing and implementing MS PROJECT SERVER 2010 is complicated! Why?

First of all, it has a lot of possibilities! Second, you want to know what you want from it. Consider implementing MS PROJECT SERVER in your company as a huge Project. You should get a buy in for it. Users must see the benefit which they will get for the effort spent on that Project. As every Project, Implementing MS PROJECT 2010 must have:

• Goals
• Objectives
• Scope
• Risks
• Budget
• Project  Plan
• Stakeholders expectations
• and much more

You can use MS PROJECT SERVER 2010 for:

• Managing simple or complex projects
• Managing Programs (a set of Related Projects)
• Managing Portfolio ( a set of Unrelated Projects or Programs)
• Portfolio Analysis
• and much more

After you have a CLEAR UNBIASED goals, you must SET UP your Project Server 2010!

Here is the picture of Project Server Settings page:

I will just mention some settings, because I will explain them in my next Posts:

1. Security – Here you will set up Users, Groups, Categories and so on! Of course, you must know what you want before you star with these setting
2. Enterprise Data – Here you will setup custom fields, Lookup tables, Calendars etc. which you can use for all of your projects, some of them, through all Departments or some of them
3. Manage Views – Here you will manage your views, add new Views, etc.
4. Time and Task Management – Here you are setting up how do you want to capture working and nonworking time needed for statutory time recording and progress updates to project managers, and much more

OK! you’ve get the point. From my next Post I am starting with “USING” MS PROJECT SERVER 2010!

Regards,