The Microsoft Project Online Overview.
There are many project management tools on the market. None provides more functionality for the money than the cloud based Microsoft Project Online. From project planning to portfolio management, to project approval governance, the solution has that and much more.
Microsoft Project Professional
Yes! Microsoft Project is indeed used with Microsoft Project Online! Although Project Online provides the ability to edit projects in the web, the Project Online desktop client provides 100% of the capabilities of the scheduling engine.
Project Online Professional also provides powerful scheduling capabilities for all types of projects, including agile projects. The Gantt chart is a great visual representation of the duration and progress of individual tasks and the tool is a great place to update tasks based on project execution data.
To connect MS Project Pro to MS Project Online, you merely create an account via the Project Web App URL in the MS Project tool. You need a blank project open to do this, then navigate File > Info > Manage Accounts. Once created, re-launch MS Project and connect to Project Online. From this point forward, projects will be saved to the cloud. This makes it possible for other stakeholders such as Team Members, PMO Members, and many others to view project and resource information view a web browser.
Project Intake
Project Intake, the entering of project requests, is something that is quite common for organizations. Portfolio Management (PPM) typically starts with project requests. These requests are often of different types. They often require different information to get started, have different approval processes, use different workflows and have different project schedule templates.
Fortunately the demand management features of Microsoft Project Online make this functionality very easy to leverage. Request types can use different workflows, templates, and capture different project attributes. They can also use different project site templates to store project artifacts.
Don't know what a project site is? Well a project site provides the project team a great vehicle for collaborating on the projects via document, issues, risks, and much more. The project sites may even be prepopulated with project artifacts! Therefore each project request can be assured to have the project site prepopulated with the correct set of project templates!
Project Center
Get a single-cohesive view of all project initiatives in Project Center! Visibility across all projects, including graphical indicators representing status on KPIs, is all possible in Project Center in Project Web App. Custom project attributes provide the ability to group projects by meaning data-points, such as program, department, stage, and much more.
Project Details
When seeing the information for an individual project is necessary, from Project Center merely click on the project name and you are taking into the project details section. Project attributes such as business case information, business drivers, in scope, out of scope, business need, are all possible on the project detail pages. The Schedule page will give insight into all project tasks, start dates and finish dates, tracking information including Work, Actual Work, and much more.
Resource Center
If resource management is a need for an organization, the Resource Center is just the ticket. Properly setting up the enterprise resource pool will provide meaning information to decision makers such as "can we take on any new initiatives" and "what will be the impact of moving resource A from project xyz to project abc?".
Project managers and resource managers will have insight into valuable resource capacity, demand, and utilization information. Project managers will be able to locate resources with availability to work on their projects, and resource managers will be able to keep tabs on resources and help prevent overallocations.
Reporting
Power BI and Excel provide powerful reporting and dashboarding capabilities for Microsoft Project Online. Excel has powerful tactical capabilities, allowing deep analysis of data. Power BI provides very dynamic and graphical dashboards in which visuals may be leveraged for quick filtering of entire pages of data.
Summary
Project Online provides powerful project and portfolio management capabilities for any organization. Setting up the product in order to provide those capabilities can be a challenge. Contact Integent to help with your PPM setup and ensure your success.
Some helpful videos
Walkthrough of Microsoft Teams
Recording audio, video, and screen sharing with Microsoft Teams
Using Microsoft Teams, Flow, and an Ideation list with Project Online for Project Intake
