In the world of corporate where the number of companies have reached heights and so the number of Managers and the team associated. Managing the people and getting the work done becomes a challenging job for the managers. Thus the communication between the Managers and the team plays a very serious role in the growth of the company. To overcome this, the electronic communication between the managers and the team, which helps them in interacting about the projects, and also the managers can assign tasks to the team and get the updates, is the Project Server, which acts as an electronic communication Media. The companies are using Microsoft Project Server for better interaction, but this seems to be very expensive, and is not affordable by very company to go for it. Therefore, there are many alternatives for the same, those are the Project Server, Project Management Tools which are affordable and also with much more features, which is of a great help to Managers in sharing their Microsoft Project Files with their team.
Project Server is a web based Project Management Software that allows the managers to use the Microsoft Projects as their management tools. It helps in managing the schedules and the Project tasks. Project Server is a software that allows the easier communication of managers and the team members. It allows the managers to schedule the tasks to the team members, the team members in-turn can update their tasks so as to keep the manager updated on the project. The updates on the Server are in real time, via the Web Access. It allows the team members to update their tasks in real time through their browser. It acts as a companion program.
The Project Server has a Dashboard that covers the entire company portfolio, which includes several tabs that allows the users to perform tasks on each of the tab. The different tabs include Risk Management, Issue Management, Alerts, Calender Management, Task Management, Document Management, Discussion Forums. These tabs mark the tasks based on the priority of the task. This uses the color codes for identifying the tasks on priority, which makes the team members easier to solve. The Risks tab includes all the risks of the projects. The Issues tab contains all the Issues relating to the Project. The Alerts module allows to keep alerts for tasks and makes the user attentive for tasks. The Calender module helps in keeping track of all the tasks and schedules, and also helps in event management. Task Management helps in prioritizing the task and to assign tasks to the team members. The document module helps in maintaining all the documents relating to project. Last & not the least is the discussion forum, which is in search of by everyone, which allows messages, discussions, questions to be posted regarding the project and the tasks.
The Project Server has many collaborative features that facilitate the users. Few of the features are as follows
- Provided a two way Integration with Microsoft Project, that uses the Microsoft Project information schema
- Allows to view resource availability and Review the Projects
- Allows to request and receive the status reports
- Provided a browser based software client leading to lower Total Cost of Ownership
- Has a role based Dashboard covering the entire organizational portfolio
- Provided an option of approval based work-flow, that gives complete project management control
- Provided a collaborative tools for distributed team productivity
- Allows the Microsoft Project files to remain on desktop, so that users have full control of your files at all time
- Allows to assign tasks to team members and keep track of work
- Has an integrated Project Management, Issue Tracking, Risk Management, Discussion Forums, Document Management, Timesheet Management, Calendar Management and Project Reporting
- Provided browser based access to Microsoft Project files for Team Members
- Allows total change control for Project Managers
- Is compatible with Microsoft Project 2007
- Works with all versions of Windows, MacOS, Linux and other operating systems that support standard browsers. (Internet Explorer 6 with SP1, Internet Explorer 7, Netscape 6+, Mozilla 5+, Firefox +1)
- Highly secure solution with built-in firewall and 128-bit secure (HTTPS) browser access
After going through this article, if you would like to use these Project Servers then, here are some of the requirements that your system should posses:
Requirements of the desktop of the Team Members:
Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista, Ubuntu, Redhat LINUX, CentOS, SuSe
Internet: Internet Explorer 6 (with SP1) / 7/8, Firefox 2/3, Google Chrome
Requirements of the desktop of Project Manager:
Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
Internet: Internet Explorer 6 (with SP1) / 7/8, Firefox 2/3
Microsoft Project: Project 2003/07
In Project Server, multiple Project Managers in an organization can use the same server to upload their projects, but only the owner of the project will be able to edit the Project and the rest only view thus making it secure.
As seen it is very much helpful for the team and the managers by making their work easier, by allowing them to upload, edit, update the tasks on line. Thus by using these Servers the work becomes easy, which in turn helps in growth of the company as the efficiency of work is high. There are many Project Management tools available, few of them are: ValleySpeak, RationalPlan, Seavus, Steelray, etc.