Pilot CSI Project Setup Guide

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Pilot CSI Project

Setup Guide

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CSI MS Project Setup Guide v0.4.docx

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1. Introduction

The aim of this guide is to outline, for nominated individuals, the specifics of setting up the project structure for the running of a pilot program for reporting on CSI projects to the ISS PO.

From a technical standpoint, Project Managers using MS Project 2010 Professional will be interacting with the MS Project Server which introduces features and concepts that even those familiar with using MS Project need to be aware of.

For further information on Project Server c.f. the MS Project 2010 Product Guide available on the ISS PO site under getting started.

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2. Setting up Project Information

Launch Internet Explore and go to following location; https://epmprojects.tcd.ie/PWA/

Click on the “New” button and choose “CSI Plan”

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Page 5 of 20 Project Fields

In Name*enter the ISS accepted name for this piece of work. For pilot purposes the name of the project should follow the convention “CSI <ISS Team> <Project Name>”

In Description enter a brief description of the project.

Enter a Start date. This is applied to task 1 and other dates in the project schedule are incremented based on this start date.

The Owner should default to the name of the person completing the setup task. Project Details

The following 6 entries must be completed;

(01) Project ID - The Project ID is based on the Remedy ticket number associated with the work, if no Remedy ticket number is available use the Project Longname as per (02) Project Longname below (02) Project Longname - The project cannot be saved without the mandatory fields being completed. The Project Longname should correspond to the ISS accepted name for this piece of work. For pilot purposes the name of the project should follow the convention “CSI <ISS Team> <Project Name>” (20) RAG Status – this starts off as GREEN and is updated in consultation with your team lead prior to submitting your bi-weekly report.

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Page 6 of 20 (21) PMO Phase – this corresponds to the stage your CSI project is at, the template is based on the standard Framework stages and sub-stages of Design, Implementation (Build, Test & Deployment) and Closing. You should manually set this value to match the stage of your CSI project prior to submitting the bi-weekly report. In the beginning this should be set to “Design” if this represents the stage at which your project is at.

(51) PMO Project Status – for all pilot CSI projects this should be set to “Current”. This value is set once at the beginning of the project and is not changed again until the project completes.

(52) PMO Project Type – for all pilot CSI projects this should be set to “Operational Project ISS Operational Project” This value is set once at the beginning of the project.

All other fields can be ignored, when completed click the Save icon in the top left hand side of the page.

After saving you will need to select Close to check in the project

Click Yes to check in the project.

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3. MS Project Basics

Versions, Licensing & Installation

The correct version of MS Project to use is MS Project 2010 Professional. MS Project 2010 Standard is not capable of interacting with the MS Project server.

If you are not sure what version you have installed on your computer then launch MS Project and choose File – Info from the main menu. If the corresponding options, shown below, are displayed then you are using the required MS Project 2010 Professional.

Please contact the ISS PO Office if you need to install, or obtain a license for, MS Project 2010 Professional.

Configure MS Project to Connect to Project Server

MS Project will usually be listed under the Microsoft Office listing in the Start Menu programs list. When you first launch MS Project you will need to configure some settings so that your version of the application will interact with the MS Project server.

1. From the main menu choose File - Info – Project Server Accounts… 2. Click Manage Accounts

3. Choose Configure Accounts 4. Click the Add button

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Page 8 of 20 1. Enter the Project Server URL– https://epmprojects.tcd.ie/pwa. Check the box beside Set as

default account

2. Click OK – you may get a security message 3. Close and re-launch MS Project

4. Choose File – Open. A list of projects that you have access to is now available.

4. Opening the new CSI Project in MS Project

All project schedules are to be created using the appropriate template held on the Project server. Launch MS Project 2010 and select File > Open > Retrieve the list of all projects from Project Server

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Page 9 of 20 If the following message appears, click OK

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Page 10 of 20 Your new project schedule is populated with a simple list of default tasks, organised into a set of project phases as outlined in the EPM Framework document. You will need to customise this list of tasks for your project adding tasks appropriate to the piece of work that you are undertaking. This should be completed in agreement with your team lead.

5. Saving the Project Schedule to the Server

1. From the main menu choose File – Save

2. For the filename (Name) enter the “CSI<ISS Team><Project Name> convention you used in the Project Information field.

3. Ensure the information for the mandatory Custom Fields has been provided, as outlined previously

4. Click Save. The file is saved to the Project server but note that this project schedule is not available to other staff until you Publish it. This process is outlined in Section 7 Publishing the Project.

After saving the project schedule for the first time it is suggested that you close MS Project and launch it once more.

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Page 11 of 20 1. From the main menu choose File – Exit

2. When you close MS Project you will be prompted to Save and Check in the project schedules that are open, as below. Select the appropriate options and Click OK

6. The Project Schedule

1. Launch MS Project

2. From the main menu choose File – Open

3. You will be presented with a list of the project files you have access to. If you do not see all of your projects here you may need to click on the top item listed - Retrieve the list of all projects…

4. Select the appropriate project schedule and choose Open

5. If the Cache Status is incorrect, for example if it incorrectly lists a project as not being Checked In and so you are only able to open the project in read-only mode, then you will need to do the following:

a. Cancel the File-Open dialogue box

b. Choose File –Options - Save - Cleanup Cache from the main menu c. Select the relevant project and choose Remove From Cache

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Page 12 of 20 d. Click Close. You should then be able to open the project schedule for editing.

Milestones

Zero-work or zero duration tasks are automatically categorised as milestones. A milestone acts as a marker of the end of a phase of work. Milestones automatically appear in the ISS PO status report. The ISS PO CSI Pilot Plan template has a number of generic milestones that can be used for any piece of work. This are for guideline purposes only, if they are appropriate to your piece of work, keep them and integrate into your tasks. If they are not appropriate, remove them and replace with more appropriate milestones tasks.

Important: The ISS PO report relies on milestones for its content so any CSI plan will require meaningful milestones to be of value to the ISS PO.

7. Managing Resources

Resources for most projects will take the form of personnel and, where appropriate, materials. Personnel data is stored on the MS Project server meaning that when a person is assigned to a number of projects it is possible to determine their cumulative availability. For this reason it is essential that when Project Teams are being built into a project schedule the team is built from the central personnel list and not manually entered by the Project Manager. Before assigning staff

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Page 13 of 20 to a particular project, the Project Manager should agree the resource requirements with the

relevant line manager(s).

Creating the Resource List (Building the Project Team)

To assign personnel to your project team:

1. Chose Resource – Add Resource - Build Team from Enterprise

2. Select the name of the person you wish to add to the team and click Add >. Repeat this step to add further personnel

3. Click OK when done

An exception to the above approach would be when there is a requirement to assign tasks to someone outside of IS Services. In this case the suggested approach is to manually enter a resource called External Resource and assign this to the relevant tasks. This resource may be manually entered into the Resource Sheet.

Assigning Resources

To assign personnel to individual tasks:

1. Choose Task Tab then select the relevant task and choose Information

2. Select the Resources tab then select each name from the drop-down list and set the % assignment for that member of staff under Units .

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Page 14 of 20 3. Click OK when done

8. Publishing the Project

After you have updated the task list and assigned resources, and once you are ready for the other team members to view the project schedule, you may publish the project.

From the main menu choose File – Publish.

At this point you should choose to have a Workspace set up on the Project server. This Workspace is effectively a SharePoint site for the project to enable collaboration amongst team members and with ISS PO staff.

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Page 15 of 20 Click Publish

Once the project has been published the data will be available via Project Web Access (PWA). Where a Workspace is created it will be available to the Project Manager (owner), Team Members (contribute access) and Supervisors of the Team members (read-only access).

9. Project Workspaces

A Project Workspace can be created for each new CSI project when you publish your project schedule.

The Project Workspace is for the use of that project’s PWA Team Members and will hold the following data for that project:

 Project Snapshot

 Project Documents (e.g. Project Proposal)  Issues

 Team Contacts  Links

o Current Status Reports

Project Snapshot

This will need to be updated fortnightly prior to the production of the ISS PO status report. To add the first snapshot click Add new item.

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Page 16 of 20 Change Category to ISS PO Snapshot (team + ISS PO) available via dropdown.

Set the Title to “<Date><Project Name>Status Report”

In the Discussion files, add in about a 5 line status update to reflect what has been going on in the project during the previous 2 weeks and what the next steps may be.

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Page 17 of 20 If you need to update the snapshot, click the drop-down arrow beside the Project Snapshot link and choose Edit Item.

Each reporting period (every 2 weeks), you should select “Add new item” and follow the steps above (changing the Title to the relevant date) and enter the latest status for the project in the Discussion field.

Project Documents

This document library will hold general project documentation. Any relevant project documentation can be stored here for instance if the CSI has an associated Proposal document it could be stored here. Any other technical or project documentation should also be stored here.

Issues

Any issues pertinent to the project should be listed in this section. This is a useful section to populate and use as a discussion basis for status meetings with your team leader. To add an issue, click on “Add new item” Set the Category to “(02) PMO Issue(team+PMO)” to ensure the issue appears on the status report for the project. Give the Issue a Title, an Owner a Due Date and enter a description in the Discussion field.

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Team Contacts

This is a list of the Project Team and their contact details. For the pilot just enter the name of the person responsible for compiling the bi-weekly status report via the Project Snapshot.

Links

This section will contain the link to generate the bi-weekly status report for submission to ISS PO. Click “Add Link” and paste the following link into the “URL” field;

https://epmprojects.tcd.ie/PWA/ProjectBICenter/_layouts/ReportServer/RSViewerPage.aspx?rv:Rel ativeReportUrl=/PWA/ProjectBICenter/SSRS%20Library/PMOStatusReport/PSR3.rdl&rp:p_ProjectNa me=MyProjectName

Replace “MyProjectName” at the end with the name of your project as it appears in EPM (as per Section 4 above; “CSI<Team><Project Name>) using “%20” where any spaces occur in the project name.

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Page 19 of 20 Note: It is only possible to generate a status report once you have published the plan in MS Project.

Once you have created the link and re-published your plan in MS Project it can take Reporting Server a few minutes to register the change and produce the report.

The report is created based on a combination of information taken from the project workspace (Project Snapshot) and the project plan (RAG Status, Project Name, Project ID, Project Manager, Project Start/End, Current Phase, Completed v Schedule visual, Upcoming Milestones, Milestones Reached and Milestones Late).

Hence for the status report to be relevant the user must ensure to update all relevant fields within the project plan and project workspace before creating the ISS PO Status Report any given week. Note: all changes to the plan must be followed by selecting to “Publish” the plan in MS Project following the change update.

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10. Preparing Bi-weekly Status Report

Follow the following steps when preparing the bi-weekly CSI project status report; Project Plan

 Make sure the statuses of all Tasks and Milestones in the project plan are correct with respect to dates, duration, % complete and resource assigned.

 In Project Information set the RAG status to Red, Amber or Green.

 In Project Information set the PMO Phase to reflect the current phase of the project  Publish the project and Save any changes

Project Site

 Update the Project Snapshot  Update any relevant Issues  Create the Status Report

Pilot CSI Project Setup Guide