Presented by Larry Mead, PMP
Written by Juliette Johnson
Microsoft is looking to integrate project management across all its office applications according to Director of US Operations for Campana-Schott, Larry Mead, PMP and Six Sigma Certified since 2001. In an effort of providing workplace-driven solutions, the new MS Project 2013 has evolved to one roadmap linking all the Project Management knowledge areas with SharePoint, tasks, and tracking applications like excel into one user interface and personal workspace called MySite. Best of all, MS Project 2013 is set up to think and act like an enterprise project manager. Imagine going to MS Project to schedule and conduct meetings via MS Lync. Access and update project documents real time from anywhere via the cloud. All your tasks and events show in one shared overview. Collaboration and even resource time recording across projects has never been easier.
As a premier consultant for Enterprise Microsoft Project Management, Mead set a course to demonstrate the value and timesaving tricks of the new workplace project platform. He highlighted the strength of the collaboration feature which allows users to integrate multiple project teams into peer groups and social networking. “The trend is moving to a single user interface,” explained Mead, “where resources have insight and expertise in areas can be engaged for other projects as peers and contributors creating project workspaces migrating data pertinent to other projects.” While the preparation of reports was limited to templates and required Excel and Visio, project managers can now find these applications embedded. The Lync integration also offers project teams the ability to connect via SMS or VOIP calls. The collaborative benefits mean less time identifying resources and increased accuracy with reporting timelines. The bottomline results offer a holistic view of project management using all the knowledge areas as checkpoints and ticklers for other related and impacted tasks and deliverables.
For project managers on the move, the cloud-based mobile access functionality allows for immediate feedback and alerts. Previous versions of MS Project lacked a cohesive collaboration element so this improved tool for planning, collaboration and communication makes enterprise wide systems and processes centralized for the mapping of workflows. “Access for new users and maintenance for administrators is simplified,” explained Mead. “It’s now possible to use a SharePoint list as an ideas pool and to generate projects for it through import.” Well-known and frequently used functions have been systematically advanced to become an efficient tool to migrate with existing work processes. However, with the project platform improvements comes an incompatibility with regard to the exchange of data between the cloud and enterprise systems like SAP. Campana & Schott offers CS Connect, a product to control and secure communication paths integration solutions.
Larry Mead is Director of US Operations for Campana & Schott who provides the third party CS Connect. Mead explained how the new Project online supports the future of direction with Microsoft’s business applications by offering client applications through a Business Office Store.