Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a top-down portfolio management solution that helps organizations realize their potential by identifying, selecting, managing, and delivering portfolios that align with their business strategy. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a key component of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution and helps organizations gain visibility, insight, and control across project, program, and application portfolios.

Portfolio management provides executives, portfolio analysts, and project management office (PMO) staff with tools and techniques to improve decision-making and help ensure that the selected portfolios align with the organization’s business strategy. Portfolio management helps organizations select the investments that will maximize business value, whereas project management helps ensure that the investments are successfully executed and deliver the forecasted benefits. Organizations need both disciplines to be successful.

Microsoft announced the acquisition of the UMT Portfolio Manager 3.3 Server on January 19, 2006. The driving factor behind the acquisition was to gain a leading portfolio management solution that would help clients quickly deploy world-class portfolio management tools integrated with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 to expand the capabilities of the Office EPM Solution. The acquisition represents the ongoing Microsoft commitment to provide customers and partners with an end-to-end project portfolio management platform.

No. Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 was released on August 1, 2006. Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 integrates with Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 to provide organizations with an end-to-end project portfolio management solution.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is optimized for enterprise and upper midsize segment organizations that require portfolio analytical tools to improve decision-making and help ensure that selected portfolios align with the organization’s business strategy. The solution is intended for:

• Executives and business decision-makers
• Portfolio analysts and project management office staff
• Program managers and project managers
• Application managers

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 enables organizations to gain visibility, insight, and control across their project, program, and application portfolios. This robust solution helps teams and organizations do the following:

• Communicate and enforce the portfolio governance processes across the organization.
• Standardize and streamline the data collection for projects, programs, and applications.
• Consolidate all investments (projects, programs, and applications) within an enterprise repository to quickly gain visibility, insight, and control across all portfolios.
• Prioritize, optimize, and select investments that best align with the organization’s strategic priorities.
• Measure and track the performance of each investment throughout its life cycle to help ensure that each investment delivers the forecasted benefits.
• Tightly integrate with Office Project Server 2007 and other line-of-business (LOB) applications.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes the following modules:

• Portfolio Builder: Consolidates business and IT investments within an enterprise repository.
  • Automate and enforce governance processes to help ensure that each project is subject to the appropriate governance controls.
  • Use out-of-the-box best-practice templates to effectively manage projects, programs, and applications.
  • Standardize and streamline the collection of data for projects, programs, and applications across the organization.
• Portfolio Optimizer: Helps organizations implement a rational instead of emotional approach to investment prioritization and selection.
  • Use proven techniques to prioritize the organization’s business strategy objectively for the upcoming planning horizon.
  • Automatically derive prioritization scores for projects, programs, and applications (for example, strategic value, financial value, risk, architectural fit, and operational performance).
  • Create investment maps (for example, bubble charts) to evaluate competing investments effectively.
  • Employ sophisticated optimization algorithms to quickly determine the optimal portfolio under different business and budgetary constraints (for example, cost and resource estimates).
  • Use advanced portfolio analytical techniques (for example, Efficient Frontier modeling) to identify and break constraints to help maximize the portfolio’s strategic value.
  • Implement a rational instead of emotional approach to portfolio selection to help ensure that portfolios are effectively aligned with the organization’s business strategy.
• Portfolio Dashboard: Provides organizations with better visibility, insight, and control across all approved investments.
  • Measure and track the performance of the projects, programs, and applications throughout their life cycles to help ensure that the investments realize their forecasted benefits.
  • Gain visibility, insight, and control across the portfolios.

Yes. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is designed to help organizations manage project, program, and application portfolios.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 helps ensure that each project is subjected to the appropriate governance controls throughout its life cycle (for example, from proposal to post-implementation). The flexible workflow engine helps make certain that the solution can be deployed in accordance with each organization’s specific governance processes.

• Create: Develop Project Inventory
  • Capture project and program requests within an enterprise repository.
  • For each request, develop detailed business cases that comply with the governance workflows.
  • Maintain a detailed approval audit history throughout the project’s life cycle.
• Select: Portfolio Selection and Business Alignment
  • Objectively prioritize the organization’s business strategy by using proven techniques.
  • Derive prioritization scores (for example, strategic value, financial value, and risk) to evaluate competing project and program requests effectively.
  • Employ sophisticated optimization algorithms to select the optimal portfolio under varying budgetary constraints, such as costs and full-time equivalents (FTEs).
  • Identify and break constraints that prohibit the portfolio from reaching the Efficient Frontier.
  • Automatically calculate the portfolio’s alignment with the organization’s business strategy.
  • Implement a rational instead of emotional approach to selecting portfolios.
• Manage: Track and Measure Performance Effectively
  • Measure and track the performance of the projects and programs throughout their life cycles to help ensure that the investments realize their forecasted benefits.
  • Gain visibility, insight, and control across the portfolios.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 helps portfolio analysts quickly design and build an application inventory, improving transparency and control across application portfolios. Analysts can automatically derive assessment attributes (for example, business importance, operational performance, risk, and architectural fit) to evaluate the applications objectively. Different best-practice charting techniques can be used to identify functional overlap between applications and to rationalize the portfolio by analyzing it from multiple dimensions before finalizing transformation decisions (for example, maintain, enhance, and retire). If the project is to be pursued, the transformation decision results in a project request that is managed by using the PPM governance processes.

The plan is to add the following improvements to the Office Project Portfolio Server 2007:

• Office Project Server Gateway Update: The bidirectional gateway between Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and Office Project Server 2007 will be updated to use the Office Project Server Interface application programming interface (API).
• Read-only API: The read-only API for Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will enhance extensibility and interoperability.
• Globalization:Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will be available in English only, but will support varied regional settings and will integrate with localized versions of Office Project Server 2007.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes PPM and APM best-practice methodologies to help ensure that organizations realize a return on investment and quickly move up the maturity curve.

With Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, you can compare budget, actual, and forecast costs for projects, programs, and applications.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes a change request mechanism that maintains an audit of approved amendments to the baseline of a project or program (for example, cost and resource values).

There are currently no out-of-the-box third-party connectors that have financial GL systems. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes a flexible import module that enables analysts to manage the data exchange between GL systems and Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will include a read-only API, helping ensure that organizations and partners can develop connectors to third-party enterprise systems.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a top-down portfolio management solution, in which organizations can proactively manage and track resources at the skill level only (for example, project manager, developer, and business analyst).

You do not have to deploy all modules at the same time. By using the flexible user management system, you can activate and deactivate modules to meet your organization’s specific requirements.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will be available on volume licensing for Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers in the first quarter of the 2007 calendar year.

For more information, visit How to buy Project.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will inherit the Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 pricing structure.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will follow the server client access license (CAL) licensing model:

• Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 license (a license for each server)
• Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 CAL (a client access license to access the server)

See How to buy Project.

The Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 CAL gives a user the right to access the services of Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. Users with an Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 CAL can view and update information in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 through the Web interface.

No. An Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 CAL provides users with access to Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 only. If you need to access functionality in Office Project Server 2007, you will need to purchase a separate Office Project Server 2007 CAL.

No. The Office Project Server 2007 CAL provides users with access to Office Project Server 2007 only. If you need to access functionality in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, you will need to purchase a separate Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 CAL.

No. You can link multiple Office Project Servers to Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 without incurring an additional charge.

If you purchase Software Assurance (SA) for Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, you will automatically receive upgrades in accordance with the specific terms and conditions of the SA.

No. You can access all Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 modules (for example, Builder, Optimizer, and Dashboard) when you acquire an Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 license. By using the flexible user management settings, you can enable or disable modules to match your organization’s needs.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 is the flexible platform that supports the project management, resource management, and collaboration capabilities in the Office EPM Solution. By using Office Project Server 2007, organizations can store project and resource information centrally and consistently.

The following features are included in Office Project Server 2007:

• Active Cache
• Assignment Owner
• Commitments
• Cube Building Service
• Event Model
• Multicurrency Support
• Programs
• Office Project Server Interface
• Queuing Service
• Reporting Data Service
• Server-Side Scheduling
• Timesheets

The Office EPM Solution is an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio environment that helps your organization gain visibility, insight, and control by enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximizing resource utilization, and measuring and increasing operational efficiency. For more information, refer to the Office EPM Solution product guide.

The Office EPM Solution is not a packaged product. The solution consists of the following programs:

• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Web Access
• Microsoft Office Project Server 2007
• Microsoft Office Project Web Access
• Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2
• Microsoft SQL Server

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 integrates with Office Project Server 2007 to provide organizations with an end-to-end project portfolio management (PPM) solution. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes the Office Project Server Gateway, a bidirectional link with Office Project Server 2007. By using the Office Project Server Gateway, administrators can import, export, and synchronize phases and milestones, resource requirement data (budget, actual, and forecast), and resource availability, data, and enterprise fields between the two environments.

The out-of-the-box integration between the two solutions provides the following benefits:

• Helps ensure that customers and partners can quickly deploy world-class portfolio analytical techniques and tools within the Office EPM Solution.
• Maintains data integrity between the two environments through regular synchronization events.
• Enables administrators to link federated Office Project Servers to a single instance of Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and consolidate projects in an enterprise repository.
• Provides organizations with a scalable end-to-end PPM solution.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will integrate with Office Project Server 2007 only.

 Note   Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 integrates with Office Project Server 2003.

Yes. You can use Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 to consolidate projects across federated Office Project Servers. One or more Office Project Servers can be linked to Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 to help analyze projects across varying portfolios (for example, a line-of-Business view or a corporate view).

The following data can be exchanged between the two solutions:

• Resource pool (availability) data
• Resource requirement data (budget, actual, and forecast)
• Schedule data (budget, actual, and forecast)
• Custom fields

The Office Project Server Gateway is used to aggregate detailed project data across multiple Office Project Servers to provide executives and portfolio analysts with intuitive summary views:

• Resource Data: Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 provides resource management at the resource type–level only (for example, C++ programmer and project manager). Named resource data is captured in the Office Project Server 2007 resource pool and mapped through the resource outline codes to a primary resource type in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. During a synchronization event, the named resource data in Office Project Server 2007 is automatically aggregated to the appropriate resource type in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.
• Schedule Data: Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 captures phase and milestone data only. The data from the detailed tasks captured in Office Project Server 2007 automatically aggregates to the appropriate phases in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.
• Custom Fields: The administrator can map custom fields (attributes) between the two environments.

Yes. Project managers can use an intuitive wizard to synchronize their individual project plans (.mpp files) directly with Office Project Portfolio Server 2007. For optimal performance, it is recommended that you run batch synchronization events between Office Project Server 2007 and Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 uses Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for document management.

There is no mandated workflow. Project requests can be entered in either solution and automatically exported to the other solution. The two best-practice approaches for capturing project requests are as follows:

• Create Project Proposals in Office Project Server 2007, and then import the proposals into Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 to prioritize, optimize, and select the portfolio that best aligns with your organization’s strategic priorities.

-or-

• Create the project in Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, and then export a high-level project plan to Office Project Server 2007. The project manager can then develop a detailed project plan in Office Project Professional 2007.

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will remain an independent solution that is tightly integrated with Office Project Server 2007.

No. The system requirements will remain the same for the 2007 release.

Read the Project system requirements.

The following operating systems are recommended:

• Server operating system: Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Client operating system: Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Yes. The plan of record is that Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will use ASP.NET 2.0 features.

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 supports only Microsoft Windows Internet Information Services (IIS).

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes a proprietary user-definable workflow engine. The plan is to replace this proprietary engine with WWF in future releases.

Tight integration with familiar client applications, such as Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Outlook, and browsers gives employees a simple, consistent user experience. Tight integration also provides greater visibility into everyday business activities.

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 supports Internet Explorer 6.x and 7.0.

For document management, Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 integrates with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes a flexible reporting engine that is supported by Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 does not currently include any connectors to other reporting servers. Partners and customers will be able to use the read-only API to develop connectors to integrate with third-party reporting solutions.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 includes flexible configuration settings to help administrators configure the solution to meet the unique requirements of their organization. The following configuration settings are available:

• Organization Management: Define an organization hierarchy.
• Financial Management: Define custom cost structures for projects, programs, and applications.
• Workflow Management: Define multiple workflows to help ensure that each project is subject to the appropriate level of governance controls.
• Survey Management: Define risk assessment questionnaires for projects, programs, and applications.
• Driver Management: Define business drivers and architecture drivers that are used to evaluate projects, programs, and applications.
• Business Process Management: Define business processes and process functions that are used to analyze the functional overlap between applications.
• Attribute Management: Define custom attributes for projects, programs, applications, and portfolios.
• Indicator Management: Define automatic and manual status indicators to measure the performance of projects, programs, and applications.
• Resource Management: Define the resource types to be included in the resource pool for each organization (for example, Microsoft Visual C++ programmer, Microsoft Visual Basic programmer, and project manager).

No. By using the intuitive workflow designer, administrators themselves can define multiple workflows to manage different projects throughout their life cycles.

The administrator can configure the existing forms but cannot add additional forms.

No.

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 does not provide support for multiple currencies. The plan is to support multiple currencies in future releases.

Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will be available in English only, but will support various regional settings.

No. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 will only integrate with Office Project Server 2007.

 Note   Office Project Portfolio Server 2006 integrates with Office Project Server 2003.

Yes.

The following four courses will be available by October 2006 to partners through the EPM University:

• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 Sales Training
• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 Envisioning Workshop
• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 Planning Workshop
• Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 Implementation Workshop

Microsoft has a large and diverse community of experienced partners who will be ready to help you implement Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 and the Office EPM Solution.

Office Online is your one-stop resource for Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 software updates, downloads, add-ins, templates, service releases, online services, and more.

 Note   This site will not have Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 code until after the launch of the solution.