Executive summary

With the release of Microsoft Project 2000, Microsoft has created a single product to meet the needs of both general knowledge workers and expert project managers. While Microsoft Team Manager was designed to help a manager and team plan, manage, and track their ongoing work, Microsoft Project 2000 extends this functionality to offer enhanced opportunities for collaboration and control over every detail of project planning and tracking.

The design of Microsoft Project 2000 included in-depth analysis and surveys of Team Manager customers; as a result, Microsoft Project 2000 now includes many of the features that made Microsoft Team Manager an attractive solution for small organizations—features that enable the 'bottom-up' approach to planning, a more flexible approach to scheduling, and support for managerial responsibilities (such as status reporting)—while offering significant advantages in three key areas:

• Greater consistency and integration with Microsoft Office. Where Team Manager 97 offered base-level integration, Microsoft Project 2000 boasts a seamless and integrated relationship with the entire Microsoft Office productivity suite.
• More flexibility in the types of groups and organizations supported. While Team Manager was designed for a single manager and his or her direct reports, the Microsoft Project 2000 architecture supports larger and more diverse organizational structures.
• Web integration. Microsoft Project 2000 leverages the accessibility and availability of information on Microsoft Windows®-based intranet sites to deliver collaborative features that encourage participation of the whole project team and provide unprecedented visibility of project information.

By migrating project information from Microsoft Team Manager to Microsoft Project 2000, organizations will benefit from the advanced features of this best of breed planning and scheduling package. To facilitate the transition, Microsoft has introduced a conversion utility that ensures easy migration of task, resource, and assignment data. This paper describes the advantages of migrating data from Microsoft Team Manager to Microsoft Project 2000, as well as other issues that users may encounter.

Introduction

For organizations that require a flexible, hierarchical structure for rolling up multiple projects or phases within projects, and that recognize the benefits of Web-based workgroup solutions, Microsoft Project 2000 is an ideal project management solution. While Microsoft Team Manager was designed for use by individual teams (specifically, a first-level manager and up to 20 direct reports) who need to share task information and plan and coordinate ongoing work, Microsoft Project 2000 accommodates the needs of different organizational structures.

Microsoft Project 2000 and Microsoft Project Central

Microsoft Project 2000 makes significant improvements in the workgroup collaboration, planning, and tracking functions and builds on the features available both in Microsoft Project 98 and Team Manager 97. Microsoft Project 2000 also includes the companion product Microsoft Project Central, a Web-based workgroup solution that enables resources and team members to contribute to planning, scheduling, tracking, and reporting. Through the Microsoft Project Central browser interface, team members can add new tasks, create and publish status reports, and view the project plan without installing Microsoft Project 2000 on their desktops. In addition, Microsoft Project 2000 offers flexible viewing and analysis functions that give project managers and resource managers even more control over project planning and scheduling.

A new approach to scheduling and planning

The Microsoft Project 2000 scheduling methodology differs from that of Microsoft Team Manager in its fundamental approach. Users migrating to Microsoft Project 2000 should be aware of these differences in the scheduling model to ensure the greatest benefit from Microsoft Project.

Team Manager uses "best-fit resource scheduling," a bottom-up approach that rolls up the tasks assigned to each team member to form the plan. This approach emphasizes resources, scheduling tasks to fit the team members' availability and work schedules. In contrast, Microsoft Project 2000 focuses on tasks over resources, using the more common critical path method (CPM) scheduling. CPM is based on defined tasks or jobs that must take place in a specific sequence, and whose completion defines the end of the project. Thus, while Team Manager can be used to manage resources' responsibilities in an ongoing flow model, plans defined in Microsoft Project 2000 must have specified start and end dates. Users who are unfamiliar with CPM scheduling might refer to the tutorial in Microsoft Project 2000 Help.

Making the switch

Converting your files

Plans created in Microsoft Team Manager can be converted to Microsoft Project using the Team Manager Conversion utility. The utility converts task-, resource-, and assignment-related data from Microsoft Team Manager to Microsoft Project 2000 to create a project plan that mirrors the basic structure of the team plan.

The conversion utility is actually an auto-run macro contained in a Microsoft Project file. When run against a specified Team Manager file, the utility uses Microsoft Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) to convert the appropriate information and create a corresponding Microsoft Project (.mpp) file.

To convert a Team Manager project plan to Microsoft Project 2000:

1. Install Microsoft Project 2000.
2. Download the conversion utility from Downloads on Office Online — Microsoft Project 2000 Converter: Import Team Manager Files.
3. Open TeamManagerConverter.mpp In Microsoft Project 2000. The Converter Wizard will begin automatically.
4. When prompted by the wizard, browse to select the Team Manager file you want to convert.
5. When prompted by the wizard, select whether to convert Team Manager calendars, and then, when prompted, click Finish.

Note  The converter converts only data types that are common to both programs. These data types include task, resource, and assignment data. Certain other information may be modified or eliminated. For detailed discussion, see the section "Features that have been changed or eliminated" below.

Recreating your schedule

Because Microsoft Project 2000 uses a different scheduling method than Microsoft Team Manager, the converted project plan may look somewhat different than the original. You may find that certain tasks or the entire project are assigned different start or finish dates in Microsoft Project 2000. After you convert a project plan from Microsoft Team Manager, you will need to spend some time adjusting tasks to take full advantage of the Microsoft Project scheduling method.

The Microsoft Project Tutorial (in online Help) outlines the process of creating a project plan in Microsoft Project. Converting a team plan from Microsoft Team Manager accomplishes the first steps; however, you must complete the process to develop an effective project plan. Specifically, the converted plan includes defined tasks and assigned resources, but you may need to define additional task relationships and dependencies and fine-tune the schedule to ensure it meets your needs.

• Create links and dependencies   Microsoft Project 2000 allows you to define four types of task relationships: start-to-start, finish-to-finish, finish-to-start, and start-to-finish. When you first examine the project plan created by the converter, you may want to establish the relationships between related tasks by creating links or dependencies.
• Define task constraints   Microsoft Project 2000 enables finer control over the schedule by supplying additional constraints for individual tasks. While constraints defined in Team Manager are retained, Microsoft Project allows a wider range of constraints including As Late As Possible, Finish No Earlier/Later Than, Must Finish On, and Start No Earlier/Later Than. As in Team Manager, the default for all tasks is "As Soon As Possible"; however, by carefully constraining start or end dates for specific tasks, you can fine-tune the schedule and ensure that the schedule calculated by Microsoft Project 2000 approximates the schedule that you had in Team Manager.
• Perform resource leveling   Another feature that affects the start dates of specific tasks is resource leveling. Resource leveling refers to the practice of delaying the start of certain tasks to avoid over-allocation of or conflicts between resources. Microsoft Team Manager leveled resources automatically, according to its best-fit resource scheduling model. Microsoft Project 2000 does not level resources by default; however, you can choose to level resources. Microsoft Project 2000 allows precise control over resource leveling, allowing you to level resources for the entire project or only for selected tasks, and to set the priority in which tasks are leveled. To level resources in Microsoft Project 2000, choose Resource Leveling on the Tools menu, select the appropriate options for leveling in your project, and then click Level Now.

Working with your plan in Microsoft Project 2000

Many features of Microsoft Project 2000 extend the functionality of Microsoft Team Manager, giving you even more effective tools for consolidating, coordinating, and tracking team activities. Although Microsoft Project 2000 does not duplicate all features and functions of Microsoft Team Manager exactly, as you learn to use Microsoft Project 2000, you can approximate the functionality or even replace it with new, more powerful tools.

New and enhanced team management features

Most features for consolidating, coordinating, and tracking team activities are built into Microsoft Project Central, the Web-based companion to Microsoft Project 2000. With Microsoft Project Central, team members can participate in planning tasks, estimating work, and tracking status while delivering on commitments and contributing to the success of the project. To achieve this, team members require only a client license of Microsoft Project Central—not the full version of Microsoft Project 2000.

Microsoft Project Central includes much of the familiar Team Manager functionality, including the ability for team members to add new tasks, prepare and send status reports, and view rich project information:

• Task creation   Enabling resources to propose tasks and subtasks is the key to implementing bottom-up scheduling scenarios. In addition, task creation allows team members a clear way to communicate additional work or to propose adjustments to the work scope.
• Status Reporting   Through Microsoft Project Central, the project manager can design templates for text-based status reports and send status requests to team members. Completed status reports can be reviewed and edited in Microsoft Project Central and compiled to include information for the entire team in a single report.
• Task updates   Microsoft Project Central ensures accurate tracking by making it easy for resources to enter their actuals and submit this information directly to the project manager. When team members estimate the percentage of a task that is complete or enter actual hours spent on an assigned task, the remaining work for the task is calculated automatically, and an update message is sent to the project manager.
• Flexible views   Rich presentation features ensure that team members always know the status of the project, even if they don't have Microsoft Project 2000 on their desktops. Users can view project information in custom formats and at varying levels of detail, depending on their own preferences and the information made available to them by the project manager or administrator. Team members can manage their own time more effectively, keeping track of their own tasks and viewing their tasks in relation to a project or projects, while resource managers and business development managers benefit from a concise, action-oriented view of project information, which facilitates organizational planning at the highest level.

In addition to the functions that parallel Microsoft Team Manager, Microsoft Project Central also adds advanced features such as task delegation, auto-accept rules, outline structure viewing and reporting of non-project time. Further, integration with Microsoft Outlook enables users to centralize all of their project and task-related information in one place.

• Task delegation   When enabled by the project manager, task delegation allows a Microsoft Project Central user to assign a task to another resource and send a message to the project manager indicating that the task has been reassigned. Delegation enables the project manager to make effective use of functional managers or leads, who can delegate a group of assigned tasks to their own team members or direct reports.
• Auto-accept rules   To expedite acceptance of task requests, delegations, and task updates received from team members, the project manager can create rules that automatically accept specified changes when they are run on a set of messages. Microsoft Project Central includes highly detailed criteria for developing rules; rules can be applied to individual users, to groups of users, to specific actions, or only to actions with a specified impact on budget or schedule.
• Integration with Microsoft Outlook   Microsoft Project Central enables users who rely on the Calendar and Tasks features of the Microsoft Outlook® messaging and collaboration client for managing their day-to-day schedules to participate fully in the collaborative planning environment. Microsoft Project Central can capture a user's Tasks list from Microsoft Outlook, combining it with project-related activities to present a single to-do list. Or, users who prefer the Microsoft Outlook interface can display the Microsoft Project Central task views within Microsoft Outlook 2000, creating a single application home for e-mail, tasks, schedule, and schedule tracking.

In addition, Microsoft Project Central users can import schedule data from their own Microsoft Outlook Calendars, informing the project manager of all scheduled meetings, time off, and any outside commitments or potential conflicts. The project manager can add these exceptions to the resource calendars in the master project plan, ensuring greater accuracy in resource allocation by taking into account both project-related and nonproject-related time commitments.

Features that have changed or been eliminated

A few features of Team Manager 97 have been changed or eliminated, but in most cases, you will find that Microsoft Project 2000 offers a more powerful alternative to accomplish the same tasks.

• Views   Certain Team Manager views are unavailable in Microsoft Project 2000; however, powerful grouping and filtering features enable users to organize and view project information based on specific criteria.
  • Team Manager's Actual Work view can be recreated in Microsoft Project 2000 by applying the Task Usage view and the Actual Work detail sheet. (Note: when a project is converted, the timescale is not retained for actual work. For more information, see "Actual work," below.)
  • In Microsoft Project 2000, the Resource Sheet view includes most of the information available in Team Manager's Team List view. The Resource Usage view in Microsoft Project 2000 is similar to the Task Assignments displayed in Team Manager.
  • The new Grouping feature of Microsoft Project 2000 enables users to quickly categorize and view rolled-up task and resource information in any way they need. Users of Team Manager's 'vital signs' displays can create similar views in Microsoft Project 2000 by grouping tasks on deadline or priority (if assigned) and filtering on "should start by [date]" or "should finish by [date]."
  • Likewise, the Microsoft Project 2000 Task Usage view can be used to approximate Team Manager's Workload Planner. Tasks in the Task Usage view can be grouped based on any criterion, and displaying the Resource Graph in the bottom pane of a split view displays a time-scaled histogram of resource usage for the selected task or tasks.
• Recurring tasks   Recurring tasks are converted to tasks in Microsoft Project 2000, but are not explicitly marked as recurring tasks. A task that was recurring in Team Manager appears in Microsoft Project 2000 as a summary task with a subtask representing each one of the recurring tasks.
• Custom fields   Microsoft Project 2000 limits the number of custom fields allowed for tasks and resources. While this number is sufficiently high in most circumstances, in situations where users have exceeded the limits of Microsoft Project 2000, only the number of fields up to the limit are converted. In addition, custom choice or "pick" lists associated with custom fields are not converted. Microsoft Project 2000 supports the use of pick lists for custom fields; however, for converted fields, the lists must be redefined in Microsoft Project 2000.
• Labels   Custom labels for predefined columns in Team Manager are transferred to the Microsoft Project file. The data in the columns is retained, but the column appears with the label assigned to it by Microsoft Project 2000.
• Actual work   Gross actual work is transferred to the Microsoft Project file, but the timescale is not retained in these values. In Microsoft Project 2000, actual work begins on the first day work was entered in Team Manager, and is spread evenly to the last day it was entered in a flat contour.
• Baseline values   While Baseline Start, Baseline End, and Baseline Cost fields are mapped to Microsoft Project 2000, the first time you save the new project plan in Microsoft Project 2000, you are prompted to save a baseline plan. If you elect to save the baseline plan, the Team Manager baseline values are overwritten with the values determined by Microsoft Project 2000.
• Archiving   Microsoft Project 2000 does not allow project managers to archive a portion of the project plan, as they can in Team Manager. Whereas Team Manager recorded a continuous flow of work across resources, Microsoft Project 2000 plans include defined start and end dates, so incremental archiving of project data is illogical and could even cause shifts in the schedule.
• Performance goals   Microsoft Project 2000 does not include the performance goal functions of Microsoft Team Manager, and has no comparable feature that allows users to track hours worked against specific performance goals. Where performance tracking and measurement are critical, it is recommended that users add notes to tasks in Microsoft Project 2000 or create a custom status report that includes a section for performance goals in Microsoft Project Central.
• Extraneous team information   Microsoft Project 2000 has no way to retain team information that is not specifically related to the project plan. Such information includes goals, status reports, contact information for resources, information from the Team Manager Notebook, and information found on the Vital Signs tab in Microsoft Team Manager. Before converting a file, you may want to manually record this information to ensure that it is not lost.

Conclusion

Microsoft Project 2000 builds on the features and functionality of Microsoft Project 98 and Microsoft Team Manager to offer more powerful scheduling and even better collaborative planning, tracking, and reporting, no matter how large your team or organization. The Team Manager Conversion utility is designed to help you take advantage of these powerful scheduling tools by importing the bulk of the data stored in your Microsoft Team Manager 97 file to a Microsoft Project 2000 file. Because of the slightly different methods with which Microsoft Project and Team Manager schedule projects, you may find that there are some differences between your Team Manager plan and your new Microsoft Project plan. However, by using the power of Microsoft Project 2000, you can turn your existing project plan into an efficient one that will allow you to maximize the use of your resources and minimize the overall time and cost of your project.