The default configuration for Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 provides for the collection of a large volume of project-related data. You can use Enterprise Outline Codes to provide an additional set of task-, project-, and resource-related data that can be customized to reflect your organization's unique requirements. Well-defined Enterprise Outline Codes enable you to enforce standardization in your organization and provide the foundation for comprehensive reporting of your unique project-related data.

Enterprise Outline Codes are custom tags for projects, tasks, and resources that share a set of defined traits. You can use them to group projects, tasks, and resources in a variety of ways, as well as display summary information about a grouping of data. Organizations often require a particular Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) or Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) format for their projects and resources. WBS is a hierarchical structure that is used to group and describe projects in successively greater levels of detail. You can easily create a WBS while organizing tasks within a project. Similar to WBS, an RBS is a type of Enterprise Outline Code that typically represents the structure of the organization. These breakdown structures enable you to identify and categorize project, task, and resource information in order to simplify the viewing and reporting process.

Project Server 2003 includes 90 Enterprise Outline Codes—30 Enterprise Task Outline Codes, 30 Enterprise Resource Outline Codes, and 30 Enterprise Project Outline Codes. Enterprise Outline Codes are defined as a hierarchical set of metadata that reflect some aspect of the tasks, resources, or projects of an organization. You define the basic structure of the hierarchy by creating a code mask, which defines:

• The number of levels in the hierarchy.
• The sequence (or type) of characters that are used by each level.
• The number of characters that are used by each level.
• The separator characters that are used by each level.

Defining an appropriate set of custom Enterprise Outline Codes (especially Project or Resource) is an important step in planning your Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution. If you do not correctly define your Enterprise Outline Codes, your project management system might not adequately meet the needs of your organization. It is best to limit the number of people who define Enterprise Outline Codes in your organization; only users who have permission to check out and edit the Enterprise Global Template can create, modify, or delete Enterprise Outline Codes.