When you are defining Enterprise Outline Codes for your organization, it is helpful to do the following:

• Begin with a focused analysis of Enterprise Project Outline Codes and determine how your organization plans to use them. In organizations that have a small number of projects in proportion to the number of resources, Enterprise Project Outline Codes might prove easier to define, add, and remove than Enterprise Resource Outline Codes. For example, in an organization that has 50 projects and 500 resources, it might be easier to implement changes to an Enterprise Project Outline Code than to an Enterprise Resource Outline Code.

  If your organization has more projects than resources, then it is best to determine an approach that minimizes the number of changes that will need to be made to Enterprise Project Outline Codes. You can centrally manage Enterprise Resource Outline Codes by using the Enterprise Resource Pool, so if changes need to be made to 5000 resources, you can do this in a single place. If changes need to be made to 5000 projects, then this might be a significant undertaking if all of the projects require updates to the data associated with the modified Enterprise Project Outline Code.

• Separate Enterprise Resource Outline Codes from skills-based resource management. It is often easier to identify and define non-skill-based Enterprise Resource Outline Codes than skill-based Enterprise Resource Outline Codes.

   Note   When you are using skills-based Enterprise Resource Outline Codes outside of the United States or where resources are included in an Enterprise Resource Pool that is physically located outside of the United States, you should determine whether it is legal to record skills. For all installations in organizations that have unions, you should also ensure that there are no contractual restrictions on classifying union members by skill.

• If your organization is experiencing difficulty with a particular Enterprise Outline Code that was established as a required code, convert that Enterprise Outline Code to a non-required code first before deciding to remove it completely.

Before you create Enterprise Outline Codes for your organization, it is important to decide how you will define skills in your organization. In addition, it is helpful to understand the differences between Enterprise Outline Codes and local outline codes, Enterprise Custom Fields, and RBS. Finally, you must be careful to ensure that the Enterprise Resource Codes that you create are not so large that they affect the functionality of your EPM Solution.

Defining Skills

In general, you can define skills in one of three ways:

• Use a single Enterprise Outline Code to define all skills  This approach works well when you have a relatively small number of possible skills (fewer than 50), and tasks have only one skill requirement. For example, a Web programmer is assigned to one task, while a technical writer is assigned to another task. This approach is recommended for customers who are new to resource management tools.
• Use multiple Enterprise Outline Codes to define distinct types of skills   This approach works tasks in your organization have multiple skill requirements. For example, a Web programmer who speaks French is assigned to one task, while a Chinese-speaking technical writer is assigned to another task. This approach can significantly improve your ability to understand how resources are used across your organization. However, this approach also requires significantly more effort to create and update information about resources in the Enterprise Resource Pool.
• (Recommended) Use Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes to define different levels of distinct skills   This approach works well when tasks require varying levels of skills. For example, a technical writer who speaks fluent Italian is required for one task, while a technical writer who can read Italian but is not fluent is required for another task. Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes are new in Project Server 2003.

  Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes also enable you to define skill levels. However, this approach requires significantly more effort to create and update information about resources in the Enterprise Resource Pool. In addition, defining skill levels in Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes increases the size of the outline codes and can result in slower performance when Project Professional interacts with Project Server 2003, especially when you are updating the Enterprise Global Template. Before you implement a large Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code in your organization, you should consider the potential impact this will have on performance.

   Note    When you use Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes to define proficiency levels, it is important to note that it is not possible to filter above or below a node in the multi-value outline code. For example, you cannot filter for resources who speak French at level two or higher, you can only filter for level two. If you are looking for a higher skill level, then you must filter at level one.

Enterprise Outline Codes vs. Local Outline Codes

Enterprise Outline Codes differ from local outline codes in that they apply to all projects in an organization. Local outline codes are defined on a project-by-project basis and at the individual project level. Enterprise Outline Codes use enterprise-level metadata to enforce standardization across all projects, tasks, and resources within an organization. Standardized codes are easy to enter; they are set with a hierarchical drop-down list.

Enterprise Outline Codes vs. Enterprise Custom Fields

Enterprise Outline Codes differ from Enterprise Custom Fields in that they are hierarchical. Enterprise Custom Fields (and project-level custom codes) are defined as a specific type of data (cost, date, duration, flag, number, or text). Enterprise Outline Codes are defined by means of a code mask and a hierarchical lookup table. Because Enterprise Outline Codes are hierarchical, they facilitate detailed reporting and accurate modeling of common organizational structures.

Documenting Enterprise Outline Codes

Documenting your organization's Enterprise Outline Codes can help you to ensure they are structured in a way that meets the requirements of your organization and are still a reasonable size. If an Enterprise Outline Code is too large, it can affect the performance of Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 and Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003 when users view data that is organized by an Enterprise Outline Code. If your organization does need one or more larger Enterprise Outline Codes, consider not making them a required field, or consider ways to divide the Enterprise Outline Code data into more than one Enterprise Outline Code.

The following figure shows a diagram of a Project Server Enterprise Resource Outline Code.

Diagram of A. Datum Corporation Enterprise Resource Outline Codes.

Enterprise Outline Code 30

Enterprise Resource Outline Code 30 represents RBS. RBS can have a significant effect on the way that your organization manages security, views, and resource assignments, and reports on resource commitments.

The Edit Lookup Table dialog box in Project Professional.

It is recommended that you organize your security model in Project Server 2003 around RBS by structuring it in such a way that it defines the relationships of people in your organization rather than the structure of the organization itself.

 Note   For more information about RBS, see Working with Resource Breakdown Structure in the Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 Application Configuration Guide.