In order to define meaningful Enterprise Outline Codes for your organization, you must do the following:

• Identify your requirements   Decide what type of information your organization requires and how it will be used.
• Plan your Enterprise Outline Code implementation   Define how you will implement Enterprise Outline Codes in Project 2003.
• Establish Enterprise Outline Code utilization guidelines   Establish guidelines for how Enterprise Outline Codes will be used and maintained.

Carefully consider resource assignment and reporting when deciding which Enterprise Outline Codes to create, because Enterprise Outline Codes are critical for those two factors. To define Enterprise Outline Codes, identify the information that you need for assigning resources, tracking assignments, and reporting of tasks, resources, and projects.

You can create Enterprise Outline Codes for any information about resources that might be useful in making more effective resource assignments. For example, you might use Enterprise Outline Codes to provide the following information about resources in your organization:

• What skills a resource has.
• What level of proficiency a resource has in those skills.
• Which languages a resource is fluent in.
• Where the resource is located.
• What certifications a resource has.
• What title or grade level a resource holds.

You can also create Enterprise Outline Codes for reporting information that is important to your organization. For example, you might create Enterprise Outline Codes for the following:

• Financial data   What is the charge-back code and department for a resource? What is a project's cost range?

   Note   Project already includes a number of cost-related fields for resources. Before deciding to use an Enterprise Outline Code to define cost-related data, determine whether the default cost-related fields are sufficient and whether you can use an Enterprise Custom Field that defines cost-related data.

• Marketing information   Which vertical market is the project targeted at? What market segment is targeted?
• Management metrics   How does this project align with strategic initiatives?

Enterprise Outline Codes provide an excellent method for defining and then reporting information about tasks, resources, or projects. In order to effectively define Enterprise Outline Codes, you must identify what form the data is in and how it will be used. This involves answering the following questions:

• What kind of entity is this data used to describe—tasks, projects, or resources?
• What name will you use to identify the Enterprise Outline Code (location, job title, and so on)?
• Does this data originate from an external source?
• Is the data relevant to more than one entity? For example, a location Enterprise Outline Code might specify where a resource works and where a project is located.
• Is the data relevant to one or more instances of an entity? For example, a departmental code for a project's sponsor might be the same as the departmental code that is associated with a project.
• How many levels of code are required? For example, if you use Division.Department.CostCenter, are those three levels sufficient?
• Is the data numeric or alphanumeric?
• Is alphanumeric data uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case?
• Is the data fixed-length or variable? What is the length, if fixed?
• Are special characters used within the data? For example, a period might be used within a location code for a city, such as St. Paul (Minnesota).
• If this data is structured as a multi-level value, should this value be as specific as possible (that is, no subordinate values)? For example, if you use three levels to define a location, such as Region.State.City, a region would not be allowed as a selection if it contained one or more states, and a state would not be allowed as a selection if it contained one or more cities.
• Is the data required for every occurrence of the entity? Is specifying the value defined by the Enterprise Outline Code optional or mandatory?
• Is this resource data that will be used for matching generic resources to actual resources? Is an Enterprise Resource Outline Code defined as a skill?
• Is this data actual resource data for which you might want to select more than one value to associate with the resource? Are you associating multiple skills with the resource?

Enterprise Outline Codes have a significant impact on the operation of Project Server 2003 as an EPM Solution. By correctly defining and using Enterprise Outline Codes, you can make resource selection easier, reduce system administration, provide for reports that reflect your business goals, and enforce project management standards.

In order to create effective Enterprise Outline Codes, do the following:

• Make decisions about the following areas of project management for your organization: resource assignment, reporting requirements, and project and task reporting processes.
• Review the security and operational effects of RBS.
• Determine which Enterprise Outline Codes are appropriate for your organization.
• Design appropriate Enterprise Outline Codes in the Enterprise Global Template.
• Develop views, filters, and reports that make use of Enterprise Outline Codes. The views, filters, and reports will make it easier for all participants in your organization's project management process to use your project management system.

Enterprise Outline Code Lookup Tables and Code Masks

You must create a code mask and a lookup table to define an Enterprise Outline Code. A code mask describes the structure and format of the Enterprise Outline Code; a lookup table describes the valid values for the Enterprise Outline Code.

A code mask includes fields that enable you to define the following:

• 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.

The number of levels that are required for an Enterprise Outline Code determines the levels that are defined in the code mask. The type of characters used in the code determine the sequence (of characters for each level) in the code mask. The number of characters in each level determine the length field in the code mask. The appropriate separator character is the last field that you define in the code mask.

The lookup table defines the relationships between the items in the Enterprise Outline Code and, ultimately, the relationships between the items in the Enterprise Outline Code and the projects, tasks, and resources in your organization that are associated with each node within the lookup table.

The way that values are entered in the lookup table is based on the code mask for the Enterprise Outline Code; for this reason, setting up a code mask properly is a critical first step. When setting up a code mask, consider the following guidelines:

• Unless a level always has a specific number of characters, select Any for the number of characters to be used in each level. The Any setting allows maximum flexibility in entering lookup table values. For example, if you are working with a predefined code such as a Billing Code that is sourced from an external system, it is important to allow for some flexibility because the length of the Billing Codes can vary..
• Be sure to choose separator characters that do not occur within your lookup table data values. For example, do not use PERIOD as a separator if you have a city code that includes a period, such as St. Paul (Minnesota). Similarly, do not use SPACE as a separator if you have data values that include a space, such as British Columbia or North Carolina. Also consider whether foreign languages and spellings might affect how you create Enterprise Outline Codes. Avoid using hyphens as separator characters, because you will be unable to use hyphenated names for data values. Also avoid choosing any special character as a separator, even if it is not on the drop-down list, because this can conflict with names for data values. For example, if you use the letter A as a separator, then it would be difficult to work with outline codes that require the letter A to be a value.
• When you define an Enterprise Resource Outline Code that you will use to match resources, be sure to select the Use this code for matching generic resources check box for the code. You can then assign the appropriate values to the applicable Enterprise Resource Outline Codes of the generic resource for use in the Build Team resource matching tool.

After you assign for the applicable codes to resources, you can use Build Team to match generic to actual resources. The Build Team resource matching tool works in the following ways:

• Resource matching based on a single Enterprise Resource Outline Code is straightforward: A match is any resource that has a matching value for the code.
• Resource matching based on multiple Enterprise Resource Outline Codes requires that the values for all relevant codes are equal in order for a resource to qualify as a match.
• Resource matching based on Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes is more complex. It allows for the matching of more than one value with a single Enterprise Resource Outline Code.

 Note   You can use resource matching to identify actual resources as well as generic resources. For example, if you need to identify an alternative resource that has similar skills, you can select an actual resource, rather than a generic resource, in the right pane before you click Match.

Removing Unused Lookup Tables

Lookup tables are not automatically deleted from the Enterprise Global Template. For example, when you change an Enterprise Outline Code to share the lookup table of another Enterprise Outline Code, only the code mask for the original lookup table, and not the lookup table itself, is deleted. Because the lookup table is not deleted, it continues to be loaded as part of the Enterprise Global Template every time Project Professional users connect to the Project Server database. This can affect the performance of your Project Server 2003 deployment.

To remove unused lookup tables from the Enterprise Global Template, a Project Server administrator must manually remove the unused Enterprise Outline Code, the associated lookup tables, or both from the MSP_OUTLINE_CODES table in the Project Server database.

Selecting Enterprise Outline Code Attributes

When you are selecting Enterprise Outline Code attributes, you must decide which options to select for the following check boxes:

• Only allow selection of codes with no subordinate values   In order to simplify reporting when using Portfolio Analyzer, it is recommended that you select the Only allow selection of codes with no subordinate values check box whenever possible when selecting your Enterprise Outline Code Attributes. If you do not select this option and the code requires the selection of a leaf node (a value in the Enterprise Outline Code that has no subordinate values), the entity might not be categorized as intended. When this option is not selected, this allows high-level nodes to be selected, and as a result, work and availability in the OLAP cube might be allocated at high levels. Although this does not create problems for Office Web Components (OWC) and SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services, it can confuse data analysis for users who are not expecting this performance.
• Make this a required code   If the Enterprise Outline Code must be entered for every entity, select the Make this a required code check box when you are defining the code. When this option is selected, Project Server 2003 does not allow a project or resource to be checked in until all required values are specified. In this way, if an Enterprise Task Outline Code is required, every task in the project must specify this value before the project can be checked in. Use this feature carefully, because users might not always provide complete data. It might be better to limit the number of required fields to ensure that the information collected is accurate. It is less important to make Enterprise Task Outline Codes required codes. It is best to require an Enterprise Outline Code only when all users in your organization need to use it. For example, you might have different requirements for Finance team projects than you have for Production team projects. If an Enterprise Outline Code is required, then the Production teams must specify a value even if it is only applicable to the Finance department.
• Use this code for matching generic resources   If you plan to use an Enterprise Resource Outline Code to match generic resources to actual resources, select the Use this code for matching generic resources check box. This helps to determine which values are used by the Resource Substitution Wizard and the Build Team from Enterprise feature in Project Professional and Build Team in Project Web Access.

When you are selecting attributes to define your Enterprise Outline Codes, it is important to be aware of the following points:

• Enterprise Outline Codes must be defined in advance, and it is best to provide a fall-back code for users to select if they cannot identify an accurate specification. For this reason, consider establishing an Other, NA, or Unspecified type field for each Enterprise Outline Code. You can also use this field to identify areas where you might need more appropriate values for the Enterprise Outline Code.
• Codes appear in alphabetical order within a level by default. If codes need to appear in a different, nonalphabetical order, prefix the code values with a number (for example, 01) or a series of letters (for example, AA).
• Making a code a required code is the best way to ensure that data is consistently available for reporting and analysis. You cannot save a project without entering a required field. Because you can save templates to the Project Server database without specifying required Enterprise Outline Codes, this enables you to specify required Enterprise Outline Codes when you save project to the Project Server database.

Creating Enterprise Outline Codes

The Enterprise Outline Code requirements for your organization affect the methods that you use to define your Enterprise Outline Codes. You create Enterprise Outline Codes by opening Project Professional and checking out the Enterprise Global Template

When creating Enterprise Outline Codes, consider the following recommendations:

• Use names that are clear, concise, and unambiguous to members in your organization.
• Use names that match names that are used by related systems or systems that might be a source of data; for example, external Human Resources systems or the Active Directory directory service.
• Avoid special characters such as / " ; : < > | [ ] , . ' ? ~ ` ! $ % ^ & * ( ) - + = { or } when naming Enterprise Outline Codes, as these might cause errors when generating the OLAP cube that is used by the Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003 View tables, Portfolio Modeler, and Portfolio Analyzer.

If Enterprise Outline Code data is located externally, you can extract it and use it to define a lookup table (after you define the code mask) by copying and pasting the data into the lookup table directly.

You can also use the Project Data Service (PDS) application programming interface (API) to automatically populate Enterprise Outline Codes from other systems. The Service for Enterprise Data Maintenance in the PDS can simplify the maintenance of lookup tables that are associated with Enterprise Outline Codes.

 Note   For more information about the Service for Enterprise Data Maintenance, see the topic About the Service for EDM on MSDN.

To create an Enterprise Outline Code

1. Open Project Professional as a user who is assigned the Save Enterprise Global permission and connect to Project Server 2003.
2. On the Tools menu, point to Enterprise Options, and then click Open Enterprise Global to check out the Enterprise Global Template. The name of the project in the title bar will be Checked-out Enterprise Global.
3. In the checked-out Enterprise Global Template, on the Tools menu, point to Customize, and then select Enterprise Fields to open the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.

   

4. Select the Custom Outline Codes tab.
5. On the Custom Outline Codes tab, under Outline Code, select one of the following three primary options:
   • Task   Select to create Enterprise Outline Codes that are applied at the task level.
   • Resource   Select to create Enterprise Outline Codes that are applied at the resource level.
   • Project   Select to create Enterprise Outline Codes that are applied at the project level.

    Note   The process of creating an Enterprise Outline Code is identical for projects, tasks, and resources.

6. Select an Enterprise Project Outline Code; for example, Enterprise Project Outline Code4.
7. Assign a meaningful name to the Enterprise Outline Code. To change the name of the Enterprise Outline code, click Rename. In the Rename Field dialog box, type the new name, and then click OK.

   

8. Define the code mask for the Enterprise Outline Code. In the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box, click Define Code Mask to open the Outline Code Definition dialog box.

   

9. When you are finished defining the code mask for the Enterprise Outline Code, click OK to close the Outline Code Definition dialog box and return to the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.
10. Select Edit Lookup Table.

    

    Items in the lookup table can be hierarchical, with some items subordinate to other items, or all items can be equivalent. Optionally, you can also provide a description for the items in the lookup table.

11. When you are finished defining the lookup table, click Close to close the Edit Lookup Table dialog box and return to the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.
12. Under Enterprise attributes, you can select the following options:
    • Share another code's lookup table Select this option to use a lookup table that was defined for another Enterprise Outline Code. After you select this option, click Choose Outline Code.

      

      In the Share Lookup Table dialog box, select a field in the Field Type list, and then select the Enterprise Outline Code that you want to base the lookup table on from the Field Name list. When you are finished, click OK to return to the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.

      The primary benefits of sharing lookup tables are that you can manage multiple lookup tables from a single location and improve performance by reducing both the total number of lookup tables in the Enterprise Global Template and the time that it takes to load them.

      In addition, if you need more than one Enterprise Outline Code that describes the same type of data for a resource, consider using an Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code rather than using multiple codes and linked or imported lookup tables.

    • Only allow selection of codes with no subordinate values If Enterprise Outline Codes are organized hierarchically, then you can use this option to indicate whether you want to allow the selection of Enterprise Outline Codes that do not have subordinate values.
    • Make this a required code   Select this option if you do not want to allow project managers to save a project to the Project Server database (or publish project updates) until a value is associated with this Enterprise Outline Code. If this Enterprise Outline Code is sharing the lookup table of another code, enabling this option does not affect the other Enterprise Outline Code.
13. When you have finished defining Enterprise Outline Codes, click OK to close the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box. Close the Enterprise Global Template if you are finished making changes.

     Note   You must add Enterprise Custom Fields to projects and to Project Web Access views in order for the information in the Enterprise Outline Codes to be visible to team members and project managers.

14. Close and save the Enterprise Global Template. Changes to the Enterprise Global Template will not be available to project managers until the next time they connect Project Professional to Project Server 2003 and refresh the Enterprise Global Template.

Creating Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes

Enterprise Resource Outline Codes 20-29 are Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes. These are special Enterprise Resource Outline Codes that enable the selection of multiple values within the same outline code.

Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Codes are new to Project Server 2003. In Microsoft Project Server 2002, each Enterprise Resource Outline Code can only store a single value. The Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code enables you to collect and store multiple pieces of information about resources by using a single Enterprise Outline Code.

 Note   Enterprise Resource Outline Code 30 is reserved for RBS. You can define, but not rename, this code. Project Server 2003 uses this code to determine resource categorization and security.

You can only define Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Codes for resources.

To create an Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code

1. Open Project Professional as a user who is assigned the Save Enterprise Global permission and connect to Project Server 2003.
2. On the Tools menu, point to Enterprise Options, and then click Open Enterprise Global to check out the Enterprise Global Template. The name of the project in the title bar will be Checked-out Enterprise Global.
3. In the checked-out Enterprise Global Template, on the Tools menu, point to Customize, and then select Enterprise Fields to open the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.

   

4. Select the Custom Outline Codes tab.
5. Under Outline Code, select Resource.
6. Select an Enterprise Resource Outline Code between 20 and 29; for example, Enterprise Resource Outline Code20. This Enterprise Resource Outline Code will be defined as an Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code.
7. Assign a meaningful name to the Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code. To change the name of the Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code, click Rename.
8. In the Rename Field dialog box, type the new name for the Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline code (for example, Skills) and then click OK.

   

9. In the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box, click Define Code Mask to open the Outline Code Definition dialog box. Define the code mask for the Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code.

   

10. When you are finished defining the code mask for the Enterprise Outline Code, click OK to close the Outline Code Definition dialog box and return to the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.
11. Select Edit Lookup Table and edit the lookup table. For example, the following lookup table shows three primary role categories (Executive, Management, and Operations) and identifies the various role types that are available in each category.

    

12. When you are finished defining the lookup table, click Close to close the Edit Lookup Table dialog box and return to the Enterprise Custom Fields dialog box. This lookup table will also be used by the multi-value component of the Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code.
13. Under Enterprise attributes, you can select the following options:
    • Share another code's lookup table Select this option to use a lookup table that was defined for another Enterprise Outline Code. After you select this option, click Choose Outline Code.

      

      In the Share Lookup Table dialog box, select a field in the Field Type list, and then select the Enterprise Outline Code that you want to base the lookup table on from the Field Name list. When you are finished, click OK to return to the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.

      The primary benefits of sharing lookup tables are that you can manage multiple lookup tables from a single location and improve performance both by reducing the total number of lookup tables in the Enterprise Global Template and by reducing the time that it takes to load them.

    • Only allow selection of codes with no subordinate values   If Enterprise Outline Codes are organized hierarchically, then you can use this option to indicate whether you want to allow the selection of Enterprise Outline Codes that do not have subordinate values.
    • Make this a required code   Select this option if you do not want to allow project managers to save a project to the Project Server database (or publish project updates) until a value is associated with this Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code. If this Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code is sharing another code's lookup table, enabling this option does not affect the other Enterprise Outline Code.
14. When you are finished defining Enterprise Resource Multi-Value Outline Code, click OK to close the Customize Enterprise Fields dialog box.
15. Close and save the Enterprise Global Template. Changes to the Enterprise Global Template will not be available to project managers until the next time they connect Project Professional to Project Server 2003 and refresh the Enterprise Global Template.