Managing Projects with Project Server 2016 / 2019 / Project Online

About This Course
This 3-day course prepares project managers to manage their projects effectively in a Project Server environment. The course is an onsite course typically customized to the Project Server configuration of the client organization.

Each participant will receive:

• A copy of the "Forecast Scheduling with Microsoft Project" textbook,
• A 100-page course manual
• An electronic course certificate with 18-21 PDUs upon completion. 
• The possibility to earn the 'Forecast Scheduler' certificate and earn an additional 20 PDUs.

Course Learning Objectives
The following learning objectives are subject to customization:

• Understand how to most effectively utilize the Microsoft Project Server for managing projects.
• Be able to create a project schedule using Project Professional in an enterprise environment using enterprise templates, enterprise calendars, and enterprise views
• Be able to assign resources from an enterprise resource pool and from local resources you create yourself
• Be able to monitor and manage resource workloads in an enterprise environment
• Be able to collaborate with and manage project team members on the task list, assignments, documents, risks and issues of each project
• Be able to track the project schedule during the project execution phase using electronic timesheets or task updates, as well as status reports
• Be aware of the dashboards views for the project sponsor and senior management: Project Center views (traffic lights and tracking views) and BI Center views
• Be aware of the best practices for Project Server.

• Project management, PPM and business processes
• Business benefits of Project Server
• Project, Project Server, and PWA and how they work together
• The different users, groups and categories in Project Server
• High-level architecture and database structure

• Working with the ribbon and the quick access toolbar
• Enterprise configuration
• Enterprise views
• Enterprise calendars
• Enterprise project templates
• Setting up a new project
• Relevant MS Project options
• Project Information dialog box: enterprise project fields
• Tasks
• Manually scheduled tasks and when to use them
• Creating the Work Breakdown Structure and fleshing it out to detail tasks
• Finding the right level of detail
• Recurring tasks and overhead tasks
• Estimates
• A process for estimating
• Estimating durations or work (effort) and the task types: Fixed Duration, Fixed units and Fixed Work
• Gross versus pure work time estimates and determining which to use
• Dependencies and the network logic
• The principle of dynamic scheduling that saves you time
• Using dependencies to model cause-and-effect in the project
• Types of dependencies and when to use each type
• How to check completeness and correctness of the network logic
• Deadlines (target dates): how deadlines support dynamic scheduling
• Schedule Constraints (fixed dates): types of schedule constraints and how they make your schedule rigid
• Resources
• Types of resources: human, material, facility, equipment and cost resources
• Generic, actual and local human resources
• Part-time and full-time human resources and varying resource availability
• Viewing the resource calendar
• Viewing the time-related, per-unit and per-use enterprise cost rates
• Viewing cost rate tables for varying cost rates and multiple rates per resource
• Using the Enterprise Resource Pool (and, if needed, creating local resources yourself)
• Building Teams from the Enterprise Resource Pool in MS Project
• Calendars: using enterprise calendars (base calendars) as project calendar and task calendars
• Assignments
• Business processes: who staffs projects and who assigns tasks?
• Replacing generic resources in an enterprise template
• Part-time versus full-time, driving versus non-driving assignments
• Three rules to make MS Project an easy tool for you
• Assigning the three Task Types
• Checking on resource availability before assigning (proactive workload leveling)
• Team Planner view, Resource Usage and Task Usage Views
• Using the Team Builder for re-assigning

• Checking the schedule before publishing
• Did I apply the best practices?
• Using our 86-point checklist and NEW Forecast Scheduling App to improve your schedule
• Publishing
• Saving versus publishing a schedule
• Publishing the project
• Working offline with your schedule

• My Timesheets page (single-entry mode)
• Self-assign team resource tasks
• Bringing all workload together: to do lists, new task request, and non-project time
• Updating tasks and submitting updates

• Approvals page: accepting and rejecting updates
• Previewing and updating the project schedule with accepted changes

• Proactive or reactive workload leveling: preventing or resolving over-allocations?
• Preventing over-allocations using the Enterprise Resource Pool
• Resolving over-allocations:
• Making workloads visible and finding the over-allocations
• When to level by hand and when to rely on MS Project?
• Leveling workloads by hand:
• The best view to resolve over-allocations yourself
• A complete list of ways to resolve over-allocations manually
• Leveling workloads automatically:
• What MS Project can and cannot do for you in resolving over-allocations
• Leveling algorithms used by MS Project
• Where to check how MS Project resolved the over-allocations

• Optimizing for Time (having unlimited resources): the Critical Path Method (CPM):
• Difference between free and total slack (float)
• Situations that fragment the Critical Path and what to do about it
• Shortening or crashing the Critical Path

• Collecting and managing risks and issues
• Publishing project documents and document management

• The updating cycle
• Updating tasks versus updating assignments (time sheets)
• Baselining: how to maintain a baseline when change requests are approved
• Timesheet view (single-entry mode)
• Project manager checks the timesheets and updates the project schedule
• Project manager re-optimizes the schedule after assignment updates from team members
• Customizing textual status report templates and merging received reports into a project report

• Creating one-page reports ... always!
• NEW 2016 The multiple Timelines view
• How to defend a visible time buffer or cost reserve to your manager, sponsor or client
• Reporting the project the way you want: developing custom views using custom Fields, Tables, Filters and Grouping
• How to promote custom views to new enterprise views