Managing Project Versions

Microsoft Project 2002 gives users the ability to store multiple versions of a project plan. Each version is a complete copy of the plan at the time it was saved as a new version, and all the versions are stored on the Project server.


The Published version name is automatically created when Microsoft Project Professional is installed, and cannot be renamed or deleted. Every project schedule saved to the Project server must have a Published version, and may have other versions.

The Project server administrator defines the versions other than Published that are available to the organization. Users can store copies of their plans in any of the available versions

Although there might be more recent versions of a schedule, such as the project manager’s working copy, the Published version is used for analysis and reporting (for example, timesheet data is generated only from the Published version). This allows a project manager to create different versions of a plan, with different assignments, to determine an optimum solution. When the project manager decides to change from the existing plan, he or she puts the change into effect by saving the new plan as the Published version. Until this point, the project manager can keep any potential changes hidden from the team members, if desired.

NOTE

Project versions are not necessarily related to the process of saving a new baseline within the project. These two functions can operate independently, though there might be occasions when they coincide. Microsoft Project gives a project manager the opportunity to save up to 11 separate baselines. One or all of them may contain data in any given version.


Saving a new version does not affect resources stored in the enterprise resource pool; only one version of resources’ availabilities, calendars, and other information exists. Assignments in projects, including the project summary assignments, reflect the version of the project to which they belong.

To add a new version name for project managers to use, follow these steps:

1.
Log in to the Microsoft Project server as an administrator.

2.
Select Admin, Manage Enterprise Features, Manage Enterprise Project Versions. A list of all currently available versions is displayed, as shown in Figure 28.6.

Figure 28.6. You can add, modify, or delete a project version.


3.
To add a new version, click Add Version and fill in the following fields:

  • In the Version field, enter a unique, valid name for the new version. A valid version name cannot contain the characters / “ : < > | , . ‘ ? * #.

  • In the Version Archived field, select either Yes or No. Archived project versions will not be updated with active Enterprise Global template or enterprise resource global data when they are opened; rather, they contain snapshot data from the time the project version was saved. This might be useful to show cost information that utilizes the resource rate at the time of saving the plan rather than the resource rate currently available in the enterprise resource pool.

  • In the Gantt Bar Name field, select a summary Gantt bar type for the new version.

NOTE

You should consider formatting versions so that they can be easily identified by users. To do this, you can assign one of the six summary version bars available in Web Access to a version.

A version named Draft, for example, can be assigned to Project Summary Version 3. If you do this, the Draft version’s project summary bar will appear the same in all Gantt Chart views because the formatting for Project Summery 3 will be the same in all Gantt Chart views.

Alternatively, depending on your corporate reporting requirements and the number of versions required to support them, you might choose to have different formats in different Gantt Chart views.

4.
To keep the changes, click the Save Changes button. If you click Cancel, the changes are not made.

To modify a version, select the version to be changed and then select Modify Version, as shown in Figure 28.6. The parameters associated with modifying a version are identical to adding a new version, as described earlier in this section.

To delete a version, select the version to be deleted and then click Delete Version, as shown in Figure 28.6. For a version to be successfully deleted, there must be no project schedules currently saved with that version. If project schedules are currently saved with the version you are trying to delete, you are prompted with an alert that lists the associated projects.

→ For information on how versions work with cross-project links, see “Versions and Cross-Project Links,” p. 1058.

Adding the Version Field to Views

In previous versions of Microsoft Project, and in Microsoft Project 2002 Standard, it is possible to store only one version of each project plan. Any views that contain a project name could rely on that project name being unique. In Project Professional 2002, which allows multiple versions, it is possible to have multiple lines in a view for a single project. To address this issue the Version field has been added to the list of fields available when creating or modifying views.

TIP

Add the Version field to all views that contain the Project Name field, to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.


..................Content has been hidden....................

You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.
Reset