Leverage Microsoft Project for the web with the Project Accelerator

Microsoft 365
5 Aug 202130:10

Summary

TLDRGeorge Bullock, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Microsoft Project, introduces the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution at the Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft conference. The solution integrates with the Power Platform and Microsoft dataverse to enhance project and program management. It includes customizable dashboards, a module for capturing and promoting project requests, and a module for managing programs with roll-up data from connected projects. The solution also offers extensive reporting capabilities, including views on project requests, program health, financials, and resource utilization. Bullock demonstrates the solution's flexibility, including the ability to add custom fields and entities, and emphasizes the importance of data and reporting in project management. He invites viewers to download the solution from aka.ms/ProjAccelerator to experience its full potential and customize it to their needs.

Takeaways

  • 🌟 George Bullock, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Microsoft Project, introduces the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution at the Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft conference.
  • 📈 The Microsoft Project Accelerator solution is designed to enhance project management solutions by integrating with the Power Platform, enabling customization and automation.
  • 🔧 The Power Platform is a business app platform that supports and extends Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure, offering data analysis, app building, and task automation.
  • 🚀 The Project Accelerator solution serves as a starting point for managing projects and programs, with the ability to extend and customize it to meet specific needs.
  • 📊 The solution includes a dashboard for visualizing data across projects and resources, utilizing Power BI visuals for in-depth analysis.
  • 📋 It features a module for capturing project requests and ideas, developing them with a business case, and promoting them to projects through Power Automate workflows.
  • 💼 The solution streamlines the process of project and program management by leveraging the Microsoft dataverse and integrating with Active Directory for resource management.
  • 🔗 The Project Accelerator solution allows for the creation of custom entities and fields, in addition to the native project entities, enhancing the flexibility of the system.
  • 📝 It provides detailed views and reports for project requests, programs, and portfolios, including health, financials, and resource utilization.
  • 🛠️ The system includes custom tables for risks, issues, and changes, allowing project managers to capture and report on these aspects across all projects.
  • 🔑 The Project Accelerator solution is available for deployment in any Power Platform environment that supports Project for the Web, offering a powerful tool for project management.

Q & A

  • What is the role of George Bullock in Microsoft?

    -George Bullock is the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Microsoft Project.

  • At which conference is George presenting?

    -George is presenting at the 'Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft' conference.

  • What is the main focus of the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution?

    -The Microsoft Project Accelerator solution focuses on leveraging the Power Platform to enhance project management solutions.

  • What are the components of the Microsoft Power Platform?

    -The Microsoft Power Platform includes Power BI for data analysis, Power Apps for building apps, and Power Automate for automating tasks.

  • How does the Project Accelerator solution relate to Microsoft Project for the Web?

    -The Project Accelerator solution is an example of using the Power Platform with Microsoft Project for the Web to address project and program management needs.

  • What kind of entities can be managed and customized within the Project Accelerator solution?

    -The Project Accelerator solution allows users to manage and customize project native entities, custom entities, and even add their own entities.

  • How does the Project Accelerator solution facilitate the transition from a project request to an actual project?

    -The solution includes a module that captures project requests and ideas, develops them with a business case, analyzes them against strategic and financial goals, and promotes them to projects through a Power Automate workflow.

  • What is the significance of the dashboard provided by the Project Accelerator solution?

    -The dashboard gives organizations a starting point to see data across projects and resources, utilizing the data from Project for the Web in the Microsoft dataverse.

  • How does the Project Accelerator solution support resource management?

    -It provides a resource dashboard that allows users to view tasks by project, effort completed and remaining, and to drill down into individual resources' assignments across projects.

  • What is the purpose of the custom fields added to the Project Request table in the Project Accelerator solution?

    -The custom fields are designed to track incoming demand effectively and can be modified or extended by users to suit their specific tracking needs.

  • How does the Project Accelerator solution handle project and program financials?

    -It allows users to set budgets, actual costs, forecasted costs, and benefits for both projects and programs, with calculated fields for ROI and remaining budget allocation based on underlying project data.

  • What is the next step for someone interested in the Project Accelerator solution?

    -Interested individuals should visit aka.ms/ProjAccelerator to download and deploy the solution into their Power Platform environment that supports Project for the Web.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introduction to Microsoft Project Accelerator Solution

George Bullock, Senior Product Marketing Manager for Microsoft Project, introduces the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution at the Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft conference. The session aims to demonstrate how the Power Platform can enhance project management solutions. The agenda includes an overview of the Project Accelerator, a deep dive into its features, and guidance on next steps for implementation. The Microsoft Project for the Web is highlighted as a simple yet powerful application that integrates with the Power Platform and Microsoft dataverse to support project and program management best practices.

05:01

🛠️ Exploring the Project Accelerator Solution and Power Platform Integration

The speaker discusses the capabilities of the Microsoft Power Platform, which includes Power BI for data analysis, Power Apps for app development, and Power Automate for task automation. The Project Accelerator solution is presented as a tool that leverages the Power Platform to address project and program management needs. It serves as a starting point for custom solutions, with features like tables, custom fields, and the ability to add user-defined entities. The demo showcases the user experience, including managing entities and the dashboard that provides insights into projects and resources using data from the Microsoft dataverse.

10:04

📋 Deep Dive into Project Requests and Programs Management

This section covers the project request module of the Project Accelerator solution, which facilitates the capture and development of project requests and ideas, their analysis against strategic and financial goals, and their promotion to full projects through Power Automate workflows. The speaker demonstrates how to add and modify project requests, including fields for strategic alignment, budget, and benefits. The program module is also explored, showing how programs can be captured, analyzed, and connected to existing projects, with financial and status values roll-up from underlying projects.

15:06

📈 Analyzing Program Financials and Project Roll-up Data

The speaker delves into the financial aspects of program management, including setting budgets, benefits, and calculating return on investment (ROI). The program view in the Power Platform is showcased, allowing users to see different programs and their financial health. The ability to group and view programs by various metrics is also highlighted. The section explains how roll-up data from underlying projects can be managed at the program level and how this data can be used to assess the overall health of programs.

20:08

📊 Customizing Project Metadata and Financials in the Accelerator Solution

The paragraph focuses on the customization options within the Project Accelerator solution, such as adding custom fields to the project metadata. It discusses the native fields from the Project for the Web, such as name, estimated start and finish dates, and calculated fields like duration and percent complete. The speaker also covers financial aspects, including setting budgets, actual costs, and benefits, and how these can be managed and reported within the solution.

25:11

🗓️ Utilizing Timelines, Gantt Charts, and Task Management

This section highlights the task management capabilities of Project for the Web, which is built on the Microsoft project scheduling engine. The speaker emphasizes the ease of adding custom fields and the availability of different views, such as grid, board, and timeline views. The timeline view is particularly noted for its Gantt chart functionality, which provides a visual representation of project schedules.

📊 In-Depth Reporting and Resource Management Overview

The speaker presents various reports and dashboards available in the Project Accelerator solution, such as the requests dashboard, program health, financials, and portfolio views. The capabilities for risk, issue, and change management reporting are also discussed. The paragraph concludes with an overview of resource management, including resource dashboards and task overviews, which allow users to track resource allocation and task progress across projects.

🚀 Final Thoughts and Next Steps for the Project Accelerator Solution

The final paragraph summarizes the demo and the capabilities of the Project for the Web and the Power Platform, emphasizing the customization and management features of the Project Accelerator solution. The speaker encourages viewers to visit aka.ms/ProjAccelerator to download the solution, which can be deployed in any Power Platform environment that supports Project for the Web. The session concludes with thanks to the viewers for their participation.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a project management software that helps teams plan, manage, and collaborate on projects from almost anywhere. In the video, it is the central application being discussed, with the introduction of a new solution called the 'Project Accelerator' which aims to enhance project management capabilities.

💡Project Accelerator Solution

The Project Accelerator Solution is a new offering that integrates with Microsoft Project for the Web. It is designed to provide a starting point for managing projects and programs, and it includes customizable entities and workflows. The script mentions that it can be extended and customized to meet specific project management needs.

💡Power Platform

The Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of applications, services, connectors, and data platforms that provides a fast, flexible, and custom solution to your business challenges. In the video, it is highlighted as the technology that empowers the Project Accelerator Solution, allowing for data analysis, app building, and task automation.

💡Microsoft Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse is a cloud-based data service that stores business data and provides business process flows. It is used in the context of the video to support project and program management best practices by housing data that can be leveraged by the Project Accelerator Solution.

💡Customization

Customization refers to the ability to tailor software to meet specific business needs. In the video, customization is a key theme, with the Project Accelerator Solution allowing users to add custom fields, create their own entities, and modify the out-of-the-box features to fit their project management requirements.

💡Project Requests

Project Requests is a module within the Project Accelerator Solution that facilitates the capture and initial development of project ideas. The script describes how these requests can be analyzed against strategic and financial goals and eventually promoted to full projects through a workflow.

💡Power Automate

Power Automate, previously known as Microsoft Flow, is a service that helps in automating workflows across different systems and services. In the video, it is used to automate the process of promoting a project request to a full project within Microsoft Project for the Web.

💡Programs

In the context of project management, Programs refer to a group of related projects managed together to achieve strategic benefits. The video explains how the Project Accelerator Solution allows for the management of programs, including tracking their financial and status values against connected projects.

💡Resource Management

Resource Management is a key aspect of project management that involves planning, allocating, and controlling the resources of a project. The video script discusses how resources can be tracked and managed within the Project Accelerator Solution, showing the ability to view resources across multiple projects and their task assignments.

💡Reporting

Reporting in project management involves creating and distributing information about project progress, financials, and other metrics. The video emphasizes the importance of reporting in the Project Accelerator Solution, showcasing various dashboards and reports that provide insights into project requests, programs, portfolios, resources, and tasks.

Highlights

Introduction of Microsoft Project Accelerator solution and its integration with Power Platform for enhanced project management.

Overview of the agenda including goals, deep demo, and next steps for leveraging the Project Accelerator solution.

Explanation of Microsoft Project for the Web's utilization of Power Platform and Microsoft Dataverse for project and program management.

Description of Microsoft Power Platform as a business app platform supporting Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and third-party services.

Introduction to the Project Accelerator solution as a starting point for managing projects and programs with customization capabilities.

Discussion on extending the Project Accelerator solution and the features included out-of-the-box.

Overview of custom fields and entities added to the Project Accelerator solution for project management.

Demonstration of the user experience for managing project entities and the ability to add more to meet specific needs.

Introduction to the Project Accelerator solution's dashboard for organizational project and resource data visualization.

Explanation of the project request module in the Project Accelerator solution for capturing and promoting project ideas.

Demonstration of the Power Automate workflow for project request approval and creation in Project for the Web.

Discussion on the program module in the Project Accelerator solution for capturing and analyzing programs against strategic and financial goals.

Illustration of how programs can roll-up data from underlying projects for comprehensive management.

Overview of the custom tables and fields added to the Power Platform for risks, issues, and changes management in projects.

Demonstration of the tasks management experience in Project for the Web, including custom fields and Gantt chart functionality.

Introduction to the reporting capabilities of the Project Accelerator solution for tracking project requests, programs, and portfolios.

Highlight of the resource management and reporting features for tracking resource allocation and effort across projects.

Final thoughts on the power and customization of Project for the Web with the Project Accelerator solution and the next steps for deployment.

Transcripts

play00:13

- Hi, my name's George Bullock

play00:16

and I'm Senior Product Marketing Manager

play00:18

for Microsoft Project.

play00:20

And I like everybody on the project team

play00:22

is really excited to be here at our

play00:24

Reimagine Project Management with Microsoft conference.

play00:29

In this session, we're going to talk about

play00:31

the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution

play00:34

and how you can leverage it

play00:36

with the power of the Power Platform

play00:38

to really go the last mile

play00:40

with your project management solutions.

play00:44

Here's our agenda.

play00:45

First, I'm going to go through,

play00:46

I have about 350 slides, no I don't.

play00:49

We're going to start by just setting our goals

play00:52

and to give you a brief overview

play00:53

of what the Project Accelerator solution is

play00:55

and then we're going to go into a deep demo.

play00:57

And then at the end I'll make sure you understand

play01:00

what your next action should be.

play01:03

Let's start by setting our goals.

play01:06

First, I want you to experience

play01:08

the potential of Microsoft Project for the Web

play01:10

and the Project Accelerator solution.

play01:13

And I want you to understand the value of the Power Platform

play01:16

applied to Microsoft Project for the Web

play01:19

and what kind of customizations and solutions

play01:21

this allows you to build.

play01:23

And finally, I want you to understand when and how

play01:25

you can get the Project Accelerator solution.

play01:29

Microsoft project for the web leverages the Power Platform

play01:33

along with the Microsoft data verse

play01:34

to bring you a simple and powerful application

play01:37

that supports project and program management best practices

play01:40

on the Microsoft platform.

play01:43

Now the Microsoft Power Platform is a business app platform

play01:46

that helps support and extend Microsoft 365,

play01:49

Dynamics 365 and Azure

play01:52

as well as third-party services and applications.

play01:55

It includes the ability to analyze data

play01:58

through Power BI, to quickly act on building apps

play02:02

through Power Apps and to automate tasks

play02:04

through Power Automate.

play02:07

Now, let me tell you a bit about

play02:09

the Project Accelerator solution.

play02:11

The Microsoft Project Accelerator solution

play02:14

is an example of how you can use the Power Platform

play02:17

together with project for the web to address your project

play02:20

and program management needs.

play02:24

We're going to walk through the Project Accelerator solution

play02:27

and I'm going to talk about how it is a starting point

play02:30

for a solution that you can use

play02:32

to manage your projects and programs.

play02:35

We're going to talk about some of the ways

play02:37

you could extend it

play02:38

and what comes out of the box.

play02:40

I'm going to talk about the tables and custom fields

play02:44

that are part of project native entities

play02:46

as well as the custom entities we've added

play02:49

and also talk to you about

play02:50

how you can add your own entities.

play02:53

I'm going to show you the user experiences we've provided

play02:55

for managing these entities and how you can add more to them

play02:59

and evolve them to meet your needs.

play03:02

Now let's get right to the demo.

play03:04

Now as you can see I'm at my homepage for Office

play03:09

and one of the nice things we've done with Power Platform

play03:12

is of course I can get to all my Office apps here

play03:15

and I can also get to all my Power Apps

play03:18

and so we're going to go into the project Power App.

play03:23

And we're going to start with this home dashboard.

play03:27

Now, this dashboard gives your organization a starting point

play03:32

to see data across your projects and resources.

play03:36

And it utilizes all of the project for the web data

play03:38

that's in the Microsoft data verse.

play03:40

Now this is out of the box

play03:42

with the Project Accelerator solution

play03:44

and there's no code involved,

play03:45

but of course you could edit some of these tiles

play03:48

or you could even add your own.

play03:50

And of course since these are Power BI visuals

play03:54

I can expand them out and get all the kind of click through

play03:58

and drill down that I expect

play03:59

and so here I have a financial summary

play04:01

and this is across all the projects in my portfolio.

play04:05

And I also have a good look at my active project requests

play04:09

and we'll be talking about those as we go forward.

play04:12

Program health, active project requests,

play04:15

an overall summary of projects by business unit

play04:19

and overall program health.

play04:20

And again, we'll be getting into projects,

play04:23

programs and project requests as we go forward.

play04:28

Now let's talk about project requests.

play04:34

The Project Accelerator solution includes a module

play04:37

that allows for the capture of project requests and ideas,

play04:41

their initial development with a business case,

play04:43

their analysis against strategic and financial goals

play04:46

and their eventual promotion to projects

play04:48

through a Power Automate workflow.

play04:51

When the request is promoted as a project

play04:53

a new project will be created in Project for the Web

play04:56

and then the team will be able to start working

play04:59

on that project.

play05:01

The original project request and the new project

play05:03

will be listed separately in the project requests

play05:06

and the project listings.

play05:10

So of course it would be only apropo

play05:13

if we start by taking a look at this ship

play05:17

the accelerator project request.

play05:19

So let's open this up.

play05:21

Now, let me talk briefly about what you're seeing here.

play05:24

This is a custom table that we've added

play05:26

to the Power Platform called Project Request.

play05:29

And we've added a bunch of fields to it

play05:31

that we think are important for tracking incoming demand

play05:35

but you could change these fields.

play05:38

You could add your own fields

play05:39

and we'll talk about this as I go through.

play05:41

You see, of course I have name, owner,

play05:44

requested by an executive sponsor.

play05:46

And one thing I want to show you here

play05:49

is let's go ahead and add the requested by

play05:51

and you see I'm going to start typing for search.

play05:54

And I'm actually seeing Nancy here

play05:57

and the reason I'm seeing her

play05:58

is because she is a user in our active directory.

play06:02

So for the Project Accelerator solution

play06:04

and for Project for the Web, there's no need

play06:06

to build a separate enterprise resource pool,

play06:09

you have access to your active directory.

play06:12

So let's go ahead and add Nancy back as the requested by.

play06:16

We also have a request state

play06:19

and you can see we've added some values here

play06:20

but you could update these values or keep using them.

play06:23

We also have a priority and of course

play06:26

most people will set it to critical

play06:27

but hopefully you'll do the training

play06:29

so they actually are reasonable here.

play06:32

We have a project type as well

play06:33

so people can tell the review board

play06:35

or whoever is reviewing these requests

play06:37

what type of request this is

play06:39

and we can also set an executive sponsor.

play06:42

Now we've also provided some fields

play06:43

so people can capture the narrative

play06:47

of why this project request is important.

play06:49

So you can see details here in the overall business case.

play06:53

Now as well, we've provided,

play06:55

so this is maybe the qualitative reason

play06:56

for this project request

play06:58

but we've also provided fields that are quantitative.

play07:01

So, strategic alignment,

play07:04

whether or not this project request

play07:06

is expected to lower costs, improve employee retention.

play07:12

What the risk of this is, we can set a budget

play07:14

and a realization and you see I'm at Bitcoin levels

play07:18

of a benefit here because I'm expecting to spend $150,000

play07:22

to get 2 million and then hopefully I won't lose my password

play07:26

in a garbage dump in London.

play07:28

Whether or not funding's available

play07:31

and what the funding source here is.

play07:33

So now, what you're going to find is, of course

play07:36

my project requests are of extreme strategic alignment.

play07:40

So let's see what happens here to our prioritization score

play07:44

if I go ahead and save that change.

play07:46

And you'll see that my prioritization score has gone up

play07:49

and that's because this is an example

play07:51

of a calculated field that we can use

play07:54

in the project accelerator.

play07:56

And then I have, I can get to other related data

play07:59

about this project request.

play08:01

But the last thing I'm going to do here

play08:03

is I'm going to change the in review to approved.

play08:07

And what's happened here and I'm not going to show you this

play08:10

but when I first create this project request

play08:13

it's going to kick off a Power Automate flow

play08:15

that will send emails or Teams notifications

play08:19

to the approvers who need to approve this project request.

play08:23

And once they've gone and submitted their approval

play08:26

and they can add notes to that,

play08:29

that will set this to approved

play08:31

and what's going to happen now

play08:34

is a Power Automate flow is going to be kicked off

play08:36

that will actually create a project in project for the web

play08:40

for this project request.

play08:42

Now that will be linked to the project request

play08:44

and in fact some of the data in the project request

play08:47

will be shown as part of the project

play08:49

and we'll get to that as we go forward.

play08:52

Now let's talk about programs.

play08:55

The Project Accelerator solution includes a module

play08:58

that allows for the capture of programs,

play09:00

their initial development with a business case

play09:02

and their analysis against strategic and financial goals.

play09:06

Programs can also be connected to existing projects

play09:09

and have their financial and status values

play09:11

compared to the connected project roll-up values.

play09:14

So you will get roll-up data into the program

play09:17

from the underlying projects

play09:19

and I'll show you how all that works.

play09:21

Now a program of course, is a collection of projects

play09:24

that map to a goal we want to achieve.

play09:26

It might be a collection of projects

play09:28

that you want to manage together

play09:30

because say they have a lot of technical dependency

play09:32

or even a collection of projects

play09:33

that need to be completed together to achieve value.

play09:36

But again, if you're managing more

play09:38

at the budgeted portfolio level

play09:40

you could use programs for those portfolios

play09:43

or even rename the table here.

play09:46

So what we've done is we've added a table

play09:48

to the Power Platform called program.

play09:51

We've added fields to it that you'll be seeing,

play09:54

custom fields, but you also could add your own fields

play09:57

to this table, change some of the fields we have

play09:59

and once I get into it we'll see what that looks like.

play10:04

Here we are in the program view

play10:07

and this is a Power Platform view

play10:09

and it's listing my different programs.

play10:12

Here I'm seeing active programs

play10:14

but I could also choose a different view.

play10:16

For example, here's one that shows much more of the data

play10:19

about program costs and benefits.

play10:21

And I can also group them.

play10:23

So let's group these by financial health

play10:25

and there I can quickly see which projects are on track

play10:28

and off track, I have many more possibilities here.

play10:31

Now we've provided these out of the box for you

play10:34

but you could also go in and build your own groupings

play10:36

and your own views in this view.

play10:39

Now let's jump into our program.

play10:41

So as we said a program is a collection of projects.

play10:44

So here's one called customer growth

play10:46

and let's take a look at what that looks like.

play10:49

Now one thing you can see here is we have a lot of data

play10:51

about the program itself.

play10:53

We have a name, we have the state the program is in,

play10:56

very much like the request state, we have it's priority,

play11:01

of course this one's critical,

play11:02

but we'll leave it at moderate for now.

play11:04

Which business unit owns the program,

play11:07

an owner, a manager, program type, program goals.

play11:12

Now these are fields we've provided out of the box

play11:15

with the accelerator solution,

play11:17

but of course you could add your own fields

play11:19

and you could change things like the values

play11:21

in the dropdown boxes, that's all up to you.

play11:23

Our goal again is to provide for you a starting point

play11:26

to meet your key project management needs.

play11:29

Now another thing you see here is I have the ability

play11:32

to set an overall program start and due date,

play11:36

and these dates are separate

play11:38

from the dates of the underlying projects,

play11:40

we'll talk more about that.

play11:41

And I also have the ability to add a description

play11:45

and a business case

play11:45

just like I did with the project request.

play11:48

Let's move on to financials.

play11:50

So you see here I can set a budget for my program

play11:54

and a benefit and then I'll actually see

play11:57

the return on investment.

play11:58

So let's crank up the benefit a little bit here.

play12:04

And once I save that what you'll see,

play12:07

is my ROI is now an eye-popping 120%.

play12:12

And here's my remaining budget allocation.

play12:15

Now note that the remaining budget allocation

play12:17

just like ROI is a calculated field

play12:19

and it's based on the budget that's been used so far

play12:22

in the underlying projects.

play12:24

And then here you see roll-ups from the underlying projects

play12:28

and this is based on the actual data

play12:30

that's being captured and tracked in the project.

play12:33

So we have the project budget,

play12:35

the actual cost of the overall projects,

play12:37

budget remaining, project benefits and the project ROI

play12:41

based on the individual projects.

play12:45

Now in here, I can manage the status at the program level

play12:48

not at the project level.

play12:50

So in a meeting with the project managers,

play12:53

I as the program manager could change the overall health,

play12:57

the financial health, the effort health,

play13:00

and the schedule health.

play13:01

However because we're built on the Power Platform here

play13:04

another thing I could do is I could build

play13:06

a Power Automate flow or business process

play13:09

that would look for certain triggers

play13:10

in the underlying projects

play13:12

and automatically set these fields or change them

play13:15

as things change in the project.

play13:17

And of course as you also see here,

play13:19

I have roll up data about my projects.

play13:22

And let's get into the projects.

play13:24

So what you can see here is I have three projects

play13:28

that are part of this program.

play13:30

What I'm going to quickly do is I'm going to jump to notes,

play13:32

show you notes and then we're really going to drill

play13:34

into how the projects tab works.

play13:37

You can see here, I have the ability

play13:39

to quickly create notes and I've created one here.

play13:42

So I can have a running timeline

play13:44

of things that are important to this program

play13:46

that I've captured.

play13:47

So now let's get back to projects.

play13:49

As you see, three of the projects in Project for the Web

play13:53

have been added to this program.

play13:54

And the way we do that is for one thing,

play13:57

we can choose an existing project

play14:00

and add it to this program,

play14:01

which is what I did with these three.

play14:03

But another way that I can add a project to this program

play14:06

is to go ahead and create a new project.

play14:09

And now you see the power of what we've added

play14:13

to the project table in the Project Accelerator solution.

play14:17

And we could go ahead and fill out this project,

play14:19

but what we're going to do is we're going to start

play14:21

with an existing project and we're really going to drill in

play14:24

and see the power of the different fields here

play14:27

and how Project for the Web

play14:29

is right inside the accelerator solution

play14:32

so you can use it to manage the project

play14:34

or pop out into the native Project for the Web application.

play14:38

So here we are, we're back in the list of projects

play14:40

and what we're going to do now

play14:42

is we're going to switch to our project listing.

play14:47

Now, I don't have any active projects right now

play14:49

because I'm the boss, so I don't do work,

play14:51

but we do have a lot of projects in the system

play14:53

and here they are for you.

play14:55

Now again, this is what we call a Power Platform view

play15:00

and it allows me to see a view of a listing of data

play15:03

in one or more tables in the Power Platform.

play15:06

And as I showed you with project requests and programs

play15:10

I have a lot of different views I can look at.

play15:13

I can look at these and see more of the fields about effort.

play15:17

I can see more of the fields about prioritization.

play15:21

Let's go back to the all projects view.

play15:24

Now let's dive in

play15:25

and look at one of these projects in depth.

play15:27

We'll look at the customer service ramp up project.

play15:30

So here I've selected it

play15:31

and I'm going to go ahead and edit it.

play15:33

And as you can see, I have a lot of different tabs here

play15:38

that I can look at and I have a lot of metadata

play15:40

about this project.

play15:42

Let's talk about this metadata for a minute.

play15:44

Some of these are native fields

play15:46

because what we're looking at here

play15:48

is the native project table

play15:50

and that's where all the projects

play15:52

in Project for the Web are stored.

play15:54

But for the Project Accelerator solution,

play15:57

we've added a lot of custom fields here

play15:59

and we'll talk about those as we go.

play16:01

But also, I am seeing the native fields,

play16:03

things like name, estimated start date, finish date,

play16:07

these are of course calculated fields

play16:09

for duration and percent complete.

play16:11

I have my calculated fields for effort,

play16:14

and I have owner, which is a native field,

play16:16

but I also have other fields we've added

play16:17

for example, project type, which is a dropdown.

play16:21

The program to which this project is associated.

play16:24

So one of the things I can do here

play16:26

is if I have a project and I want to associate it

play16:28

with an existing program I can do that right here.

play16:31

We also have business unit,

play16:33

we have stage priority.

play16:35

Now another thing we could do if we wanted is add

play16:37

an executive sponsor and a manager,

play16:40

you can see Jeremy is the project manager.

play16:43

We also have a calendar template

play16:44

and as you'll see in other demos that we do

play16:47

this allows you to associate a standard working calendar

play16:50

or a specific working calendar to this project.

play16:53

And finally, whether or not funding is available.

play16:56

And as a project is created from a project request

play17:00

some of this data will come in from the project request

play17:02

where we've already captured it.

play17:05

That goes as well for the business case.

play17:06

So, we've added some custom fields here

play17:09

and some of these will be populated directly

play17:11

from the project requests, such as description,

play17:13

business case, value statement, and prioritization.

play17:17

So a lot of this comes in from the project request.

play17:20

Now, of course, these are the fields

play17:22

we're providing out of the box

play17:23

with the Project Accelerator solution

play17:25

but you can change them.

play17:26

You can add your own fields, whatever you need to do.

play17:29

Now let's get into financials a bit.

play17:31

Here we're getting really a lot of good data

play17:34

about the project budget.

play17:36

I can set the budget.

play17:37

I can set the actual budget, a forecast,

play17:41

the actual cost of the project,

play17:43

remaining budget, you see we're over budget already,

play17:45

so this is a normal project.

play17:47

The project variance,

play17:49

and then the benefits here and again, these could come in

play17:51

from the project request, if necessary.

play17:54

The return on investment, this is a straightforward,

play17:57

I think that's 100% there, good return.

play17:59

Whether funding is available, the funding source.

play18:02

Now we also have a tab for team

play18:04

and this shows all the team members

play18:06

that are part of this project.

play18:08

And they are actually bookable resources in the system

play18:11

and that gives us a lot of power and flexibility

play18:15

in terms of tracking their effort, their effort completed

play18:18

and even their effort across multiple projects

play18:21

and we'll see that when we get into the reports.

play18:24

Now I'm also going to show you very briefly risks.

play18:27

We don't have any risks on the project yet.

play18:30

Issues and changes and I want to talk briefly

play18:33

about what we've done here.

play18:35

We've added three custom tables to project

play18:39

for risks, issues and changes.

play18:41

And that means that for each project

play18:44

the team can capture risks as used in changes

play18:47

and as you'll see when we get to reporting

play18:49

I can then report across all of the risks,

play18:51

all of the issues, all of the changes

play18:54

in all the projects in the system.

play18:57

We also have a nice status tab here

play18:59

where we can come in and we can capture

play19:01

some overall project status in a team meeting

play19:05

or I as the project manager can do that on my own.

play19:08

We see what's going on with risks, issues and changes.

play19:11

And also I have the ability to go ahead

play19:14

and create a status report

play19:18

and send it out

play19:19

to whoever needs to keep up with status of this project.

play19:25

Now, we're really going to get into

play19:26

kind of the heart of the matter here and that's tasks.

play19:30

So if you've seen any of our Project for the Web demos yet,

play19:33

either in this event or conference

play19:37

or in other demos, or if you've used it yourself,

play19:40

what you're seeing here is the Project

play19:43

for the Web experience

play19:45

and really all the power of that experience

play19:48

that you've seen already.

play19:50

We're seeing our grid,

play19:51

we're seeing all the fields,

play19:52

we can go ahead and add custom fields like this,

play19:56

we can choose to show other fields here,

play19:59

percent complete for example.

play20:03

And we have our board view available

play20:05

which you've seen in other Project for the Web demos

play20:08

and our timeline.

play20:09

And of course, the timeline is a true Gantt chart.

play20:12

One of the things I want to point out here is that

play20:15

Project for the Web is built

play20:17

on the Microsoft project scheduling engine.

play20:19

And we've been working on the scheduling engine

play20:21

for the last 35 years.

play20:23

It's kind of the crown jewel of the system.

play20:25

So when we re-imagined Project as Project for the Web,

play20:30

rather than rebuild that scheduling engine

play20:32

from the ground up, we simply made it into

play20:34

a cloud service and Project for the Web is built on it.

play20:38

Now one more thing I want to show you about projects

play20:40

is we have this very powerful experience here

play20:43

with all the custom fields shown that we've added

play20:45

you can add your own custom fields.

play20:47

But another thing I can do is I can just pop out

play20:50

to the native Project for the Web experience

play20:52

if I really just want to focus on the project

play20:55

and the custom fields I've added to the tasks

play20:58

and really just get in and manage the project

play21:00

in this full screen view.

play21:02

So either of these views, it's the same data,

play21:05

it's the same project,

play21:06

and whichever one makes the most sense for me,

play21:08

I'm free to use.

play21:10

Now this is all great.

play21:12

Hopefully you've seen how much power we've given you

play21:14

to customize and to manage your projects and programs

play21:17

and project requests inside the accelerator solution

play21:20

as well as pop out to the native experience.

play21:23

But any project management system worth this all

play21:25

is all about the data and the reporting.

play21:27

So let's get in and look at that.

play21:30

Okay, so let's dive into these reports.

play21:33

Now, Project for the Web already provides

play21:36

a bunch of out of the box reports

play21:38

and I'm going to show you those here

play21:39

but we've also added a number of reports

play21:41

specifically tuned to the Project Accelerator solution.

play21:45

Starts with our requests dashboard.

play21:47

So here you can see the project requests

play21:49

we have in the system,

play21:51

the estimated cost, overall benefits,

play21:53

looking at a pretty good ROI there, let's get to work,

play21:56

strategic alignment scores, and a prioritization matrix.

play22:00

So everything you need to really take a look

play22:02

into these requests and keep track of what's going on

play22:05

with incoming demand.

play22:07

Of course, I can drill in

play22:08

and look at any individual request as well.

play22:13

Now, get going along to programs.

play22:15

Here I get a nice view of the overall health

play22:18

of all the programs in the system.

play22:20

So, overall health, schedule health, financial health

play22:24

and issue health.

play22:24

And this is based on that data I showed you

play22:26

that's being managed within each program

play22:29

by the program manager

play22:30

and some from the underlying projects as well.

play22:32

And once again, I can drill into any individual

play22:36

program right here.

play22:38

Program financials is a great look

play22:41

at what's going on with our overall program budgets,

play22:45

the project budgets within them,

play22:47

the budget remaining on all the projects in the programs.

play22:51

I get a great chart here about the budget, overall look here

play22:56

and then this is a great look at the allocation,

play22:59

this budget versus actuals.

play23:02

And once again I can drill into

play23:03

any of my individual programs here.

play23:06

Now, we've talked about programs,

play23:08

but now we're going to jump up one level to portfolios.

play23:11

In this case, portfolios represent

play23:15

all of the projects in the system.

play23:17

But you could of course add a portfolio table

play23:21

or even just just a field to the programs

play23:23

so that you could break programs and projects

play23:25

into individual portfolios

play23:27

and then have a filter up here for those portfolios.

play23:30

What I'll show you a bit is how we can drill into

play23:33

individual programs here.

play23:35

But you see this is the health

play23:37

of all the projects in my system.

play23:40

And then I have a list here of all the projects

play23:42

and of course I can double click into any of those projects.

play23:46

But I can also do things, I can go in

play23:48

and I can take a look at any one of our project managers.

play23:52

Lydia's incredibly overworked here

play23:55

as most project managers are.

play23:57

I can also drill in and look at only active projects

play24:04

and even programs.

play24:05

So I have four programs here

play24:07

and I can go ahead and filter the report by those programs.

play24:12

We also have a dashboard very similar

play24:14

to our program dashboard.

play24:16

This is for all the projects in the system,

play24:18

all of them are in progress right now

play24:20

and we have an effort remaining for each project

play24:25

and then the overall effort

play24:26

and effort remaining by project manager.

play24:30

And then here's all the projects here

play24:31

and one of the things you see is I have

play24:33

really great data about details of the project.

play24:37

Like overall, where's the progress of that project

play24:40

based on the tasks, what's going on with effort.

play24:43

This project obviously has the most effort,

play24:46

which project has the most overdue tasks and so on.

play24:49

And this is all of course powered by data

play24:52

that's in Project for the Web and the power of Power BI.

play24:57

We also have a nice look at portfolio financials

play25:00

and one of the nice things here is by stage,

play25:03

I don't know if you remember,

play25:04

but we showed you that stage field we have on each project

play25:07

where we can see by stage how much budget

play25:10

is involved in each stage right now.

play25:14

Another thing we have is a nice portfolio timeline

play25:17

which simply shows you all the projects in time

play25:20

as a single bar, including effort and effort remaining.

play25:23

Now another capability you want to look at

play25:25

is our project roadmap which gets into a more active view

play25:29

of individual projects side-by-side

play25:31

across Project for the Web, project online

play25:34

and even Azure boards.

play25:36

Now we have a report for project milestones

play25:38

but I want to make sure to get to

play25:40

a lot of the other reports.

play25:41

We have a risk dashboard, issues dashboard

play25:43

and changes dashboard, I want to briefly show you those.

play25:46

You see, here we get to look at all the open risks

play25:49

and cost exposure and a prioritization matrix.

play25:52

And these are risks across all of the projects.

play25:56

So we've added this risks table to the system.

play25:59

Each project manager can add risks for their project

play26:03

but then we get this reporting across all those risks,

play26:06

we get the same for issues and changes.

play26:09

But what I want to get into now

play26:10

is really how much you can look at resources.

play26:13

So here's our resource dashboard

play26:15

and we have 11 resources across all our projects.

play26:18

We can start looking at the tasks overall.

play26:21

We can see resource tasks by project,

play26:24

who is working on what tasks.

play26:28

We can go over here and for all of our resources

play26:31

we can see effort completed and effort remaining.

play26:34

We can see, we get a great view of tests by status

play26:36

and we can also drill into resources by project.

play26:40

So here we can see this project,

play26:42

the employee benefits review has three resources on it

play26:46

and we can see where they are in the project.

play26:48

So again, this is across all the projects in the system.

play26:52

Of course, we could add a filter here

play26:54

and filter by program and we can also go in

play26:58

and filter in on individual resources.

play27:06

Now here's another deep dive into resources

play27:08

and their assignments.

play27:10

So here kind of the high order bit is the resource.

play27:13

And so we can drill into any of these people

play27:16

and see which projects they're working on

play27:19

and all the tasks that they're assigned to

play27:22

in those projects even if, let's see if,

play27:25

I think Lydia of course is overworked

play27:26

and she has multiple projects.

play27:28

So I really get the chance to deep dive into what's going on

play27:32

with my resources across individual projects and tasks

play27:35

and then at the project level as well.

play27:39

And once again, I can drill into any project

play27:43

and see the resources associated with that project,

play27:46

ever completed and remaining by project manager.

play27:49

So really a good deep dive on our resources here.

play27:53

We have a nice tasks overview where we're focused more on

play27:57

the tasks completed, future tasks, et cetera, et cetera.

play28:03

And like that portfolio timeline

play28:05

I also have a project timeline

play28:06

where I'm seeing individual projects and I've seen them.

play28:11

I can see them as a bar across time,

play28:13

but I also drill in and get kind of

play28:15

the same as the Gantt chart review

play28:17

for any of these individual projects.

play28:19

Now finally, if I want to drill into my work

play28:23

and let's say, I'm Lydia,

play28:27

I have this view where I can really get in

play28:29

and see what's happening with the projects I'm managing.

play28:32

Obviously I'm managing far too many,

play28:34

the tasks that are assigned to me and so on

play28:37

and I can even drill in to individual projects.

play28:41

And finally, my timeline.

play28:43

So this is projects associated only with me, if I'm Lydia,

play28:48

and I can see the projects and tasks across time.

play28:54

So that's a bit of a whirlwind through our reports

play28:57

and I encourage you to to drill into

play29:02

the accelerator solution

play29:03

and so what we're going to do now

play29:04

is we're going to talk about

play29:05

our plans for releasing the accelerator solution to you.

play29:10

All right, so hopefully out of this demo

play29:12

you've seen the power of Project for the Web

play29:15

coupled with the Power Platform

play29:17

and the Microsoft Project Accelerator solution

play29:20

which we're providing to you

play29:22

both as an out-of-the-box solution

play29:24

and as a starting point for the customization

play29:27

and innovations you want to do

play29:29

to meet your core project management needs.

play29:32

And we have a simple next step here,

play29:34

run, don't walk to, aka.ms/ProjAccelerator

play29:39

and download it today.

play29:40

It is a Power Apps solution that can be deployed

play29:43

into any Power Platform environment

play29:46

that supports Project for the Web,

play29:47

whether it's your default environment,

play29:49

whether it's your production or test environments,

play29:52

any environments you have.

play29:53

Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed this session

play29:56

and thanks for being part of our event.

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