Contents

Configuration Guidelinesfor Selected Areas
Best Practice Guide
Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007
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Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 – Configuration Recommendations for Selected Areas – Best Practice Guide

Applies To:

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007

Summary:

This guide describes key configuration guidelines for Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

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© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Contents

Contents

Introduction

Overview

The Scope of This Guide

The Audience

Guide Chapters

General Functionality

Methodology

Technology

Portfolio Server Module

The Builder

My Scorecard

Resource Pool

Preferences

Reports

The Optimizer

Edit

Analysis

The Dashboard

The Tab Structure

Tab Settings

Tab Use

Project Info Tab

Additional Information Tab

Budget Cost Tab

Budget Resource Tab

Benefits Estimates Tab

Schedule Tab

Status Tab

Cost Tracking Tab

Resource Tracking Tab

Project Reports Tab

Settings

Settings – Overview

The Super User

The Settings

Account and User Management

Account Management

Organization Management

Portfolio/Program Management

User Management

Financial Management

Financial Management

Workflow Management

Workflow Management

Structure and Attribute Management

Survey Management

Driver Management

Business Process Management

Attribute and Indicator Management

Resource Management

Other Settings

Project Server Gateway

Windows SharePoint Services Server Settings

Data Transfer

Other Settings

Appendix

References

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 Builder - User Manual1

©Copyright 2007 Microsoft Corporation

Settings,

chapter

1

Introduction

Overview

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 (Portfolio Server)is a top-down portfolio management solution that helps organizations realize their potential by identifying, selecting, managing, and delivering portfolios that best align with their business strategy and resource constraints.

Portfolio Server is a key component of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution. It helps executives gain visibility, insight, and control across their project, program, and application portfolios.

To support an effective decision-making process, Portfolio Server offers several functions and capabilities. Using them correctly, organizations can derive optimal value from project portfolio investments.

The Scope of This Guide

This guide outlines some of the high-level performance potentials and guidelines of Portfolio Server based on successful user and organizational adoption. The guide focuses on areas where it is important to observe specific technical and managerial limitations and guidelines to ensure effective use of Portfolio Server.

For each function, the guide focuses onthree main topics:

  • The function description
  • The function intended use
  • Guidelines on usage and performance limits

The Audience

This guide is intended for users who are in the process of setting up Portfolio Server and want a quick reference guide that describes the use and performance considerations of key functions.

For users who intend to be Portfolio Server administrators, the guide provides some information regarding maintenance and administration of Portfolio Server.

Portfolio Server touches upon the organization strategy, budgetary constraints, and help users make the best decisions for their organization. With respect to this, careful consideration must be given to the setup and configuration of Portfolio Server. To maximize the benefits of the tool, ensure long-term success, and smooth continuity when transitioning from one version to another, it is recommended that organizations use the help of Microsoft partners in deploying Portfolio Server and Portfolio Management best practices.

Guide Chapters

The guide is organized into several chapters that describe the various functions ofPortfolio Server:

Chapter 1, “Introduction”, briefly describes the guide’s content and theaudience it aims to support.

Chapter 2, “General Functionality”, describes general functionalities.

Chapter 3, “Portfolio Server Module”, describes features and functions of the Builder, Optimizer, and Dashboard modules.

Chapter 4, “The Tab Structure”, describes features and functions of the tabs – the building blocks of the Project Server repository.

Chapter 5, “Settings”, describes features and functions for the configuration of Portfolio Server.

Chapter 6, “Appendix”, includes references for additional information.

chapter

2

General Functionality

Methodology

Entity Definitions

Portfolio Server tracks entities such as projects and portfolios. These entities must be defined for the user to ensure shared understanding and buy-in. For example:

  • Projects – Projects are the basic entity of a portfolio and it is important to set guidelines for their definition. When managing portfolios, this becomes essential. The governance process for portfolio management calls for the prioritization and optimization of projects. For best results, projects going thorough this analysis should be in the same range regarding duration, size, risk, and effort required.Organizations should define what constitutes a project for each type of portfolio to ensure the analysis compares ‘like’ projects and that their impact assessments on the drivers are even. Projects should be clearly distinguished from ‘business as Usual’. As a rule, an organization will have discretion as to whether or not it executes a given project.
  • Programs – Organizations dealing with large numbers of projects have the option to group projects by program then prioritize them and optimize portfolios based on programs’ cost and resource constraints. Portfolio Server allows each project to belong to only one program.Programs can also be used as management tools to group projects and manage them as one unit. Organizations should define their ownprograms and the way they intend to use them. If programs are used in the Optimizer, additional setups are required in Portfolio Server.
  • Custom Portfolios –Portfolios allow users to group entities across an organization regardless of organizational ownership. The entities include projects, programs and applications and can belong to any number of portfolios. Using portfolios, organizations can group projects based on type, special areas of interest, geography, and more.It is essential that organizations define the type of portfolios they plan to manage.
  • Applications – If an organization decides to manage applicationsin Portfolio Server, the organization should define what would be considered an application.This definition is unique to each organization. Itcould include several types of applications, each with its own special requirements.

Governance Process

As much as Portfolio Server supports the organization’s governance process, there are several governance areas beyond Portfolio Serverframework that need to be defined, communicated, and followedfor project and portfolio management best practice. Such areas could be:

  • The frequency of running the prioritization and optimization process during any fiscal year. For best results, the recommended frequency is quarterly.
  • The cutoff time for submitting projects for Optimization analysis. Organizations needto evaluate the time theywill require to take the portfolio evaluationfrom the submission cutoff point to the complete evaluation and the selection of project for the portfolio. This effort involves many stakeholders and requires time and effort to orchestrate.
  • Budget reserve for new proposals. Although budget cycles tend to be annual, proposals for new projects arise year-round. It is a good practice to reserve some portfolio budget for allocation to new proposals in quarters 2 and 3 of the fiscal year.
  • The rules for optimizing portfolios that include in-flight projects. When managing portfolios of projects, new project ideas will constantly be generated. Organizations must decide on a course of action to takewhen the new projects are more effective than the ones running.

Training and communication

The portfolio management and its supporting governance process requirestakeholders’buy-in and support across the organization. To ensure cooperation, the methodologies and the processes must be clearly understood. This requiresthe setup and implementation of training infrastructure and communication.

Technology

Server Structure

Organizations running both Project Server and Portfolio Server may setup different server configurations. Some generic options are listed below. These setups are just a sample and for the right setup, organizations should work with a Microsoft Partner for support.

  • Single site, one server – one server that hosts both tools and other support programs
  • Single site, multi servers – one server farm that includes Portfolio Server, and one or several Project Servers (including Windows SharePoint Services), SQL Servers, and Reporting Servers
  • Multi sites – one centralized server farm that includes Portfolio Server, SQL Server, and Reporting Server which supports several satellite server farms, each consisting of one or more Project Servers, SQL Servers, and Reporting Servers

Usage

Number of projects supported

Small organizations might manageup to 500 projects, large organizations might manage a few thousand projects. When the number of projects in a portfolio is high,organizations might consider simplifying the prioritization and optimization process by usingprograms, which combine several projects and allow users to manage them as one unit.

Locale Support

Locale setting defines the Portfolio Server presentation format of currency and numbers (the use of period and commas to separate decimals and thousands). The locale settings also defines the date format (e.g. English US: mm/dd/yyyy; English UK: dd/mm/yyyy).However, Portfolio Server supports only the Gregorian calendar regardless of locale.

Windows Server 2008

The current version of Portfolio Server 2007 SP1 is compatible with both Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008. The same compatibility is expected to be part of all planned future versions.

SQL 2005

Portfolio Server supports all 32 bit version of SQL 2005 except for the Express version. Portfolio Server also requires SQL 2005 Reporting Services.

Use of LAN/WAN

For best performance, users should utilize LAN to access Portfolio Server, and communication channels of 100 mbps or better. Performance may be degraded when user access Portfolio Server over a WAN / Internet, especially when there is a large amount of data, or uploading and updating large documents. As an alternate means of access, organization can consider Terminal Services – remote desktop options. In all cases, organizations should test the performance of their access optionsand select the appropriate one for their needs.

Email Server

During the initial installation of the software, the administrator will be asked to define the SMTP server for sending emails.To change the email server after the installation, the administrator should follow these steps:

  1. Open the web.config file, located in the installation directory (typically c:\inetpub\wwwroot\PortfolioServer)
  2. Find a line with the Main.SMTPServer statement in the lower section of the file
  3. Enter the IP address or DNS name of an SMTP server reachable on port 25, no authentication required
  4. Similarly, find and update the line with the From key, with the appropriate email address that all emails should be originated from

Note:The administrator might need to add the IP address of the Portfolio Server in the SMTP server configuration to set it as an authorized host.

Hardware

Machine type

Project Portfolio Server 2007 requires a 32-bit machine. There is no 64-bit version and the installer will not run on a 64-bit operating system. In addition, the administrator needs to install the reporting tier on a 32-bit reporting server.

Database Size

Estimating the required size of the DB depends on its use. For project information that goes into the Builder repository, one megabyte per project should be sufficient.

In the case where documents are stored in Windows SharePoint Services sites for the Portfolio Server entities, especially whenWindows SharePoint Services is set to track document versions, thespace requirements for the Windows SharePoint Servicescontent database need to be considered.

chapter

3

Portfolio Server Module

The Builder

My Scorecard

The Function

The My Scorecard in Builder module is the first screen displayed after logging into Portfolio Server. It displays all the projects the user is allowed to see based on his user group and organization role. From My Scorecard, users can navigate through the various organizations and portfolios to add, delete, view, or edit projects, programs, and applications.

The system administrator defines a default Scorecard view and each user can define and store severalScorecard views– any one of which can be set as the default view at any time.

My Scorecard View

The user controls what is displayed on the My Scorecard screenby selecting theGroup by Hierarchy,Display Entities, and any predefined filters to narrow the content of the view. Not all combinations can be included in the same view: for example,custom portfolios and organizations cannot be viewed together.

Checking In and Checking Out

When a user edits a project, the project is marked as checked out and cannot be edited by other users. Users can view the name of the editing user by resting the mouse pointer over the CheckedOut icon ().

If a project is checked out and left open without activities, or if the browser is closed without checking in a project, the project will remain checked outfor two hours,then system forces an automatic check in for these projects.

Managing Entities (Projects, Programs, and Applications)

When projects, programs, and applicationsare created, they are owned by a specific organization(default portfolio). Once created, an entity cannot be moved to a different organization.The reason for this is that every organization can have a different structure (cost tree, attributes, benefit tree, risk questions, strategic objectives, etc.). In order to move an entity to a different organization, users mustexport the entity, delete it from its original organization, and then import it to the new organization using the ‘Data Transfer’ section for export and import.

To perform this process, use the following steps:

Identify the entities to be transferred: If only subset of the organization entities need to be moved – create a filter that identifies the specific entities to be transferred.

  1. Go to Settings > Other Settings > Filter Management and click on the ‘Add Filter’ tab.
  2. Select the entity type to be transferred under ‘Select new filter type’ and click on ‘Next’
  3. From the Available entity list in the left hand window, select the entities to be transferred and move them to the right hand window and click on ‘Next’.
  4. Enter the filter name. The filter can remain private and can be deleted at the end of the transition process.

Export the entity into an Excel Spreadsheet:

  1. Go to Settings > Data Transfer > Project Data Export (or Application Data Export).
  2. Select the organization that currently owns the entity (top left-hand side), and select the filter you have created (top right hand side).
  3. Select the separator type (unless there is a special reason to do otherwise, use the default comma separator).
  4. Select all appropriate attributes, Users, and Indicators; check all that apply (indicator colors, Workflow, and any associations).

5.Click on ‘Export’; Portfolio Server will create a file. Click on ‘Save’ and provide the name, and path for the file to be saved.

Preparing for import

  1. Delete the entities from the original organization (In My Scorecard, make sure to highlight each entity under the owner organization and click on ‘Delete’).
  2. Make sure that all attributes to be imported are available in the new organization and all the appropriate associations are set.

Import:

  1. Go to Settings > Data Transfer > Project Data Import (or Application Data Import).
  2. Select the organization to import to and click on ‘Next’.
  3. Select the file to import from (use ‘Bourse’ to identify it if needed) and click on ‘Next’.
  4. Perform the import (see Portfolio Server manual for more details):
  5. Select import the builder attributes and click on ‘Next’, and in the next screen ensure that all appropriate entities are selected in the upper window, and all appropriate attributes are selected in the lower window. The import process is done in several steps Click on ‘Next’, select ‘Import new data’ radio button (this is the only step in the import process that new data is imported. All subsequent data import steps will use ‘Update existing data’.
  6. Repeat the process for all other appropriate data types (Cost, Users, Risk).

Note: when importing Costs and Benefits, Portfolio Server will require users to identify the tree level and the time periods in order to identify the exact import location.