Microsoft Project Server Reviews

• Project metrics
• Document management
• Financial reporting
• Resource management. 

We use the data collected to manage project data, create and manage assignments and schedule via MS Project connectivity. We also track the current and future assignments for our resource to determine their availability and workload for current and future endeavors.

One source of truth for project metrics, management, and financial reporting. Through additional dashboards and reports, we have developed a way we can distribute project data and updated it to all of our stakeholders and customers.

• Project management
• One consistently updated and backup/secured location for all project data
• Accurate project metrics are critical to being able to manage our projects from a central database.

OOB reporting is not very robust. We have utilized SSRS, Excel Services and Qlik Sense to expand the OOB reporting capabilities. We use a hosted on-premise version so that we can have better direct access to the SQL server data. 

MS Project standalone version and SharePoint repositories were our previous solutions.

Engage an experienced and highly rated vendor to help in the discovery and planning of the implementation. Project Server is better priced than many of the higher-end project management solutions.

No.

Training for the userbase is a primary concern. Make sure there is a great training plan in place to ensure the userbase can be productive very early in the process.

This product gives the ability to have all project data in one location and look across information while still giving PMs the flexibility to manage their project and have a tool to use with their team (fine balance between project management tool and management tool).

• Views can be controlled organization role.
• Custom attributes can be added as trigger levels to include in a management report, view or dashboard
• The use of SharePoint allows team collaboration and gives the PM the flexibility to add document libraries, lists, etc. to manage their project.

Dashboarding of information has given the organization insight, so we can move to be more proactive versus reactive.

Risk Management: Risk and issues are stored in the project SharePoint but there is no real auto communication of assignments (unless the end user sets it up); there is no mechanism for automatic escalation (much needed).

Issues are visible within the application (My issues area) so individuals can log in and see issues assigned to them.

Project Managers can set up email communications when issues change. (Admin can’t do it across the board but individual PMs can set up.)

We flag issues that need to be escalated and use SSRS reports that are emailed out at regular intervals.

I implemented Project Server in November 2014 (and have used MS Project since 2000).

Nintex workflow integration does give us some performance delays. Workflow response times can take up to 20 minutes to proceed to the stage (this is a work-in-progress for our IT team).

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

Technical support is 8/10.

We used Business Engine Network for 12 years. Business Engine Network was bought by Planview and sunsetted. We were geared up to implement Planview’s product when the opportunity arose for us to look at MS Project Server. While Planview is a great portfolio management tool, its project management is weak.

We used a third-party supplier, Pcubed, for initial setup.

Pricing varies according to many variables (on premise, MS hosted, third-party hosted, etc.)

Having a PM business process in place prior to tool implementation to support that project not only makes it easier to configure the tool but makes it easier to grow the tool and become more mature in your business process.

I like being able to manage the capacity in terms of the resources. I also like being able to share documents and information between teams. It's the best solution for collaboration.

When we started using this solution from scratch, we got lost. Microsoft should provide some templates for configurations for certain use cases.

I've been using this solution for six years.

It's a stable solution. The cloud version in particular is very stable.

Microsoft Project Server is a scalable solution. We have 25 people using it.

The initial setup is straightforward if you are familiar with the Chatbot solution of Microsoft.

The initial deployment took about six months because I was working on other projects at the same time.

We deployed the solution ourselves. Our team consisted of four engineers.

Microsoft Project Server is an expensive solution. Small businesses will not be able to afford it.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Project Server at six out of ten.

Our primary use case would be to reset out projects online during the process and be able to use the Project Pro to run or exhibit projects which are already planned as part of the process of project management.

It improves the managing function with this product.

I think the division between the onsite work on the cloud of Microsoft Office is something valuable. It is used for consulting assignments. I think that people are more used to the Microsoft inner-workings. They use Excel, and the other Office products, so it is easily adaptable. In addition, it is easily used on mobile applications.

I think stability is good but I think there's quite some amount of activity towards integration with SharePoint.  So, the institution in terms of collaborating and sharing projects, I think that's something that needs to be worked on in the future.

In terms of the performance, I think it's something that took a big toll on the service when a lot of people logged in finally, so that's something that can be improved in the future.

They were good, but they took quite some time to resolve a ticket. We figured it out with our own tech support. The issue was a performance issue, so we could see our position taking a longer time to load because it would generally take three seconds. At the max, it was taking more than ten seconds for the application to load. Eventually, we got it resolved through a Microsoft tech service technician on-site.

It was already implemented, but it had to be customized. We did some customization, along with some approvals along with the Share Point. So, it was a little more complex implementation. In terms of creating forms for users to log in with their information, as well as integrating Share Point with Project, we had to research how to create a flow between these two platforms. Initially, there were problems with the integration of the two.

The licensing was procured before my involvement.

I know that there are other solutions in this realm. Gmail is one that others are using right now. They are the main competitor. 

People are still have the view that not many of these run through Microsoft project. A lot of these will be running through Agile, so that's the basic difference I've seen in terms of the competitions in my projects.

I think this solution is a more scalable, so people now will start believing that Microsoft can also be used. The comfort of using Microsoft products, which is likely for most of the clients, is that they use Microsoft Office as their primary word processing or data processing tool. I think people have their trust in the Microsoft product line, so I think it's good to give them something because I think it's easier for them to adopt and implement.

We use it for managing our internal projects, for tracking the status and progress of our projects in terms of schedules - that they are delivered on time - and that the expenditure is controlled.

We are able to know what we are doing, how much we have spent, how much time we've taken, and it tells us how much money is left for the project. It also tells us whether we are below or above our expenditures, whether we are below or above our budget.

The graphical scheduling feature is very important for us.

It has to be more user-friendly. For instance, there should be some assistance, like when you go to certain sites, people pop up and say, "Can we help you? What are you looking for?" It's not interactive enough.

The stability is fine for our purposes.

Because our projects are medium size, it's capable of dealing with the details that we require. It's able to capture the critical details that we require at every stage.

Setting up is not that difficult.

It's a good solution but it does have limitations, as I said: The real-time interactions with the user are absent. That is the only issue that I would mention. Otherwise, I would recommend it.

The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are that the product has to meet the budget. It has to be something we are able to afford and also it should address our specific needs.

I would rate it at seven out of 10 because it meets most of our requirements. And judging from the stakeholder's response, they are pretty happy with what we have been giving them as presentations.

We use Microsoft Project Server for project planning, capacity management, baselining, progress reporting, and monitoring.

Capacity management and task baselining are the most valuable features of Microsoft Project Server.

The solution's synchronization with Jira Projects should be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Project Server for more than 20 years.

Microsoft Project Server is a scalable solution. Around 100 users are using the solution in our organization.

The solution's technical support is good.

Positive

Microsoft Project Server’s initial setup is easy.

Microsoft Project Server is deployed on-cloud in our organization.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Project Server a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution to manage the project lifecycle. Generally the lifestyle starts at demand phase. We design a workflow according to customer's needs. The workflow starts with project ideation and project selection, if the project fits company criteria it will move onto the project management phase.  

Let's say you have 10 projects and you don't know which ones to move into actual project management phase. Customers use the portfolio and analysis feature of Project Server, and decide which project to do according to capacity planning(if they have the resources) and budget. If the company has enough resources then its the projects with most benefit that gets selected. For the selected projects lifecycle will continue. As it moves forward, you will get more project detail pages, more things to work with. This will also produce some reports as well.

The solution is very good at helping you pick which project to move forward with.

The stability has been pretty good.

We've found that the solution can scale if we need it to.

The installation is fairly straightforward.

The documentation on offer is excellent.

Technical support is very responsive - particularly on critical tickets.

When it comes to integration with other systems Project Server falls short. There used to be out-of-box integration with TFS for example but with Project Server 2016 and forward that integration is deprecated. There is room for improvement here.

When it comes to project management itself, I'd like to see some hybrid solutions right now across the on-premises deployments especially. On-premise only has waterfall style project management. On the other hand Project Online has a lot better integration and hybrid (agile-waterfall) project management abilities. This should also be the case for On-premise customers.

The check-in, check-out feature, makes Microsoft Project Server pretty slow or cumbersome to use. Users mostly forget when to check-in. We have problems with that. If it's a bit faster to use, or easier to use, like your Planner or other programs, it would be better. You should just be able to type in something and it's updated. The ease of use could be improved.

I've been using the solution for three years at this point.

The stability is okay. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The scalability is okay. We don't really have any technical performance problems. If we have it, it's because of infrastructure, not because of Project Server mostly.

We mostly work with governmental agencies. On current projects, there are about 300 people working on the solution. We have ten project managers and five profile managers on our end.

Technical support is pretty good. We have seen problems due to the infrastructure and management on the customer's side, which affected some services on Project Server. One ticket I opened as normal severity which took two weeks to resolve. That said, when I opened a ticket with critical severity that is blocking some services, somebody contacted me in less than an hour. We were able to fix the problem in three hours total. I'd say overall, the support side is good. 

There's also excellent documentation, which I would rate at a nine out of ten.

The installation is very easy with MinRole helping you along the way. You can do high availability of the SharePoint services fairly easy except for the DB part. For that you have to rely on your DB Admins to give you a listener for a High Availability cluster. 

I'm not just a user, I implement solutions. We are Microsoft partners. I develop the solution from infrastructure to power bi reports. User experience, customization, and reporting.

In Turkey, especially governmental agencies, they don't want to be on the cloud. So all the environments I manage, they're on-prem.

Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're mostly happy with the product.

It just works. Although, EPM 2010 UI seems a bit dated now that 2016 is available.

A single place for all our organisation's project records.

Deliverables List: Most useful to enable meaningful status reporting at an enterprise level. It enables a minimum viable reporting level for "accidental" project leads who are unfamiliar with scheduling techniques.

The new versions appear to address the current UX and an ability to better represent the application of agile management methodologies.