Microsoft Project Collaboration and Data Sharing

[uxclarity]

Hi,

I’m new to Microsoft Project. I’ve taken an online course but unfortunately the course material does not have the answers to my questions.

The organisation I work for uses Microsoft Office 2016. I also have Microsoft Project 2016 installed on my company laptop. 

A senior colleague in the organisation has asked for the following:

1. The ability for team members to only update agreed columns (e.g. % complete) within the Microsoft project file. The team member should not be able to add, delete or amend columns that have not been set. Team members do not have access to Microsoft project. 

2. The ability to live share the task table and gantt chart views with non Microsoft project users. 

I’m unsure if this is possible but would appreciate any help you can offer. 

Thanks you for taking the time to read my plea for help. Any advice or guidance you can offer to answer the above questions is greatly appreciated. 

UXClarity

[#2]

uxclarity --

You basically have two options to meet your needs. If you use Microsoft's new web-based application called Project for the Web, your team members will be able to edit the % Complete value for each of their tasks, and will NOT be able to edit anything else about the project. Your team members will also be able to view the information in the project, including the Timeline view, which looks like a Gantt Chart view.

On the other hand, if you want to use the Microsoft Project desktop application, you will also need to use either Project Online or Project Server to meet your needs. You will need the Professional version of Microsoft Project along with either of these tools. If you use this method, your team members will be able to enter their task progress in a web-based Tasks page. Also, all interested parties, including executives and team members, will be able to see project information in a web-based page known as the Project Center page. For your executives, you could also create custom Power BI views to information about all projects and all resources in the system.

Keep in mind that if you want to use Project Online or Project Server, I would strongly recommend that you hire a consultant or consulting company to help you configure the software and to train your project managers how to correctly use the software.

Hope this helps.