SharePoint 2010 for Project Management pdf

Apart from increasing productivity, wewere able to: • Automate status reporting for stakeholders • Use collaboration to generate real-time project lessons learned that were easilyaccessi

SECOND EDITION SharePoint 2010 for Project

Management

Dux Raymond Sy

SharePoint 2010 for Project Management, Second Edition

by Dux Raymond Sy

Copyright © 2012 Innovative-e, Inc All rights reserved.

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con-ISBN: 978-1-449-30637-3

2 Setting Up the PMIS 11

Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS Foundation 15

Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page 20

Workshop 2.2: Updating Your Site’s Regional Settings 25

3 Adding PMIS Components 27

Part 1: Creating and Populating a Calendar List 36Part 2: Creating and Populating a Contacts List 38

Part 5: Creating and Populating a Custom Resource List 41Part 6: Displaying the New Lists on the Home Page 46

Workshop 3.2: Creating and Populating a Document Library 55

4 Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS 63

5 Supporting Team Collaboration 81

Part 2: Checking Out and Editing a Document from the Document

Part 3: Viewing All the Changes Made to the Document 93

Facilitating Team Collaboration 96

6 Project Tracking 103

Workshop 6.1: Updating the Schedule and Tracking Risks 110

Part 2: Populating and Updating the Project Tasks List 112

Workshop 6.2: Creating a Change Control System with

Part 2: Customizing the Three-State Workflow 124

Workshop 7.2: Maximizing Project Reporting with Web Parts 150Part 1: Updating Web Parts on Your PMIS Home Page 150

8 Integrating PM Tools 173

Integrating Microsoft Project into SharePoint 174

Creating a Custom List from an Existing Excel Spreadsheet 179Exporting an Excel Spreadsheet to SharePoint As a Custom List 180Synchronizing Excel Tables with a SharePoint List 182Workshop 8.2: Synchronizing Excel with SharePoint 185

Part 2: Synchronizing the SharePoint List with Excel 188

9 Project Closing 191

1 Leverage and Prove the Value of SharePoint as a PMIS on a Pilot Project 198

2 Provide User Support in Learning and Utilizing SharePoint 199

Index 203

Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinangalingan

ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan (He who does not know how to look back at where

he came from will never get to his destination.)

—Dr José P Rizal, Philippine national hero

Do you find yourself asking for more time whenever you work on a project? Do youever get the extra time you asked for? Well, if you’re like me, you rarely get the extratime you need from your customers This got me thinking about how I can buy moretime for my projects

I decided to find out if I could gain more time by reducing inefficiencies within theproject team (which also includes myself) In a recent project, I monitored and analyzed

a few individuals for a week and was amazed at what I discovered

During an average eight-hour workday, each individual spent about 45 minutes lookingfor information For example, when asked by a client to retrieve a specific status report,the project coordinator had to look for it on the network share, in her email inbox, inthe project folder of her computer, and she even had to call up another colleague tohelp her find it This typical mode of searching took up time that could have been spent

on something more productive In addition, project resources were unproductive due

to poor document management practices, inefficient project communication

stand-ards, and ineffective project collaboration tools According to a May 31, 2007, New

York Times article, “Time Wasted? Perhaps It’s Well Spent” ( http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/05/31/fashion/31work.html), a Microsoft study found that American workers, onaverage, spend 45 hours a week at work, with 16 of these hours described as

“unproductive.”

Although 45 minutes may not sound like a lot, when you look at the bigger picture, itessentially means that a team of 20 people wastes 900 minutes a day In a three-monthproject, that is 54,000 minutes, or roughly 38 personal days—more than one-third ofthe project!

Other than time, how much does this cost the project and the organization? Well,depending on who you’re considering, 45 minutes might cost $50 for a project coor-dinator or $250 for a technical contractor, each day.

Bottom line: time and money are not well spent What if my team could regain just 20

of those 45 minutes wasted each day?

With SharePoint, we achieved this and more Apart from increasing productivity, wewere able to:

• Automate status reporting for stakeholders

• Use collaboration to generate real-time project lessons learned that were easilyaccessible by a globally dispersed team

• Synchronize standard project information such as calendars, contacts, anddocuments

• Document and track project risks and issues

• Maintain a quality log

• Integrate existing project management tools such as email, Microsoft Word, Excel,and Project into SharePoint

• Create and manage a change control system

For me, the best part of using SharePoint was that once the IT/IS department performedthe installation and initial configuration, I didn’t have to burden anybody to set up andfurther configure this unique Project Management Information System (PMIS)—I did

it all myself In addition, I was still able to better use existing tools like Microsoft Officealong with SharePoint

That’s what this book is all about By clearly mapping the relationships between projectmanagement processes and project stakeholders, and by leveraging tools like Share-Point, you will learn how to apply common and practical project management techni-ques using SharePoint More importantly, with this book you will quickly masterSharePoint so you can build a PMIS that can help you efficiently coordinate commu-nication and collaboration throughout your project team

Who Should Read This Book

This book will be most valuable to individuals working on projects who want to adaptSharePoint for project management, including:

Project managers

By managing a project officially or unofficially, project managers are involved fromthe project’s inception to its closure Their responsibilities include project plan-ning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing In addition, they lead aproject team and are the project liaison with key stakeholders

Project team members

Members of the team work in a project environment that requires participating incollaborative activities, such as project planning, status updates, risk monitoring,tracking, requesting changes, and maintaining critical project information

SharePoint consultants can help you to leverage your SharePoint technical skills

by offering a focused approach in implementing SharePoint as a PMIS

What You Need to Best Use This Book

To maximize the benefits of this book, familiarity with basic project management cepts and terminologies is assumed This book is intended for individuals with a projectmanagement background who are interested in leveraging SharePoint on their projects.Furthermore, it is ideal that you have an existing SharePoint environment (SharePointFoundation or SharePoint Server) where you can practice and apply the techniques thatyou will learn If you are not sure about this, ask your IT/IS department these twoquestions:

con-• Am I a member of an existing SharePoint site?

• Am I allowed to create SharePoint subsites?

If the answer to both questions is yes, you are in good shape If the answer to either orboth questions is no, I suggest you ask for appropriate SharePoint access or rely onexternal SharePoint hosting vendors such as Office 365

Even better, you can leverage a fully functioning SharePoint environment, designed forthis book from Cloudshare, that you can use FREE for 14 days Visit http://innovative -e.com/sp4pmlab for more details

Finally, apart from having a SharePoint environment to work in, your computer must

be running Windows (XP or above versions), and it must have Internet Explorer 8 andMicrosoft Office installed Certain sections of this book showcase the integration ofMicrosoft Office products with SharePoint All of the examples in the book were createdusing Microsoft Office 2010

My Assumptions in Writing This Book

My assumptions are that you:

Have some sort of project management experience

You have managed projects formally or informally and are familiar with mental project management concepts and practices

funda-Are new to SharePoint

You may have heard of SharePoint or have been told to use SharePoint to manageyour projects If you have used SharePoint before, you will gain practical knowledge

in applying SharePoint for project management

Are using SharePoint for project management purposes

This book is focused on helping you leverage SharePoint for project management,regardless of what industry you are in The concepts and techniques in this bookapply to IT, construction, government, education, finance, and healthcare projects

If you are interested in using SharePoint to deploy a corporate portal, create anecommerce website, or develop a proprietary SharePoint application, this is notthe book for you

Are not interested in the nitty-gritty technical details of SharePoint

I am not inclined to write yet another technical book about SharePoint Though I

am a certified SharePoint geek, there are tons of other books available that do agreat job of discussing advanced technical topics The level of technical detail I willcover is just enough for you to get your PMIS up and running

Are comfortable using Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, and a web browser

The technical background required to fully utilize SharePoint is minimal As long

as you are familiar with basic computing concepts—such as creating and savingdocuments, copying files, logging in and logging out, using passwords, surfing theWeb, clicking on links on a web page, downloading and uploading, and distin-guishing files versus folders—you are in good shape

Are willing to change and try something new

Remember, to benefit from this book, you have to consciously decide that howyou manage project information, facilitate team collaboration, and enable projectcommunication must change for the better

Additional Resources

Websites:

• Project Management Institute (http://www.pmi.org)

• PRINCE2 (http://www.prince2.com/)

• Max Wideman’s Project Management Wisdom (http://www.maxwideman.com)

• All the Top SharePoint News (http://sharepoint.alltop.com)

• Microsoft Project for the Masses: FREE Resource Management Solution (http:// spgur.us/MSPFM)

Contents of This Book

This book includes hands-on workshops, which will help you leverage a SharePointPMIS just as you would in a typical project environment And using each chapter’sdetailed, step-by-step logical processes, you will integrate project management bestpractices and standards to fully reap the benefits of a SharePoint PMIS

Chapter 1, Project Kickoff

Chapter 2, Setting Up the PMIS

Chapter 3, Adding PMIS Components

Chapter 4, Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS

Chapter 5, Supporting Team Collaboration

Chapter 6, Project Tracking

Chapter 7, Project Reporting

Chapter 8, Integrating PM Tools

Chapter 9, Project Closing

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Constant width bold

Shows commands or other text that should be typed literally by the user

Constant width italic

Shows text that should be replaced with user-supplied values or by values mined by context

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Manage-ment, Second Edition, by Dux Raymond Sy (O’Reilly) Copyright 2012 Innovative-e,

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Acknowledgments

It’s been an amazing ride since the first edition of SharePoint for Project Management

was published SharePoint has exploded in the enterprise; in a recent report from AIIM,project management is the top use of SharePoint today (http://www.aiim.org/Research/ Industry-Watch/SharePoint-2011)

With this second edition, I would like to thank the following for their unwaveringsupport, trust, and patience:

• The Lord God for the awesome plan He has for me, as promised in Jeremiah 29:11

• My wonderful wife, Ramona, and amazing children, Johannes and Danika, formaking all this worthwhile

• Team Innovative-e for all the help and insights

• The O’Reilly Media crew for being top-notch as always

• The global SharePoint community for the kindness and hospitality you’ve shownme

• My good friend Dave Murphy for jumping in at the last minute to review

Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

Project Kickoff

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult

to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more gerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.

dan-—Niccolò Machiavelli, Italian philosopher

As most of you would agree, the definition of a project varies greatly—it can be buildingthe next space shuttle, upgrading the production line of your manufacturing facility,

or just creating a new website for a customer One common factor that holds true acrossthese varying project types is that all of them involve multiple people interacting with

a wide array of project information

This information can include templates, emails, schedules, proposals, forms, budgets,contact information, status reports, regulatory compliance, and even ad hoc docu-ments In spite of our best attempts to effectively manage project information, we allseem to fall short at times We rely on inconsistent and inefficient tools that are typically

a combination of three things:

envi-Mixed bag of project management tools

Some common tools used in project environments are Microsoft Word, MicrosoftExcel, and possibly Microsoft Project In certain cases, complex enterprise toolssuch as Microsoft Project Server and Primavera are also made available

Checklist: Essential Project Management Activities

When I formally started managing projects more than 15 years ago, I had the wrongimpression that the very first step to take was to fire up a scheduling tool (such asMicrosoft Project) and start cranking out the project tasks, defining the task duration,and establishing the task dependencies It never really worked out well for me Onlylater did I realize that there are other crucial steps I failed to do

Here’s my essential list of project management activities that every project managershould be doing throughout the life of a project:

• Create guidelines for how your projects will be initiated

• Run a kickoff meeting to define project objectives

• Identify your stakeholders

• Identify project information taxonomy

• Plan your projects with your team, including creating the work breakdown ture (WBS), creating the network diagram, identifying the critical path, and opti-mizing the project schedule

struc-• Define the probability and impact of project risks

• Create a change control process for scope changes

• Define quantifiable project-tracking processes

• Facilitate a lessons-learned meeting

To improve these inefficiencies, three things are necessary:

Apply a standard set of project management processes from the start of the project until the end

While I won’t go into detailed discussions on project management concepts andtheories, I will say that to make SharePoint work to your advantage, you have toemploy sound project management techniques and practices

If you don’t have one, the best way to develop a project management methodology

is to review best practices from the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Project

Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Guide and the Projects in Controlled

Environments (PRINCE2) road map

Consider this example: I have no cooking experience, so if I were to compete in a

cooking contest against the best chef in the world (à la Iron Chef), I would definitely

lose This is because even if, by chance, I cooked really well, there’s no method to

my madness—I dislike reading recipe books, so it’s hit or miss I am certain that aveteran chef would have proven processes in place, from how to chop the vegeta-bles to how long okra should simmer Not only do veteran chefs document thesesteps, they also constantly tweak their processes for improvement Guess what?The same thing applies to project management

Use a Project Management Information System (PMIS) to support your project ment processes

manage-As any experienced project manager would validate, having an easy-to-use,accessible, reliable, and scalable collaborative platform can contribute greatly to aproject’s success That’s the crux of what you will learn in this book: using Share-Point as your PMIS

Educate and update your project team with project management best practices

Having an incremental approach to continuous process improvement will enablethe project team to make better use of the PMIS

Dux Quax: Is It Changeworthy?

Listen, before you go gung-ho and start implementing formalized project managementprocesses in your organization, slow down, my good friend I guarantee that it won’twork if you change the rules overnight People, by nature, are averse to change (as youmight already know) As the old adage goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

So, what should you do? How can you convince your team that it’s necessary to plement project management processes? Taking baby steps is key:

im-Make the case that having sound project management processes will greatly improve how projects are run in the organization

A good exercise is to examine a previous project that didn’t turn out too well—itmight have been delayed or gone over budget Assess whether you had soundplanning processes Could you have done a better job defining the work and draw-ing up a more realistic schedule and budget?

Implement new processes one at a time

Initially, focus on the planning aspects of project management Perhaps come upwith a standard on defining project goals, identifying stakeholders, prioritizingrequirements, generating work breakdown, assigning work, developing a projectschedule, and documenting a risk management plan

Involve the team

Allow the team to provide feedback on the processes that will be implemented.Ask if they’re relevant If not, how can they be improved? Is there anything missing?What kind of support is necessary to ensure that these processes are adopted?Remember, people can change as long as they perceive it as worthwhile They are morelikely to make changes that will bring about benefits at a personal level than at theorganizational level

To get you started in developing your project management process, go to http://www spforpm.com for a step-by-step guide, complete with supporting templates, docu-ments, and references

What Is a PMIS?

As defined by the Project Management Institute (PMI; see http://www.pmi.org), a

Project Management Information System (PMIS) is a standardized set of automated

project management tools available within an organization and integrated into a tem Although the PMI does not specify which tools or technologies to use as a PMIS,SharePoint can be customized as one

sys-Checklist: Essential PMIS Capabilities

A reliable PMIS should support most, if not all, of the communication and collaborationneeds of a project environment Here is a list of essential PMIS capabilities:

• Supports the generation of a project charter, schedule, and budget

• Facilitates communication and feedback

• Monitors project activities

• Controls project changes

• Analyzes and forecasts project performance

• Disseminates project status to relevant stakeholders

• Provides real-time information essential for initiating, planning, executing, trolling, and closing a project

con-Deciding to Use a PMIS

No matter how small or large a project is, being able to efficiently manage projectinformation whenever, wherever, and however can greatly contribute to project suc-cess A key requirement for making this possible is leveraging a PMIS

Here are five telltale signs that you need to begin using a PMIS:

No standardized system for integrating project goals

Project schedule, cost, and quality objectives are individual silos For example,financial information in Excel is not automatically recalculated anytime the projectschedule is adjusted using scheduling tools such as Microsoft Project Makingmanual updates takes time away from other project activities

Inefficient document management

Project documents are not stored in a central location Tracking, undoing changes,and the ability to roll back to prior versions are limited Additionally, varying levels

of access permissions are unavailable IT/IS can only do so much in supportinginformation access requirements

Lack of appropriate tools to facilitate team collaboration

Project information is not accessible anytime, anywhere In addition, the team isincapable of developing or working with information at the same time

Inability to report accurate and timely status of the project

Project status information is available only when the project manager makes itavailable How do you deal with project sponsors who want to view real-timeproject status data?

Not achieving organizational strategic goals

Lacking a standardized tool to facilitate consistent project management processesthroughout an organization can limit the ability to effectively support strategicgoals

As a project manager, these five issues can more than justify the need for any zation to invest in a reliable, effective, customizable, and easy-to-implement PMIS.Today, multiple PMIS solutions are available However, in addition to being costly,they can require specialized skills to implement, customize, and maintain That’s why

organi-a lot of these initiorgani-atives horgani-ave organi-achieved only limited organi-adoption This is how Shorgani-arePointsets itself apart

What Is SharePoint?

How do people describe SharePoint? In my experience, the definition always gets lostsomewhere between collaboration and document management Here’s a concise andstraightforward description of SharePoint:

SharePoint allows individuals in an organization to easily create and manage their own collaborative solutions.

It sounds simple, but let me dissect what it truly means:

Individuals

Does this word specify that SharePoint users have to be technically savvy? No Infact, as long as users have familiarity with Windows, Microsoft Office, and surfingthe Web, they will be in good shape

Organization

This term implies that SharePoint can be used by a limited number of people longing to the same group It also means that there will be varying levels of authorityand privileges within the group As a result, you don’t have to rely on the IT/ ISdepartment to set up permissions in SharePoint—you are empowered to defineand manage access to specific information You will learn more about permissions

be-in Chapter 4

Easily

Instead of contacting IT/IS, any individual can create, customize, and manage thiscollaborative tool Although IT/IS will not be totally out of the picture, SharePointempowers users to develop a customized automated solution that can appropri-ately support their needs in a timely manner

The intent of SharePoint is to support collaborative activities (formal or informal)

in which groups engage

SharePoint has been around since 2001 It has evolved from a simple website ment tool to an empowering collaboration platform that integrates seamlessly with theWeb, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Office Since it is a foundational Microsofttechnology, various organizations—including government institutions, airlines, banks,construction companies, and retail industries—have benefited from its tools and fea-ture sets

manage-SharePoint does not refer to a specific product or technology Using the phrase crosoft SharePoint” is like using the phrase “Microsoft Office.” It refers to several as-pects of collaborative solutions The key components are SharePoint Foundation(SF) and SharePoint Server (SS)

“Mi-To distinguish SF and SS, an analogy that I often use is to compare SharePoint to a car.What’s the main purpose of a car? To take you from point A to point B, agreed? Whichcomponent of a car is required to do this? The engine, of course

The main purpose of SharePoint is to empower users with document management andteam collaboration tools SF fulfills this purpose It is the core “engine” of SharePoint.Without SF, there is no SharePoint SF (shown in Figure 1-1) is available with Windows

2008 Server or later

Figure 1-1 A SharePoint site using a SF site template

SS provides extended capabilities to SF Going back to the car analogy, we can equipour vehicles with accessories such as GPS, a DVD system, voice command, etc How-ever, these extended features are not required to run a car (taking us from point A topoint B) If these accessories are not installed, the car will still work It’s just that having

a GPS might enable us to reach our destination faster without getting lost SS extended

features include Enterprise Search, Personalization, Enterprise Content Management,etc Unlike SF, SS (shown in Figure 1-2) has separate licensing Licensing can vary andbecome quite costly For more information about licensing, visit Microsoft’s SharePointwebsite at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint.

Figure 1-2 A SharePoint site using SS features

Since SharePoint can be considered a platform for improving document managementand collaboration, it can be adopted as a tool to assist most project environments

In this book, I will show you how to build a SharePoint PMIS primarily using SF Thismeans that the techniques you will learn can be applied regardless of whether you have

SF or SS in your organization

Dux Quax: Is SharePoint the Only Game in Town?

Don’t get me wrong here There are a lot of other great products that can be used as a PMIS There are full-featured enterprise-level products, such as Microsoft ProjectServer, Clarity, and Primavera; and even open source, web-based products, such asGoogle Apps and Basecamp

The challenge with rolling out complex enterprise PMIS toolsets is that it assumes yourorganization already has a certain level of project management maturity By “maturity”

I mean that you have a Project Management Office (PMO) in place; project processesare being applied, embraced, and continuously improved upon by all project teams;and project artifacts such as plans, reports, templates, and communication mechanismsare well defined and structured The reason for such a stringent requirement is thatthese tools must be customized to adapt the processes you currently have in place Alot of clients I have worked with assumed that implementing such comprehensive toolswould make projects run better overnight Yeah, right Without sound processes inplace, a complex tool is quite a beast to leverage

As depicted in Figure 1-3, project management maturity should have the people, cess, and technology in lockstep.

pro-Figure 1-3 Project management maturity

to change Well, stepping up to SharePoint is not as drastic a change as learning how

to use other, more complex PMIS tools

Also, I really like the integration between SharePoint and the Microsoft Office productsthat I use day in and day out For example, I can enter project schedule information in

my Outlook calendar and it will show up in SharePoint, and vice versa Additionally,

an Excel spreadsheet can synchronize milestone tracking with SharePoint, so if my teamleads enter milestone completion dates in SharePoint, those dates show up in the Excelspreadsheet sitting on my computer Isn’t that amazing? See “Using Microsoft Exceland SharePoint” on page 178 in Chapter 8 for more on this

Our Case Study: SharePoint Dojo, Inc.

To better reinforce what you will learn, you will practice key concepts and techniques

by managing a project for SharePoint Dojo, Inc., a fictional company that we will usethroughout this book

SharePoint Dojo is a premier martial arts training facility with more than 200 studios

in North America Established in 1976, it has trained 700,000 students and producedmany world-class athletes

As history has proven, SharePoint Dojo provides first-rate instruction in the art of taekwon do, led by a staff of certified masters who have at least eight years of teachingexperience and who have competed in international events In 2008, the company wascited as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the United States.

To continue its explosive growth, SharePoint Dojo is expanding internationally, ing company-owned martial arts training studios in major cities Multiple project teamshave been assembled, and each team will be responsible for managing the opening ofeach respective studio

open-As the project manager, you will be personally responsible for integrating SharePointDojo into the local culture and community of the city to which you have been assigned.The challenges will be significant You will be required to select the site and furbish thestudio, comply with local laws and regulations, set up distribution and logistics, de-velop IT infrastructure and regional reporting initiatives, integrate with existing systemsand processes, identify which programs will sell the best in your region, and highlightlocal opportunities You will have to handle local contractors, employ staff locally, andcarry out local marketing and advertising The whole time you will have to stay focused

on the SharePoint Dojo brand and the SharePoint Dojo experience—this is more than

a series of local initiatives to make some money; it is about global expansion

As identified by senior management, there are two areas that are crucial to your overallsuccess The first is having correct project governance in place It is critical that existingproject management standards and processes be followed Second, a PMIS must beestablished for each project team, enabling all the teams to share and collaborate ondetailed project information, risks, and lessons learned in real time

To accomplish all of these goals, SharePoint Dojo has adopted PMI standards forproject governance and implemented a PMIS using Microsoft SharePoint You will need

to set up your own SharePoint PMIS for your project

Best Practices Checklist

• Establish or be familiar with your project management processes

• Establish a PMIS for your project

• Centralize project documents

• Streamline project communication

• Become familiar with your SharePoint environment

• SharePoint’s main purpose is to improve how we manage information and facilitatecollaboration It can be used as a PMIS.

• SharePoint can empower project managers because it is easier to learn, has betterintegration with existing project management tools, and requires less assistancefrom the IT/IS department than many other PMIS solutions

CHAPTER 2

Setting Up the PMIS

Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember;

involve me and I’ll understand.

—Chinese proverbThe first step in taking advantage of SharePoint 2010 in a PMIS is to familiarize yourselfwith the structure of SharePoint 2010 sites SharePoint 2010 sites are collaborativewebsites that are organized in a hierarchy They are composed of top-level sites andsubsites, as shown in Figure 2-1

Figure 2-1 SharePoint site hierarchy

A top-level site is created upon installation of SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Foundation

2010 or SharePoint Server 2010) It will never have a parent or higher-level site, and itmay or may not have child sites or subsites It is sometimes referred to as a root web-site By default, additional top-level sites can only be created by the SharePoint 2010administrator—essentially, the IT/IS folks responsible for SharePoint 2010—or anyoneelse given the permission to do so (SharePoint 2010 permissions are discussed in moredetail in Chapter 4.) Subsites are sites that are created beneath an existing SharePointsite They will always have a parent site and may or may not have their own subsites

A site collection is an aggregation of a top-level site and its subsites Site collections are

independent of one another A top-level site without subsites can also be considered asite collection So, in short, a top-level site is synonymous with a site collection

A PMIS can be created as a top-level site or a subsite Keep in mind that, by definition,projects are temporary—they have a start date and an end date This means that aSharePoint PMIS is a temporary site, unlike other SharePoint sites created for perma-nent purposes, such as departmental sites, product sites, customer support sites, etc.You have to think about what will happen to the PMIS once the project is completed.SharePoint 2010 does not automatically remove inactive sites

How Will You Organize Your PMIS?

Organizations typically have more than one project utilizing SharePoint as a PMIS It

is critical that you plan and assess how these project-focused sites will be organizedand structured for your environment

Involve key decision-makers from IT/IS and your Project Management Office (PMO),

if you have one, when choosing one of the three high-level PMIS hierarchy options:

Single-site collection

Includes a top-level PMO site All project sites are subsites (Figure 2-2)

Multiple-site collections

Each PMIS is a top-level site (Figure 2-3)

Multiple-site collections created for a specific department, business unit, product line, etc.

The PMIS is created as a group of subsites within these top-level sites (Figure 2-4)

Figure 2-2 Single-site collection

Figure 2-3 Multiple-site collections

Figure 2-4 PMIS created as subsites

Your decision should be based upon the following three organizational criteria:

IT/IS involvement in creating a site that spans the three collections

If each PMIS is a top-level site, IT/IS will likely be responsible for creating the siteand defining its site members However, if each PMIS is a subsite, IT/IS is less likely

to be involved, and either the project manager or someone on the project team willcreate the site

Technical considerations

SF has search limitations By default, SF can only search within a single site lection For example, if somebody in senior management is interested in lookingfor a specific document contained within the various project sites, she will have to

col-go to each individual site to run a search if every PMIS is a top-level site This isnot the case if the entire PMIS is grouped as a single site collection Note that thislimitation can be resolved if you have SS instead of SF, because SS comes with anEnterprise Search capability

If IT/IS decides to enable Automated Site Collection Deletion, a feature thatautomatically deletes an inactive site collection, the deletion will only work if eachPMIS is a top-level site, since the feature deletes an entire site collection If multiplePMISes are grouped in a single site collection, the site collection probably won’t

be automatically deleted because the likelihood of the entire site collection beinginactive is minimal

Decision-making and reporting structure

As well as deciding whether the PMIS should be structured as individual top-levelsites or grouped as a site collection, it is also important to consider your organi-zational structure For example, are there scenarios where you would group projectsites based on business units, product lines, portfolios, or regional operating units?The key to having a successful implementation of SharePoint as a PMIS is to initiallyplan the organization of sites so they can support the growth of SharePoint adop-tion in your organization Microsoft has many great resources that can assist you

in organizing SharePoint sites, including the SharePoint deployment planning guide (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ee263917)

Dux Quax: Permanent Versus Temporary Sites

I typically advise my clients that they should have a site collection for permanent sites.These sites would be specific to departments, business units, products, and anythingthat could be used for permanent collaboration Additionally, a site collection should

be created for temporary sites such as a PMIS or a meeting-centric SharePoint siteknown as a meeting workspace (see the section “Using Meeting Workspa-ces” on page 166 in Chapter 7)

What typically happens is that there are more temporary SharePoint sites created thanpermanent ones Once a temporary site is no longer needed, it is easier to maintain andaudit if it was in a separate site collection

Using Site Templates

SharePoint 2010 comes with site templates for convenient site creation Common sitetemplates are listed in Table 2-1

Table 2-1 Default site templates

Site template name Description

Team Site A site used for collaboration

Blank Site A blank site with no predefined features

Document Workspace A site that allows collaboration on one or more specific documents

Wiki Site A site that can be quickly edited to record information and then linked through keywords

Blog A site for a person or team to post ideas, observations, and expertise that also allows site visitors to

leave comments

The template determines the default site functionality, layout, menus, etc (see ure 2-5) You can also create custom site templates (see “Overview of Creating a PMISTemplate” on page 192 in Chapter 9) Typically, organizations would have customtemplates created and made available

Fig-Creating a SharePoint 2010 Site

After selecting your PMIS structure, you are ready to create the PMIS In my experience,most PMISes built in SharePoint will be subsites, so this will be the approach used forour case study To create a subsite, you must have the appropriate permissions in yourSharePoint 2010 environment Specifically, you must have at least the Contribute per-mission Check with your IT/IS department to clarify and confirm See “CustomizingPermissions” on page 70 in Chapter 4 for more information

These are the basic steps in creating a SharePoint 2010 subsite from an existing Point 2010 site:

Share-1 Click Site Actions→New Site

2 Select the desired template

3 Enter the appropriate information for the Title and “URL name” You need onlyput the name of the subsite in the URL form, rather than rewriting the entire URL

4 Click Create

5 On the “Set Up Groups for this Site” page, define your site members and theirpermissions, and then click OK

Dux Quax: When Do I Start Building a PMIS?

Ideally, you should start building your PMIS as soon as you get the project assignment,

or ASAP Prior to getting involved with the initial phase of project planning, make surethat all of the necessary components and tools that you need in the PMIS are already

in place to support project activities from the beginning until the end

Workshop 2.1: Establishing the SharePoint 2010 PMIS

For fields and settings that aren’t mentioned in the workshop steps, accept the defaultsettings.

Part 1: Creating the PMIS

Follow these steps to set up your PMIS:

1 Using Internet Explorer, access any existing SharePoint 2010 site of which you are

a member Make sure that you have the permission to create a subsite

2 Click Site Actions→New Site

3 Click the Browse All tab

4 In the “Select a Template” section, select Blank Site

5 Click More Options A page similar to the one shown in Figure 2-6 will bedisplayed

Figure 2-6 Update site information

6 Enter the Title, Description, and “URL name”

7 In the User Permissions section, select the “Use unique permissions” option

8 In the “Use the top link bar from the parent site?” section, select No

Part 2: Customizing the Site Theme

Once your site has been created, you can update your basic site settings using the SiteSettings page You can access this page by clicking Site Actions→Settings on your homepage The Site Actions menu is only visible to users who have site administration per-missions (primarily the site owners) We will discuss site customizations in detail afterthis workshop For now, let’s look at some of the basic customizations that you canapply:

1 On your newly created site, click Site Actions→Site Settings The Site Settings pagewill be displayed

2 In the “Look and Feel” section, click Site Theme The Site Theme page will bedisplayed (see Figure 2-7)

Figure 2-7 The Site Theme page

3 Select a site theme and click Apply The color palette may change depending onwhich theme you choose

4 Click the home tab (in Figure 2-7, the home tab is “Cebu Project PMIS” in theupper-left corner of the page; yours will show the name of your project title) toreturn to your home page with the new theme applied.

There are several ways to navigate back to your home page: using the

home tab, using breadcrumb navigation, and using the Navigate Up

button All three navigation options are located in the upper-left corner

of the page and are visible in Figure 2-8 In Figure 2-8 , you see the home

tab, entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” in the upper left You may also

nav-igate back to your home page using the breadcrumb, which is the

click-able link also entitled “Cebu Project PMIS” above the home tab One

additional way to navigate back to home is to click the Navigate Up

button (the icon with the up arrow and the folder), which will provide

a drop-down box enabling you to navigate to the portion of the site you

would like to find.

Part 3: Adding an Announcement List

In Parts 1 and 2, you created the foundation of a SharePoint 2010 PMIS You will now

add basic site components, which are known as SharePoint lists Lists are used to store

and organize information in SharePoint (for more information, see the section “UsingSharePoint Lists” on page 28 in Chapter 3) In this section, you will add an An-nouncements list that can be used to provide relevant project announcements:

1 On the home page, click Lists, and then click Create (Figure 2-8)

Figure 2-8 The Site Actions menu

2 The Create page will be displayed In the Lists section, click Announcements.

3 Click More Options

4 In both the Name and Description fields, enter the text Project Announcements,and in the “Display this list on the Quick Launch?” section, select Yes (see Fig-ure 2-9) Yes is the default selection See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 formore about the Quick Launch

Figure 2-9 Creating an Announcements list

5 Click Create You have just created a Project Announcements list The purpose of

an Announcements list is to store relevant information that you would like to nounce or broadcast to site members

an-6 To add an announcement to your Project Announcements list, click “Add newannouncement” Enter the Title, Body, and expiration date (Figure 2-10) Notethat there are a number of features available for formatting the text, similar to whatyou’d find in Microsoft Word

7 To navigate back to your home page, click the home tab (as in Part 2, Step 4) Foradditional methods of navigating to your home page, see the note on page 18 orrefer to “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 to learn more about SharePoint 2010navigation

Figure 2-10 Creating a new announcement

8 After creating the announcement, click Save You will now see the new ment on the Project Announcements page, but you will not see the announcement

announce-on the site’s home page

Part 4: Displaying Announcements on the Home Page

Now that we have a Project Announcements list in our PMIS, we would like to displaythe most recent announcements on the home page This is done by adding the Project

Announcements list web part to the home page Web parts are small programs or

widgets that are primarily used to display snippets of information from existing lists(see the section “Using Web Parts for Interactive Reporting” on page 145 in Chap-ter 7) Every time a SharePoint list is created, a corresponding web part is created aswell For now, you will embed the Project Announcements list web part onto the homepage to display the latest and greatest project announcements In a PMIS, web partscan also be used to create project dashboards and provide high-level reportingcapabilities:

1 On the home page, click Site Actions→Edit Page Your site will now be in Editmode Edit mode allows you to add, remove, and update web parts and theirsettings.

2 In the Main section, click “Add a Web Part” All available web parts will be played (Figure 2-11)

dis-Figure 2-11 Adding web parts

3 Select “Lists and Libraries” from the menu on the left

4 Select Project Announcements and click Add The announcement you created lier will be displayed (see Figure 2-12)

ear-5 Click Stop Editing, which is located at the top left of the screen below Site Actions.The announcement you created earlier will now be displayed on the home page

6 To return to your home page, use the home tab, the Navigate Up button, or igate by breadcrumb See “Customizing the PMIS” on page 22 for a refresher onnavigation

nav-Congratulations! You have successfully created a SharePoint 2010 PMIS How did you

find the process of creating a SharePoint 2010 site? Quite easy, isn’t it? Did you knowthat if a similar site was created from scratch (using manual coding), it would take atleast two weeks to build?

Workshop 2.1 Debriefing

In Part 1 of the workshop, you selected a blank template in order to build the PMISfrom the ground up This will allow you to later define each component and feature ofthe site, as well as its access restrictions and other custom functionalities, helping you

to fully experience and work with various aspects of SharePoint 2010 Instead of lowing existing users from the parent site to access the site, you selected the “Use uniquepermissions” option under user inheritance As a result, you are responsible for definingwho can access your PMIS

al-In Part 2, you updated the basic look of the site with a predefined theme To add acustom theme (to conform to your organization’s branding scheme, for example), youmust have the IT/IS department create the theme and make it available as a selection

In Part 3, you added the built-in Announcements list and called it Project ments You will use this list later to store and display project announcements In thesection “Creating SharePoint Lists” on page 34 in Chapter 3, you will learn how tocreate additional lists for your PMIS

Announce-Finally, in Part 4, you used Edit mode to add the Project Announcements list web part

to your home page so that visitors to your PMIS can see the latest project ments You will learn more about web parts in the section “Using Web Parts for Inter-active Reporting” on page 145 in Chapter 7

announce-Customizing the PMIS

Once you have created your SharePoint 2010 site, the next step is to customize thePMIS Customization can be done in four key areas:

Figure 2-12 Project Announcements web part in Edit mode

It is important to determine whether you have to apply corporate branding ards to your PMIS You will have to check with IT/IS to see if there are any customsite templates or themes that have your corporate colors and logo These customtemplates or themes must be developed by somebody who is familiar with toolssuch as SharePoint Designer or, in some cases, Visual Studio NET

stand-In a project environment, a consistent look and feel throughout various projectswill minimize your stakeholders’ learning curve as they start using the PMIS.Wouldn’t it be frustrating to have a PMIS that looks different every time you begin

a new project within your organization?

Usability

Two things come to mind when we look at site usability:

• Site navigation: In SharePoint 2010, three mechanisms are used for site

naviga-tion: breadcrumb navigation, the top link bar, and the Quick Launch (see ure 2-13)

Fig-Figure 2-13 Site navigation options

Breadcrumb navigation is used to navigate between top-level sites and subsites.Typically, when you initially create a site, SharePoint 2010 enables the top linkbar and Quick Launch, and it is up to you to customize and update them Bydefault, the top link bar and Quick Launch are prepopulated with links to com-mon site sections Essentially, you can define which links appear both in the toplink bar and the Quick Launch, and you can customize them on the Site Settingspage In a project environment, it is essential to have the most commonly ac-cessed site sections—such as project documents, the calendar, and the risklog—available in your site navigation

• Site access from a mobile device: Will anyone on the project team need access to

the PMIS using a portable mobile device, such as a BlackBerry, iPhone, or iPad?Obviously, there are screen limitations with a portable device compared to a

PC You can take advantage of SharePoint’s built-in mobile browsing capability

by accessing the mobile version of the PMIS The mobile version is optimizedfor mobile devices It limits unnecessary visuals and, more importantly, it stillkeeps most of the PMIS functionalities, such as logging in, posting, and updatinginformation, as well as deleting entries from existing sets of project information.

The mobile version is available by default All you have to do is enter /m at the

end of the PMIS address (for example, http://sp.sharepointdojo.com/cebu/m),and you’re good to go

Additionally, there are apps available for various mobile devices that providemore features and functionalities to better interact with your SharePoint-basedPMIS (for example, http://www.shareplusapp.com/)

Compliance

Are there any standards or regulatory compliance issues you have to address foryour PMIS? For example, if you have to subscribe to Section 508, SOX, PRINCE2,CMMI, ISO, or PMI standards, how long do you have to archive project informa-tion? What are the stipulations on information access or privacy? You should setthis up as early as possible

Project-specific needs

Do you have a global project team? If so, on which regional setting will your PMIS

be based? Will project information be displayed in multiple languages? Is there aneed to monitor and audit PMIS usage and traffic? All of this can be configured onthe Site Settings page of your PMIS, which we’ll cover next

Dux Quax: How Can I Get There?

I always hear complaints that SharePoint is bad However, if I can rephrase that ment, it should be, “The implementation of SharePoint is bad.” You see, nothing iswrong with SharePoint In fact, I think SharePoint is brilliant for its purpose It is notfair to compare SharePoint with existing tools and products out there, because most ofthe time you are comparing apples and oranges

state-The typical problem people run into is that when SharePoint is being implemented, IT/

IS fails to engage the needs of the greater population Who are the users? What kind oftechnical backgrounds do they have? How can they leverage SharePoint?

A key area that causes frustration for end users is navigation Users get confused aboutwhat to click; consequently, they fail to get to the information that they are looking for

I live and breathe by the mantra, “Less is more.” Do not overwhelm your users withvarious navigational options Keep it simple Personally, I do not recommend using thetop link bar because it can contain only a limited number of links For a PMIS, I suggestkeeping the Quick Launch as the navigational tool For great insights in usability andnavigation, check out http://www.useit.com/