Expert: Scottgem - 6/2/2009

Question
QUESTION: Dear Scott,

I have been promoted at the company I work at and one of my responsibilities is to manage the details of our projects.

Our company specializes in engineering consultancy, project management and construction, so I am looking for an excellent program to manage all project components, show the status of each element, and for me to be able to easily put together up to date reports [weekly, monthly, biannually and annually].

Typically, each project contains the following components:

1. Finance [invoices, financial reports and general calculations].
2. Legal [Contracts...etc].
3. Drawings.
4. Proposals.
5. Correspondence [emails...etc].
6. Project related documents [PDF Files...etc]

I'm looking for software that is not too hard to use for our employees and that has security options to allow/disable access to certain components for each user.

Thank you and kind regards,

Nora




ANSWER: Look at Microsoft Project.

Hope this helps
Scott<>



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Scott,

Thanks for your prompt answer!

One more question: what is the difference between MS Project Standard and Professional?

Thanks

Nora

Answer
The main difference is that Professional can be integrated with a server and the WEB to allow for collaboration on projects from different locations. Something I think you may find useful. Given your business, I would assume you often have people working at project sites.

Standard is not quite as standalone as they describe, you can put project files on a shared netwokr drive to allow multiple users to access them. But if you want true collaboration, especially from remote sites, go with Pro.

This site goes into more detail comparing the versions.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/FX101757931033.aspx

And you can download a trial version of Standard to see if it will work for you.

Hope this helps
Scott<>