Project Management & Professional Services

Microsoft Dynamics SL Project Management

Professional services organizations (PSOs) face challenges of maintaining profitability for client services, projects, and use of people. To meet rapidly-changing customer demands, midsize organizations must continually evolve products and services. Profitability requires that projects are estimated correctly, are completed on time, and meet customer requirements.

The combination of Microsoft Dynamics SL and Microsoft Office Project provides PSOs with tools to help manage people, money, and projects more successfully. Projects can be initiated and updated in either the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution or Microsoft Dynamics SL, with information flowing automatically across applications. See how it all works together to help PSOs optimize their staffs time, capture costs more accurately, and strengthen their project portfolios.

The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution

The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution is an end-to-end collaborative project and portfolio environment. The Office EPM Solution helps your organization gain visibility, insight, and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximizing resource utilization, and measuring and helping to increase operational efficiency.
The Office EPM Solution includes the following products from the Microsoft Office Project 2007 family to provide organizations with an end-to-end project portfolio management (PPM) solution:

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007: Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 includes all the capabilities in Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007. Office Project Professional 2007 gives you robust project management tools with the right blend of usability, power, and flexibility, so you can manage projects more efficiently and effectively. You can stay informed, control project work, schedules, and finances, and keep project teams aligned, while becoming more productive through powerful reporting options, integration with familiar Microsoft Office system programs, guided planning, wizards, and templates. In addition, Office Project Professional 2007 provides EPM capabilities when connected to Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007: Office Project Server 2007 is the flexible platform that supports the resource management, scheduling, reporting, and collaboration capabilities in the Office EPM Solution. Office Project Server 2007 enables organizations to store project and resource information centrally and consistently. It also integrates with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for file management and collaboration capabilities, helping team members to work together more effectively. Further, based on their roles, users can access data and functionality via the Internet with Microsoft Office Project Web Access.

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007: Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a top-down portfolio management solution that helps organizations to realize their potential by identifying, selecting, managing, and delivering portfolios that best align with their business strategy. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 integrates with Office Project Server 2007 to provide organizations with an end-to-end project portfolio management solution, accessed via Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Web Access.

Microsoft Project Portfolio Server and Microsoft Dynamics combine to help project-driven organizations, identify, select, manage and deliver portfolios that best align with their business strategy.
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) helps organizations gain visibility and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximizing resource utilization and enhancing project execution to optimize ROI. Where strategies or budgets change PPM enables rapid re-evaluation and prioritization of the projects and initiatives within the portfolio enabling improvements in agility and competitive edge.

Integrating Enterprise Project Management with Project Accounting (EPMA) allows Managers, Executives and other stakeholders to develop, execute and manage projects and resources along with real-time information on costs, commitments and revenue compared to budgets and forecasts. It provides a single solution for project schedules, resource, critical path and financial management, from timecards and purchase orders all the way through to billing and aging. With online analysis of WIP, profitability, utilization, budget and schedules all within one integrated suite, an organization can manage all aspects of projects within the portfolio much more effectively than with Project management tools alone.