BrightWork pmPoint for SharePoint 2007 - Key Features
BrightWork pmPoint comes with templates that enable you to kick-off your projects quickly and consistently, using industry standards to help ensure they are on the right track. There are five templates included for managing single projects, and three templates for managing across multiple projects. To keep people and projects on track, BrightWork's robust reporting engine provides pre-built dashboards and reports, giving visibility to all roles in the organization. See below for the complete story on how BrightWork pmPoint delivers a complete, flexible, and affordable project management system.
Project Management Office templates – central location to manage multiple projects
- Issue Manager (Rollup)
Many groups want to manage across projects by just managing the problems - management by exception. This template crawls through the nominated project sites and brings back Project Status and Issues into a dashboard. - Project Office
Some teams and departments want to report on key items from a handful of selected projects, e.g. status, issues, risks, milestones, deliverables, etc. This template is designed for projects where the teams want to roll-up selected items from multiple projects. This template has a set of default reports that can be used or customizable - under the following five headings: Projects, My Work, Work, Issues and Resource Management. - Program Management Office
Many organizations want to establish a PMO (Program Management Office) function. In this scenario they want to manage at the Project Office level as well as managing the elements from the subordinate projects. This template is designed for the quick establishment of a PMO where the team wants a process to manage the PMO as well as roll-up selected items from multiple projects. This template has a set of default reports that can be used or customizable - under the following five headings: Projects, My Work, Work, Issues and Resource Management.
Key features of all the above cross project templates include: - Multi-level project/program management hierarchy
- Portfolio, Program, Project, Sub-Project
- Customizable in terms of project levels, naming and the amount of process involved at each level
- Cross project reports
- At each level of hierarchy
- For project collections across the various hierarchies
Pre built, standards-based customizable templates to get you on the right road quickly with each project
- Issue Manager
This template is designed for projects where you just want to “manage by exception” by only tracking project status and issues related to the project in hand and not details related to actions, tasks, deliverables, risks, etc. - Commitment Manager
The Commitment – Issue – Action template is a good example of a semi-structured process where you want to manage more than the issues by managing goals and tasks, but you do not need a fully structured site with a more extensive process. Other variants on this theme include the SIR process (project Statement, Issue and Risks) or the AIR process (Assumptions, Issues and Requirements), etc. - Business Project Manager
This template is useful for a range of business departments to run their projects including sales, marketing, engineering, etc. It provides a well-defined structure that can be easily customized to meet the specific process and taxonomy for each department and project. - Note - this template is delivered in two forms - one that uses a Microsoft Project style project schedule and one that uses simpler flat SharePoint lists to manage work
- IT Project Manager
This is a highly structured template based on the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) v3 to provide a robust process for managing IT projects such as system implementations and upgrades. It includes a pre-defined hierarchy of phases, milestones, deliverables, tasks, issues, and risks, etc. - Note - this template is also delivered in two forms - one that uses a Microsoft Project style project schedule and one that uses simpler flat SharePoint lists to manage work
- Agile Software Manager
This is a fully structured template that includes support for the most common agile process and deliverables for the various project iterations (iterations, personas, scenarios, tasks, bugs, etc). This approach is based on the iterative-agile model contained in the Microsoft Solutions Framework for Agile Software Development. - Blank Template
This template contains a Project Statement and a My Work report but is otherwise blank, allowing you to build your own project management process from the ground up.
Rich project management processes and elements
- Key project management elements included:
- Project statement, goals, roles, teams, risk, issues, tasks, schedule, deliverables, change requests, etc
- The Project Schedule list allows you to quickly and easily create a hierarchical (phases, milestones, iterations, summary tasks and project tasks) work breakdown structure that allows values (% Complete, Late flag, Planned and Actual Durations, Costs and Dates) to be propagated, aggregated and auto-calculated up the hierarchy as the project progresses.
- The schedule can be populated by importing a Microsoft Project file or using the supplied datasheet views in a pmPoint template. The list includes integration with a Project Calendar for exceptions days (e.g. public holidays).
- Tailored views include standard views with indenting and bolded titles to aid with visualizing the project hierarchy, datasheet views for rapid updating and Gantt views for understanding timelines.
- Every process element has project management features added (not available in SharePoint)
- Including reference numbering, push notification to assignees, and custom alerts
- Each element is modifiable in its own right (as it is built in standard SharePoint)
- Process elements can be connected in parent-child type relationships
Rich reporting provides visibility to all levels in the organization
- Pre-defined views for each project management process element including Gantt charts
- Cross-list work reports for each project template so the team members know what to do
- Examples: team member work, my work, and upcoming work
- Variety of convenient distribution methods
- Printable, Excel - dynamic link or static export, email - on demand or scheduled
- Reports are easily modifiable by end users without IT support
- New reports can be created leveraging pre-built reports and some XML coding
- Report data is exportable to SQL Server Reporting Services for advanced analysis
Securely collaborate across the extended team
- pmPoint is delivered on the SharePoint 2007 platform and as such takes advantage of the following collaborative features inherent in the SharePoint platform:
- Document management – share project documents centrally and use version control to make sure the entire team has the most current information and plans. Optionally also use check-in and check-out features.
- Alerts – keep team members aware of work assignments, e.g., tasks, or be notified when items change
- Role-based security – assign groups and individuals to appropriate roles on the project team, ensuring they can take appropriate actions and see appropriate information for their role
- Workflows - e.g. move items (e.g. deliverables, issues, risks, etc.) through workflows for review and approval.
