Site Structures
SharePoint is by and large built on the following simple but powerful structure: lists and libraries are contained in sites, web parts report on lists and libraries and sites in turn are contained in site collections. pmPoint makes use of and extends this structure, as described below.
BrightWork Site Collection
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Installing pmPoint adds the BrightWork site collection type to SharePoint. When a BrightWork site collection is created, it contains the all the SharePoint elements (sites, webparts, lists and libraries) needed to manage work and projects in SharePoint.
The BrightWork site collection includes four immediate subsites: Templates Area; Projects Area; Portfolios Area; and Requests Area.
Templates Area
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In pmPoint, projects and programs are generally created from one of the supplied Templates. The Templates Area is where you manage these templates, making adjustments and customizing them as you see fit. You can also create a template using an existing project or template, allowing you to leverage your customization work and lessons learnt from previous projects.
Projects Area
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Project and program management is the essence of pmPoint and it will come as no surprise that this is the busiest area in all BrightWork site collections. The projects area is where you create the site hierarchies that your organization or group needs to manage your work and projects. These hierarchies can be based on organizational structure, or function (Marketing, Engineering, Sales etc), or geographies (Europe, US, Asia etc) or whatever classification works for you.
The Projects Area can contain multiple project offices, each with multiple projects and sub-project offices. You can also create extra Project Areas - as many as you see fit.
Portfolio Area
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Reporting in pmPoint traditionally crawls up the hierarchies described in the Projects Area. This means that the report you are looking at will either contain data from the site it is located in and/or the sites under it in the hierarchy. But what if you just want to report on certain specific sites in the hierarchy? The Portfolios Area makes this easy by allowing you to select portfolios of sites to report on. You can create portfolios for individual users, teams, clients - as many as you like.
Requests Area
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Many organizations want to introduce controls with regard to new projects being approved, especially when they have a lot of existing projects already underway. They need a process that allows project requests to be submitted, reviewed and accepted or rejected. The Requests Area provides an area to manage this with a choice of three New Project Request templates.