Saturday, February 23, 2019

Overview of Microsoft Project 2016

Overview of Microsoft Project 2016
Microsoft offers a project management software application, known as Microsoft Project. This application is by far the most popular and widely used by project managers and business owners. The primary purpose of Microsoft Project is to assist project manager in the following ways:
Developing a project plan
Assigning necessary resources to task, intended towards project completion
Managing the cost of resources / budgeting
Analysing the assigned workloads
Tracking the progress

Microsoft Project enables the project manager to enter the "work breakdown structure" or in other words allows the project manager to enter all the tasks involved in a project and allocate resources/assign workers to all the tasks. It also facilitates creation of reports to understand and follow-up the progress of a project.

Brief History of Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project was initially a MS-DOS software application developed by another company, the very first commercial version of this application was DOS based released in 1984. This application was acquired by Microsoft in 1985. Since, 1985 several versions of Microsoft Project have been released, the latest version was released in 2016.

Microsoft Project 2016 is available in two editions:
Project Standard
Project Professional
Both these editions are available in 32bit or 64bit option.


Versions of Microsoft Project 2016
Microsoft Project 2016 is available in the following versions:

Project Standard 2016: This version allows a single user to create reports in order to ascertain the progress and communicate the same to the project team and involved stakeholders.

Project Professional 2016: This version includes all the features of Project Standard 2016 and also has the associative benefits Office 365 and SharePoint, which allows the user to virtually work from anywhere across the globe. This version also integrates instant messaging feature and Skype. Tell Me also adds to the features list.

Project Online Professional: This version has the features of Project Professional and is available as a subscription to Office 365. This version is automatically updated and kept up to date and be accessed by the user on any computer of their choice.

Project Online Essentials: The version is particularly suitable for projects that are managed using Project Online or Project Server. It allows the team members to conveniently access timesheets, tasks, add risks or issues and most importantly collaborate from anywhere.

Project Online Premium: This version provides very flexible online solutions for Project Portfolio Management and various project tasks.  It is effectively delivered through Office 365. It primarily assists organizations in getting started with a project plan, adequately prioritize all the project portfolio investments and also assists in delivering the intended business value from any device.

Project Server 2016: This version provides an on-premise project portfolio management solution. Project Server allows the project participants, team members and business decision makers to start a project plan, prioritize the portfolio investments which enables then to deliver the intended business value from any location. This version does not come with SharePoint 2016, it has to be licensed separately.


Microsoft Project Server 2016 provides great capabilities in assisting the project team members to plan and manage tasks, collaborate efficiently, adhere to timelines and in flagging risks and issues well in time.
It definitely make project management streamlined and easy to manage by allowing project managers to analyse their budgets, resources and timelines.
It provides tools for measuring the progress of the project and also anticipate future resource requirements by generating detailed and out-of-the box reports.


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