Microsoft Project Management and Accounting Scenario

The Project Manager

Steve, the project manager, learns about a consulting opportunity at City Power & Light to install and implement Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for their company. He sets up the project within Microsoft Dynamics for Project Management and Accounting using Microsoft Project 2003.

Applications that Steve uses:

Steps that Steve completes:

Steve uses a Microsoft Project template his company has created for similar implementations and begins to modify it based on information he received from the customer. Using these details, he makes some adjustments to the template project plan.

Figure 1.1 Project plan within Microsoft Project

Next Steve uses the Microsoft Project Management and Accounting toolbar to assign a unique, validated ID that is used by the project accounting modules. The project manager can also associate other information with the project such as the customer's name and the project manager's name.

The solution is flexible and allows projects to be initiated either by the project manager using Microsoft Project or by an accounting manager using Microsoft Dynamics SL Project Series. Projects also can be created manually or by using custom project and task templates that are standard across your organization.

Steve then creates a budget for this new project. Without leaving Microsoft Project, Steve can make initial budget estimates based on the types of resources and equipment needed. The project plan template already has generic resources assigned to the tasks and includes standard cost rates for these resources. Based on these rates, Steve can use the "Profit" window to load labor costs into the project accounting budgeting module.

Steve knows that City Power & Light has a data center and 12 branches, so travel expenses must also be included for some tasks. And he certainly can't forget about the price of the 10 servers for the Windows 2003 rollout.

While Microsoft Project has always been a powerful tool for creating labor budgets, it now works together as part of Microsoft Project Management and Accounting to allow budgets to be created at the task level for equipment, travel, and even different types of labor: subcontract labor, premium labor, or any other types required by your company. The project managers' budgeting activities entered in the "Profit" window is connected directly to the company's accounting system.

As the project progresses, Steve can return to this view to see the project's accounting information—including updates already made by Susan, the accounting manager. He can also see actual time and expense costs entered by consultants. Of course, this same data will be automatically updated and displayed in all of the standard Microsoft Project views as well.

After Steve sets up the budget information, he saves the plan. When he saves the plan from within Microsoft Project, it's not only saved to Microsoft Project Server, but also to the project accounting applications within Microsoft Dynamics products. This one-time data entry ensures all stakeholders are working from the same information at all times. And, unlike many other solutions, this is not a file import/export process, but a real-time synchronization at the server level.

Steve now opens the portfolio modeler to see how the project will affect the current projects underway at A. Datum. He decides that the majority of the resources he needs will be available and that the rest should be obtained from partners. Steve will look to David, the resource manager, to make final resource assignments.

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