PM Tech Corner 

Enter Time, Progress Work in MS Project Schedules with Microsoft’s O365 Time Reporter App

Welcome to the Technical Corner for PMI Portland Chapter.  This section is designed to help Project to Portfolio managers leverage tools, technologies and best practices in delivering stellar value in daily work activities.

My name is Tim Runcie and I have spent the last 20+ years working with both technologies and methodologies supporting Project, Program and Portfolio managers globally.  You can say it is a passion at our company Advisicon, helping our customers and community practitioners achieve better ROI with the blend of both tools and technologies.

As a Gold PPM partner with Microsoft and a member of the Advisory Council for Project, I welcome hearing requests from you on features to add, and requests for improvements on anything that supports the Project Community of Practice, with Microsoft tools, so definitely feel free communicate those with me or my team anytime! I personally hope you enjoy this and want to encourage people to reach out directly to me at Tim.Runcie@Advisicon.com

In this month’s article, I want to talk about the growing mobile device industry and how it is now making updates to our project schedules in real-time by end users assigned to those tasks. I have recently been getting more queries on “Is there a way for project team members to update schedules directly, without having to open the MS Project schedule?” You bet there is, and this was announced just in September by Microsoft.  It is the ability to access the Task Updates through the Project Time Reporter solution.

Updating schedule tasks through O365 Project Time Reporter:

Over a year ago, Microsoft announced its plans to continue extending accessibility to projects, schedules to resources using the O365 or Project Online environment. This latest addition allows anyone with an iOS mobile device to connect and progress their assignments on a MS Project schedule.

The application is clean and has an easy to follow and update interface. 

With the Office 365 Project Time Reporter on your iPhone, you can not only update your work, but you also can add new assignments or add time to non-project work to your timesheet.  You also have the ability to create new personal tasks in the Timesheet view.

If you are using timesheets, these Timesheets can be saved, allowing you to come back later and then update your work and submit it for review and final approval.

One feature I personally like is that you have a mini dashboard that you are able to track your current or overdue tasks in the Tasks view and then filter and sort these activities find the right ones, and submit status updates.

How do you download and use this feature?

Let me walk you through how easy this is to update and to use. You first want to confirm that you are using the Project PPM solution in O365.  This will ensure that you have your projects, tasks, resources and the review and approval process in the correct environment.

You can go directly to the iOS store to download this.

Follow the steps, (just like for every other download app).  Once you have completed the download, you can find and launch the Project Time Reporter app. 

When you first go to launch the application, Microsoft presents you with its security so you will be required to enter your Project Online (Project Web App (PWA)) URL.

From here you will then be presented with a log-in screen. This is where you enter your Office 365 credentials and then press the Sign In button at the bottom of your app. 

It will take a few moments but you will see the loading screen briefly while it is logging in and loading your Project Tasks.

Once you have logged in, you will get the timesheet for this time period (this is normal as you typically are only updating your tasks for the current time period).

You can start entering your actual work performed.  You have a green action bar at the bottom of your phone for saving or adding additional work.  This includes adding rows, saving the timesheet, going between periods (previous and next icons) and filtering to locate certain tasks.

You can edit the app menu and settings by pressing the app Menu, which is in the top left corner of the screen.  This is where you can update your view settings, task settings or change the existing view defaults.

You can enter time directly into the interface and quickly update each week

This is quick and easy and if you need to enter time against multiple projects, you can easily use the filter options to limit the amount of scrolling you have to do.

After completing your task updates, you can then send progress or submit your timesheet for approval.  You do this by pressing the ellipsis in the top right corner of your screen.  When you do this, you will see the summary, status of the time reporting period and time sheet as well as the overall work.

On the timesheet view you can add rows using the Add button on the green menu:

For those of you who prefer a more direct Task Update view, Microsoft has also provided a Tasks View (versus the Timesheet view).  You can easily change this view from the App Menu in the upper right portion of your screen.

It looks like this for entering and updating all the tasks assigned to you.

By pressing any of the tasks on the screen, you will then open that task up and be able to modify or update it in the Tasks Details screen.

Once you click into the Task Details, make your changes to start, finish dates, the actual work, remaining work or % complete.  Once completed press Save or Send to complete your entry or entries.

You can even add comments when you submit, just tap the menu button (top left corner) and choose settings.  There will be “Comments on Submit” option for you to use.

This really provides a clean interface and a quick way to update your tasks. At the time of writing this blog, there is yet to be a Windows Phone or Android operating system app release, but those I’m sure will be coming soon.

Summary:

So, if you like to have your team members updating tasks in your project, where you can review the updates or even track work by timesheet, this is a great extension of capability for those who manage large projects.

I hope this was helpful for you and that you enjoyed this Month’s article on using Microsoft’s new Project Time Reporter.

You can find more on our YouTube Channel covering PM tools, methodologies and best practices, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzcAEnYWfm14KhSv4Y6H3bA, or check out our live webinars on Wednesday (called Webinar Wednesday at www.Advisicon.com/webinars ), when we present training and  free PDUs on technology supporting Project, Program and Portfolio management.

Again, our goal for the PMI Tech Corner is to supercharge your ability in to produce results with tools, processes or a combination of both for optimization of your project management experience.

Warmest wishes for your work and do reach out to me at Tim.Runcie@Advisicon.com for questions or other techniques/tools and blended methodology approaches.  Happy PM’ing!

About the Author

Tim Runcie is the president of Advisicon (a Gold PPM Company), a 20+ year project, program and portfolio expert and member of the Microsoft Advisory council.  Tim is also the author of over 36 books on technology and project management and a 12+ year nominated and awarded MVP at Microsoft. Tim and Advisicon offer webinars, classes and customized training for all your project management needs.