Collaboration in projects using Windows SharePoint Services

Efficient collaboration is definitely a key factor for successful projects. However, not all companies use Windows SharePoint Services v2 with their Project Server installation, for whatever reasons. This post should give you a quick overview on what benefits await you when using WSS with Project Server 2003 and which restrictions and problems you may encounter.

You can look at Windows SharePoint Services as a free and light version of Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. WSS has similar functionality, however SPS offers even more features and is designed to be a web portal.

Windows SharePoint Services enables you to create a so called project workspace individually for all projects of your Project Server installation. The administrator can choose whether sites should be created automatically when a new project has been published or manually. This workspace is designated to be the one virutal place where all members of a project team get relevant project information. There are sections where especially the project manager can post risks and issues and assign them to other project team members or himself. With given permissions all project team members can work with risks and issues and update them with new information. Unfortunately you will soon find out that there is no way to have all your risks graphically represented in a nice risk graphic, at least not out-of-the-box.

Another key section of the project workspace is the shared documents section. This is where you can upload all project relevant documents to share them with all project team members. You also have the possibility to create a confidential document folder that can only be accessed by the project manager and e.g. selected managers or executives. However, with WSS v2 you do not have the possibility to change permissions on folder or even item level. You will have to create a new document library with restricted access.

I would recommend you to look at the shared documents feature only as a way to share the most important projects documents. It is not designated to replace file systems you may currently have running on a file server. You may also run into some problems when you have a very deep folder structure in shared documents. When browsing through this structure have a look at the URL in your web browser, it will of course get longer when you browse deeper into the structure. As soon as the length of that URL exceeds 255 characters you will not able to work with documents in that location anymore.

Another thing you may be looking for but will certainly not find out-of-the-box is a recycle bin for your project workspace. This means that by default all the deleted items are definitely gone - if you deleted them intentionally or not. Fortunately you will find add-ins for WSS v2 providing you with the functionality of the recycle bin, something you simply must have when seriously considering using Windows SharePoint Services with Project Server.