Why Upgrade to 2007



Why Upgrade to the Newest Version?
Microsoft Office Project 2007 helps project managers easily plan and manage projects, and communicate project status to stakeholders. The right blend of usability, power, and flexibility in Office Project 2007 makes it a robust, easy-to-use project management tool that enables project managers to efficiently and effectively:

• Create and maintain an optimized project execution plan
• Forecast and manage detailed project costs and track variances against the budget
• Track and analyze project progress according to the project plan
• Communicate and report project plans and progress effectively with useful reports and graphical representations
  of project information
  

Plus, Project 2007 can be used with existing Project files and previous versions of Microsoft Office applications, so you can start enjoying the benefits right away.

Project Professional 2007 also provides collaborative enterprise project management capabilities when used with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

Project 2007 enables users to better:
Create and Maintain Plans
Schedule projects to get productive quickly and ensure that projects are delivered on time and within a budget.

• Set up projects quickly to lower project cycle time and improve efficiency
  The Project Guide, a step-by-step interactive guide, has been improved to quickly and easily enable users to set up projects, manage tasks, resources, and task status, and report project information. This feature helps start projects faster and manage project elements effectively.

• Save time with templates and promote consistency throughout the project to increase overall effectiveness A rich set of out-of-the-box templates in Project 2007 helps accelerate the project creation process. A Project template pre-populates task and resource information, and applies formatting, macros, and other project-specific settings. These templates make Project 2007 a highly effective tool soon after it is put into use by applying consistency across the project portfolio.

Top Benefits
Experiment with what-if scenarios to optimize plans by understanding the effects of each possible choice or change
The new Multiple-Level Undo feature enables users to undo and redo changes to views, data, and options. Users can test several what-if scenarios in order to fully understand the implications of each choice while making scope changes.

Forecast and Manage Costs
Monitor project financials to forecast and manage project costs and track variances against the budget.

• Assign costs to project tasks, providing a clearer picture of the project’s total cost
  The new Cost Resources feature enables users to assign costs to tasks and provides new fields for cost information that enable better project accounting, resulting in precise project cost estimates. This feature also supports integration of Project 2007 with many popular accounting systems.
• Allocate funds and track costs to keep projects on budget
  The new Budget Tracking feature provides users with an efficient way to assign budgets to projects and programs, and to allocate funds and track costs, work, and materials against the budget quickly and easily. These capabilities help to ensure that project time and money are used effectively.

Track and Analyze Progress
Track and analyze project progress effectively according to the project plan to get clear visibility into project risks and issues, and to gain better project insight.

Top Benefits
Adhere to the project timeline by identifying the sources of issues and locating the causes of delays
The new Task Driver pane helps users determine the factors driving the start date of the task (such as task dependency, calendar constraints, schedule dates, or non-working time), making it possible to follow a chain of factors to find the root cause of a particular issue.

Top Benefits
Determine the impact of changes to the project plan, helping to optimize the decision-making process
Users can determine the impact of changes on dependent tasks with the new Change Highlighting feature. Project 2007 automatically highlights all items that shift as a result of the most recent changes made, enabling project managers to understand how changes will affect project dependencies.

Communicate Plans and Status
Communicate and report project-related information effectively to set expectations for management and to inform stakeholders.

Top Benefits
Build professional-looking reports with charts and diagrams that clearly communicate and present project data
The Visual Reports feature uses Microsoft Office Excel® to produce PivotTable views, charts, graphs, and professional-looking reports based on project data. Users can easily build work breakdown structures (WBS) or resource diagrams in Microsoft Office Visio® Professional. With data-driven diagrams, users can show progress bars, flag important tasks, color-code on cost, or create custom diagrams to match their project needs, resulting in improved stakeholder satisfaction and team coordination.

• Add visual highlights to draw attention to crucial information
  about the project
  The new Background Cell Highlighting feature, similar to Excel, enables users to change the color of cells and rows in order to convey crucial, project-related information such as important dates, costs, or tasks. This capability helps focus team members and stakeholders on critical areas of a project.
• Present important project information to the project team and stakeholders effectively
  Project 2007 includes predefined task, resource, and cross-tab Report Templates. Project managers can easily present the most frequently used information needed to manage projects, track resources, maintain costs, and communicate project progress to the team. Users can customize these reports to improve the effectiveness and clarity of their communication.