EPM 2010 dashboards make project management seamless

Johannesburg, 29 Jul 2011

Eastplats, Canada's largest platinum group metals producer and owner of a portfolio of high-grade platinum and rhodium-rich deposits in South Africa's Bushveld Complex, has successfully implemented EPM 2010. Based on its previous success working with local project management specialist, UMT Consulting SA, Eastplats decided to re-employ the company.

The Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution ensures global organisations like Eastplats select and deliver the right projects, while gaining greater visibility and control of resources. Innovative new capabilities in EPM 2010 provide improved productivity and better business performance.

Suran Pillay, Eastplats project manager, says they required baseline project schedule and costing, dashboards for reporting to directors, access to project schedules, integration with Prism Accounting System and Sharepoint for document storage.

Project 2010 recognises the importance of team collaboration in successfully delivering projects, and the key role that reporting plays in maintaining transparency and control across project portfolios. It synchronises with SharePoint and enhances workgroup collaboration by publishing Project Professional 2010 schedules.

“Microsoft Project Server 2010 is built on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, so it combines powerful business collaboration platform services with structured PPM capabilities to provide flexible work management solutions for teams of all sizes,” he adds.

Pillay says time reporting enhancements saves time and unifies task status updates and timesheet submissions using Single Entry Mode. “Today more than ever, organisations need accurate, up-to-date information to make informed business decisions. Many organisations use time reporting systems to capture work and non-working time for payroll, invoicing, and other business purposes.”

Similarly, project managers need to efficiently capture and communicate status on project work to help gauge progress and to anticipate the effect on planned effort, cost, and timeframes. Although the type and source of information is similar, divergent uses and requirements make it difficult for organisations to have a centralised and common approach to time reporting and task management.

“Time capture and project progress reporting poses several challenges to organisations, and they need to have the following characteristics. We required an easy-to-use interface. Time entry systems tend to be widely used across organisations and need to be simple and intuitive for those who regularly enter and approve updates. Users expect a consistent and familiar interface that shows current and relevant time capture categories to support accurate reporting of time and project progress,” he explains.

Pillay says UMT Consulting SA's preconfigured Project Server 2010 FUSION product was also installed successfully. “It is user-friendly and designed by professionals. It gives PMOs the flexibility they need to easily create project-level reports and quickly configure dashboards to provide executives with manageable views that communicate the complete financial picture.”

“The best-in-class portfolio selection analytics included in Project Server 2010 provide executives with decision-support tools, which help them effectively allocate funds and continuously optimise the portfolio to ensure that it delivers the biggest bang for the buck and optimally aligns with business strategy,” he says.

Microsoft's EPM 2010 brings together the business collaboration platform services of SharePoint Server 2010 with structured execute capabilities to provide flexible work management solutions. Project Server 2010 unifies project and portfolio management to help organisations align resources and investments with business priorities, gain control across all types of work, and visualise performance using powerful dashboards.

Referring to UMT Consulting SA, Pillay says the skills and professionalism of the company are unmatched in the market, the staff is highly skilled, and they understand the client's requirements.

“Project and portfolio management helps organisations gain visibility and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximising resource utilisation, and enhancing project execution to optimise ROI,” he concludes.

For more information, contact UMT Consulting on (012) 345-3518 or visit http://www.umtsa.co.za.

UMT Consulting SA

UMT Consulting SA is the largest project, program and portfolio management solutions implementation partner in South Africa and has serviced more than a 100 of the country's leading organisations with its offerings. UMT Consulting SA recently concluded a BEE transaction whereby the Notsi Group owns a 25% shareholding in the ordinary share capital of the company. The company is equipped with sound staff values, capacity to deliver on its promise, practical knowledge and it has a BEE partner that actively participates and contributes to the company's success.

UMT Project and Portfolio Management Services South Africa (UMT Consulting SA) was formed through the merger of Fulcrum Business Solutions, South Africa's leading provider of enterprise project management solutions, and UMT Portfolio Management SA, the leading portfolio management organisation.

Since 1989, both UMT and Fulcrum Business Solutions have pioneered the field of project and portfolio management and devised unique methodologies that, when combined with effective project management, enable an integrated link between strategy formulation and execution. UMT Consulting SA contributes to its clients' success by linking business and IT strategies to execution through day-to-day activities leading to improved performance and tangible projects delivery results.

UMT Consulting SA methodology, training, mentorship and coaching approach assist organisations successfully to deploy practical and essential project, program and portfolio management processes, templates, systems and governance solutions across their multi disciplinary divisions or departments.

UMT Consulting SA solutions consistently help its clients build capabilities that support effective business decision-making and enhance business delivery performance. Its objective is to assist its clients in ensuring the operational delivery of their strategy through effective project, program and portfolio management.

UMT Consulting SA is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner and a Microsoft Project, SharePoint and Portfolio Server implementation partner.

According to UMT Consulting SA CEO Pieter Meyer, the time has passed to just improve on your delivery processes but to introduce a new way of collaborating between team members, program and project managers, senior managers and executives. “Organisations need to enable and revive their processes by introducing a responsibility, accountability, consult and inputs (RACI) formal governance framework to their projects environments and to use work flow that will manage the governance outputs. Role-based delivery management methods will become very important in any organisation, ensuring return on investments in their project delivery space.”

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