4 Tips to Enhance Your SharePoint Project Management Site

SharePoint is a powerful collaboration platform and can be used out of the box to manage projects. Here are four quick ways to enhance your SharePoint project management site for even better collaboration.

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4 Tips to Enhance Your SharePoint Project Management Site

1. Optimize the Quick Launch

Here’s a question we like to ask our customers … “Do the folks working on projects have templates and guidance on how to manage projects the way you want them to?” Well, SharePoint makes this very easy to do!

A SharePoint site is made up of different lists and libraries. For example, you might manage tasks, issues in different lists and also include a document library to track deliverables. All of these represent the amount of “process” you are using to manage the project.

This is where you can map your Quick Launch to your specific project management process.

See in the image below how the Quick Launch is grouped nicely into the categories “Initiate & Plan” and “Execute & Control.” It acts as a guide for Project Managers when initiating and tracking a project.

2. Leverage the MS Project Sync

For complex projects, the Project Structured Template in BrightWork supports a bi-directional sync with Microsoft Project Professional.

This means you can plan your project using the task list in your SharePoint site and make any calculations or updates needed in MS Project. Not only does it create a Microsoft Project file, but every time you change the list or the MPP, they will also be kept in sync automatically.

Likewise, any updates made by the team in BrightWork are synced with your MS Project site.

3. Schedule Email Reports

One of the most important things you will need to do as a Project Manager is to communicate responsibilities to team members, so people know what it is they should be doing! Now while everyone should make it a habit to check their tasks in SharePoint every day, some of them, for one reason or another, might not check their ‘My Work’ Report regularly.

But don’t worry! In SharePoint, you can automate the reports so they are emailed to the team on a regular basis. You might choose to send ‘My Work’ reports every Monday morning, every morning, or whatever interval you feel is appropriate for your team.

In the same way, you might choose to automate the Project Status report to senior management every Friday afternoon, explaining the weeks’ progress.

This is simple functionality that can be critical in keeping the team on track and all stakeholders up-to-date.

4. Use Local Terminology

The SharePoint platform is so easily configured, that you can and should tailor the site to mimic your local processes, branding, and internal language.

If your project management guidelines refer to the “Risks List” as the “Risks Register,” then it should be labeled that way in SharePoint as well.

This will help to increase user adoption of SharePoint for your projects and simplify collaboration as everyone is speaking the same language.

Originally published at https://www.brightwork.com.