Scenario

Connie Campaign is a fellow project manager who will be taking paid time off for three weeks beginning next week. During the time she is out, you will take over and manage her Collateral for Credit Card Reader R200 project. You cannot currently see her project in either Microsoft Project Professional or in the Project Center page in Project Web App.

Solution

In order for you to take over and temporarily manage this Enterprise project for Connie Campaign while she is on vacation, there are two actions that must be performed:

Before she leaves, Connie Campaign must designate you as the Owner of the Enterprise project. This action will allow you to see, open, edit, save, and publish to the project.
You must open the Enterprise project in Microsoft Project Professional and designate yourself as the Status Manager for tasks scheduled to occur while she is away. This will allow you to approve tasks updates from team members assigned to those tasks in the project.

Remember, after Connie Campaign returns from vacation, you will need to designate her again as the Owner of the Enterprise project and the Status Manager of all tasks in the project.

Setting the Owner of the Project

The default permissions in Project Online only allow a project manager to see, open, and edit their own projects. The default permissions do not allow a project manager to even see anyone else’s projects. These permissions are based on who is the owner of the project. If you are the owner of the project, you can see, open, and edit the project. If you are not the owner of the project, you cannot see the project, either in Microsoft Project Professional or in the Project Center page in Project Web App.

Before Connie Campaign leaves on vacation, she must designate you as the Owner of her project by completing the following steps:

Log into Project Web App and then navigate to the Project Center
In the data grid of the Project Center page, click the name of the Collateral for Credit Card Reader R200

Figure 1: Project Center page

3. In the “drill down” section at the top of the Quick Launch menu, click a link where the resulting page will display the Owner field. In the following figure, the correct link would be Business Case, but the link may different in your own Project Online system

Figure 2: Project drill down section in the Quick Launch menu

4. At the top of the resulting project details page, click the Project tab to expand the Project
5. In the Project section of the Project ribbon, click the Edit button to check out the enterprise project for editing.

Figure 3: Click the Edit button

6. Click the Browse button for the Owner

Figure 4: Click the Browse button for the Owner field

7. In the Pick Resource dialog, select the name of the temporary owner of the project, and then click the OK button.

Figure 5: Pick Resource dialog

8. In the Project section of the Project ribbon, click the Save button to save and publish the changes. When the Save job is completed, click the Close button to close the checked out project.

Figure 6: Save and Close buttons

9. In the Close dialog, leave the Check it in option selected and then click the OK button.

Figure 7: Check in the project

After Connie Campaign has completed the steps to designate you as the Owner of the project, you will now be able to see, open, edit, save, and publish the Collateral for Credit Card Reader R200 project.

Setting Yourself as the Status Manager

The next set of steps must be completed by you so that you can view and approve pending task updates from team members in the Collateral for Credit Card Reader R200 project. These steps cannot be performed by Connie Campaign, the original project owner. To designate yourself as the Status Manager for the tasks you will be managing in this project, complete the following steps:

Launch Microsoft Project Professional and connect to Project Online.
Open and check out the Collateral for Credit Card Reader R200 project for editing.
Apply the Gantt Chart
Right-click on the Duration column header and select the Insert Column item on the shortcut menu.

Figure 8: Select the Insert Column item

5. In the list of available task columns, select the Status Manager

Figure 9: Select the Status Manager column

6. Widen the Status Manager column, as needed.
7. Locate any tasks that you will manage during the time period Connie Campaign is away on vacation, plus any tasks scheduled after her vacation but which might start earlier than planned.
8. In the Status Manager column for every task you will manage temporarily, click the Status Date pick list and select your own name.

Figure 10: Select the Status Manager value

9. Save and publish the Enterprise project.
10. Close and check in the Enterprise project.

Once the Publish job has completed, you will now receive pending task updates from team members assigned to the tasks for which you designated yourself as the Status Manager. You will need to approve these pending updates on the Approval Center page in Project Web App.

Resetting the Original Owner

When Connie Campaign returns from her vacation, you and she will need to reverse the steps shown previously in this article. Starting from the Project Center page in Project Web App, you will need to designate her as the owner of the project again. Once completed, Connie will need to open the project in Microsoft Project Professional and specify herself as the Status Manager for the tasks where you previously specified yourself as the Status Manager. She will then need to save and publish the project to make the changes take effect for the project.