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5 Replies Last post: Sep 2, 2009 10:41 AM by Support  
Louai Adhami  
Louai Adhami
5 posts since
Jan 2, 2008
Currently Being Moderated

Mar 26, 2008 11:59 AM

MS Project

 

Hi,

 

 

I was wondering if anyone was using Contour in tandem with Microsoft Project.

 

 

I would be interested in exporting a list of functional requirements into project (I tried going through .xls files). Ideally, I would have a way of updating Contour when my tasks in Project are done, but for now I know this will have to be done manually. Did anyone attempt such an export.

 

 

Conversly, is anyone using Contour for time tracking  (e.g. task completions woudl be propagated, % complete, etc..). I haven't explored what canbe done in Reports, but I would think one could get quite fancy there.

 

 

Thanks

 

 

Eric Winquist  
Eric Winquist
95 posts since
Jun 11, 2007
Currently Being Moderated
1. Mar 26, 2008 11:53 PM in response to: Louai Adhami
Re: MS Project

Hi - your post is timely as I was just working on some initial requirements for our MS Project integration.  We're planning to start with an export to a MS Project file and then add in updates to Contour based on changes in MS Project.  We could go direct via XML or through Java using http://mpxj.sourceforge.net/index.html

 

A couple of questions...

 

What is the level of detail you'd want to output to Project (and want to track in Contour) - is it at the requirement level and track detail tasks in MS Project, or would you want those detail sub-tasks in Contour as well?  Or, would rolling up and reporting on the requirement level back to Contour be sufficient?

 

Are you using Project Server - or stand alone?

Louai Adhami  
Louai Adhami
5 posts since
Jan 2, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
2. Mar 27, 2008 6:58 AM in response to: Eric Winquist
Re: MS Project

Thanks for your reply, I'm glad you guys are considering this now.

 

In my case, I would try to have a 1-to-1 correspondence between functional requirements (which are the broken down version of higher level requirements) and  tasks in MS project. I think controling heirarchy is going to be very important, as I would want to choose groups to export to different projects, and would like to have this heirarchy reflected in MS-project (i.e. folder in Contour would be tasks containing subtasks in project).

 

 

 

As for what flows from project to contour, I would think a complete status would be enough, with the propagation happening on project before the info is re-injected to contour (by the way, is there a way of propagating changes up in Contour?).

 

 

 

I'm using stand alone project.

 

 

 

Thanks.

Javier  
Javier
1 posts since
Apr 11, 2008
Currently Being Moderated
3. Apr 11, 2008 3:03 PM in response to: Eric Winquist
Re: MS Project

 

Hi,

 

 

We have done just that using Microsoft Office Project 2003 XML Schema as interchange format, exposing two methods (getProject and a postProject) as web services. MS Project can open XML files that follow the schema, everything can can be mapped.

 

 

A MS project template with VBA macros opens a connection to the getProject web service and an action on the MS Project interface calls the web service postProject after modifications.

 

 

Native XML to  Microsoft Office Project 2003 XM translation is done with XSLT.

 

 

Regards

 

 

Javier Ruiz

www.tecsisa.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ashley Cook  
Ashley Cook
7 posts since
Jun 18, 2009
Currently Being Moderated
4. Aug 31, 2009 11:04 AM in response to: Eric Winquist
Re: MS Project

Eric ~

 

I just asked a similar question regarding integration with COTS tools in general. Regarding MS Project, I think that what we'd like to do initially is a lot simpler than what others on this thread are contemplating. In short, we'd like to integrate in some way to automate the updating of the project end dates and release start/end dates stored in Contour directly from the project plan since it changes so frequently on our project.

 

It looks like this thread hasn't been updated in a while and that you were working on initial requirements a few months ago. How are things going? Is this still a priority?

 

Thanks!

Ashley.

Support  
Support
76 posts since
Aug 4, 2007
Currently Being Moderated
5. Sep 2, 2009 10:45 AM in response to: Ashley Cook
Re: MS Project

Hi Ashley,  what you are trying to accomplish should be possible through MS Project Macro's accessing Contour through the API.   Give support a call when you have a moment to discuss and we can talk about how to test this out.

 

Here is a link to calling a web-service from VBA.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa140260%28office.10%29.aspx

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