SharePoint Project Management -- IntelliGantt Collaboration Settings

Here are the details explaining what this screen

really means.

This feature of IntelliGantt Plus and the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project allows you to use and modify many more fields than the default SharePoint Task List provides. For example, with WSS 3.0, the default task list looks like this:

With the new collaboration settings feature in IntelliGantt Plus, you can easily change these existing fields to whatever display name you prefer. Even better, you can add your own fields with your own nomenclature and let IntelliGantt Plus do the customization work so it can look like this:

Prerequisites

Windows Server with Windows SharePoint Services, version 2.0 and 3.0.
Manager or Web Designer Permission

What the columns mean

The collaboration settings dialog box has five columns: Name, Display Name, To SharePoint, From SharePoint and Description. Here are their definitions:

• Name -- (Not Editable) This is the column name to be entered into the database. End users don't care about this so much, but developers working on web parts that support IntelliGantt products care a lot!
• Display Name -- The display name for the column
• To SharePoint -- If checked, IntelliGantt Plus will send its data for this column to SharePoint
• From SharePoint -- If checked, IntelliGantt Plus will receive data for this column from SharePoint
• Description -- A helpful description that appears next to the field in SharePoint when editing

You can use these settings to describe how IntelliGantt Plus works with the default SharePoint Task List fields (Title, Assigned To, Status, Priority, Due Date and % Complete). For example, when you start a project, you might check the 'From SharePoint' attribute for Start Date and Due Date. This will let SharePoint users adjust the start and finish dates of your IntelliGantt tasks-- a simple collaborative approach to scheduling. When the schedule is set, though, the IntelliGantt Plus user can unclick 'From SharePoint' and then IntelliGantt Plus will enforce the project managers start and finish dates.

I Want More Fields!

You got 'em!

Both IntelliGantt Plus and the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project support the following:

• Thirty Text Fields (Text1 - Text30)
• Twenty Number Fields (Number1 - Number20)
• Ten Cost Fields (Cost1 - Cost10)
• Ten Date Fields (Date1 - Date10)

These fields, and their values, will not only be published to SharePoint, but also synchronized with IntelliGantt Plus or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. The custom Text1 field will have the same value as the SharePoint Text1 field; the custom Number1 field will have the same value as the SharePoint Number1 field; and so on.

For example, in IntelliGantt Plus it could look like:

Publish Summary Tasks

This setting handles whether summary tasks (tasks that contain sub-tasks) will be published during synchronization. When a task becomes a summary task it will be removed from the SharePoint Task List. Conversely, if a summary task no longer has children, it will appear in the SharePoint Task List.

Create Tasks From SharePoint List

This settings lets IntelliGantt Plus or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project recognize tasks added in the SharePoint Task list and add them to their schedule. This makes it easy for a project manager to ask everyone to add their important tasks, or the one task the PM forgot, to the schedule. If this setting is not enabled, users can still add tasks with their web browser in SharePoint, but IntelliGantt and IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project will not recognized them.

Enforce Task List Assignment

This setting enforces permissions such that members must be assigned to tasks in order for IntelliGantt to recognize the changes. Managers will always be able to update tasks.

Template Support

Once you've set up the collaboration settings you like for your SharePoint Task List and your own IntelliGantt Grid view, you can save the project as a template and re-use it. It will remember the customizations you made and apply them to new SharePoint Task Lists you create.