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Construction Project Management Software Solutions

SharePoint Power Pivot

Create Interactive Visio Diagrams with SharePoint

How-To |

Here’s a powerful way your project team can share interactive diagrams and process flow charts using Microsoft Visio and SharePoint.

If you’ve read our blog before, you know that Microsoft SharePoint is the ideal enterprise Project Management Information System (PMIS) for managing major projects. Plus, it has the added benefit of out-of-the-box integration with the Microsoft Office applications you use every day.  This is why Microsoft SharePoint is the platform powering our award-winning Lydon Solutions Construction Program Management Portal.

We’ve already shown you what the super-duo of Microsoft Excel and SharePoint can do for project teams. Now we’ll introduce you to the super-powered potential of another of Microsoft’s premier Office products. Read on to learn how Microsoft Visio can seamlessly integrate with SharePoint to create a complete solution for you and your team.

Create and Share Interactive Visio Diagrams Using Microsoft SharePoint
You’re probably familiar with Microsoft Visio as a tool for creating business diagrams. Your company likely uses Visio for things like office layouts, org charts and process flow diagrams. Wouldn’t it be great if these types of diagrams could be easily shared and kept always up-to-date? They can be – even if most of your team doesn’t have Visio installed.

Creating and sharing interactive Visio diagrams is simple with Microsoft SharePoint. Assume you have a business diagram created in Visio. Now you want to share that diagram with your team. Microsoft SharePoint Visio Services allows you to connect SharePoint and Excel data with Visio objects. You can then web enable your connected diagram inside SharePoint.

Presto! Your team now has an interactive diagram viewable in SharePoint. Team members don’t even need to have Visio installed in order to view and interact with it in SharePoint. Better still, your Visio diagram will automatically update when changes are made in Excel or SharePoint.

Pretty nifty, right? But how does this feature help you? Consider two common construction project scenarios.

Scenario 1:  Interactive Gate Process
Let’s say you have a gate approval process for your program. It includes all the steps needed to obtain approval for a project.  You have standard templates in Excel, Word, or InfoPath that must be completed at each gate.

You can use Microsoft SharePoint Visio Services to easily turn a manual process into an interactive one. First, link the documents for each gate in your Visio flow diagram. Then post the linked gate process flow diagram to SharePoint. And you’re done.

You’ve created an interactive gate process diagram in just a couple steps. Your users can access the gate diagram in SharePoint to easily pull down the template required at each step in the process.

Below is a sample using the PMI knowledge Areas:


Scenario 2:  Interactive Org chart
Manually updating org charts can be a pain. So make the process dynamic. Use Microsoft SharePoint Visio Services to link your org chart diagram to a contact list. Now your Visio org chart will automatically update when your contact list changes.

You can take it step further and create an always-up-to-date office layout diagram. Simply link a row of data in Excel or a SharePoint List to your Visio office layout diagram and upload to SharePoint. You’ve now created a relationship between location and contact information.  When users are modified in the contact list, both your Visio org chart and office diagram will automatically display the updates.

Below is a sample of an office layout linked to an Excel Contact list:

Save Time and Money on Your Construction Projects
Ready to deploy a complete SharePoint PMIS solution for your project team? Contact us for a Free Consultation.

You can also learn more about our Construction Program Management Portal here.

 

Excel as a Construction Project Management Tool

Reviews |

Learn how you can unleash Excel’s hidden superpowers for your construction project team

Excel is currently the mostly widely used project management tool for construction professionals. You may not want to hear that ­­– especially if you are a VP who just implemented a multi-million dollar project management system­­ – but it’s true. Many of those overseeing programs in your company turn to Excel to handle day-to-day project management and reporting. They do this even if you have multiple in-house project management software packages at their disposal.

The widespread reliance on Excel for construction project management might surprise some readers. After all, using Excel for real project management tasks used to be a taboo in the construction industry. But most, if not all, of the construction project managers we talk with admit that Excel is their go-to tool for multi-million – even billion – dollar projects because it is easy to use.

Pros & Cons of Using Excel for Construction Project Management

Excel is a flexible and easy project management tool because it is simple for project teams to update data and create and share reports. Collaboration is easy, since everyone has Excel and is familiar with the software. This is not the case with the limited licenses and steep learning curve of proprietary project management tools.

But the same construction professionals who told us they relied on Excel were also quick to complain about its shortcomings. The most frequently mentioned limitation on using Excel to manage projects include:

• Files are stored locally so sharing and backups becomes a problem

• Consistency and control across spreadsheets isn’t enforceable

• There are often user errors and version control issues

• Excel isn’t a database

It is a classic love/hate story. The construction project managers we meet love Excel for its simplicity and ease of use, but dislike where that simplicity causes the tool to come up short.

The thing is, Excel in recent years has gained some lesser known capabilities – we consider them superpowers really – that make it an even better construction project management tool than most realize.

Excel Power Maps
Power Maps
Power Pivot
Power View

 

 

Unleashing Excel’s Superpowers for Construction Project Management

The good news for our fellow Excel-loving construction industry professionals is that recent enhancements to Excel enable it to be a more effective construction management software package.

So what’s changed?  With the release of Microsoft’s Excel PowerPivot Add-in, which is already built into to Excel 2010 and 2013 and can be turned on from the COM Add-ins menu, Microsoft has morphed Excel into a relational DAX database.  Combined with SharePoint Power Pivot Services, the entire project team can connect, report and share Excel files across the organization.

Imagine the possibilities. You can take existing Excel cost reports and other tracking spreadsheets and use Excel Power Pivot and SharePoint Power Pivot Services to turn them into full blown web-enabled applications that leverage SharePoint permissions.  It’s now possible to connect Excel to many different data sources such as SharePoint Forms and Lists, SQL tables, Access tables, and even other Excel files.  No longer do you need to purchase or build an expensive custom coded solution. These capabilities turn Excel in a project management superhero for construction professionals.

And this evolution of Excel and SharePoint places the power of building and managing solutions in your hands.  Users can straight away leverage their existing Excel files that they know and love and immediately create robust cost management tools. No long and expensive development cycles, no coding and no complicated proprietary tools required.

Ready to unleash Excel’s superpowers for your team? All of these functions and more are incorporated into Lydon Solutions Program Management Portal for Construction. Contact us for your free demo or download our brochure.