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Evaluation Guide

ValleySpeak Project Server - Evaluation Guide

Introduction

Choosing a Project Management software for an organization is a daunting task. There are scores of vendors and a wide spectrum of functionality to consider. The purpose of this guide is to help you quickly understand the basic functionality of ValleySpeak Project Server and determine if it is suited for your organization.

Getting Started

The first thing to do is to visit the ValleySpeak website and request for a trial by clicking on the 15 Day Free Trail link on the right side of the home page. ValleySpeak will send you an email with your server details and admin level login credentials within approximately 1 business day.

NOTE: Please note that this free trial gives you super-user administration permissions to create accounts for other users in your organization so that you can test the product in a multi-user & geographically-dispersed environment.

Setting Up User Accounts

The first thing to do for evaluating ValleySpeak Project Server is to create a few users.

Do the following steps:

  1. Login as admin@<Tenant Name> with the default password admin
  2. You will be prompted to change the admin default password, please go ahead and do that. This step will log you out and you will need to login again.
  3. You will see an End User License Agreement. Please go ahead and accept it.
  4. Click on the Admin tab and create three users. We recommend paul (Project Manager), tom (Team Member) and bob (Team Member). Please make sure that you set the appropriate user type for each user.
Creating these users will send emails to them with their login credentials and details of their ValleySpeak Project Server accounts. Team Members do not need to do any setup and can use any Operating System (For a complete set of system requirements please click here).

Once the user creation is completed, please log out of ValleySpeak Project Server.

Project Manager’s Environment Setup

The Project Manager must use Windows Operating System to access ValleySpeak Project Server (For complete system requirements please click here). Further more Project Managers must have Microsoft Project 2003 or 2007 installed on his computer.

Do the following steps to setup the Project Manager’s environment:

  1. Please make sure that Microsoft Project is not open.
  2. Open Internet Explorer or Firefox on Microsoft Windows and browse to ValleySpeak Project Server by entering the HTTPS address of ValleySpeak Project Server.
  3. Login to ValleySpeak Project Server as paul@<Tenant Name> (Project Manager)
  4. Click on the Setup icon, on the top right corner.
  5. Download and save the setup file anywhere on your desktop where you can easily find it. Please do not rename the file. During this process you may get a security warning. It is safe of ignore it.
  6. Double click on setup file. ValleySpeak Project Server Environment Setup window appears which will contain two options with Yes and No buttons. Click on Yes button to setup your environment.
  7. Microsoft Project will open, setup your environment and close automatically.
  8. Next you will get a popup window with Environment Setup Successful message displayed. Please click on the OK button to complete your environment setup.

Exercise 1 - Import An Existing Microsoft Project File

To import a preexisting project file, do the following steps:

  1. Open the project in Microsoft Project. If environment setup was successful for the Project Manager, then you should see a new menu called ValleySpeak in Microsoft Project.
  2. Click on the ValleySpeak menu, followed by the Publish To Server menuitem.
  3. Since this is the first time the project is being published, you will be asked for a username and password. Type the username paul@<Tenant Name> and his password. During this step you might get a security warning. It is safe to ignore it.
  4. Once publish is completed you will get a popup informing you that publish was successful.

To cross check that the import was successful, please do the following:

  1. Login to ValleySpeak Project Server as paul@<Tenant Name>
  2. Click on the Projects tab. You should see the newly imported project in the list of projects.
NOTE:Please note that once a Microsoft Project file has been imported it can be moved to any other location on the computer and can still be used as usual to make changes and Publish to ValleySpeak Project Server.

Exercise 2 - Creating A New Project And Getting Updates From Team Members

In this exercise we will test the real time update capabilities of ValleySpeak Project Server. Log in to ValleySpeak Project Server as Paul (Project Manager) and do the following steps:

  1. Click on the Resources tab.
  2. In the tab bar pull down menu, select the newly imported project from Exercise 1.
  3. Click on the Build Team action item.
  4. Select paul, tom and bob from the Global Resource Pool list and move them to the Project Resource Pool list, one by one.
  6. Click on the Save & Close button. You will be prompted to do a resource sync.
  7. Open the project in Microsoft Project from your desktop.
  8. Click on the ValleySpeak menu followed by the Sync Resources with Server. You will now be able to see the newly created resources in your project in Microsoft Project’s Resource Sheet view.
  9. Switch back to the Gantt View and create a task called Tom’s task and assigns it to tom.
  10. Click on the ValleySpeak menu followed by the Publish To Server menu item.
  11. Paul’s Publish action would have sent an email to all Team Members.

Log in to ValleySpeak Project Server as tom and see his interaction by doing the following steps:

  1. Log in as tom.
  2. Click on Tasks tab. You should be able to see a task called Tom’s task
  3. Click on Tom’s task to view task details.
  4. Update the % complete field to 50% and click on Save & Close button. This action will send an email to Paul stating that Tom has updated his task progress.
  5. Logout from ValleySpeak Project Server.

Log in to ValleySpeak Project Server as paul (Project Manager) and do the following:

  1. Log in as paul.
  2. You will be able to see an Alert on the Dashboard. Clicking on the alert will take you to the respective task page.
  3. Approve Tom’s update.
  4. Tom will get an email alert stating that his task status has been approved.
  5. Open the project in Microsoft Project and click on the ValleySpeak menu followed by the Get Updates From Server menu item.
  6. You should be able to see Tom’s task at 50% done.
    7. NOTE: This requires that you have to either make the % Work Done column visible in Microsoft Project, or double click on each task to see the task details.

Conclusion

The above exercises were designed to demonstrate the interaction between Project Managers and Team Members with ValleySpeak Project Server. It clearly shows how ValleySpeak Project Server allows Project Managers to Publish, Control and Execute projects in real time while continuing to use Microsoft Project. Please contact us at support AT valleyspeak DOT com if you have further questions.