The Project Management Bridge was designed in accordance with the following guiding principles and concepts to make the system simple and manageable for both users and administrators:
- Stand alone systems – With Project Management Bridge, both Primavera Portfolio Management and the Project Management System continue to operate as they do in their standalone mode of operation. The Project Management Bridge allows them to share information, but does not attempt to have one application perform the tasks of the other application. For example, PPM should not be used to manage project level tasks, and the Project Management System shouldn't be used to group projects into portfolios.
- Unidirectional Information Sharing – A category in Primavera Portfolio Management can be set to either publish information to the Project Management System or be updated from the Project Management System. A single category cannot be set for both publishing and updating. Thus, conflicts are avoided. For example, a portfolio manager can define and use a category called Estimated Project Cost to publish cost estimates to the Project Management System. The manager can then define another category called Revised Project Cost Estimation to receive updated cost estimates made by the project manager in the Project Management System.
- Schedule Management – If a portfolio manger creates a new project in Primavera Portfolio Management, the manager can set the start and end date of the project and its phases. This information can be published once to the Project Management System, but from that point on the portfolio manager cannot overwrite the start and end dates in the Project Management System. In many systems, the Project Management System is configured as the source for updating PPM start and end dates for projects and project phases.
- Templates and Lifecycles – When a new project is published, the Project Management System can either use an existing template, or base the project on its PPM lifecycle. In the latter case, the Project Management Bridge uses an empty template and creates a summary task to represent each phase, basing it on the project’s lifecycle in PPM. In either case, summary tasks in the Project Management System can be set to update phase information in PPM. This is performed by matching the names of summary tasks and phases. For more information on publishing in MS Project Server , refer to Entering Publish Mapping Definitions for Sub-Items Mode in The MS Project Bridge Settings Wizard.
- Project Level Data Mapping – Categories in Primavera Portfolio Management can be set to publish or update information only at the project level. Task level information cannot be mapped directly to a category in PPM. For example, you can set a category in PPM to be updated by the total cost of the project in the Project Management System. You cannot set a category to map to cost from individual tasks in this project.
- Filtered Data Mapping – Data mapped from a field in the Project Management System to Primavera Portfolio Management can be filtered by time or resource. Time filters allow for the creation of categories such as ‘Cost 2007’ or ‘Cost 2008 Q1’. Resource filtering allows you to filter information from the Project Management System fields based on resource field information, thereby creating categories such as ‘Programmers Work Hours’ and ‘Managers Cost’. For more information on mapping in MS Project Server, refer to Entering Update Mapping Definitions for Phases Mode in The MS Project Bridge Settings Wizard.
- Baselines – Baseline information can be mapped from the Project Management System to Primavera Portfolio Management.
- Synchronization – The Project Management Bridge can be set to automatically synchronize information between the systems according to a predefined schedule. This means that the system will publish and then update information for any item in Primavera Portfolio Management that is set to be included in the synchronization. In most systems, projects will not be included in the synchronization process unless the portfolio manager determines otherwise. This helps prevent unintentional exposure of sensitive data. The portfolio manager may decide to include items in the synchronization process if the manager wants the item to be updated on a regular basis and there is no fear of exposing data to the project manager and other Project Management System users. For a detailed description of the synchronization process refer to Configuring Synchronization in Configuring Project Management Bridge after Installation.