OK… for some of you, this may be considered a given, but I will consider it my first “Bambooby trap,” or lesson learned, whichever you prefer. In all fairness, I should note that this is probably more of a SharePoint issue than a PM Central issue. Whichever the case, however, it is not a step you want to overlook when getting started with PM Central. So here it is…
Consult with my SharePoint Administrator before “Getting started” with testing any third-party SharePoint product such as PM Central. Such a consultation will save me and my SharePoint Admin some unnecessary surprises, headaches, and rework.
In my case, I neglected this important step before creating my first test project site from the Top-Level Site page where a summary of all the projects in our portfolio will be displayed. Needless to say, this did not go unnoticed. In fact, this action sent a shockwave all the way through our entire production SharePoint Project Management website when the unique permissions for the new project I created took priority over all existing permission groups which had been previously created from our Active Directory! And, as I quickly discovered, that’s a Bad Thing.
Here are some questions to cover in advance with your SharePoint Admin (yourself, if you are the SP Admin), which will certainly get you started off better than I did:
- Will I be testing PM Central in a production or test environment?
- If in a test environment… (which is the better choice of the two)
- What data storage limits should I be aware of, if any?
- How frequent are data backups performed, if any?
- What, if any, test data exists that I can use in this testing?
- What permission level do I have, and is it enough to perform appropriate testing?
- If in a production environment… same questions as above, plus:
- How do I set up user permissions for new project sites, so it will not interfere with other permission groups?
- What rules should I be aware of when assigning permission levels to other users?
- Rules when deleting Groups, or Sites?
- When in doubt, or I suspect or know a mistake has been made, who do I contact before taking any action to fix anything?
- What other concerns are there that I should know about before I begin?
For now, this is what I will cover in my meeting today with our SP Admin. If you can think of any other points to include, I welcome your feedback, comments, or suggestions.
‘Til next time…
Follow Mike Womack’s entire Adventures in Bamboo PM Central guest blog series:
