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The Challenge

As one of PPM Works’ longest-standing clients, this global medical device manufacturer came back for one of its most technically demanding engagements yet: a complex upgrade of roughly 2,000 projects and 1,000 resources from Microsoft Project Server to Project Online. The upgrade itself required standing up a new instance, a development environment, and ultimately a production environment, but the harder problem was everything layered on top of the platform.

Years of use had cluttered the system with outdated fields, projects, and resource sites, creating reporting and performance challenges that made it difficult to trust the numbers. On top of that, the organization needed Documentum and SAP integration with Project to be treated as a necessity, not a nice-to-have, so that project financials and stage-gate deliverable approval status stayed connected to what was actually happening on the ground.

The Solution

Because PPM Works had been this manufacturer’s trusted PPM partner for years, the team came into the engagement with a deep understanding of which solutions would actually move the needle. Custom integration work connected SAP and Documentum to Project so that financials and stage-gate deliverable approvals reflected real, current project status instead of static reports. Workflow and Project Detail Pages were rebuilt to ensure data, especially charge code tracking, was captured correctly as projects transitioned between stages.

PPM Works also developed an InfoPath-based project ideation process, creating a system where new ideas could be scored and evaluated directly in SharePoint lists before being formally transitioned into PWA as projects, with SharePoint workflows automatically identifying the correct project type out of eighteen possible categories. To round out the engagement, the team built sites to track team contacts, key decisions, and approved changes, giving the organization a documented, auditable trail of who decided what, and when.

The Results

The upgrade delivered exactly what this manufacturer was looking for: standardized workflows that reduced manual overhead, dramatically improved business intelligence and reporting through upgraded SSRS reports, and a level of internal collaboration the organization hadn’t had before. On the strength of this rollout, Project Online is now being extended to additional teams across the company, the latest chapter in a partnership that has spanned years.