Microsoft Project may be used with PD-Trak but is not required.  MS Project is an excellent task planning tool for planning activities including task dependencies on complex projects, allowing the critical path to be identified and managed. MS Project can also be used for capturing project resource requirements by task and MS Project Server can be used to roll up resource demands across the portfolio.  However, most companies find the requirements for maintaining detailed Gantt charts with current resource requirements to be too detail oriented and too demanding.  As a result MS Project Server does not offer a practical solution for most companies.  PD-Trak has been designed to work with MS Project for detailed task planning but allow a "broader brush" approach to resource analysis that is easier to maintain while still supporting good decision making on resource utilization.

 

If a project manager chooses to plan and track the project using Microsoft Project, the data can be imported into several worksheets within PD-Trak: