Entourage 2004 Project Center: Project Management 101
28 May 2004 Justin Williams Skip to comments
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An introduction to the new Project Center features included in Microsoft's Entourage 2004 release. Justin teaches you everything you need to know to get your group organized.
One thing we have been looking for at MacZealots is a decent project management solution where we can keep article ideas, updates on whats in the pipeline, and various other information. We looked at several existing solutions on the Mac as well as Basecamp from 37signals. Nothing has seemed to fit the bill exactly as of yet.
With Microsoft's Office 2004 release, Entourage was upgraded to include a new feature called "Project Center." The Project Center allows the user to quickly view all contacts, documents, messages, and notes related to a project in a single location. The Project Center expands across the entire Office 2004 line with integration in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as well (not other OS X applications though).
The goal of this tutorial is to get you familiar with Entourage's new Project Center features so that you can decide if it is the best solution for your personal or professional projects. For the record, the jury is still out as to whether it is a good solution for Zealots.
To begin a new project, click on the Project Center tab in Entourage 2004. From there, click on New Project from the toolbar. The New Project Wizard launches and lets you know that is will hold your hand through the creation of your new project. You can assign a unique name, due date, description, and even a logo to your project. I tried to add a massive photoshop file as my logo, and Entourage didn't take too kindly to resizing it, so definitely resize your logo to something manageable. The one I am using is 128 pixels by 128 pixels. You can do that resize in any graphics editing package.
The next screen lets you assign a Project Watch folder. This is where the project's resources are stored. Anytime you add a file to your project, an alias is created in this Watch folder. If you already have created a category to classify information you want to use in the project, you can have the application import that data for you. You can also import data from another project.
The next screen lets you work with filtering your email data. By default, Entourage has all your email from project contacts imported into the project. If you have subjects that contain the name of a project, you can import that as well. An example of this would be me putting MZ at the beginning of all of my MacZealots related email. Entourage would recognize that as being part of this project as well.
The final screen lets you know you can add and remove stuff and/or share your project over the network. We'll touch on that stuff later.
At the end of the wizard, the main Project Overview is displayed. At the beginning of a project if you didn't import any data from a category, it can be pretty bare like mine. The overview lets you see a week's worth of appointments relating to a project, all the tasks assigned to that project, and recent email correspondence and file updates.
The Schedule tab is an enlarged view of the work week calendar and task list. It also allows you to change how you view your calendar: day, work week, week, month, or a specific date. The Mail tab is a list of all email you have received from correspondents in your project. This is nice because it isolates a certain projects mail from the hundreds of messages you have in your main inbox. Unfortunately,
Files is where you create references to the files you are using in a certain project. If you are a web developer, you would probably want to link to the source files for the web project you are working on, diagrams, the contract proposal, etc. Sadly, you can't link to a folder itself. Contacts holds a listing of all contacts associated with the project. This is an essential part of how Project Center works. Without Contacts, you are not going to have a very productive project. Aside from creating contacts, you can create contact groups from within the project. This allows you to email a specific group of contacts.
Did I mention you can also easily send an IM to your contacts using MSN Messenger...not AIM, not ICQ, not Yahoo...just MSN. Oh Microsoft...
Clippings are tied in with Entourage's built in scrapbook. Anytime you highlight a bit of text, you can add it to the scrapbook. If you are in a non-Office application, be sure to copy the highlighted text to the clipboard so that it will import. The scrapbook is accessible from the Tools menu. 
The final tab deals with Notes. Notes are basically text files that you store in Entourage that contain whatever type of data you want. I like to keep passwords in there (although it is probably not the most secure thing to do).
Now, that we have an understanding of what each section of the Project Center does, we can look at some of the features that may be of interest to you. The main thing to realize is that at the top of the Entourage toolbar is a Projects button. Clicking on that will list all of your projects. If you ever want to add a contact, email, calendar event, or task to a project, click on that button and select the Project. It will automatically link the item over to the project.
At the bottom of each tab in Project Center is a Share button. Entourage allows you to store your project's data on a central server. The files should be shared on a central file server that anyone can access. The sharing supports WebDAV, the same protocol used to share iCal calendars, or AppleShare. I chose to store my project on my iDisk.
To subscribe to a project on another Machine click on Subscribe To Project from the File menu. Navigate to your iDisk and add the rge file. If you have a local iDisk enabled on your machine, be sure to synchronize the data up to the iDisk server and update it on all the Macs you are using. From either Mac you can now access the Schedule, Tasks, Files, and Contacts. It does not import the Mail from the local project, however. I doubt you want people reading your correspondence directly. If you have important email that you want people to be able to read, I'd suggest exporting it to a clipping in the scrapbook or as a Note.
As a final thing, you will probably want to backup your project often. From the Project Overview tab, you will notice the Backup button. Clicking on it will allow you to select what you want to backup, and then set a location where you want it to be saved to. You will most likely want to save your project files to somewhere off the machine the data is originally stored on.
Hopefully this article has give you a fair introduction to the new Project Center features included in Microsoft Entourage. It is available now as part of Microsoft Office 2004. If you have any more questions or find any omissions in this article, feel free to post them in the comments. Discussion is what makes MacZealots great!
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (20)
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#1) On May 28, 2004 9:09 AM
I’ve been curious about the Project Center in Entourage but am a committed DayLite user: http://www.marketcircle.com/daylite/
Pitched as a sales/crm/pim application, it has replaced iCal, Address Book (although it syncs to both these apps) & Life Balance for me.
It is incredibly flexible and powerful and I use it to implement David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” time management methodology http://www.davidco.com
#2) On June 6, 2004 6:07 PM
I think that a vertical solution such xTime Project from appMac.com is more practical.
#3) On July 1, 2004 10:30 AM
I’m very excited about learning Project Center in this latest version of Entourage/Office. It’s really the only reason I purchased the upgrade from Office 2001.
Like bongoman, the search for such a product has been a Holy Grail, really since purchasing my first Mac in ‘93, and trying all sorts of software solutions, Franklin day timers, and I, too, discovered Life Balance and David Allen’s Getting Things Done last year.
I have great hopes for Entourage’s Project Center. Since its inception, I’ve been wedded to Entourage, and I LOVE the idea of using/learning/entering data into only ONE piece of software, which is why I eventually dropped Life Balance, DayLite, etc. The idea of having my email, address book, project manager, Franklin day timer, and Overall Life Coordinator into one package… man, it’s the Holy Grail.
At this stage, though, I’m fairly confused by Project Center. I’m absolutely new to the MacZealot site nice site, folks! and was hoping this article would answer some questions. My main ones are still:
1. Has anyone figured out how to add a clipping into a Project from a non-Office application? Here’s what I’ve tried so far: I highlight and copy text from a website (for instance); I go to an existing Project, click on Clippings tab, and try pasting into the the various windows. I’ve also tried doing that through the menu: Tools: Scrapbook, but the Paste command there is grayed out. The MacZealot article says that this is possible (from a non-Office app), so I’m guessing I’m almost there but haven’t figured out the trick.
2. I’m wondering what to do with emails that come into ones Inbox that need to be associated with a Project. I read them, realize that they need to be associated with an existing Project, and then right click and get it assigned to that Project. But then what does one do with that email? I don’t think the Project Center makes a copy of the email, and places it in a folder somewhere. So, currently, I’m thinking that the best way is to create a folder, called Projects, and the subfolders for each Project, and then manually drag each email into its assigned Project folder.
And last, if anyone has found a forum or site that is discussing Project Center in detail, please let me know! I want to make it a central piece to my business this year. I love the fact that other Getting Things Done fans are looking into this. The combo could be killer :)
thanks for reading this lengthy post!
sequoia.
#4) On July 19, 2004 8:49 AM
I too am converting to Entourage to implement GTD. Amazing it’s all finally coming together.
For those using GTD with it, how do you use the Project Center? Do you make an Entourage Project for each GTD Project (anything that takes more than one task to complete)? Or do you do something different?
#5) On July 19, 2004 10:36 PM
Great tutorial! I have two questions.
First, paragraph 9 (starting with “The Schedule tab…”) ends with “Unfortunately,”. What’s missing?
Second, is there a way to use the calendar to create a Gantt Chart like timeline?
Thanks!
MSW
#6) On July 20, 2004 11:45 AM
Curious to know if you can link to files from non-Office apps (i.e. Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, etc.) so as that the file would open onto the desktop…
Any info would be greatly appreciated.
#7) On July 22, 2004 6:07 PM
I like the integration of notes, tasks, e-mail but I don’t see a way to get information out.
For example, I entered a list of tasks and can’t seem to export or drag the list for inclusion in a plain e-mail. I can drag one task at a time to Word but that is cumbersome.
Is there a way to read stuff out of the .rge archive file?
Am I missing something?
#8) On October 12, 2004 3:15 PM
Interesting. I was also wondering how to get the information out in a format that is portable.
Joshua Montgomery
http://www.velocitrack.com
#9) On November 15, 2004 11:02 AM
I have zero luck printing labels that are zip code sorted for large mailings from my Entourage Address book. Can anybody help?
#10) On November 26, 2004 4:52 PM
I can’t seem to find how to print mailing labels from Entourage. I can’t believe they’d leave out a function like this. Anyone know?
#11) On May 9, 2005 7:29 PM
There’s something I’m not understanding about the Entourage Project Center. I’ve put in all of my tasks, and I’ve linked them together. I can’t figure out how to show how they are all linked on one page, like MS Project used to do. Either by bars, or by showing the linked tasks on the calenadar. If you are not able to do this, then why do we have the option of linking tasks in the first place? Anyone’s help appreciated. Fred
#12) On June 25, 2005 6:07 PM
I am about to begin a job search and am looking for a program to keep track of résumés sent by mail, e-mail and sometimes directly on employer sites. I am not sure if Project Center is the best, as it seems a bit complicated.
I’ve heard of shared plan, daylite - anyone have any recommendations. Also, thanks to this site I discovered GTD. Is it compatible with Entourage?
Thanks for any help or recommendations.
#13) On July 27, 2005 5:24 PM
My art deptartment is hoping to use the Project Center to organize and coordinate our different projects. We need an organized method to track progress, deadlines etc. more efficiently and then recorded. This seems to be a very good possibility. I am trying to figure out the best way to set up a process for our team via shared Projects but it seems that there are so many functions that it is confusing. Does anyone have advice on how we could use the project center to:
Post Directions
Post Notes
Log Progress
Schedule Meetings
Make Comments
Activate alerts when updates have been made to a project by a subscriber
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
#14) On August 1, 2005 12:37 PM
I have set up a project to share with my co-workers to enable us to share the contacts. I have stored the rge file on our server (not an exchange server…just a plain, old file server). The problem we’re having is that if I put in new contacts, no one else can see them. The same with other people subscribing to this project. I have checked out all of our properties and we all have that we want to share new items selected. It seems that I have to keep creating new rge files in order to update the other subscribers. Obviously, this is not the thing to do. Any help? Please!!!
#15) On August 26, 2005 10:38 AM
I’d like to see the answers to all of these comments/questions. Where do I go to get the feedback?
#16) On September 8, 2005 11:16 AM
I too would like to know the answers to some of the above questions.
In addition;
1 - has anyone been able to take a CUSTOM VIEW project and see that laid out on the Calendar within Entourage?
2 - is it possible to share edited categories among a number of computers? By that I mean, if I set up my own definitions of categoried by using the Edit Categories feature - is there a way that I can share that information with the other people sharing my project. I’ve noticed that when I share a project, none of my category definitions get shared.
#17) On October 3, 2005 5:39 AM
Project Centre has been a great help with my work.. but lately, my Entourage seems to be a lil cranky :(
My colour-coded Project List just lost its colour! How can i get it back??
Has this happened to anyone before?
#18) On October 6, 2005 11:44 AM
Why, oh why is ther eno way to flag a project as “complete” like you can with a task????? Am I missing something? Seems liek something thats sort of, you know, fundamental to project management.
#19) On November 8, 2005 1:14 PM
Hello,
I have a question, not sure if anyone else has run across this. I manage several small web design projects and I user the “project center” feature. Is there a way to close that project in the project center? I don’t want it to be listed with active projects and I don’t want to delete the project just in case I need to reference the project. Any ideas, this seems like a basic feature but I was not able to fine it in their help files.
#20) On November 17, 2005 7:09 PM
Hello all,
I have one question about a problem that i have just come across in project centre. There are about 7 of us using project centre, both here in Australia and the Sates. Lately all 7 of us have been CONSTANTLY getting this message.
‘Entourage could not read the data in this .rge file’.
This problem is soooo anoying, can anyone shed some light.
Cheers