As a manager, you can design a status report for team members to complete that contains the information you want to receive. You can then several team members in one consolidated status report.

Team members can also design status reports and send them unsolicited to thet manager, or they can reply to status reports generated by their manager

Submitting Status Reports

To request a status report from team members, click the Status Reports menu and choose Send a Status Report. When the Status Reports’Overview, shown in Ftgure 16.10, opens, click Request a Status Report

From this page, you can set up a new status report, edit an existing status report, or delete a status report. To set up a status report, choose the first option and click OK. A four-step wizard walks you through the p,rocess of creating a ‘status report, In the first step, shown in ‘Figure 16.11, enter the name of the report, how frequently you want to have the report completed, the recurrence pattern (for example, first Monday of every month), and the date when the report period begins. Click Next to move onto the next step of the wizard

In the second step, shown in Figure 16.12, select the resources you want to respond to this new report. When you click a resource name and click Add, a checkbox appears in front of their name to indicate that this resource’s report will be merged with the other resource reports to create a consolidated report. Clear this checkbox if you want to review the individual reports before consolidating them

If you want to add a new resource to the resource list; click the button at the bottom. Choose the type of authentication: Windows or Project Central, and enter the requested domain and username information. Click Next to move on.

In the third step, enter the sections you want to appear in the report, and include a ·brief description of each. Project Central offers three suggestions, shown in Figure 16.13. Insert and delete additional items by clicking the Insert Rewand Delete Row buttons. Use the Up and Down buttons to change the. order of the sections. Click Next to move to the last step

team member can also create a status report form by choosing Submit an Un requested Status Report from the Acnonspane. They can enter a report name, name who it is going to, denote the period it covers, and then add whatever sections they want to Include. When they are ready to send it, they.can click the Send button, or save It and send it later.

Completing a Status Report

When team members receive status reports to complete, they are presented with a form, .such as the one shown in Figure 16.14, that contains the sections you included when you set up the report.

Team members can click the-Insert Tasks from Timesheet button to select tasks to Include in the report. Aproject task list opens. Changing the No to Yes in the Insert column Includes the task in the report. When they have selected all the tasks they want to complete. clicking the Insert Tasks button Includes the tasks in the report. Click Done to move back to the report

Viewing Status Reports

To view submitted, saved, or late status reports, click the My Status Reports link on the Actions pane. You can filter the list of status reports by choosing a predefined filter from the Filter list

You can also group the reports by Status Report Name, Start Date, and Submitted Reports by choosing a Group By option.

To open a report, click the report in the Report column, or select the report and click Open. Or you may choose to update, forward, or delete the report .

To view a group status report, click the Group Status Reports link in the Actions pane to open the Status Reports Overview, or choose to open a specific group report from the Actions pane. If you opened the Status Reports Overview, you can choose to see a group status report by selecting the report from the list of Group Status Reports. You can then choose whether you ~ant to open an individual team member’s report or the team report. A paper icon in the date column mdictes a report that is available to view.

Distributing Status Reports

When everyone’s status report is in, you may want to distribute it to other stakeholders in the project. You can do this by ernailing it to others, or saving it as HTML and posting it to a Web site. To email a team report, open the team report, and choose File >-

Send To »Page by Email from the Internet Explorer window, This opens an email form that you can use to send the page, S To save the page as HTML, choose File > Save As, and enter a file location and file name in the Save Web page dialog box that opens.

Sending Updated Project 1000 Data to Project Central

Whether you use the email workgroup tools discussed in Chapter 15 or Microsoft Project Central, you can work inside Project Itself to assign tasks, send updates, and solicit. status reports. You can use TeamAssign, TeamUpdate, and TeamStatus on the Workgroup toolbar or from the Tools > Workgroup menu to communicate with team members.

You can see a more detailed discussion of these workgroup tools in The primary difference when you use Project Central is that you have access to the Team inbox. You can use the Team inbox to review workgroup messages from team members within Project Central and then update the project file with the changes that the
team members report.