Previous chapter: Part 4 - The People
The most likely answer to the question “What does a manager need?” is reporting. Reporting is vital for managing anything. Without reports most forms of management fail. This is not only because without reports, it’s very easy to lose track of what’s going on, but also because most managers have to also report to their managers.
In previous chapters, we have already touched on what SharePoint can bring to the table when it comes to people and project management. But making projects run more smoothly and getting people communicating is one thing. You will want to see what benefits you get out of it. You still want to keep track of how things are working out on one project and on all projects combined. Furthermore, you will also want to keep track of the productivity of your people. Since your people and project management are already integrated in SharePoint, why not use SharePoint to get reports on them?
Of course, we don’t want managers to have to part with their complicated Excel sheets or other reporting applications. What it comes down to is that SharePoint can help you with day-to-day reporting (keeping track of) and provide you with the information to build the heavy managerial reports for monthly or annual reporting.
By Ronny Gabriels, Functional Analyst and ex-.net Solution Architect