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We would like to manage a project structure where individual projects can take a part in a top level project structure sharing a single resource pool. It should be possible for individual authors to work on those individual projects, or possibly the same project, at the same time.

We are familiar with co-authoring in excel, word, etc (through sharepoint) and it works fine. We have licences for MS project 2019. But we can't seem to find a way to set up co-authoring, or find any definite statement as to whether it is even possible with project.

I have seen "Microsoft Project Server 2019" and "Project Online" mentioned, are these different products and are these needed?

Any guidance or info about this would be much appreciated,

Kurt Riede
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Ianb
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Project Online is the Azure based version of the good old Project Server for on-premises. Both are so called Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management Tools. If you are looking for co-authoring in sense of concurrent editing, you will not be satisfied with both of them: You must checkout and checkin a plan for editing. If you are looking for true concurrent co-authoring you should take a look at the oncoming new Project Service. It explicitly allows co-authoring. Nevertheless it starts with very limited features, it is supposed to grow soon and fast.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/09/25/a-new-vision-for-modern-work-management-with-microsoft-project/

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Project-Blog/A-letter-to-our-Microsoft-Project-community/ba-p/260891

Kurt Riede
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  • Many thanks. Maybe our expectations are too high. As a second best, is there any way to set up 2 independent projects which can be edited simultaneously by 2 authors, which share a single resource pool? – Ianb Sep 20 '19 at 10:33
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    Yes! It's one of the key features of Project Server and Project Online to have a shared enterprise resource pool and a scheduling engine that allocates and levels ressources according to existing assigments in other Projects. – Kurt Riede Sep 20 '19 at 11:13
  • ok we found this: https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/create-and-share-a-resource-pool-64a2416e-b811-4ddf-b039-e0347e233581 - but could not find a way to make it work with independent projects. So author A editing project A has to lock the resource pool and project B while he edits project A so author B cannot work on project B at the same time – Ianb Sep 20 '19 at 12:50
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    You Need to store your project on Project Online in order to have the Enterprise Resource Pool available and then your can achieve your goal. – Kurt Riede Sep 21 '19 at 16:11
  • Kurt's answer is correct, but getting your head around Project Online can be tricky at first. If you want some help I could probably walk you through it in on a web call in about 15 mins; reach out on LinkedIn if you need to. – Eric Christoph Sep 22 '19 at 00:35