User Administration, Security, and Deployment
Omar Sidani, PMP, CEH, CCNA
Oracle Administration and Security Support

P6 v7 supports Oracle Identity Management and Access Management Suite and provides a new option for user provisioning through Oracle Identity Management (OIM). OIM assists organizations to centrally create and provision users across multiple, disparate systems, reducing the need for the added work of creating users in each system they need access to. Efficiencies can also be gained by single-sign-on capabilities.

P6 v7 supports Oracle Access Manager (OAM), which centrally manages security and access to various systems through single-sign-on that provides one common logon for all applications and removes the need to enter the login credentials for each system. This reduction in login credentials creates a more secure environment. Also supported is Oracle Identity Directory which is a central resource directory repository that helps organizations support single logon and single sign-on, reducing the cost of application management.

The P6 solution will also leverage Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) to assist Oracle Support as they help organizations deploy and maintain their P6 investment. OCM is an automated method to collect valuable configuration information to help Oracle understand customer environments.

Benefit: Cost of user administration and security can be reduced be centrally management across applications.

Activity Field-Level Security

P6 v7 introduces new field-level security for project activities. Each user can be assigned edit privileges to only the activity fields they are required to update, while all others are read only.

Benefit: The activity-level security gives the flexibility to allow individuals to update fields such as actual start and finish, percent completes and remaining effort, while limiting those same individuals to read-only access to other activity-level fields.

Excel Import Security

The security privilege for importing from Excel has been separated from the privilege of importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.

Benefit: This security option enables a user to import from Excel file types only, while also ensuring that global dictionary information is not modified when importing XER, MS Project and P3 file types.

Standardized Server Platform

The timesheet Group Server has been moved to the Java platform, removing the requirement
of being a Windows-based service on a Windows server.

Benefit: Common and independent platform support for the timesheet server.

Scalability, Performance, Availability

P6 v7 includes new technologies to help further improve scalability, performance and availability. Support for WebLogic JRockit JVM has been added for improved performance and scalability. Also, improved support for WebLogic clustering has been added to increase availability and scalability of the P6 solution. In addition, the Java server platform has been moved to version 6 of Java, which provides better performance and scalability for P6.

Benefit: Increased performance, scalability and availability.


Increased Standardization for P6 Web Services

P6 v7 Web Services now supports the following Web Services specifications:
WS-Security

WS-Security provides ways to secure your services above and beyond transport level protocols such as HTTPS. Through a number of standards such as XML Encryption, and headers defined in the WS-Security standard, it allows you to:
• Pass authentication tokens between services
• Encrypt messages or parts of messages
• Sign messages
• Timestamp messages

P6 Web Services v.7.0 supports passing authentication tokens using UsernameToken Profile
and timestamping messages. Encrypting and signing of messages may be supported in the future.

WS-Policy

The WS-Policy framework provides a general purpose model and syntax to describe the policies of a Web Service. For example, a company may require transport-level security for protecting web service messages. This requirement can be defined by using a policy. For detailed information on WS-Policy and the syntax for writing policy expressions, please visit http://www.w3.org/Submission/WS-Policy/.

WS-Addressing

WS-Addressing is a standardized way of including message routing data within SOAP
headers. When WS-Addressing is enabled, P6 Web Services will only accept client requests
that contain addressing information in the SOAP headers. One benefit of using WSAddressing
with P6 Web Services would be a case where asynchronous processing of messages is required. In this case, clients will send messages to P6 Web Services and can specify the endpoint where P6 Web Services will send the response. This endpoint can be the original endpoint that sent the request or a different endpoint.

Platform Support

• Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) 8 will be supported browser platforms in addition to existing IE 7 support. IE 6 support will be dropped.
• Oracle HTTP server is now a supported web server (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) – In addition to existing Jackrabbit support for content management, Oracle UCM will be supported.
• Oracle Enterprise Linux – Oracle Enterprise Linux will replace Red Hat Linux support (new for 6.2.1).
• Oracle XE – Oracle Express will replace Microsoft SQL Server Express for standalone desktop installations.
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 will be added as a supported RDBMS for P6 v7.0. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 will continue to be supported and SQL 2000 will be dropped.

The Benefits of PPM

Project Health Chart Using SPI and CPI It is imperative that when project execution commences, executives focus on two important aspects: the performance of their portfolios and the ability to visualize the impact of any strategic changes to their portfolio. This cannot be left to just project teams or departments for the simple reason they most likely will not have an enterprise view. Monitoring and controlling the portfolio performance requires adopting performance management systems that can aggregate projects’ schedule and cost performance results. For example, the earned value process provides a number of performance indicators that can indicate whether a portfolio of projects is on schedule and/or on budget (Figure 4 shows a Project Portfolio Health Chart). Executives have the ability to aggregate key milestone dates in order to have a clear picture of their projects and portfolios.

Primavera PPM DashboardThe growing interest in project portfolio management has created great interest in what is known as Portfolio Analysis Dashboards. These dashboards provide executives with “a single version of the truth” about the status of their project investments by consolidating project information in different forms and in a real time environment. With project portfolio management applications such as Primavera PPM Solutions, executives as well as project leaders can collect and analyze the necessary information to proactively manage project portfolios. In the oil and gas industry, Primavera solutions have broad adoption for a number of reasons. First the majority of oil and gas organizations globally (and in the region) have standardized on Primavera’s PPM solutions for managing their different types of projects and programs from plant expansion to maintenance work. This also applies to project management contractors, EPCs, general contractors and engineers who work for those organizations. This means that the data that project portfolio management requires for generating the dashboard content is readily available in a format that does not require recreation. The second reason is the flexibility in designing multiple dashboards with different graphical and tabular portfolio analysis reports depending on the unique needs of the user. And all of this is a fully web-enabled solution that provides access anywhere at any time for those who have the right access rights—whether in the boardroom or in the field.

Conclusion
As the pressure to successfully plan, select and execute projects grows, leaders with a strategic portfolio will be best positioned to succeed. Project portfolio management solutions, such as Primavera solutions from Oracle, enable executives and project leaders alike to successfully identify the best strategies and opportunities for existing and future projects. With this understanding, oil and gas leaders in the GCC countries can thrive during challenging economic times.

Possible Project CategoriesThe alignment phase allows executives within organizations to take an active role in identifying all possible project investments that an organization needs to take to achieve its strategic goals. These projects are then categorized according to which strategic objective it fulfils, the business unit it belongs to, risk levels, etc. (See Figure 3 for an example of categories). This categorization provides the information needed for evaluating investments and rating them, which would lead to determining what projects the organization will select. Priorities need to be assigned based upon project interdependencies (some projects could depend on other projects), constraints on funding, resource availability and other factors. A key challenge that faces organizations before selecting the final list of approved capital projects is to ensure that project portfolios have been balanced for risk exposure, return on investment, and line of business goals, among others. Applied against these criteria a final list of projects will be created.

The PPM Process

PMI® PPM and PMBOK 3rd Edition Standard ProcessesThe Project Management Institute (PMI®) standards for project portfolio management identify a number of processes that need to be implemented. These processes are grouped into two phases: Aligning, and Monitoring and Controlling (See Figure 2). Under Aligning, there are processes for project identification, categorization, evaluation, selection, prioritization, portfolio balancing and authorization. The second phase, which becomes

active when a project is sanctioned, contains portfolio reporting and review, and strategic change.