PharmaComms could be described as a victim of its own success. The editorial and design company produce niche market publications for the pharmaceutical industry. Using award-winning designers and first-class editors, they have been doing really well recently and even recruited four new trainees to help with the demand. Their headquarters are fast becoming a centre of excellence in the magazine world as they take on new work for a portfolio of prestigious clients across the globe. As they are set to expand their editorial and production facilities, they also need a complete management system that they can rely on.

PharmaComms' entire project management set up needs more space to breath. Managing their company-wide project workflow is becoming a daily battle. And because departments are divided according to expertise such as IT, technical authoring, editorial, graphics, finance and marketing, the company needs to examine how they track and audit their day to day activities. The finance department, for example, use different software to input information from each department's individual time sheets. Every employee's time has to be accounted for, but when some editors are working on 15 projects a week with different client job numbers, which are divided into different project numbers, inputting this information accurately gives their CFO a headache. And no amount of freebie analgesics will solve the kind of problems that generates on a Friday afternoon. The cure? Microsoft Project Professional 2010.

Offering a total work management with cost-effective project management software, it's the ideal solution for PharmaComm. Microsoft Project Professional 2010 will increase employee efficiency, cut reporting compliance time and will help to give the organisation the competitive edge they need to carry on with their success. The success of a project was previously been dictated by who was running it - it could be political, or might just be because of the expertise of that particular person, but results were usually hit or miss. And with without the facility to audit, track and trace deadlines, workflows and budgets, accountability was more miss that hit.

PharmaComms usually runs about 30 to 40 projects concurrently, with budgets ranging from one-off fees of £1,500 for newsletters to £15,000 for larger monthly magazine projects. The company used Microsoft Office Excel to track projects on spreadsheets and relied on multiple colour coding and painstaking, regular updates. However, each project editor created their own spreadsheet and projects were never collated into a whole picture scenario. And as every department had an internal meeting, each employee would bring along their own spreadsheet tracking individual projects. A solution that would help the company run projects consistently across departments with a high level of visibility and accountability is really what they needed.

User-controlled scheduling has put the organisation back in control with the flexibility and ease of use of a tool like Microsoft Excel 2010 and the power of the Project 2010 scheduling engine. PharamComms can now create project schedules at the level of detail that's right for each project and each client. Working with summary data initially, they can shift to a more detailed approach when it's convenient. And by using notes as reminders of where additional schedule information is needed, or simply adding information as it becomes available saves recreating another cell and in spreadsheets. Tooltips and contextual guidance provide information and shortcuts so they can accomplish more in less time. And the new Microsoft Office Backstage view, means that staff can save, share, print, or publish projects from one location.

Because of the very tight integration with other Microsoft products, it has been both time- and cost-effective. Employees have experience with Microsoft technology, so the learning curve is shorter and this, in turn has created increased acceptance of the new software.

Microsoft Project Professional 2010 will also allow PharmaComms to track projects and staff timesheets. Where projects were decentralised and accurate information hard to find, they now have a structured management system to create, track, manage and derive valuable data company-wide. Staff now know immediately what clients have requested, which resources are required, and view the forecasted timeline to undertake these tasks. Tracking a project from start to finish has never been easier. With a completely new and visually enhanced timeline view, there are clear views of tasks, milestones, and phases. Newly expanded colour palettes and text effects help make every timeline and plan look their best - and easier for viewing and sharing important dates and deliverables. PharmaComm can now compare budget versus actual versus forecasted.

By selecting Microsoft Project Professional 2010 as their solution, PharmaComms will also be able to analyse how employees are spending their time. This will allow the trainees to be moved on to projects that require extra hands while giving them the hands-on experience they need. It's easy to see the right mix of people and resources: simply drag tasks to effectively plan work for an entire team and project. The new Team Planner view in shows resources and work over time, to help spot problems and resolve issues. New in Project 2010, the Task Inspector offers additional analysis and intuitive guidance to resolve scheduling conflicts derived from a task's attributes and assigned resources, which they can choose to act upon or not.

And for the future, when they are ready, PharmaComms can even decide if they need to unify project and portfolio management by combining Project Professional 2010 with Microsoft Project Server 2010. Together, Project Professional 2010 and Project Server 2010 create the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution which will allow them to prioritise investments and optimise resources using powerful dashboards.