Kanban Task Manager + Microsoft Project - A Powerful Combination

The other day an evaluator asked if it was possible to combine Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint with Microsoft Project. It is indeed, and we decided to create a demo to show how the connection works.

Kanban Task Manager
Kanban Task Manager creates a kanban board in SharePoint, where a workgroup can cooperate on tasks and projects. The color coded tasks are dragged and dropped between phases as the work proceeds, and they may also be dragged within phases or between lanes. Each task is tagged with project and responsible and maybe also with a custom parameter, and the kanban board can be filtered by those tags.

The Kanban Task Manager subscription allows an unlimited number of installations, so each team can have their own kanban board, and with a common top navigation managers and people who belong to several teams can easily move between the different boards.

Microsoft Project
With Microsoft Project managers can analyze project resources, budgets and timelines, and by combining Project with Kanban Task Manager they will have the whole process in one place – from the overall plan down to the individual tasks.

Synchronization
The demo below shows how a task is created in Kanban Task Manager and synced to Project, and that is probably the most common scenario.

But new tasks can also be created in Project and synced to Kanban Task Manager, where they will be placed in the first phase. Project cannot tag the tasks with Kanban Task Manager parameters, so if you create the tasks in Project and sync them to Kanban Task Manager, I recommend you to call the first phase "Not Assigned" and reserve it for such tasks.



I plan to create some tutorials on Microsoft Project later on, so keep a lookout for them if you are interested in Project and the combination with Kanban Task Manager for SharePoint.

By Peter Kalmström
CEO and Systems Designer
kalmstrom.com Business Solutions