Frequently Asked Questions

With VPO, we manage your data in Microsoft’s Cloud solution, Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365). Learn more about Microsoft 365. With Microsoft 365, it is your data. You own it. You control it. Moreover, it is yours to take with you if you decide to leave the service. That is why we have chosen to deliver VPO in Office 365. Microsoft takes every precaution to make sure your environment is secure and compliant.

Visit the Microsoft 365 Trust Center to find detailed and up-to-date information directly from Microsoft.

First, let’s be clear what Microsoft 365 is. It is not just the desktop applications of Microsoft Office like Outlook, Word, and Excel. It is also Microsoft’s managed services for hosted email, file sharing, online meetings, and more. Learn more about Microsoft 365.

Whether or not your company is using Microsoft 365 or desktop versions of Microsoft Office, there is no additional licensing fee required for VPO. However, VPO runs in its own separate Microsoft 365 tenant for us to provide better administration and support service to our customers.

While we do not generally offer a free trial, we do offer a month-to-month licensing of VPO, so your investment to try it on a project is controllable. We do not require an annual contract, so if after a month or two you determine VPO is not a good fit for you, you can cancel at any time.

We recommend evaluating VPO via using it on an actual project because your time is valuable. In our experience, we have learned that it takes some investment of your time and training to determine if a project management system is going to work for you.

With VPO, there are no large upfront fees or the need to invest in expensive hardware or software licenses. Therefore, it is easy to try it out on pilot project.

After you sign up for VPO, we typically create and configure your VPO tenant within a few days. You’ll have early access to you environment, but you’re not on your own from there… We schedule a kickoff meeting and four additional online video training sessions with your team.

The training is role-based and very focused on how your team will use VPO.

Each training session is recorded and may be viewed by your team anytime afterwords. Sessions generally run about an hour in length. Typically customers prefer to do one training session per week, equating to an average onboarding / training duration of 5 weeks, though these may happen more quickly based on your team’s availability.

No problem! Many of our customers request features that are unique to their requirements or their client’s requirements. VPO is easily customizable, and that is the major difference between it and an off-the-shelf application. With VPO, we start by using our proven software modules and, best practices to get up-and-running quickly and then work with you to tailor the system as needed. This may include adding new functionality or adjusting existing functionality. A system should support your processes, not force you to change your processes to fit the system. That is the approach we use with VPO.

VPO is an application that is installed in the Microsoft 365 Cloud in a Microsoft environment that we create and maintain for you. With VPO, you will have access to an online, browser-based and mobile-friendly experience. As the owner of your VPO data and documents, you decide how and with whom (architects, engineers, vendors, subcontractors, etc.) to share project information and documentation securely. We administer VPO for you, leaving you free to manage your projects.

Yes. VPO is a web-based application and works with web browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, as well as Microsoft’s browsers.

First, let’s be clear what Microsoft 365 is. It is not just the desktop applications of Microsoft Office like Outlook, Word, and Excel. It is also Microsoft’s managed services for hosted email, file sharing, online meetings, and more. Learn more about Microsoft 365.

If your company does not have Office 365, that is fine; we provide it as part of VPO. If your company is considering moving to Office 365, you will be one step ahead because we will set up Office 365 when we set up VPO.

It depends on the customer’s requirements and needs. However, here we typically leverage the following apps in our VPO deployments:

SharePoint, OneDrive, Project Online, Project Professional, Skype for Business, Power BI, Office Online, Office Mobile App, Office Pro–which includes the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and more. Some third-party apps are used as needed also.

As new Microsoft apps become available, we will add them to our VPO solution if they enhance our customer’s ability to manage projects more effectively.

Microsoft Project Online provides Project Portfolio Management capabilities, including what-if analysis, resource management, and visibility across your projects. It works with Microsoft Project Professional, the desktop version of Project, enabling you to work with your tool of choice to create and manage your projects. Alternatively, you can use Project Online in a web browser to edit project information. You can start new projects using templates, and take advantage of central resource planning.

Learn more about Project Online.