Integrating Project Management Applications as Web Services

Many related software applications can be employed at various stages of a project, at different locations and for disparate purposes. Integrating these tools can help extend the capabilities of individual software applications. This paper addresses some of the issues related to the integration of distributed software applications as Web services. Specifically, information modeling for project management applications and communication mechanisms are examined. Process Specification Language (PSL) is employed as the information modeling language. The implementation efforts required towards the development of an integrated service architecture are discussed. A variety of project management tools, including Primavera Project Planner, Microsoft Project, Vite SimVison and Microsoft Excel, are employed as a demonstration of the distributed integration infrastructure.