Christophe Fiessinger's Blog Updates on Microsoft's Enterprise Social Networking (ESN) and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) offerings
Ever heard of this great new feature of SharePoint 2010: Developer Dashboard (DD)? Bill Baer did a great post last year introducing its capability: Welcome to the Developer Dashboard. I personally think the name could be misleading and that you might think it’s only for Developers and folks that add custom webpart on a SharePoint site; well I think even in an out of the box site, DD could help any farm administrator, IT Professional get a an understanding why a page is taking a specific amount of time to load.
For instance in my Project Server 2010 demo image I have built an Excel Services dashboard with lots of webparts to light up my structured Project Portfolio Management data. With DD I can easily breakdown the load time and potentially take action to optimize rendering:
DD will obviously not give you all answers you need to solve performance/page load issues (for instance you might have to talk to your SQL guru to optimize T-SQL queries or C# developer to optimize their webpart algorithm or tell your end user that they have put too many webparts on a page). In the end it will make the life of any user and a lot easier to understand page load in SharePoint 2010 and hence Project Server 2010.
Script to turn on/off DD (not do not turn it ON in your production server since it will activate it for all pages for all users in your farm!) (copy and paste in a file and save with .BAT extension then execute in your farm):
echo off @SET UTILS_ROOT=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN @echo ENABLE Developer Dashboard @echo ================================================================ "%UTILS_ROOT%\stsadm" -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand @echo DISABLE Developer Dashboard @echo ================================================================ REM "%UTILS_ROOT%\stsadm" -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv off PAUSE
echo off
@SET UTILS_ROOT=C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN
@echo ENABLE Developer Dashboard @echo ================================================================
"%UTILS_ROOT%\stsadm" -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv ondemand
@echo DISABLE Developer Dashboard @echo ================================================================
REM "%UTILS_ROOT%\stsadm" -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv off
PAUSE
After attending multiple events recently: Project Conference 2009 in Phoenix - September, SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas -October, TechEd EMEA in Berlin - November; as well as delivering Project 2010 Ignite in Europe and Latin America; my colleague Jan Kalis and myself have realized there are a lot of un-recognized Microsoft Project/Project Server/Portfolio Server expertise and passion worldwide and we would like that talent to be recognized hence we would like you to become a MVP (nomination instructions below).
MVPs are a key pillar of EPM our community (check out existing list here); among other things there are frequent contributors to the Microsoft Project Newsgroups and Forums answering end user questions as well as frequent speakers on EPM; for instance check out the excellent Project 2010 webcast series they are currently delivering: http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx
Do not be shy!
Happy to announce the recently released white paper: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 White Paper: Integrating Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 This white paper describes how to integrate Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 so that you can use the features of both programs to manage your projects.
Overview
By integrating the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Project accounting module with Office Project Server 2007, you can draw on features of both products for more granular control of the projects that your company manages. For example, you might want to use the complex resource scheduling capabilities of Office Project Server for a project that you are managing in Microsoft Dynamics AX. When you integrate the two programs, data changes in one program can be transferred to the other, so that all of your project records are current and synchronized in both programs. By using the flexible task hierarchy in Office Project Server, you can create a hierarchical structure that is similar to the hierarchical structure in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Corresponding hierarchies make it possible for information about projects, subprojects, and activities to flow between the two programs. As part of the synchronization process, actuals for labor, expenses, and revenue that are posted in Microsoft Dynamics AX are transferred to Office Project Server, and any changes to project or activity information in Office Project Server are transferred to the Microsoft Dynamics AX database.
Prior post on the same topic: Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 and Microsoft Project Server 2007 Demo Image
Following this post last May 2009: My Favorite Microsoft Project RSS Feeds, my please below an OPML file with the latest Project related RSS feeds I read everyday (see these instructions for instance to import OMPL in IE http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Import-and-export-RSS-feeds-in-Internet-Explorer). It’s great to see increase in content in the past 9 months!
If I have missed anyone’s blog that contains Microsoft Project content please let me know and I will gladly publish an updated list next time.
(click OMPL link below , in IE right click View Source and save file on your local hard drive)
Two recent must read posts from both the SharePoint and Office teams to better prepare your 2010 server and desktop requirements. The release is around the corner so ensure you are 2010 ready!
As a reminded the following exists today on TechNet: Determine hardware and software requirements (Project Server 2010). (includes Project Professional 2010 and Project Web App (Microsoft Project 2010 Welcomes Project Web App!) requirements as well).
Please note that Project Server 2010 does NOT support Windows Vista nor Windows 7 deployments!
Guess who’s hands are below, a tip: the ring on the right hand is a Canadian Iron Ring ?
This is a great topic I was planning to write on for a while and now that the Excel team has officially done a great series of posts on the topic, I figured it’s time to give my 2 cents. Again if you have never heard of Web App and in particular Excel please read these few recent posts: http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/
So how does Excel Web App fit into a Project Server 2010 deployment? Some ideas that spring to mind:
I’m sure you can come up with a lot more scenarios. Typically once the data has been captured you can either “paste” it in a Project Custom Field for instance or use both Excel Services API and the Project Server PSI to automate data transfer/workflow/validation.
As a reminder Excel Services and Excel Web App are two separate things as summarize on one of the Excel recommended post from above:
Excel Services: Version two of our real-time, interactive, Excel-based reporting and dashboard capabilities which ship as part of SharePoint Server 2010. Also included are APIs which enable rich business application development. Excel Web App: The companion to the Excel client which extends the ability to create, view, edit, and collaborate on Excel workbooks using only a browser.
How about InfoPath? Yes InfoPath 2010 has great enhancements as well but I think Excel Web App might be a better alternative for some of the scenarios mentioned above.
Not to mention other enhancements of Excel 2010 such as support for REST, never heard of this? Check out this great post from Andrew Lavinsky - Document Automation with the REST.API. Must read blog post about Excel Services and its extensibility is this one: Summary – new programmability capabilities in Excel Services, just amazing how far you can go and potentially nail you customer’s business needs with a little of code and Excel …!
Bottom line, similar to all the great reporting options we have in 2010, Excel Web App (in addition to Excel Services which is required in project Server 2010) brings another set of capabilities to a Project Server deployment. Stay tune for more information on this subject (a white paper maybe :)).
[updated on Jan. 28th, direct download link is now live: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=8e709e2e-c9a1-4c7e-90d6-a52bcc8e5daf]
As Doug mentioned it just got released today, it’s all based on the Public Beta (B2): Microsoft Project 2010 Beta Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution demo image now available for download
Happy download (10GB compressed) and Project 2010 demos!
Partners & Customers - Instructions on how to download the Microsoft Project 2010 EPM Solution demo image, installation instructions and associated presenter’s script by sending an email to the Proj2010@microsoft.com alias.
Please note that this is an Hyper-V image and hence it requires Windows Server 2008 as the base operating system for it to run (not to mentioned at least 8GB of RAM, and ideally a Solid State Drive for optimal performance, see this: http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2009/08/13/the-ultimate-demo-machine-get-ready-to-demo-project-and-sharepoint-server-2010.aspx).
Demo image contains (SharePoint Server Enterprise 2010, Project Server 2010, Office 2010, Project Professional 2010, Visio 2010, Visual Studio 2010 and more…):
As announced on the main project blog Project Web Access (PWA) now becomes Project Web App: PWA now stands for Project Web App. For more information on what is a web app, check out the definition from Wikipedia: Web Application:
A sneak peak of the new name in a recent Project Server 2010 build:
In case you did not know we have a number of Forums for Project 2010 as listed below. These Forums are monitored by product experts from Microsoft and MVPs so don’t be shy and ask all your 2010 questions there. It’s great to see the feedback so far.
General questions, comments and discussions on Project Server 2010.
Discuss setup, upgrade & migration, administration and operation for Project Server 2010.
Discuss customizations and programming for Project Web Access 2010, Project Server 2010, Project Professional 2010 and Project Standard 2010. Includes User Interface (UI) customizations, Project Server Interface (PSI) and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) Programming.
General questions, comments and discussions on Project Professional 2010.
I’m very happy to announce another great blog to the EPM world: http://blogs.msdn.com/wwepmcoe/ contributors for this blog are experts from Microsoft Consulting Services (EPM Center of Excellence) that have been doing hundreds/thousands of deployment since Project Server came out! You will recognize some familiar names I’m sure. In the meantime add it to your favorite EPM RSS feeds and learn from the experts; check out this recent post for instance: Project Server 2010 coexisting in SharePoint Server 2010 Universe and expect a lot more in the coming 2010 exiting launch year!