Christophe Fiessinger's Blog

ANNOUNCING: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Burn & Forecast and Spend Report Solutions

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 21 May 2012 22:34:25 GMT

I am pleased to announced the release of two Microsoft Project Server 2010 reporting solutions on TechNet Gallery: Project Burn and Forecast Report and Project Spend Report. Both solutions can be deployed and tested with the Microsoft Project Server 2010 v2 Demo Virtual Machine. These reporting solutions leverages Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and were created by Emmanuel Fadullon, a Principal Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS).

The User Guide for the Contoso Project Burn and Forecast Report demonstrates how to use the Project Burn and Forecast Report to estimate the projected spend rate (“Average Monthly Burn Rate”) based on the current spend plan, and it also allows you to forecast a spend plan based on a what-if spend rate in a budget-reduction scenario.
The Contoso Project Spend Report User Guide walks you through using the Project Spend Report particularly the use of a key concept -- a unifying Expense Code, to track Project Total Actual Cost. The Total Actual Cost is then categorized into its component costs by project work alongside sustainment and common services activities maintained in associated projects in lieu of Administrative Time and Timesheet entries in order to facilitate cost categorization by Expense Code.

Please note that these reporting solutions are not supported by Microsoft Premier Support and instead are meant to demonstrated the rich reporting capabilities of Project Server 2010. We recommend working with Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) Partners or MCS to modify these solutions to meet your specific reporting needs.

PS: while on the reporting topic, I also recommend to check Alex Burton’s recent post: SQL Server 2012 & Project Server, Part 2– Business data visualisation with PowerView

100 hours of free Microsoft PPM Content from customers, partners, MVPs and Microsoft!

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:08:00 GMT

Following yesterday’s announcement on the main Microsoft Project blog: Microsoft Project Conference 2012 Session Recordings Are Live! please find below the full list of sessions (by code, presenter’s company and title). I have also attached an Excel spreadsheet with this list to this post (navigate to the end).

Grab you favorite beverage and snacks and enjoy the shows!

PS: there are four outstanding recordings we are still in the process of publishing and I will update this list once they are live.

PC200, AMD Corp,Detangling project demand, resource supply and capacity with Project Server

PC201, AXTEL, X-treme EPMO: Creating the Enterprise Project Management Office and Culture at AXTEL

PC202, Exxaro, Exxaro Resource: Project 2010 Case Study in Mining Industry

PC203, Kemira Oyj, Rapid Implementation of the Microsoft PPM solution and SAP-integration in a global Chemical company

PC204, Marquette University, Project and Project Portfolio Management that Works

PC205, Pioneer Hybred, Doing More with Less: Effective Capacity Planning and Reporting

PC206, Shire, Microsoft Project replaces Primavera: Why Shire made the switch and trusts Microsoft Project Server 2010 to manage $300M

PC207, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPM@EPA: Accelerating Maturity in the Cloud

PC208, Verizon Communications, How Verizon saved millions with Microsoft PPM: Turning data into useful information

PC210, Project Step by Step, Care and Feeding of the Zealots: Why Project users are disproportionately invested in their product, and how you can help spread the love

PC211, Applepark Ltd, Project Server REAL LIFE (not Second Life!) customer case studies

PC212, Advisicon, Landing Strategy in 3 Steps

PC213, BrightWork, The Phoenix Shoot Out – Which is the best solution for Project Management – Excel or SharePoint or Project Desktop or Project Server?

PC214, FOXit (Pty) LTD, Extending PPM to more than project and portfolio management, operationalize your business

PC215, Innovative-e, Deliver SharePoint Success: Key Steps to Reap The Business Benefits

PC216, Novant Health, Portfolio Management – Just what the Doctor Ordered

PC217, SharkPro Software, Microsoft PPM Total Cost and Benefit Workshop – Finding YOUR ROI

PC218, SharkPro Software, Moving on Up! Migrating from other PPM tools to Microsoft Project Server 2010

PC219, The Project Group, 10 "Golden Rules" to work with Microsoft Project!

PC220, The Project Group, Leveraging Microsoft PPM for Capital Project Management within the Utility and Construction Industries

PC221, Tribridge, Achieve Complete Project Cost Planning & Insight: Integrating Microsoft Project Server 2010 with financial systems like Dynamics AX

PC222, UMT, Quickly Build Governance Workflows & Effectively Control Financials with UMT Project Essentials Pro

PC223, UMT, Gartner Perspectives - Going Beyond PPM – Effectively Manage Your Entire IT Portfolio Decisions with Project Server 2010

PC224, SBS Group, The Integration of ProjectManagement and Project Accounting with Dynamics SL

PC226, Gartner, The Gartner perspective: PPM Industry Trends and Adoption Best Practices

PC227, Microsoft, The 411 on Office 365

PC228, Microsoft, Cloud Bursting Techniques with SharePoint Online

PC229, Microsoft, Microsoft Project 2010 Desktop Overview

PC230, Microsoft, Microsoft Project Server 2010 Overview

PC231, Microsoft, Tracking a Microsoft Project Release Using Project

PC232, Microsoft, Microsoft Project 2010 Desktop Reporting Overview

PC233, Jornata, Critical Success Factors for a Successful SharePoint Deployment

PC234, Jornata, Managing and Finding Content in SharePoint 2010

PC235, LehnertCS, LLC, A Successful implementation with Microsoft Project Server is more than technical?

PC236, msProjectExperts, Microsoft Project 2010 Mania

PC237, Projectum, Manage your resources without Excel - yes it is possible!

PC238, The Versatile Company, Modeling Traditional, Serial and SCRUM Techniques in Project 2010

PC239, Innovative-e, Leveraging Project 2010 with Office 365 for Project Management Success

PC240, PlanFurther LLC, The painters, the policemen and the Pope... understanding task movement in Microsoft Project 2010

PC241, PMP Specialists, Resource Management - Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together!

PC242, PTC, Maximize Visibility & Accountability in New Product Development Portfolios

PC300, Ameren, YOU CAN DO IT: How to Implement Project 2010 Server Yourself (with Little or NO Consulting $$)

PC301, ARM, 8 Billion Reasons why ARM chose ProjectServer 2010

PC302, AT&T Business Services, Pearls and Pitfalls - Realizing Real Business Benefits with Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint

PC303, Microsoft, Leverage the capabilities of SharePoint to light up Microsoft Project Server

PC304, Ingersoll-Rand, Across Divisions, IT, Engineering and the World; a true Enterprise-wide PPM client case study with Ingersoll Rand

PC305, WilmerHale, Critical Chain Project Management using Microsoft Project Professional 2010 and Prochain: Implementing Project Portfolio Management

PC307, Microsoft, Lessons learned implementing Enterprise Innovation Programs

PC308, Bogdanov & Associates, Delivering Microsoft EPM Success: Essential Steps to Map People, Process and Tools

PC309, Campana & Schott, 3 steps to cut the Gordian knot in resource management

PC310, Campana & Schott, Deliver successful program results in matrix organizations

PC311, Expit, Bridging Project Management and IT Service Management domains using Microsoft Project Professional 2010

PC312, msProjectExperts, Implementing PMI’s Practice Standard for Scheduling in Microsoft Project

PC313, Pcubed, Project Scheduling Revisited: Performance Tuning Your Scheduling Practices

PC314, Revlon, Practical TFS and Project Server integration in mid size enterprise

PC315, Meijer, Journey from 2007 to 2010

PC316, Microsoft, Migration Best practices from Project Server previous versions

PC317, Microsoft, Everything you want to know about designing and implementing Project Server Security Model

PC318, Microsoft, Take Control of the Timesheet and Tasks Updates in your Project Server 2010 Environment

PC319, Microsoft, Best Practices Troubleshooting Project 2010 Deployments - Part 1

PC320, Microsoft, Getting up to speed with Project2010 Extensibility

PC321, Microsoft, Exploring Project Server Technical Content

PC322, Advisicon, Integrating Data from External LOB Systems (SAP, ClickSoft, etc.) for Strategic Resource Planning & Forecasting

PC323, PMO Logistics Inc., Everything You Wanted To Know About Administering Project Server 2010 But Were Afraid To Ask

PC324, Corporate Project Solutions, Integrating SharePoint and Project Server 2010 – Deployment Approaches, Integration Options and making the most of the SharePoint Enterprise Features.

PC325, FluentPro, Project Server 2010 configuration management, migration, merge and documenting

PC327, Project Hosts, Going online with PPM -- what you need to know

PC328, Microsoft, Project Server and Dynamics AX - Completing the Lifecycle from Project Estimation to Revenue Recognition

PC329, Microsoft, Take Your Project Reporting To The Next Level: Dashboards And Other Tools

PC330, SOLVIN, Breaking the Boundaries of Time Tracking in Project Server: TrackTimesheet a seamlessly integrated extension for time reporting

PC331, msProjectExperts, Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices for Using Project Server 2010

PC332, Nintex, Building advanced Project Server workflows with Nintex Workflow for Project Server

PC333, ProjectPro Corporation, Critical Path 2.0

PC334, UMT, Turning Project Data into Real World Reports: An Overview of Business Intelligence Options

PC335, UMT, Unleashing the Value of Earned Value: Applying Schedule and Cost Controls to Measure ProjectPerformance

PC336, Advisicon, Making the Most of Project Professional When Managing Multiple Projects

PC337, Agora Consulting Partners, Be Loved By Your Development Teams: Using the Team Foundation Server – Project Server Connector

PC338, SharePoint911, SharePoint Governance isn’t just for Grandma

PC339, EPM Architects, Managing Resource Supply and Demand with Microsoft Project Server 2010

PC341, QuantumPM, Planning Innovation Adoption with IPM : Tips for a Successful Pilot

PC342, Milestone Consulting Group, YJTJ (Your Job Tool’s Job)™ – Working in Concert with Microsoft Project

PC343, Symnoian, LLC, Closing the Status Loop with Windows 8 Metro and Project Server’s Task Update Feature

PC349, Microsoft, Best Practices Troubleshooting Project 2010 Deployments - Part 2

PC400, Allianz Life, Bean Counting in the Cloud: Merging hosted EPM and internal GL data to optimize financial reporting.

PC401, Ubisoft, Tracking Historical Project Activity Data using the Microsoft Business Intelligence Suite

PC402, DeltaBahn, Planning and Executing a Multi-Instance, Multi-Version Project Server Migration

PC403, Milestone Consulting Group, Extending and Customizing the Project Server 2010 Timesheet to Drive Adoption and Achieve Business Results

Microsoft Project Server 2010 Demo VM with SP1 and April 2012 CU

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:16:00 GMT

Now that Project Conference 2012 is behind, I’ve just deployed he recently released April 2012 Cumulative Update (see this post from Brian Smith: Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint Server 2007 and 2010 April 2012 CU Announcement). I’ve put below a few screenshots of the updated products versions. Don’t forget to attend the webcast tomorrow: TechNet Webcast: Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server April 2012 Software Update

Central Admin view: 14.0.6120.500	Winproj version: 14.0.6120.500
Reporting database version: 14.0.6119.500

Microsoft kicks off Project Conference 2012

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:55:19 GMT

Following an awesome Project Conference 2012 (#mspc12) first day yesterday in Phoenix, please visit the Project Conference virtual press room.

There are lots of great stories I’d like to share with you regarding this week, so please stay tune for future posts!

PS: if you want to get a feel for the event’s pulse and news, please look at the following tag on Twitter: #mspc12

From ARM to Windows 8, see Microsoft Project Server in action at Project Conference 2012 next week! #mspc12

Christophe Fiessinger — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:24:08 GMT

With less than a few days away, it’s hard to share my personal excitement for next week’s Microsoft Project Conference 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s been a busy past few weeks and days preparing for this event, and it’s now almost showtime!
It will be the best Project Conference ever, do not miss the two keynotes on Tuesday and Wednesday at 9am and obviously attend as many sessions as possible. I had the privilege of reviewing lots of them and the hardest decision you will have to make is which one to attend! The two sessions below summarizes well the breadth and depth of the event and our products hence my post title:

I’m looking forward to see you next week! Safe travel.

Hello Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:56:54 GMT

Exciting day, a few links to get started:

Microsoft Announces Availability of Windows 8 Consumer Preview (press announcement)
Welcome to Windows 8 – The Consumer Preview (building Windows 8 blog)
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/consumer-preview (product page)

PS: less than three weeks until Microsoft Project Conference 2012, don’t miss it and see you soon!

IT Professionals and Developers Content at Project Conference 2012 #mspc12

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:48:46 GMT

Following a recent discussion with a consultant, I wanted to re-iterate the quality, depth and number of technical session dedicated to IT Professionals and Developers at Microsoft Project Conference 2012 next month in Phoenix (March 19-22). One easy place to browse technical content is to navigate the session agenda and filter by each audience, or the filter using the Deployment, Administration & Developer track as shown on the right:

Beside key topic that all Project & Project Server developers and IT Professionals should know, there is an all-star list of speakers from Project MVPs, SharePoint MVPs, SharePoint Certified Masters, Microsoft SharePoint & Project experts, partners and customers.

To wet your appetite here is a sample of in depth topic of interest with brief comments delivered by Microsoft and outside experts:

Best Practices Troubleshooting Project 2010 Deployments – two part series with Brian Smith & Adrian Jenkins with a combined 35 years of Project experience!
Tracking Historical Project Activity Data using the Microsoft Business Intelligence Suite – great in depth BI session by Gabriel (a customer) for something customers asks often
Integrating Data from LOB Systems (SAP, ClickSoft) for Strategic Resource Planning – another popular topic by Tim one of our MVP on how to integrate with SAP
Extending and Customizing the Project Server 2010 Timesheet to Drive Adoption and Achieve Business Results – everyone wants to customize their timesheets!
Planning and Executing a Multi-Instance, Multi-Version Project Server Migration – real life feedback and best practices from Brian
Leveraging Project Server 2010 in SharePoint 2010 Extranet Environments – Ram is a SharePoint expert
Everything You Wanted To Know About Administering Project Server 2010 But Were Afraid To Ask – another MVP lead session by Rolly, expert and professional trainer
Integrating SharePoint and Project Server 2010 – Deployment Approaches, Integration Options and making the most of the SharePoint Enterprise Features. – reviewed Giles session yesterday and again this is another must attend for any architect
Closing the Status Loop with Windows 8 Metro and Project Server’s Task Update Feature – say no more
Leverage the capabilities of SharePoint to light up Microsoft Project Server – Keenan is a colleague on the SharePoint team and has a great story for you!

Hard to stop enumerating sessions, but you will hopefully get the point that WE HAVE TECHNICAL CONTENT FOR YOU! The beauty of all these topics is that I believe in sense they are version agnostic and hence it’s never too late to strengthen or fill knowledge gaps on the 2010 platform. But wait there is more (!), you feel like you know it all, how about taking certifications on site? How about attending the dedicated partner pre-event which will have in depth technical sessions delivered by experts (agenda is here from Jan’s blog); how about attending PC12 post-event training). A master at all of the above then how about learning about ALM, PLM, IPM, and Dynamics/ERP integration?

In summary as a consultant, IT Pro. or Dev. you have no excuse not to attend #MSPC12 and get ignited again!

See you soon!

More than 100 Reasons To Attend Microsoft Project Conference 2012

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:57:04 GMT

With less than a month away before the start of the Microsoft Project Conference 2012 (#MSPC12), March 19-22 in Phoenix Arizona, I wanted to take a moment and re-iterate why this is the event you cannot miss next month. As the all-up content owner for this conference I have had the pleasure to review about 170 submissions during the Call For Content phase; and lately I have started doing content reviews with speakers, and trust me there are so many great stories that I just can’t wait to see attendees excited about the quality of sessions we’ll have in Phoenix.

To date we have 97 sessions (including instructor lead labs) and these alone are 97 reasons you need to come to #MSPC12!

Dux did a great write-up on his Top 7 Reasons You Should Attend #MSProject Conference 2012 #mspc12 #pmot, in particular I completely agree this is a unique opportunity to Network with customers, partners, MVPs (experts) and last but not least with Microsoft employees that build, support, sale, deploy and market your favorite product everyday. I personally have made a lot of marketing projects decisions following face to face meetings with attendees, and expect to do many more for the coming year…

As Dux mentioned mentioned in his #5 reason: Keeping up with the Joneses, trends and news is also a very strong reason to attend. Some of you might argue that staying in the office in front of a computer is sufficient to hear and see the pulse, I actually think events like this will give you a much better vision of trends and news with respect to PPM/PM etc… Another fact to support this point, is look at these sessions we’lll have from the two leading PPM analysts: Dan Stang & Matt Light from Gartner: The Gartner perspective: PPM Industry Trends and Adoption Best Practices and Going Beyond PPM – Effectively Manage Your Entire IT Portfolio Decisions with Project Server 2010.

I also think considering the above plus free certifications, training etc. it’s a relatively cheap event with a very strong ROI (return on investment) to one should consider for their business (if you are a partners for instance) or as a career if you are an individual. As my colleague Brian mentioned in this post: To All Aspiring Project Ninjas “Project Conference won't be hosted every year and there won’t be another worldwide Project Conference elsewhere”, so register today instead of regretting tomorrow! And yes we’ll also also lots of fun at the event, stay tune for more information

The first Project Conference I attended was back in January 2006, and I have attended every single one since (October 2007, September 2009) plus dozens of Microsoft lead events like (SharePoint Conference, TechEd, Summit of various sorts etc…) and I truly believe next month will be very unique Project Conference and I expect to see you all there! A bientot!

PS: an adaptation of the #MSPC12 theme I did during the last Seattle snow storm, feel free to use it in your email signature/blog posts etc…

Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Dynamics CRM 2011 Integration

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:40:30 GMT

I have seen a few questions recently in the Microsoft Project Server Forum and other in other social platform about the integration of Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Dynamics CRM 2011, and since I delivered a session on this topic at an event a few months ago, I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. Before I go any further I think it’s important to understand the Microsoft Dynamics CRM offering, hence I recommend you look at our official CRM product portal for a basic understanding of our offering: http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/home At a high level Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers the three solutions:

Sales Force Automation
Customer Service
Marketing

The goal of the session I co-delivered with a CRM consultant was to investigate integration scenarios between the two line of business applications (CRM & PPM) and showcase integration options between the two extensible platform. We introduced and demonstrated the following two scenario during that session:

Sales to Project Delivery – once an opportunity reaches 80%, a project is created in Project Server	Marketing planning to execution – marketing campaigns are imported in Project Server to leverage the Portfolio Analysis engine to choose which initiatives are align with the objectives based on cost & resources constraints

Demo screenshots:	Demo screenshots:

Due to not only the rich extensibility of both products but also to the ease programming of both, even a marketing person like myself (!) with the help of a CRM trained consultant we were able to built these demos in a few days (including a CRM workflow creating a Project Server project using a standard PSI call). For more information on the extensibility of each please refer to the Developer centers on MSDN:

If you do not have programming experience on MSFT CRM or Project Server I highly recommend you engage Microsoft certified CRM & PPM partners or Microsoft Consulting Services to help your with the technical aspect of the integration. The two scenarios/use cases presented above are by no means exhaustive and more can achieve between Microsoft CRM and PPM offerings. In summary integrating Microsoft Project Server and Dynamics CRM offers a strong line of business application and integration is possible today using custom code thanks to their respective rich extensibility. Happy integration projects and see you next month at Microsoft Project Conference 2012 in Phoenix!

Upcoming Microsoft Project & Project Server Event Presence–March to July 2012

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:21:17 GMT

Happy new year! Yes I’m sure you are all actively making travel arrangements to attend Microsoft Project Conference in Phoenix next march, specially after this key announcement today: Microsoft Project Conference 2012 Full Session List Announced! Since I know you love to plan and budget I have put together a list of upcoming events Microsoft PPM will participate in (sessions, demo booth, etc.) in the next few months (yes there are plenty of other regional events as well) but these are the ones the corporate marketing team will be involved in. If you have any interest to present and or help with these feel free to contact me via this blog. Stay tune for more information on each event in the future!

Event	Start	Finish	Location	URL
Project Conference 2012	19-Mar	22-Mar	Phoenix	http://www.msprojectconference.com
Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit	21-May	23-May	National Harbor	http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/na/program-management/
TechEd North America	11-Jun	14-Jun	Orlando	http://northamerica.msteched.com
Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit	19-Jun	20-Jun	London	http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/emea/program-management
TechEd Europe	26-Jun	29-Jun	Amsterdam	http://europe.msteched.com/
Worldwide Partner Conference	8-Jul	12-Jul	Toronto	http://digitalwpc.com

Microsoft Project Server 2010 Demo VM with SP1 and December 2011 CU

Christophe Fiessinger — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:18:29 GMT

Right before the holidays and following these two recent announcements from Jan Kalis: Project 2010 Demo Pack Version 2 NOW available to Microsoft Partners! and Brian Smith: Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint Server 2007 and 2010 December 2011 CU Announcement. I decided to upgrade my demo environment to showcase the latest and greatest of Microsoft “strong positive” PPM offering with SP1 and the December 2011 CU. After about one hour I had my demo VM up and running with the latest Service Pack 1 and December 2011 CU for Project and Project Server 2010 as shown below. The new Project Server 2010 version number for the December 2011 Cumulative update is now: 14.0.6114.5000. Happy demoing and selling!

Two ways to check the version number (please refer to TechNet for CU deployment guidance):

run the following query in the Reporting database
go to the farm central admin page

Don’t forget to attend Brian & Adrian’s webcast next Tuesday January 10th at 8am PST to get an overview of this latest update: TechNet Webcast: Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server December 2011 Software Update

SELECT * FROM VERSIONS ORDER BY TIMESTAMP DESC

See you in Phoenix for #PC12!

10 Tasks For the 2011 Holidays

Christophe Fiessinger — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:22:12 GMT

Dear readers I wish you all a restful and peaceful holiday break! Since it’s a quiet time of the year and a great opportunity to catch up on recent product updates and announcement I wanted to provide you a list of tasks to keep you busy if you have spare cycle in the coming two weeks

Register to Microsoft Project Conference 2012 next march in Phoenix Arizona.Yes you can’t miss it! We have great content and speakers, plus it’s a very unique opportunity to network with Microsoft, customers, partners and MVPs. More information on our site: http://msprojectconference.com Also check out the partner pre-event Jan announced you do not want to miss if you are a PPM partner: Celebrate Project 2010 Momentum at Project Conference 2012 during the Project Partner exclusive pre-day!
Update your farms/servers with the latest software updates (SP & CU), for 2010 we released Service Pack 1 (SP1) last June and this week the December 2011 Cumulative Update (CU) below. We have shipped a number of updates based on your feedback and ensuring your users/customers experience the latest and greatest from Microsoft is a great holiday gift ! As usual please read the best practices and guidance documented on TechNet on how to deploy software updates.
1. Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint Server 2007 and 2010 December 2011 CU Announcement
2. Announcing The Release Of Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010
Read the latest product documentation and guidance – yes there is a lot of valuable content we have published throughout the year and continue to do so based on your feedback so please ensure you are on top to optimize your usage or our stack. A great tool to start catching up on documentation is the Enterprise Project Management Content Pivot Viewer. A sample of recent documents for instance are listed below (and yes there are a few more on TechNet and our main product site: http://www.microsoft.com/project/en-us/articles-white-papers.aspx)
Catch up on recent Project news announced on our main product blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project . I also recommend that you start following us on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest and greatest. Key announcements recently are:

Deploy our latest Project 2010 Demo Pack V2 as announced by Jan Kalis: Project 2010 Demo Pack Version 2 NOW available to Microsoft Partners! and yes it contains Project Server and scenarios and data to showcase our full PPM functionalities.
Read our recently published customer case studies: http://www.microsoft.com/project/en-us/customer-success.aspx. For instance in the past few months we released these:
Purchase Project and or Project Server 2010 books – yes another testament that 2010 is an awesome release, is the quantity of books available today listed on your favorite online site. In addition check out our Training and Learning site.
Test out our Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Innovation Process Management (IPM) solutions. A lot more information can be found below:
1. New Feature Pack from Visual Studio Improves Project Management and Software Development Team Collaboration
2. Innovation Management and Ideation Solutions with SharePoint and Project Server
Ramp up on Windows 8, SQL Server 2012 and System Center 2012, key links below:
Sign up for an Office 365 trial, yes its landmark release for our cloud offering and it keeps getting better on a regular basis: official Office 365 site.
Buy a Windows Phone and feel the love! Could not resist to add this 11th task… Seriously test out the Office 365 integration for instance or more fun application like the Skydrive app or the XBox Companion app to name two. It’s a great OS and it has improved by professional and personal productivity a lot. A lot more information here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone.

PS: please find above a poster we used internally recently thanks to a similar campaign done by the Microsoft Germany subsidiary

How to plan your turkey dinner?

Christophe Fiessinger — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:40:13 GMT

Yes you can thanks to Brian and Brian: Impress the family: Make Thanksgiving Day a success with Project 2010

On a separate note check out these recent announcements from Jan:

I wish all of that are based in the US a happy thanksgiving week-end!

Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Multi-Tenancy

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:46:45 GMT

Following a session I delivered at SharePoint Conference 2011 in October, as well as few emails received recently, and following the very strong momentum Microsoft Project Server 2010 has, a common topic “du jour” customers are asking: does Project Server 2010 supports multi-tenancy? Hence, the goal of this post is to answer this question.

What is multi-tenancy?

First before I go any further I think it’s important to define multi tenancy since people have different expectations to its meaning and implications. Wikipedia’s definition of Multitenancy is:

Multitenancy refers to a principle in software architecture where a single instance of the software runs on a server, serving multiple client organizations (tenants).

In this SharePoint 2010 document on TechNet: Model: Hosting architectures for SharePoint Server 2010 it says:

Multitenancy refers to the ability to partition data of otherwise shared services or software in order to accommodate multiple tenants. This is in contrast to setting up separate hardware or even running multiple instances of a service.

Spencer Harbar in this post Rational Guide to Multi Tenancy with SharePoint 2010 does a great job defining multi-tenancy in the SharePoint 2010 world, and in particular mentions: “Multi-Tenancy in SharePoint 2010 isn’t a “feature” that lights up. It’s a combination of many things which all together enable the scenario we are interested in.”

Project Server 2010 and multi-tenancy

Can you have multiple customers/business units/departments on the same SharePoint and Project Server farm and infrastructure? YES you can! But please remember these Project Server considerations for multi-tenancy:

Project Server 2010 does not support multi-tenant environments (like SharePoint 2010 does)
Requires SQL Server Analysis Services for reporting (OLAP cubes)
Queue Services: introduced in Project Server 2007 to handle spikes in transactions like users submitting their timesheets on Friday for instance
Resource Pool a key capability of PS which enables to model your capacity and demand and hence figure out shortages or surplus
Authorization/Permission Model: while authentication is handled by SharePoint, authorization is specific to Project Server and has a lot more granularity that the out of the box SharePoint’s
Cross-farm services not supported
Must be installed on each application server and front-end Web in the farm
On-Demand Hosting Services for Project Server 2010

With the above factors in mind, yes again you can have multiples customers and instances on the same infrastructure and farm, and just because we do not support multi-tenant like SharePoint does in 2010, it does not mean you need multiple farms to serve your customers. Clear examples of multi-tenancy today are on-demand hosting companies like Project Hosts and BeMo (more listed here) that offers shared online environment for their customers. We also have customers that have been providing Project Server to internal business unit since the 2007 version (internal multi-tenancy). Please note that I wrote this post last year on the topic of should you have a dedicated farm for Project Server or leverage a central SharePoint farm and infrastructure: Project Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010: one farm or multiple?

Please find below an example of multi-tenancy following feedback from the hosting companies mentioned above:

In summary yes you can have multiple tenant on the same Project Server 2010 farm and infrastructure but it cannot be achieved using the SharePoint 2010 multi-tenancy features. For any additional questions/feedback about this topic feel free to contact me via this blog.

Useful resources:

New Microsoft ALM case study: Revlon - IT Department of Global Cosmetics Company Cuts Time in Meetings by up to 30 Percent

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 04:46:46 GMT

Following the recent release of the Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack (Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack has released!) I’m happy to announce this third case study showcasing the integration of TFS and Project Server 2010: IT Department of Global Cosmetics Company Cuts Time in Meetings by up to 30 Percent

Key quotes

First and foremost, with the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack we have reduced the number of project planning and status meetings.
The feature pack allows people to raise flags more quickly and in a more comfortable setting—which means we make fewer mistakes.
With the feature pack, the team leads can take more responsibility for exactly what they are doing and be more accountable to the other members of their team.

Benefits

Up to 30 percent less meeting time needed
Productivity gains of 2–5 percent
Improved risk management
Improved time-recording procedures
Increased responsibility

Other Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) case studies:

Other case studies can be found here: Microsoft Project & Project Server customer successes.

Hello Skype World!

Christophe Fiessinger — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:41:15 GMT

I’m very excited about this announcement this morning: Microsoft Officially Welcomes Skype. I have a fairly international family spread across multiple continents and every time I travel it’s exciting to see how broadly Skype is used and a recognized brand worldwide. This opens up lots of exciting opportunities in the future…
About a month ago I wrote this post Celebrating 10 years at Microsoft and it’s amazing how many major announcements we have made since September, a non exhaustive list below:

More Microsoft Press Releases Archives here.

In the end I’m all fired up about the future and MSFT continuous innovation!

Microsoft Project 2010 Connector for System Center Service Manager

Christophe Fiessinger — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:55:22 GMT

Following this recent announcement last month from the System Center Service Manager team: New SCSM–Microsoft Project Connector Released, I finally got a chance to test out this very nice solution built by Expit’s. In their own word:

Expit has developed a plugin/connector that enables the exchange of information between project planning software (Project server 2010) and System Center Service Manager. The connector allows project server users to convert project tasks into tickets in service manager directly from project server or project professional clients that are connected to project server. Additionally, the connector also updates project tasks to reflect ticket status in service manager and mark tasks as complete once tickets are closed.

Expit has also recorded the following video to demo the product: Expit SCSM Project Connector; and please find below screenshots from my own testing, again it’s a great validation of the Project 2010 momentum and its rich extensibility that helps you meet your project management needs in your favorite planning tool!

See you all at SharePoint Conference 2011 next week!

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:12:05 GMT

Following this post from my colleague Jan Kalis: Project 2010 at SharePoint Conference 2011, I’m really looking forward to see you starting this Sunday in California. I visited recently Australia and Korea and it’s amazing to see the Project Server 2010 momentum and obviously the SharePoint 2010 rapid adoption by our customers and hence partners. When I look at the number of attendees we have for the pre-event this Sunday for instance, it’s again a solid case for the interest in this “strong-positive” release (see Gartner’s latest report on our stack: Microsoft is Rated in the Gartner Project and Portfolio Applications MarketScope). I’ll be delivering the sessions below at SPC11 as well as one this Sunday on Project Server 2010 Architecture and Administration Overview.

What I really love about great events like this beside talking about my favorite products, is to meet people, get feedback and learn how they are using our software; or another way to say it is I see this as a great networking opportunity so again I’m looking forward to see as many of you. Beside delivering sessions I’ll also be hanging in and out of the Project booth on the expo hall. I’ll arrive Saturday night and will return to sunny Seattle Wednesday night and staying at the Marriott so if you want to meet don’t be shy and would love to hear your Project 2010 story (email me via this blog)!

PS: Talking about great event, and again for the same reason as above this is one event you do not want to miss: Microsoft Project Conference 2012 Registration Open!

SPC273 – Monday at 2:00pm
SharePoint Lifecycle Management Solution with Project Server
Is SharePoint becoming an important part of your company’s overall IT offering? If so, it's likely that you have a need to better manage SharePoint business requests. Join industry expert Scott Jamison as he discusses the importance of SharePoint Lifecycle Management from an IT governance perspective. In this session we'll demonstrate how business users can make special project requests through a form in Project Web App, and how Project Managers can monitor and assign resources, evaluate priorities, and manage their overall project portfolio more efficiently.
Christophe Fiessinger; Scott Jamison, SharePoint MVP

SPC275 – Tuesday at 3:15pm
Solving Agile and PMO Problems by Integrating Project Server 2010 with Team Foundation Server 2010
Do your Project Managers and Developers need to play nicer together? In this session, we'll discuss how integrating Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 allows you to enable development and project management teams to collaborate and communicate more effectively by using tools that they are most familiar with. In addition, we will conduct demos and share real world stories and best practices from customers.

SPC313 –Wednesday at 3:15pm
Best Practices for Deploying Project Server 2010 on SharePoint Farm
Are you interested in deploying Project Server 2010 but don't know where to start? In this session we will provide you with an overview on how to deploy Microsoft Project Server 2010 in a SharePoint 2010 Farm. Specifically, we will discuss how to deploy Project Server in an existing or separate farm, asses the proper capacity planning, and how to tackle upgrading and migration.

Microsoft Contest: Build your Island

Christophe Fiessinger — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:25:24 GMT

I love the creativity from France (yes I’m objective) with this new contest targeted a students. You basically have 17 billion to build your own island with its hotels etc.… the goal is to have the best return on investment (ROI) all using Project & Project Server 2010, and you get to speak French. Winning team will get a trip to an exotic destination!

Student life is good, isn’t it?

Exciting week: Developer Preview of Windows 8 & Visual Studio 11

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 02:10:46 GMT

What a week so far! Yes in case you have missed it, major announcements were made at the developer-focused BUILD conference this week in California, beside watching the keynote here: http://www.buildwindows.com/ it’s exciting to see preliminary releases (Developer Preview) of Windows 8 & Visual Studio 11 & Team Foundation Server 11. Happy download and install!

More info here:

Microsoft Reimagines Windows, Presents Windows 8 Developer Preview
Building Windows 8: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/
Announcing Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview

Celebrating 10 years at Microsoft

Christophe Fiessinger — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:22:00 GMT

Exactly 10 years ago I joined Microsoft on Monday September 3rd, 2001, in the French office outside Paris. While I could write a lengthy post on what happened during the past decade at MSFT, I wanted instead to mention why I really enjoyed the past ten years and why I looking forward to a continued career at Microsoft. This is my humble opinion so please take it with a grain of salt.

First let’s start with a bit of background and what I have done this past decade at MSFT from a career perspective. I basically had two role in two groups during that time: first as a consultant in our Services organization (Microsoft Consulting Services France), secondly as a Product Manager in Microsoft Office Division. I started in 2001 as an Application Development consultant helping customers build e-commerce sites with the beta version of the v1 .Net Framework. It was a very exciting time with tons of learning of the MSFT key products at that time: SQL Server 2000; Windows 2000; .Net Framework v1; Visual Studio .Net; Windows XP, Office XP to name a few. Over time, at MCS, I decided to start shifting my expertise from app. Dev. to server products and looked at Commerce Server, BizTalk and Project Server. I will let you guess which one I started focusing more and more on, helping customers deploy and customize it to their needs. After 6 years as a consultant serving large international customer, I decided it was time to get closer to the product group and learn how we build and ship product and more importantly shift from a very technical role to one with a business dimension and that’s what landed me a Technical Product Manager in Redmond in September 2007. The past four years in marketing have been extremely valuable to date. So what keeps me going to work every day after ten years at Microsoft?

In summary I would say because of its people, products and customers. Let me explain:

People: people matters, whether back in the French subsidiary or now in Redmond, the people I work with and meet every day are just awesome. Yes, I’m serious, the level of talent whether it’s hard core technical expertise or business acumen (vision, strategy etc...) is just amazing. Did I mention diversity? Historically and still today the brightest, passionate, talented individuals come from all over the world to work here; so it’s amazing to see such diversity at work and that keeps it fun every day! I had a career prior to joining MSFT (yes it happens) and I genuinely believe my peers at MSFT are great to work with from an expertise level, diversity level, and intense passion.

Products: for a company that has been around as long as us, and the fact that we ship products that covers the full spectrums of users from consumers using Xbox, for instance, to large enterprises using Project Server to manage mission critical programs; it is simply amazing to see the number of people we help and reach worldwide. Yes, there are plenty of naysayers that criticize us for not innovating but seriously look at what we achieved and show me someone with our legacy to date (interesting post and video from this week alone)? Yes, we missed a few turns in trends, but I believe we have learned from our mistakes and have leapfrogged key competitors in certain areas. I could name drop lots of products but at this point in time two comes to mind: Windows Phone and Windows 8. I just love my “mango” phone, period! Do I need 100,000 app to be happy and productive? No, since it has all the key capabilities I need and more. To be honest, I only use few apps and I keep smiling every day and I’m not jealous of anyone showing off their collection! For Windows 8, I would only point to this blog you need to start subscribing to. OK, I’ll add two more after all J. Xbox/Xbox Live/Kinect – I am an occasional gamer (with a Halo crush, in particular) and have kids who play in the house and we all just love the experience and the latest innovation. Talking about experience, I did not know I have more than one finger until I got a brand new Microsoft Touch mouse this week; I’m now mastering mouse Jedi movements J…

Customers: yes again, it’s a true statement that we have amazing customers whether it’s my 4 year old son using Xbox Kinect, my wife using her Windows Phone; or large Fortune 500 customers using their “strong-positive” Project Portfolio Management software suite from Microsoft. I also have to mention the passionate end-user communities and advocates like our beloved Project MVPs for instance that are great to interact and work with. I also consider customers, partners, large and small, worldwide, selling services or products built on our stack. Again similar to my comment about People above, they are a lot of fun to work with and keep you on your toes every day, 365 days a year.

In summary I learn something, every day, in a fun environment, with great people, products and customers and that’s what keeps me motivated to go to work every day!

I’m looking forward to the next decade at Microsoft.

Yours truly,

Christophe Fiessinger, 10 years after…

Rugby World Cup 2011 Timeline

Christophe Fiessinger — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:34:53 GMT

Yes it’s fast approaching, and thanks to Microsoft Project 2010 a nice visualization of the upcoming Rugby World Cup 2011 matches schedule in New Zealand. A lot more information on the official site: http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/home/fixtures/poolstage.html

And yes I will be cheering for a few teams!

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Rugby World Cup 2011	36 days	Fri 9/9/11	Sun 10/23/11
http://www.rugbyworldcup.com	36 days	Fri 9/9/11	Sun 10/23/11
Pool A, B, C, D	16 days	Fri 9/9/11	Sun 10/2/11
Quarter-Final	2 days	Sat 10/8/11	Sun 10/9/11
Semi-Final	2 days	Sat 10/15/11	Sun 10/16/11
Bronze Final	0 days	Fri 10/21/11	Fri 10/21/11
Final	0 days	Sun 10/23/11	Sun 10/23/11

Free Microsoft Office 365 eBook and SAP & BizTalk white paper

Christophe Fiessinger — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:33:35 GMT

Quick note to flag two important reading material we have just released. The first one is a free ebook that provides an overview of Office 365 (you should really try it out!): Free eBook: Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime. The second reading is a recurring topic: how do I integrate Project Server with SAP (wrote this already: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Integration with SAP) and it discusses using Biztalk to bridge SAP with another application: Unleash SAP using the Microsoft Platform: Using BizTalk Server to Bring Two Worlds Together

This document describes how to integrate, automate, and simplify business processes using Microsoft BizTalk Server and SAP. Business scenarios are presented involving SAP interoperability and technical patterns for how their solutions can be implemented with an integration platform like Microsoft BizTalk Server.

Happy reading!

PerformancePoint Services for Microsoft Project Server 2010 White Paper

Christophe Fiessinger — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:29:32 GMT

I’m happy to announce the release of the following white paper PerformancePoint Services for Project Server 2010 written by Emmanuel Fadullon, Delivery Architect Microsoft Consulting Services.

This document provides a detailed guide for Microsoft Project Server 2010 users who want to avail themselves of the Business Intelligence (BI) features and functionality provided in the host platform of Project Server, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Edition. Specifically, this document covers PerformancePoint Services, which is an inherent service on SharePoint Server 2010.

It is important to note that this document is about the mechanics specific to PerformancePoint Services in the context of Project Server data and not about providing sample EPM reports that are written in related BI tools like SQL Server Reporting Services and Excel Services. The use of reports in the document is entirely incidental and used simply to illustrate a PerformancePoint feature or functionality.

A peek into Microsoft Project Server 2010’s powerful visualization capabilities discussed in the report below. For additional information on Microsoft Project Server 2010 business intelligence & reporting please check out Business Intelligence in Project Server 2010.

Overall Scorecard Page with KPI Details

Work Forecast by Month Page with Decomposition Tree

Attend the dedicated Project pre-event at SharePoint Conference 2011!

Christophe Fiessinger — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:57:06 GMT

As announced by Jan last week, we will have a dedicated Project/Project Server pre-event ahead of SharePoint Conference 2011 on Sunday October, 2nd, 2011: SharePoint Partners – Interested in growing your business with Project 2010? A great opportunity for SharePoint/non Project Portfolio Managers to learn about our stack. More info here.

There will also be plenty of Project sessions during SPC11 so don’t wait and register, looking forward to see you in California in early October: