Larry's Project Dev Blog

Two More MSDN Webcasts Coming

lduff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:29:29 GMT

It seems like I’ve been doing Project Programmability webcasts for months… oh yeah I have :). There are still two more left, check them out:

Date	Session Title
April 23, 2009	Office Project Client Programmability
May 14, 2009	EPMAuditing Solution Starter Drilldown

Both start at 8:00 AM PDT.

Been Cheating on My Blog...

lduff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:25:00 GMT

Yes it’s true I’ve been cheating on my blog and (it’s too embarrassing to say)… posting to another blog. If you want to see what I’ve done, go to the Project programmability blog. Here are the posts:

MSDN Webcast: Project Server Events and Workflows, Demos & Q&A

MSDN Webcast: PSI Review, Demos and Q&A

MSDN Webcast: PSI Programming Overview, Demos and Q&A

Upcoming Project Server Developer MSDN Webcasts

lduff — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:11:00 GMT

HI All,

I'll be delivering a few MSDN webcasts, below is the schedule. Hope to see you there.

Feb 12, 2009 Project Server and Project Portfolio Server Advanced Customization

Feb 26, 2009 MSDN Webcast: Office Project Server Programmability (Part 1 of 4): Project Server 2007 Architecture for Developers (Level 400)

March 12, 2009 MSDN Webcast: Office Project Server Programmability (Part 2 of 4): Project Server Interface Programming Overview (Level 400)

March 26, 2009 MSDN Webcast: Office Project Server Programmability (Part 3 of 4): Review of the Project Server Interface Web Services (Level 400)

April 2, 2009 MSDN Webcast: Office Project Server Programmability (Part 4 of 4): Project Server 2007 Events and Workflow (Level 400)

April 23, 2009 MSDN Webcast: Office Project Client Programmability (Level 300)

Lions, and Tigers, and Guids... oh my!

lduff — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:38:00 GMT

Everything in Project Server and SharePoint have Guids associated with them. A friend asked about generating new unique Guids for repeatable deployments. So of course I started writing a little console application to use System.Guid to generate the new Guid (I’m a developer, I always think in code). But as I started thinking about emailing an exe, an idea struck me... PowerShell. I had installed PowerShell months ago because I was told about using it to maintain my 20,000+ (and always growing) photo collection. But have never got around to using it. I fired up the console and the User Guide. I looked through the TOC and found "Working with Objects." Within 10 minutes I had figured out the syntax. So, cut to the chase...

[System.Guid]::NewGuid().ToString()

I have one word for this... SWEET! I look forward to playing with PowerShell more in the future.

EPMU Developer Classes

lduff — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:43:54 GMT

I'll be delivering the upcoming EPMU Developer classes. I wrote this content about two years ago for beta participants on Project 12. It's been updated by a couple different people since then, it'll be fun to see the differences. Should you want to attend this, or any other EPMU classes you can go to the following link: http://www.msepmu.com/

Current schedule for the developer classes:

Dates	Class	Instructor	Duration	Start Time	Time Zone
Sep 29th - Oct 2nd 2008	Office Project Server 2007 Developer Training	Larry Duff	4 Days	8:45 AM	PST (GMT -8hrs)
Jan 19th - Jan 22nd 2009	Office Project Server 2007 Developer Training	Larry Duff	4 Days	10:45 AM	EST (GMT -5hrs)
May 26th - May 29th 2009	Office Project Server 2007 Developer Training	Larry Duff	4 Days	10:45 AM	EST (GMT -5hrs)

He's Back....

lduff — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:17:16 GMT

After a year hiatus, I've found a doctor to do a partial reversal of my management lobotomy ;). I've done my management job so well, that I get to do that and some consulting on the side, you know like a hobby. Everyone needs at least two jobs, so I'll be working part time for the Project team once again.

I've already helped complete a web service that will allow editing/ creation of Project Portfolio Server 2007 projects. More details on that in the coming weeks when it's ready for launch. For the foreseeable future my focus will be on creating some Project Server 2007 tools and teaching development classes. Then sometime in 2009 I'll get to start working on the next version of Project Server and supporting early adopters. This will be my fourth version of Project Server I support for early adopters. I really enjoy seeing the progression of this product, it's been like watching a child grow up. And yes I am skewed to the server. The client has been around so long (17+ years I think) that many of the interesting customization and extension have been done. But should something interesting come up on the clients side, you can bet I'll be there.

I'm really happy to back with the community. There are so many great companies doing really interesting and innovative things, and people who do that work are unsurpassed and enjoyable to work with. I look forward to sharing the journey with you once again.

Larry Has Left the Building...

lduff — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 23:12:00 GMT

Last April I took a new job at Microsoft as a consulting manager. This means my Project Server development has been shrinking toward zero (obviously you can't let managers write code). I still get questions from people periodically from my blog. I realized that I never really announced that I wasn't maintaining this blog anymore.

So here is the announcement... Larry Has Almost Left the Building. OK, why almost?

One of the last things I did for the Project team was to write a solution starter. Hopefully it will be posted to CodePlex very soon, I understand there are some bureaucracy to get through before it gets posted. But I was asked to do a session at the Project Conference on Line of Business Integration with EPM. Part of this session will be to review the solution starter that I wrote. After Project Conference in October (or December if I go to the European Project Conference) I will be leaving the building.

I've enjoyed watching Project Server go from 25 methods (Project Server 2002), to a full blown API with eventing (Project Server 2007). Most of all I've enjoyed working with the hundreds (maybe thousands) of partners and customers around their development issues over the last five years. I'm confident the base we laid with Project Server 2007 will only be enhanced with the next release. I wish everyone the best... stop by and say hi if you're at Project Conference.

P.S. The link section on my blog has some of the other Project related blogs listed that you should find helpful.

TechEd 2007 Presentation

lduff — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 01:51:00 GMT

I got a request over a month ago for my presentation from TechEd. I missed the request buried in the thousands of spam comments I get :(. So attached is the deck, you already have the samples in previous posts.

Under the Godfather heading of "Everytime I get out they pull me back in" I thought TechEd 2007 was my last speaking engagement for the Project team. Well as it turns out I'll be speaking at the Project Conference 2007 in Seattle, and possibly and the European Project Conference in Madrid. So I'll see you everyone at Project Conference.

TechEd 2007 - Sample 3

lduff — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 05:23:00 GMT

This is the final sample from my TechEd presentation. It's an event that captures the Project Published. When the event is triggered, the project being published is read, then output as an Xml file.

TechEd 2007 - Sample 2

lduff — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 05:16:00 GMT

Here we go with the second sample, the Project Server Explorer. This sample opens a list of projects. Then you can look through all the propoerties and DataSets for a selected project. The key was binding the columns in the DataSets to controls.