April, 2011

I am happy to announce the release of a white paper, diagram and videos produced by Advisicon, entitled Microsoft Project Server 2010: Get the Most for Your Organization, Now and for the Future. The white paper is targeted at decision makers and its purpose is to address some of the main factors for scalability, best practices, and opportunities for creating wins from the potential challenges often faced when implementing a solution such as Microsoft Project Server 2010 . The Visio diagram entitled Project 2010 Scalability Flowchart is designed to assist the different roles and perspectives in dealing with the challenges and the next steps to leveraging Project 2010 and Project Server 2010’s capabilities, depending on your entrance point for using the application.  The four videos entitled: Introduction to the Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Lifecycle; Work and Capacity Planning; Need for Consolidation and Project Metadata... Moving from Ad-Hoc to Projectized; Top Down view of Strategic Meta data... Business Driven PPM will enable you to plan and scale Project 2010 to fit with your organization’s needs. Last but not least we have also published a Spanish version of the white paper and the diagram. Start you download!

Executive Summary

Organizations in the 21st century, especially in light of the post-economic environment of the 2008-2010 timeframe, are looking at technology platforms that can help them solve issues now while being accounted for by the Chief Executive/Financial Offices as a solid investment to grow with their business, in full support of the direction the organization wishes to stretch and move. Microsoft Project 2010 (also referred to as Project Server 2010 or Enterprise Project Management) is meeting expectations and appealing to a wider group of business users to solve planning, forecasting, and financial control needs.  This is largely attributed to the ability for Project 2010 to slip into the sweet spot of supplying a robust technological platform that can bridge project management methodology and an organization’s individual maturity approach for growth. Project Server 2010, now built upon the business collaboration system SharePoint Server 2010 platform, is delivering enterprise-wide support of aligning work with organizational strategy, strong tactical execution, and meaningful Business Intelligence (BI) empowering organizations to make informed decisions that impact their current situation, but also provide a strong foundation for future goal achievement.

This white paper was created to shine some light on critical elements related to the discussions, decisions, and adoption of Microsoft Project 2010. Companies are looking to better align strategy with financial planning and look to their corporate diversity, regional presences and departmental structure for the best way forward.  The purpose of this white paper is to address some of the main factors for scalability, best practices, and opportunities for creating wins from the potential challenges often faced when implementing a solution such as Project Server 2010. The information presented will initiate dialogue and thought around the use of and growth with Project 2010 that includes the individual SKUs of Project Client, Project Server and SharePoint Server.

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• The Perspectives
• Perspective 1 - Project 2010 Points of Entry and Scalability: Planned and Organic Growth of Technology and Process Systems
• Perspective 2 - Know Your PMO:  How Stakeholder Classes are influencing decisions regarding Project 2010
• Perspective 3 - Roles Played During Project 2010 Acquisition:   Views from a Microsoft, Partner, & Consumer
• Perspective 4 - Ease of implementation and leveragability of Project 2010
• Perspective 5 - Decision threats and cultural change: What may cause road-blocks or resistance to deciding on the solution?
• Perspective 6: Challenges and Critical Assumptions Related to Selecting Project 2010 as a Solution
• Key Summary Points
• Conclusion

Do not forget to check out other existing white papers on Microsoft Project Portfolio Management offering on our Project site at http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/articles-white-papers.aspx

Here’s the problem. You’ve created a project schedule, and now you want to send it to a team mate for review. Your team mate is having trouble opening and viewing the project because she has a version on Project earlier than yours. At this point, you have a few options, depending on who has which version of what:

That’s a nice table, but how do I tell which version of Project I have?

• For Project versions 98 through Project 2007, click the Help menu, and then click About Microsoft Office Project.
• For Project version 2010, click the File tab, then click Help.

Will I lose my data?

In nearly all cases, no. There can be a few exceptions, however. if you open a Project file created from a later version and save it the file to your current version, you can lose data or formatting in areas where the later versions contains enhanced functionality.

For example, new fields and custom fields Information within new fields from later versions of Project, or any formulas relying on new fields, will be lost. New options that are set on custom fields created in the later version of Project will be lost.

Another example. New calendar exceptions that were added to project and resource calendar functionality (such as monthly exceptions, yearly exceptions, and those with arbitrary dates) will be lost.

Following the recent release of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack in March 2011 (New Feature Pack from Visual Studio Improves Project Management and Software Development Team Collaboration), we are announcing the release of a demo virtual machine (VM) today that showcases the integration between both products. This demo VM contains four hands-on labs, which also function as demo scripts. Each script contains a series of exercises showcasing the integration between Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server 2010.

The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack, which further strengthens Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution, was released in March 2011 to customers with a Visual Studio Ultimate MSDN Subscription. The integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a considerable advancement for organizations that want to bridge the collaboration gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams. The demo VM contains the following hands-on labs, which also function as demo scripts:

• Top-Down Planning of Business Requirements within an Enterprise Project using Team Foundation Server and Project Server
• Managing Project Details in an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project in Team Foundation Server
• Making Agile Team Progress Visible to the Project Management Office
• Managing Field Mappings for Integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server

It’s a great asset to learn about the recently announced feature pack and showcase it to your customers and partners.

Feature Pack Resources

• Demo VM download
• Solutions For Application Lifecycle Management:
• Customer Case Studies - Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack
• MSDN Product documentation
• MSDN Public Forums - Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration

Christophe Fiessinger
Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Project
http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie

Well, maybe not right away. But you might impress your new stakeholders with a quick first draft of your next project by using a template. Templates are one of the most popular ways to get familiar with what Microsoft Project is capable of.

Not only will these templates jump-start your next endeavor. They can also be educational. Maybe you don’t want to build a commercial building or start a new business (or plan a wedding), but exploring these templates can be interesting in themselves to learn how the rest of the world gets things done.

Note   All of these templates can be used with Project 2010, even though many of them were created using prior versions of Project. If you open a project that were created in a version later than the one you are using, you may get a prompt to convert the project file first.

Here is a sampling of our top Project templates on Office.com.

Here are a few others that might be interesting to look at, if you want to get a sense of the kinds of activities that you can benefit from a scheduling program.

• wine tasting fundraiser
• Nursing schedule
• Formal wedding planner
• Home move plan

Tip   Here’s a list of templates broken out by categories.

Yet another tip  Here’s a list of all our templates, from Project 2003 through Project 2010.

To use these templates, click on the links above to download them to your computer from Office.com.

To find other templates, open Project 2010. Click the File tab, and then click New.