Brian Smith's Microsoft Project Support Blog

Project Server 2010: New TechNet and MSDN Resources – and 2010 Forums!

2009-10-29T22:33:00Z

I don’t usually steal all of Christophe’s blog postings but this one is worth it. Mostly planning content at the moment – but expect a ton more as we go through November and the Beta release. Certainly worth bookmarking for future reference. And if I get time I will be hanging out on the forums, along with my European colleague Alex. See you there!

We are pleased to announce the availability of the following Microsoft Project 2010 technical resources, save these bookmarks!

TechNet Project 2010 TechCenter

At http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/projectserver/ee263909.aspx the following areas are covered for IT Professionals:

Planning, Deploying and Operating Project 2010 Environment, including Project 2010 hardware and software requirements and deployment guidance
Upgrade and Migrating to Project 2010 through a brand new “Upgrade and migration” resource center

MSDN Project 2010 Developer Center

At http://msdn.microsoft.com/project/ developers will find a growing list of resources including Project 2010 Beta Software Development Kit (SDK) as we move closer to Project 2010 Beta in November.

Project 2010 Forums

Get all of your Project 2010 end-user, IT Professional and Developer questions answered by product experts from Microsoft and the community (Project MVPs):

Project Professional 2010 General Questions and Answers: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/projectprofessional2010
Project Server 2010 General Questions and Answers: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/projectserver2010

Please note this is the first milestone of a journey, new content will continuously flow to these sites.

Project Server 2007: October 2009 Cumulative Updates (CU) are Available

2009-10-29T22:17:37Z

Thanks to the Product Group, our partners in Office Sustained Engineering partners and of course Rob – who keeps this all running smoothly from the support side - we now have a new set of Cumulative Updates! One fix that I know Mary is waiting for (we met at the Project Conference) is the ‘loading grid’ issue when updating milestone tasks – Fixed! Details of the CU follow, and also included are more general links regarding application of Service Packs.

The Server CU is released in two different versions. The first version is in Individual Packages specific to a particular product like WSS and Project Server. These are smaller downloads but they do not include language packs or patches for other products so patches for those products would have to be downloaded and installed separately.

The second version is the Server Rollup Packages. This is a set of two rollup packages which contains all the fixes for WSS, Project Server and MOSS. These packages should be used when MOSS is part of the deployment and/or you have language packs installed. The Server Rollup Packages are much larger (~200MB each) but they will greatly simplify MOSS patch deployment.

A reminder on the download links – just replace the KB number where I have xxxxxx and you will go straight there:

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=xxxxxx&kbln=en-us

You can read about the fixes included in the October CU from the following articles:

Server Rollup Packages:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (WSS server-package): October 27, 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974989

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (MOSS server-package): October 27, 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974988

Server Individual Product Packages:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Sts-x-none.msp): October 27, 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975002

Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp-x-none.msp, Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): October 27, 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974990

The server patches require that WSS and Office Servers 2007 SP1 be installed. For clarity, SP1 is required and SP2 is strongly recommended. Here are the links to the SP1 Server Patches for your convenience:

Description of the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 1 and the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936984/en-us

How to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 1 and Office Server Language Pack 2007 Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945013/en-us

and here are the links for SP2

Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953338

Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334

Description of Office Project 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of Office Project Language Pack 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953326

Client Individual Product Package:

Description of the Office Project 2007 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): October 27, 2009 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975923

In order to install this hotfix, you will need to have Microsoft Project 2007 SP1 installed on the client. The article at the URL below contains information on how install download and install SP1 should you not have it installed already.

Note: We strongly recommend that you install Project 2007 SP2 from the information earlier in the article.

Description of Project 2007 Service Pack 1 and of Project Language Pack 2007 Service Pack 1

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937154/en-us

Technorati Tags: psvr2007

Project Server 2007 and 2010: Roundup of the week

2009-10-23T22:13:20Z

If you are interested in 2010 then the Product Group blog has a brand new article from Bonny on user controlled scheduling. This covers the ability to turn of the scheduling engine for selected tasks (task type changed from automatically scheduled to manually scheduled) and also introduces the new Task Inspector – which is Task Drivers++.

Other recent 2010 posts include a feature I love from Roberto on Sync to SharePoint – a very cool new feature that allows collaboration via SharePoint 2010 directly from Project Professional 2010. This does not need Project Server and works with all versions of SharePoint 2010, including SharePoint Foundation 2010 – the new name for Windows SharePoint Services (WSS).

A reminder of some training opportunities for Project Server 2010 – see Christophe’s posting on the Ignite World tour – both technical and sales tracks will be available, and Christophe also posted a reminder of the software requirements stack for 2010. Get ready for 2010 – x64 required for your SQL Server as well as all servers in the farm. x64 also available (but optional) for the client.

Another great addition to the TechNet content this week cam from Michael Jordan, Lead Architect from Microsoft Consulting Services entitled: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 – Performance and Capacity Planning Best Practices And to plagiarize Christophe: This is a great asset for all customers and partners to ensure they are following deployment best practices to guarantee optimal performance, it is based on best practices learned from hundreds of Project Server 20007 customers engagements as well as scalability labs.

Purpose

The purpose of this guide is to extend the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Performance Testing Lab (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2f595e22-c9f1-4376-a8b2-7a7eccd2aba5&displaylang=en) whitepaper by providing Best Practices and Recommendations. Further recommendations are made in this guide based on field experience and deployment successes in real world scenarios against the main areas of the system. The emphasis is on Project Server 2007 in a production environment using physical servers. Reference is made to virtualization in the relevant sections. However, for a more comprehensive overview please read the Project Server 2007 Hyper-V guide (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc982157.aspx).

The guidelines and recommendations in this guide present the “what” and “why”. Certain areas are prescriptive providing steps on “how” to accomplish the recommendation. However, the assumption is the audience of this guide is able to understand the reasons behind the guidance and take the necessary actions within their organization to implement optimization that applies to their scenario.

The guidelines and recommendations in this guide cover technical, functional and process related guidance. It’s important to note these are mutually inclusive of each other and present cross-impacts through the system when a design is not balanced across all 3 areas. It’s expected that administrators of a Project Server 2007 deployment will collect regular operational and functional data, and over time trend the system for performance and scalar depth. Optimization in all areas is required on a regular basis to maintain an efficient system and identify remediation steps through operational policies.

Audience

The intended audience includes IT administrators, database administrators, data architects, system engineers, project managers and business analysts who may be involved in implementing Project Server 2007. This document is designed for a reader who has general knowledge of all the required application and platform components that support Project Server 2007.

Additional Project Server 2007 resources for IT Professionals can be found on TechNet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/projectserver/default.aspx

If this interests you then Jan’s posting regarding the EPMU training is also a must-read.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: psvr2010,psvr2007,SharePoint 2010

A Very Special Day for Microsoft!

2009-10-22T22:06:30Z

In case you hadn’t noticed this is a very special day for Microsoft. Yes, Project 2010 is featured on the Office 2010 blog at http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/10/22/introducing-project-2010.aspx!

Oh, and we launched Windows 7 too…

SharePoint 2010: What does it do for Project? Some good ULS log enhancements.

2009-10-20T16:10:35Z

With the 2010 release Project Server now requires SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise (what we might previously thought of as MOSS) rather than just SharePoint Foundation (previously WSS). This gives us access to all the features such as Excel Services for reporting, but also such things as PerformancePoint Services for Business Intelligence. But as well as these things at the feature level we also benefit from the under the covers changes – such as the great improvements in ULS logging (“unexpected errors” can still happen – but they give you a correlation ID so you can easily find in the ULS logs more information about just how unexpected it was!) The UI for setting verbosity of the ULS logs is also vastly improved and you don’t have to make each change one at a time – you can select whole features or individual sub features and then set the level of logging you require.

Another neat feature is that once you have changed things it is obvious from the UI (Bold) – and this rolls up to the feature level.

And if you do forget and leave logging set at verbose? Well the new health analyzer has a rule for that, and can even alert you!

and automatically fix things too. Sweet!

Technorati Tags: psvr2010,SharePoint 2010

SharePoint 2010 – Read all about it!

2009-10-19T22:30:23Z

If like me you didn’t get along to the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, then you can find out plenty about the new version on the SharePoint blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/10/19/sharepoint-2010.aspx. Also announced today at the conference was the availability of the Beta of Office and SharePoint 2010 (and of course Project 2010 and Project Server 2010) next month. See http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx for more details.

Technorati Tags: psvr2010,Project Server 2010,SharePoint 2010

Bing Search now working on my Microsoft Project Support blog site!

2009-10-08T19:45:14Z

The TechNet and MSDN blogs had an overhaul recently and the search box that has long frustrated me when looking on even my blog has finally been fixed. It now uses the Bing engine and really does find stuff on my blog. (which Bing and other major search engines had been finding anyway.

One thing that others have had feedback on since this change was that for some searches you will see some Sponsored Sites returned along with your results. I will be keeping an eye on these, and we are also reviewing the general idea of having ads on these blog searches. If you have any concerns then please let me know. Potentially these links can add value – and perhaps many of my readers work for partners that would love to be presented as a link to customers that are looking for help on Project Server. We just need to be sure these are relevant and not intrusive.

Some more platform upgrades coming to my blog and there will be some downtime on the MSDN and TechNet blog platform this weekend (from around 3pm 10/9 PST) – so if you are thinking of having Project Server problems over the weekend you’d better get your offline RSS feed from my blog ready!

Project Server 2007: Another OLAP Cube Building Gotcha – Is your alias 32 or 64 bit?

2009-10-08T18:54:11Z

I posted a while back about an issue where the Application Server had an alias for the SQL Server, but when the Analysis Services cube build was requested the alias was passed to the Analysis Services server and it didn’t know the SQL Server by this alias (even if it was in fact the same server as SQL and the reporting database was running on!

My colleague in Europe – Nuno – had a similar issue, but with a slight twist that makes a new post worthwhile. ProjectServerOlapCubeGenerator.exe is the executable that builds the cube (it does exactly what it says on the box). It is a 32 bit application and there is not a 64 bit version – so if you are running x64 then this executable will still be running x32. SQL Server 2005 and 2008 Configuration Manager allow you to create aliases for servers – and if you look at the screenshot below you will see that you can create both 32bit and 64bit versions of the alias. If you don’t have the 32bit version set then the 32 bit ProjectServerOlapCubGenerator.exe will not be able to find your SQL Server!

Expect an error something like the following to be in the ULS logs.

CBSGeneralFailure was associated with exception: Microsoft.Office.Project.PI.CBSCommon.CBSProcessException at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.CBSLayer.ProcessCBSRequestMessage.SpawnOlapDatabaseGenerator(OlapStage olapStage, CubeAdmin cubeAdmin, CBSResource cbsResource, CubeGenerationSettings cubeGenerationSettings, OlapDatabaseDescription olapDatabaseDescription, String publishedDBConnectionString, Guid requestUid) at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.CBSLayer.ProcessCBSRequestMessage.GenerateOlapDatabase

Thanks Nuno for alerting me to this issue and suggesting the blog posting.

Technorati Tags: psvr2007,Analysis Services,OLAP

Project Server 2007: Running SSRS add-in for SharePoint without breaking your cube build

2009-10-08T18:23:15Z

This is an issue that has been around for a while – the different versions of the SQL components between the SSRS add-in for SharePoint and the Analysis Services requirements for cube building caused a catch-22. Thanks to Bart for finding a resolution to this - install the Management Objects Collection component of the SQL 2005 SP3 CU5 patch (KB 972511).

Some more words to describe the problem and help Bing find this resolution for you:

Issue Description:

- When you install Reporting Services 2008 in SharePoint integration mode and you install the rsSharePoint.exe component on the application server, then the OLAP generation fails because of the Management Objects Collection 2005 that is of the wrong version.

Problem is:

- You cannot install the Management Objects Collection 2005 from the December 2008 feature pack (error: a higher version is already installed)

- You cannot un-install the "higher version" because it is integral part of the rsSharePoint.exe package

The issue is described in KB 972694

Hope this helps resolve this long running issue.

Technorati Tags: psvr2007,Analysis Services,Project Server 2007

Microsoft Project 2010: Product Group Blog on the new Ribbon

2009-09-24T22:57:07Z

If you haven’t been over to the Product Group blog for a while, now would be a good time. There is a new look and a new posting on the ribbon in Project 2010 - http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2009/09/24/project-2010-introducing-the-ribbon.aspx

More to come – watch that space (or this one, and I’ll link).

I really think of all the Office application Project benefits most from the ribbon – there are plenty of gems just waiting to be found deep in the menu structures of 2007 and before – now they are just at your fingertips! Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft Project 2010

Project Server 2007 and the August CU for WSS

2009-09-19T01:20:17Z

You may have already heard of an issue with the August CU for WSS and potentially problems when re-attaching content databases after application of this cumulative update. It is documented on Stefan Goßner’s blog at http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2009/09/14/important-be-careful-when-installing-wss-august-cumulative-update.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

One comment on Stefan’s blog asks about Project Server databases, so I added a comment there (which isn’t live at the time I write this) and will repeat for reference here.

The Project Server 2007 (or 2010) databases are not content databases and there isn’t really the same concept of “attaching” them as there is for WSS (or MOSS or SharePoint 2010) Content databases. We do use the term DB attach for Project, and you will hear this more for 2010 and it usually refers to restoring the 4 Project Server databases and provisioning a new PWA site. This process will upgrade the Project Server databases to the latest schema installed on the farm, in the same way that PSConfig (the SharePoint Configuration Wizard) will update the schema as one of the steps after applying a Service Pack or Cumulative Update. You should never detach the Project Server databases during the application of an update (I understand this can be a common practice with very large WSS Content databases).

And the good news for Project Server 2010 is that we will support a 5 DB Attach process where you can move the content DB and the 4 Project Server DBs between farms and provision a new PWA - WITHOUT LOSING YOUR WORKSPACES and without the need for stsadm exports and imports. This is very cool! More on this later – but thought I’d drop it in as it relates to the topic.

Technorati Tags: psvr2010,psvr2007,WSS,Cumulative Updates

Project Conference 2009: SA200 – Project 2007 Common Questions and Answers

2009-09-17T01:10:00Z

At the conference in Phoenix I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Adrian, Rohan and Soroush to present some of the questions we regularly get in support (and of course the answers!) as well as take questions from the floor. As usual with Adrian’s sessions it was standing room only. One topic raised was identifying the version of Project Server 2007 – and then knowing what this version means. This information is around the blogs, but we really needed to get this in one place. Thanks David Hans and other for the feedback on this one. As I write LaDonna is working on a KB to document server and client version numbers and the release they relate to – and this should go live in the next day or so. It ~~will be~~ is KB 2002211 – ~~I’ll add a hyperlink once I see it live.~~

The other big topic was “check-in pending” and many people still appear to be suffering issues. With a clean cache and latest updates we thought we’d fixed this. If you still have an issue and good repro steps we would love to know more. Accessing projects by both PWA and Pro, and also use of terminal services/Citrix appeared to be implicated in some customer scenarios – but good repro steps would enable us to dig deeper.

Thanks again to the great audience at the conference for all the tremendous feedback. The Microsoft Project community is really a great one!

**** P.S. The final part of the August CU has now been released (the SharePoint server patch) and this can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973409 - with the full list for the Office 2007 August 2009 CU available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974982/.

Technorati Tags: psvr2007,Project Server 2007

Microsoft Project 2010 – My favorite feature

2009-09-17T00:36:00Z

This morning in Phoenix Chris Capossela unveiled Microsoft Project 2010. I’ve been working on the support of this next release for nearly a year now, and it has been difficult no being able to talk about it – but now I can! To get the details from the brand new Project site on Microsoft.com go to http://www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx.

But now I can talk about it I just don’t know where to start – there is so much good stuff. The one feature I really like is the ability to have Enterprise Project Types (EPT) – which can be thought of as a template that defines not only the project plan (from a template) but also the workflow for project initiation, the department (another new for 2010 feature) that can see and use the EPT, and last and definitely not least – you can specify the template for the SharePoint workspace that gets created for the project. And this customized workspace can use all the rich features of SharePoint and contain content too. This new feature is really huge!

I know there will be plenty of information coming out from the Project product team blog, as well as the Programmability blog, and of course Christophe’s blog (he has started already!) and Doug’s “McBlog” – which has some cool video content from the conference and interviews with various members of the product group.

More to come soon (ribbon, task sync to WSS, backstage, user controlled schedules, inactive tasks, timeline, team planner, delegation, departments, Exchange integration…) – but I’ll try and give the support angle on the postings I do so as not to repeat the feature overviews you might see elsewhere. And of course this is still a way off (1st half of 2010 for the release) so I’ll still keep the 2007 postings coming too.

Technorati Tags: psvr2010,Project Server 2010

Off to Phoenix!

2009-09-12T22:30:41Z

I’ve been a bit slow on the blog front the last few months – apologies if I haven’t been able to answer as quickly as usual – head down supporting the Technical Preview of 2010. But I have changed the settings on my blog so people posting comments using the new “captcha” and using a login should see their comments appear right away – and anyone is welcome to post answers!

I am about to head off for SeaTac and my flight to he Project Conference 2009 and looking forward to seeing many friends made over the years in the great Project community. Plenty of new fiends to make too – with an excellent turn-out in what are truly difficult times. Come and say Hi if you are there.

Once the conference is over expect to see postings from all your regular Project favorites on the new version – I can’t wait!

Microsoft Project 2010: Pre Conference Training Opportunity

2009-08-19T19:03:45Z

One of my very pleasant duties when down in Phoenix will be to join my colleagues Christophe Fiessinger, Chris Boyd, Michael Jordan, Jan Kalis, and Jean-Francois Lesaux in delivering the Microsoft Project 2010 Ignite training. This will be the first delivery of this course aimed at preparing EPM professionals for deployment, operations and customization of Project Server 2010.

There is still a chance to register for this training – and it is a free benefit if you are already attending the Microsoft Project Conference.

Full details of the dates and registration can be found on Christophe’s recent posting.

I hope to see you in Phoenix!