Jeremy's World of Random Stuff : Project

Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management - Monthly Partner Live Meeting

jpalmer — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:41:36 GMT

We're trailing a monthly event to update our partner channel on what's new in the world of Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management. To attend you must be a Microsoft Certified or Gold Certified Partner holding the Information Worker competency. To register, visit the Partner Learning Centre.

I look forward to seeing you online soon!

New EPM Partner VPC Available

jpalmer — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:19:45 GMT

If you’re a Microsoft Certified or Gold Certified Partner selling Microsoft Enterprise Project Management solutions, you might be interested in getting hold of the latest EPM Virtual PC.

Partners can get a copy using their existing account and the Jetstream application; new partners can register on our partner site to request access:

https://partner.microsoft.com/US/program/competencies/iwsolutions/40029164

VPC size is now 18GB unzipped and 7GB zipped (13 files of 585MB).

Based on your feedback we have made the following improvements to the demo VPC:

Improved the Project Server meta data (moved the data forward to 2008 onward, added timesheet data for the first six months, cleanup extra data…)
Created performance dashboards using Excel Services and SQL Server Reporting Services:
Corporate level dashboard
Departmental level dashboard
Resource Manager dashboards
Capacity Planning Views
Timesheet Scorecard
Project level Storyboard
Created a new demo that walks the audience through the Create, Select, Plan and Manage governance phases highlighting the capabilities of the EPM Solution (both Project Server 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007). The main improvement is that we are focusing on telling a PPM story vs. demoing functionality in isolation
Highlight MOSS Integration
Dashboards (Excel Services)
Document Workflow
Indexed Project Server data using Business Data Catalog and Enterprise Search
PerformancePoint Server/ProClarity Analytics Server Integration
In this release we have installed and the necessary Business Intelligence applications to build extensive dashboards. We’ll be working with the PPS/ProClarity team to build an updated version of the VPC that will demonstrate the full capabilities of these products.

We have created a new demo script (72 pages included in the image on the desktop) that will allow you to successfully navigate through the demo image.

We will schedule two webcast for the 9th of April 2008 (Wednesday at 8am and 5pm PST) where we will demo some of the new capabilities and answer any of your questions (invites will go out tomorrow).

We hope that the improvements in the demo will better support your sales engagements!

Next steps

During next two months we will be releasing additional VPCs for:

Innovation Management
Capital Planning and Investment Control solutions
All Up BI VPC with EPM 2007

Please do not hesitate in contacting me if you have any questions.

Search Project Server Data using SharePoint BDC and Enterprise Search

jpalmer — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:56:23 GMT

Do you ever wonder how many projects are in a specific phase? Would you like to know the attributes of a specific resource? Are you looking when a specific milestone ends? Do you have users in your organization that are not part of the Project Server resource pool but still need to access the data? Being able to easily search valuable information is becoming a key feature in any organization.

This solution starter demonstrates how to leverage SharePoint Server’s Business Data Catalog (BDC) to index project server data and enable users to search the different objects (projects, tasks, resources, lookup tables…) using SharePoint Server’s Enterprise Search, and give you answers to all the questions above. Out of the box the Project Server data is not indexed (only the SharePoint objects are indexed for instance Issues, Risks, Documents…) and thus users cannot search the content contained in the Reporting database. This solution starter will thus enable you to mine the PS 2007 gold mine and find the nuggets you were looking for very easily!

http://www.codeplex.com/EPMBDC

Project Server and InfoPath 2007

jpalmer — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:49:30 GMT

You can now find on CodePlex a solution starter that demonstrates how to integrate Microsoft Office InfoPath and Forms Services to create a custom project initiation phase and approval process.

The goal of this solution starter is thus to provide the following two code samples:

InfoPath Form with managed code that issues Project Server Interface calls to populate and submit form data
SharePoint sequential workflow that leverages the form created earlier to create a custom workflow

This solution starter requires Project Server 2007, InfoPath and Forms Services 2007, and Visual Studio 2008.

Other references:

EPM 2007 SDK http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2672F6F9-7028-4B30-99A2-18CB1EED1ABE&displaylang=en
Project Developer Portal http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905469.aspx
Project Programmability Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/project_programmability/
Building Simple Custom Approval Workflows with InfoPath 2007 Forms http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb629921.aspx
Walkthrough: Creating Office SharePoint Server 2007 Workflows in Visual Studio 2005 http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms564355.aspx