Microsoft Project Team Blog

Calling all Admins – There’s a New Blog for You

2009-11-19T23:06:00Z

Announcing the Admin Blog! Coinciding with the release of Public Beta, we are aggregating all Project Administrator / Implementer content into a TechNet blog located at http://blogs.technet.com/projectadministration

The content of this blog will cover setup, upgrade, performance, backup/restore and planning topics for Project Server 2010/Project Client 2010. We will also have Project Server 2007/Project Client 2007 and Project Portfolio Server 2007 related topics as needed. We will also use this blog to announce patches, administration best practices and temporary issues with installs/upgrades.

Now Available – Project 2010 Beta!!!

2009-11-18T18:09:00Z

You’ve heard the buzz, seen the posts, now check it out for yourself – the Project 2010 Beta is now available!!!

To download: Click here for Project. You can download the other Office applications from here

To send feedback: Use Send-a-Smile. When you install Project 2010, you’ll notice that a smiley face and frown now appear in your taskbar. You can use these to send feedback on your experience with Project. To help us out make sure to use the word “Project” in the comments section and include your email address so we can follow up with you if we have any questions.

To get help: Visit the Project 2010 forums

Tips and Tricks: Contour your work

2009-11-14T00:17:33Z

A typical work week is rarely typical. Yet, you can plan for this with a Project 2007 feature called “work contours.” If you discover that there is a consistent work pattern in your organization where people are assigned to work more hours at the beginning of a task than at the end, you can have Project account for this using assignment contours. Or, perhaps a task requires more work in the middle of it than at the beginning to account for ramp-up time.

No problem. After assigning a person to a task, switch to the Task Usage view from the Tools menu. The tricky part is double-clicking the person’s name assigned to a task and not the task itself. This brings up the Assignment Information dialog box (which is what you want since you’ll be adjusting an assignment and not the task itself).

In the Work Contour list, select the type of work assignment pattern that makes sense for the work that will be performed on the task. Now, in the list of patterns, you may not know the difference between a “Turtle” and “Bell” contour, so it’s best just to apply different contours and see how the hours automatically “shape” themselves in the timesheet portion of the Task Usage view. The view should now look like this:

In the image above, two different contours are used: a “Bell” contour and a “Front-loaded” contour, as you can tell by the icon on the left.

On the right side of the view, Tom has his work hours shaped, or “contoured,” to reflect a front-loaded work pattern.

Project 2010: Introducing Demand Management

2009-11-13T21:50:28Z

Demand Management is about capturing all work proposals in one single place, taking these proposals through a multi-stage governance process, making decisions on which proposals to approve and tracking progress on their execution until the work is completed. A key component within Demand Management is the Workflow governance model we have now implemented within Microsoft Project Server 2010.

The "Proposals" feature in Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 helps capture demand in one place, but is not flexible enough and does not have a full-fledged governance workflow behind it. The "Builder" module in Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a flexible demand management paradigm, but does not have a familiar Project Server/Office SharePoint Server look and feel and also has some usability, scalability problems. The Demand management functionality in Microsoft Project Server 2010 is designed to be both flexible and usable.

In project portfolio management (PPM), a project lifecycle is a long-running process that spans various governance phases. Typical demand management phases are create, select, plan, and manage (customers can create their own).

The "Plan" phase is accomplished by the more familiar project management processes using Project Professional and Project Web Access. Workflow models the governance processes and provides a structured way for projects to proceed through the phases. Workflows, along with other key concepts, are captured and integrated within the demand management feature set, providing a rich and dynamic platform on which customers and partners can build custom solutions.

The figure below shows the four typical phases of demand management and how they fit together. Within each phase are stages such as propose idea and initial review. Each stage can have an associated project detail page (PDP) in Project Web Access (PWA). The entire collection of stages represents a single workflow that can be linked to an enterprise project template (EPT). More details about these concepts given below.

Governance Workflow

A governance workflow is all about creating a rich life cycle for any proposal/demand that comes into the system. It includes defining the various stages through which the project goes in its lifecycle (for example, Proposal Creation, Proposal Initial Approval, etc), determining what information is required or locked at what stage (for example, budget cost should be locked down after the project is approved), including any manual approval/notifications steps as necessary and adding any business logic to update other Line Of Business Systems (for example, update the SAP system when the proposal budget gets approved).

The Project Server workflow platform is built on the Windows SharePoint Services 2010 workflow platform, which in turn is based on the Windows Workflow Foundation. Workflow is a key component of demand management.

A Project Server workflow runs on a Project Web Access site and helps to manage a sequence of activities or alternate sets of activities related to project management such as Check Project Custom Field Value and Publish Project.

Project Server 2010 workflows use the Site workflow paradigm, which removes the restriction that a Windows SharePoint Services 2010 workflow can be started only on a list item. Project Server workflows are deployed to Project Web Access, and workflow instances can be run only as a project entity.

The figure below shows the high-level processes for workflow creation, administration, and use.

Note: Project Server workflows must be created in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Project Server workflows cannot be created from Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010.

The administration of Project Server workflows is identical to managing any other Windows SharePoint Services 2010 workflow, thereby providing more consistency between Project Server and Windows SharePoint Services 2010 and reducing redundant work. Workflow instances are created when a project is created and are deleted when the project is deleted/completed/rejected.

Unlike in Windows SharePoint Services 2010, a user does not start a workflow instance from the administration page that lists all the Project Server workflows.

Enterprise Project Type

An enterprise project type (EPT) represents a wrapper that encapsulates phases, stages, a single workflow, and PDPs. Each EPT represents a single project type. Normally, project types are aligned with individual departments, for example, marketing projects, IT projects, HR projects, and so forth. Using project types helps to categorize projects within the same organization that have a similar project life cycle. For a user, the EPTs appear in a drop-down list of project types when the user clicks New Project in Project Web Access.

Phases

Phases represent a collection of stages grouped together to identify a common set of activities in the project life cycle. Examples of phases are project creation, project selection, and project management. Phases do not have any direct technical impact on the behavior of an EPT. That is, changing the order of phases does not affect how the system reacts. The primary purpose of demand management phases is to provide a smoother user experience where users have the option of organizing stages into logical groups.

Stages

A stage represents one step within a project lifecycle. A stage is composed of one or more project detail pages (PDPs) linked by common logic or theme. Stages at a user level appear as steps within a project. At each step, data must be entered, modified, reviewed, or processed.

At a technical level, each stage represents a step where data is manipulated before the workflow can move to the next step. For a single-stage workflow, very little programming is involved. The user enters all of the data in one PDP, and can then work on the project as she normally would. For a multi-stage workflow, each stage is separated by an activity (SetProjectStage) within a Visual Studio workflow diagram. The actual SetProjectStage activity acts as a marker between stages and sets default properties of the next stage. The activities that follow SetProjectStage outline the actions that must take place within the next stage.

Note The actual stage itself is not created within Visual Studio. The stage must first be created in Project Web Access. After the stage is created, you can link to that stage within Visual Studio.

Project Detail Pages in Stages

A PDP represents a single Web Part Page in Project Web Access. PDPs can be used to display or collect information from the user. You can create PDPs in much the same way you create any Web Part Page in a SharePoint site, where you can add Web Parts that provide the experience you want. You can add individual Web Parts from the standard Web Part galleries to create custom Web Parts.

Project Server Web Parts and custom Web Parts used in demand management all contain custom fields. Web Parts can make calls to the PSI, query the reporting database, or integrate with external systems.

The figure below shows the general hierarchy of the parts of demand management in Project Server 2010.

Workflows are associated with the stages. From a programming standpoint, PDPs are not actually referenced within the workflow. The PDPs simply act as containers to hold or display data. The workflow can however, references custom fields in the Web Parts.

Project 2010: Introducing Portfolio Analysis

2009-11-11T01:02:40Z

In Project Server 2010, a rich set of new Portfolio Strategy features are now available in the core Project Server product serving to more closely unify project and portfolio management. Those familiar with Portfolio Server 2007 will recognize many of these features, but will appreciate the enhancements made possible by rebuilding them on the Project Server platform. Highlights include:

· UI is now SharePoint-based, making these features easier to use and provides visual consistency with the rest of the app

· A gateway linking the Portfolio Server product is no longer required, everything resides with one product

· Full API support now available for these features via the Project Server Interface (PSI), and some integration with the Reporting Database (RDB).

This seamless unification of two products into one consolidated offering makes end-to-end project and portfolio management easier than ever. In addition to the core platform integration highlights, we’ve adding a brand new Resource Analysis feature that enables portfolio-level project scheduling and analysis based on organizational resource availability.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Portfolio Strategy feature set, it essentially allows organizations to methodically select projects that will yield the most value for their dollar. By adding intelligent structure to how project investment decisions are reached, executives can minimize the irrationality and fog that comes from making “gut feel” disposition decisions based on limited data and analysis, or based on unqualified or unclear business goals. At a high-level, the feature set works as follows:

· Organizations define and prioritize their strategic objectives, or business drivers.

Drivers can be prioritized using the pair-wise comparison method to reinforce objectivity.

· Costs and resource requirements are assigned to each project proposal, and a proposal’s impact on each business driver is rated, generating relative project value/priority score across a portfolio.

The Resource Plan feature can be used to specify high-level project resource requirements to be fed into the new Resource Analysis feature.

Portfolio analysts can review the project-to-driver impact ratings assessed by the project owners and make adjustments if necessary.

· Portfolios are constrained by cost categories, time-phased resources requirements, and project schedule. The Portfolio Cost Constraint Analysis engine selects projects that yield the most value with the lowest cost, while the Resource Constraint Analysis feature chooses higher priority projects based on resource availability within a planning period’s timeline.

Given a limited budget, the Cost Analysis algorithm will select a portfolio that maximizes strategic value while minimizing cost.

The new Resource Analysis feature helps you identify gaps in demand vs. availability, favoring higher priority projects for selection.

· Portfolio analysts can override the software’s decisions, and pull a variety of constraint levers to maximize value based on a given organizational reality. Projects can be forced in, cost reduced, dates moved, resources hired, etc., all in an effort to achieve a plan that maximizes strategic value based on dollars/resources consumed.

The tool suggests project selection, but ultimately you are in control and can force in projects for specific user-defined purposes.

One of the way the Resource Analysis feature allows you to resolve resource availability gaps is by moving project dates.

· Final project investment decisions are reached and communicated to stakeholders via reports or through the web interface.

New “Committed” fields help communicate the results of selection decisions to stakeholders.

Again, all of this is done on the shared extensible Project Server/SharePoint platform in the 2010 version, and integrates seamlessly with the rest of the Project features, including the Demand Management feature set and project scheduling/execution.

From strategy, to selection, to project planning and execution, Project Server 2010 unifies the end-to-end Project and Portfolio Management experience.

Ask a Project PM: Timesheets and Task Status

2009-11-10T16:14:43Z

Thanks all for your insightful questions on timesheets and task status in Project Server 2007! Project PM Patrick Conlan has some answers for you in this video:

Ask a Project PM: Timesheets and Task Status

Many thanks to Patrick for a well-versed interview. Watch for another topic next week!

Microsoft Project 2010 Session at Tech Ed Europe 2009

2009-11-04T23:53:44Z

Please find below the list of Project 2010 sessions that will be delivered at Tech Ed Europe 2009 in Berlin in November. We will also have a Microsoft Project 2010 booth staffed by product experts in the Microsoft Product Pavilion so please drop by and ask plenty of questions!

Session	Description	Code	Speaker	Date/Location
Microsoft Project 2010 Overview	This session provides an overview of the key investment areas and capabilities of Project Server 2010 and Project Professional 2010, including demand management, portfolio analysis, time tracking, and reporting.	OFS214	Jan Kalis, Christophe Fiessinger	11/9/2009 13:30-14:45 New York 3 - Hall 7-1a
Microsoft Project Server 2010 for IT Professionals and Developers	This session provides details of what Project Server 2010 offers IT professionals and developers, including new features for easier deployment and management, and developer-related enhancements across Server and Client.	OFS206	Jan Kalis, Christophe Fiessinger	11/13/2009 10:45-12:00 London 3 - Hall 7-1b

Additionally, if you have not done so yet register for these:

Project 2010 Technical Resources

2009-11-03T16:53:02Z

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/projectserver/default.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 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 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 not this is the first milestone of a journey, new content will continuously to these sites.

Project 2010: Introducing Web Based Project Editing

2009-11-02T18:58:09Z

Have you ever wanted to make edits to a project plan far away from your desktop installation of Project? Perhaps you were in a meeting and pulled up Project Web Access to show project status but hoped to capture updates directly in PWA as the meeting progressed. Maybe you have multiple stakeholders on a plan who want the ability to add tasks even if they aren’t responsible for the entire project schedule and don’t have Project on their desktop.

Hi, I’m Pat Malatack and today I’ll be introducing you to a new feature in Project Server 2010, web based project editing in Project Web Access (PWA). With this feature, these requests and many others will become a distant memory. Project Server 2010 enables the ability to create projects, edit the plan, assign resources to tasks, and publish the plan, all from the comfort and convenience of your browser. In Project Server 2010 you can expect to edit projects large and small on the server. Additionally, you can move effortlessly back and forth between editing projects in the browser and in the desktop client. This allows users to have the convenience of a browser based project editing solution together with the power of the desktop client.

Now I know what you’re thinking “Do I need some fancy plugin for this?”, “How does it work?”, “How well does it scale?”, and “How does it differ from Project Professional?” Let’s answer each one of these questions and hopefully many more today.

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Do I need some sort of fancy plugin for this? Not at all! Web based project editing has been implemented in JavaScript and HTML so all you need is a browser, no ActiveX controls or any other plugin required. Yep you read correctly NO ACTIVEX!!!!!!!

How does it work? Performing edits to projects in your browser is simple and easy to use. In PWA you can expect to find many of the same great features you are familiar with in the Project desktop. Although we don’t have time in this blog post to walk through each and every feature, I will walk you through a few by starting off with a brand new project plan that I have just created in the web as shown below.

The first thing to take note of here is the user interface. There are 4 core interface elements that should capture your eye. First, you will see the Fluent User Interface at the top of the page (expanded in the screenshot below). Here you can manipulate the project plan. You are able to perform actions like linking, indenting and marking tasks as complete.

Second, you will see a blue information bar. This “status bar” displays information about the current project plan you are working on. In the example below you will see the project was checked out on 10/28 and that I am viewing a “Draft” of the current project plan.

Next you will see a grid. The grid is composed of two panes (our final two core UI elements). The left-most pane we will refer to as the “grid pane”. The grid pane is where the end users will complete actions on task level information. Users will be able to edit task names, assign resources and enter various project fields like start date & end date from this pane. As task information is entered we will begin to see a Gantt chart taking shape in the right half of the grid, we will refer to this as the “Gantt pane”. The grid, complete with both panes, is pictured below.

For this particular example I will build a project plan for the launch of a new product. I will begin by defining some high level phases. In order to create each task I will start by typing a task name in the empty row on screen with the indicator.

When I press ENTER on the keyboard or move to another cell the “new row”, as indicated with the icon, will move down one row, giving me another location with which to enter a new task.

After a few more edits I begin to see the high-level structure of the plan taking shape. Unfortunately, I have made a mistake while entering the start date of one of my phases. Thankfully PWA has detected this typo and informed me of this error while continuing to allow me to make edits.

Once I get a free moment I can click on the error. PWA will do its best to inform me of the problem and allow me to resolve the issue. In this particular case I have entered a value that is not a date for a date field.

After resolving the typo I hope to insert some sub tasks in Phase 1. At this stage in the project, Phase 1 is the only phase I have sufficient information for which to plan. All this takes is a simple press on the “Insert” Button in the ribbon or the “Insert” key on my keyboard.

After inserting each of my tasks I have a plan that looks something like this.

Next I want to indent the newly inserted tasks under Phase 1. To do this I will click in the “row header” region on the far left of the grid pane. I will select each of the rows and press indent in the ribbon (or Alt+Shift+Right on my keyboard if I prefer to use the Keyboard Shortcut Support). This demonstrates the use of full Task Hierarchy and Indent/Outdent support in the browser.

Now that I have created a summary task I want to establish dependencies on each of the subtasks. To do this I will select all of the subtasks and link them. In the screen shot below you will note that the tasks have been linked (which can be seen visually in the Gantt chart) but they have not been scheduled. The behavior is similar to that of Project Desktop if “calculate project after each edit” is turned off.

Finally we will press calculate which is located in the ribbon and the tasks dates will be updated. You should also note in this picture that the items that were changed as a result of the calculate operation are highlighted in blue. This demonstrates the use of Change Highlighting in the browser.

Some other notable features to call out here are support for Multi-Level Undo as well as Cut/Copy & Paste right in your browser (both are shown in the ribbon screen shot earlier in this post). If I had made a mistake in anyone of these edits and wanted to undo it or I wanted add a list of work items copied somewhere like Excel, I would effortlessly be able to do this in PWA.

Now that I have some tasks created and scheduled I want to go ahead and make some resource assignments, before I do this though I want the resource column to be placed right next to the task name to make assignments easier to see visually. To do this in PWA I simply drag the resource column by clicking down on the column header and dragging with my mouse. A “ghost image” will appear so that a user can see where my column will be positioned, demonstrating the intuitiveness of Flexible View Manipulation in PWA.

Together with my colleague Heather I will be “Identifying the Launch Team” as well as “Defining Launch Goals”. This demonstrates browser based support for Multi-Resource Assignment. Heather will be responsible for “Determining Sales Objectives” and I will be handling the other tasks defined. Making the assignments is depicted below.

A few more items of interest to mention in PWA are high-fidelity (and colorful) Gantt charts, support for Grouping (as you would expect from Project’s desktop client), and support for User Controlled Scheduling in the browser.

How well does is scale? Editing projects from small to the very large is supported in Project Server 2010. There are no explicit size limits for browser based editing. Coming soon – a video with a 6,000+ line project.

How does it differ from Project Professional?

Project Professional will continue to be your one stop shop for great project planning/tracking features like baselining, leveling and task warnings and suggestions as well as some of the new 2010 features like Timeline View and Team Planner. Features like defining work breakdown structures will only be available in the desktop client, which will continue to be the premium project editing experience. For basic project plan editing and manipulation though PWA will serve as a great compliment to Project Professional for traditional Project Managers and help to expand the use of Project to people within your organization whom traditionally did not use Project Professional.

To recap here are just some of the features you can expect with web based editing in Project Server 2010.

Rapid entry	Multi-Resource Assignment
Asynchronous editing, validation & error handling	Fluent User Interface
Multi-Level Undo	User Controlled Scheduling
Change Highlighting	Keyboard Shortcut Support
Cut/Copy/Paste	Flexible View Manipulation
Task Hierarchy	High Fidelity Gantt Charts
Grouping	Support for Large Projects
Indenting/Outdenting	And many more…

Remember everything demonstrated in today’s post was done in a browser and is included as part of Project Server 2010. We hope you are as excited for web based project editing as we are and be sure to download the beta when it is made available in November.

Project 2010: Introducing User-Controlled Scheduling

2009-10-23T21:51:19Z

In Project 2010, we have introduced a new concept called "User-Controlled Scheduling". It's a collection of features designed to make Project a more flexible planning and schedule management tool. The idea is that you, as the project manager, can have complete control over when a task should happen. If and when appropriate, you can leverage Project's powerful scheduling engine to help forecast the date of a task based on various factors like dependencies, calendar, constraints, etc. But at any time, you have the flexibility to manually override Project's automatic calculations.

Ok, what does that really mean you ask? Let me illustrate...

Say you are planning for a new project. You've just talked to a few key stakeholders to get an understanding of the timeframe and deliverables and now you're ready to start building out a schedule. So far, you know the project will be divided into a couple major phases and you have a rough idea of the list of tasks to be completed within each phase. You don't really have all the specific details for every single task yet though. You need to confirm with Joe over at Sales to see if he can arrange for a customer site visit, then talk to Jane from Engineering to see when they can staff up your project, email Jack from Marketing to see if they can do some market research… You get the idea: during the initial planning phase of a project, things can still be very fuzzy.

So, how do you capture all of the high-level, possibly vague information and eventually transform it into a well structured, presentable plan?

With the new release, you can start your planning in Project right from the get-go. Tasks are by default "Manually Scheduled", meaning that you have complete control over their dates. For example, I've just typed in the couple key phases of my project:

You'll notice that that the Start, Finish & Duration fields are blank. When tasks are in this "Manually Scheduled" mode, Project will not automatically calculate and fill in dates for you.

Now let's capture what we do know. For example, we have specific dates for the task "Design" in mind. For "Engineering", we know we have a 2 week budget but don't know the specific date. For "QA", we know we have to be done by 12/1, but not how long it will take. And for Marketing, we need to discuss the timeframe with Jack:

Notice that using Project 2010, tasks do not need to be fully defined - you can leave duration or dates as blank or even type text into those fields. This lets you easily capture uncertainties when planning.

Next, let's break some of these high-level tasks into smaller work items. There are a couple design-related tasks that I want to group together under the "Design" phase, so let's insert and indent them under "Design":

Notice that the "Design" phase, which I had original given 2 weeks of duration, maintained its dates. This lets me plan using a top-down approach, where I can start from high-level dates that may be determined by management or customers, build in buffer for risk management or monitor for potential slippages (as opposed to the bottom-up where I start by defining all the specific work items then work out the roll-up total for each phase). So now I can give the subtasks some specific dates:

Note that there is a small blue bar under the summary - this is the roll-up of all of the subtasks. If I update the subtasks' dates, the blue bar will automatically update. This provides a visual way of indicating whether I still have buffer time in my schedule. I can maintain the high-level timeframe while still getting a summary roll-up of subtasks.

If one of these tasks end up taking longer than expected, and the subtasks end up exceeding the original dates of the summary phase, the roll-up bar will turn red to indicate a slippage:

You'll also notice that there are some red squiggles under the dates. Like the spell-checker in Word highlights spelling errors, the ‘schedule-checker’ highlights potential problems with the schedule. And just like the spell- checker, I can right click on the squiggle to see some possible corrective actions. Here I am going to choose the "Fix in Task Inspector" option to bring up a side pane that will tell me why there may be an issue.

In this case, I am slipping beyond my original 2 week budget on "Design", so I may have to meet with my stakeholder to see if I can get an extension on the "Design" phase, or find a way to reduce scope. In this case, let's say they agreed to letting it slip by 2 days so I can choose the "Extend Finish":

Another example where "Manually Scheduled" mode comes into play is when a task's predecessor slips. Let's say we have underestimated the amount of time the task "Prototype" takes - it's actually 6d instead of 4d:

You'll notice that "Review", which is linked to "Prototype", did not get moved out automatically. Instead the red squiggle appears to indicate a potential problem. This gives me, the project manager, a chance to decide on a mitigation plan. If "Review" truly cannot begin unless "Prototype" is complete, I may choose to enforce the link (it's one of the corrective options on the right-click menu). But of course this means that the "Design" phase will slip again and my stakeholders won't be very happy with me. Another possible mitigation plan is to check if my team can begin reviewing parts of the design as originally scheduled on 10/28, before the prototype is fully completed. If they can, then I no longer need to worry about this warning and just like a spell-checker, you can choose to ignore the warning from the software:

At any point in time if you wish to have Project calculate your schedule for you instead of maintaining manual control, you can toggle your tasks to "Automatically Scheduled" mode. When tasks are "Auto Scheduled", Project will calculate and update their dates automatically just like it has always done in previous versions. In the above example, if I make all my "Design" tasks auto scheduled, the links will always be respected and the summary will automatically update based on its subtasks:

And lastly, if you prefer the existing way of having Project automatically schedule tasks out for you. You can easily change the default task mode to be Auto Scheduled either for the current project, or for the application as a whole:

So, that's all for now for this whirlwind tour of "User-Controlled Scheduling". There are lots more to show but I'll leave them for you to explore when Beta comes out!

Are you Project 2010 Ready? – Announcing Project 2010 Technical Ignite and Sales Training

2009-10-22T17:15:52Z

If didn’t answer with a resounding yes, check out Christophe’s post on training targeted for Microsoft Partners and Field.

Project 2010: Introducing Sync to SharePoint

2009-10-19T22:38:37Z

Hi everyone,

I’m Roberto Reif and today I am excited to introduce a new feature that has been added to Project Professional 2010, the ability to: synchronize a tasks list between Project and SharePoint!!!

A Project Manager (PM) can use all the advanced scheduling capabilities that exist in Project Professional with all the collaborative capabilities that exist in SharePoint.

Users can now publish a project plan from Project to SharePoint and vice versa. Any changes made in Project / SharePoint can be easily updated into SharePoint / Project with the click of a button.

So how does this work? Let’s assume a PM creates a simple project plan in Project Professional, as shown below.

The PM would like to share the plan with his/her team members via SharePoint. To do this, the PM clicks on the File tab and drills on to Save & Send > Sync with Tasks List (see image below). After filling out the required fields, the user clicks on Sync, and in a matter of seconds the project plan has been published to SharePoint.

The SharePoint list will look as follows:

Now the team members can view and modify the data in SharePoint, and the PM can synchronize the updates by clicking on the Sync button. Tip: After the first sync, the Sync button also appears in the Info tab shown below.

If the same data is modified both in SharePoint and Project, the PM will be prompted with a conflict resolution dialog next time there is a Sync operation.

A few important things to notice are:

· Summary tasks are supported in the synchronization

· Most custom fields can be synchronized, and can be added via the Manage Fields dialog (click on Manage Fields button shown on the image above in the Info tab)

· This feature only works with SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server 2010

· This feature only works when Project Professional is not connected to the server

We encourage you to try it out and let us know what you think. Be amongst the first to download the Project 2010 Beta . Sign up now at www.microsoft.com/project/2010 and be notified when it’s available!

New Project Fan Page on Facebook

2009-10-16T20:21:00Z

In our never-ending quest to spread the word about Microsoft Project 2007 and Microsoft Project 2010, we now have an official fan page on Facebook! Our news feed includes links to articles on MSDN, TechNet, and Office Online, as well as posts on this blog. You can choose to see our posts in your Facebook news feed automatically, or read them only when you want to. Similarly, if you post something on the fan page, you can choose to be notified whenever someone responds to you.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of how the Microsoft Project fan page on Facebook works:

Join the Project fan page

If you already have a Facebook account, sign in, and then follow these simple steps:

Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Microsoft-Project/95221953802.
Near the top of the page, click the Become a Fan button.

Browse through Project wall posts

Once you’ve joined the Microsoft Project fan page on Facebook, you can begin browsing for posts right away.

To switch the default view to the page wall, click the Wall tab on the top navigation bar near the Project logo:

You can now see all of the wall posts by the administrator and by other Project users just like you. Wall posts are shown in chronological order and the newest posts appear near the top of the page.

Join the conversation! Reply to an existing wall post that interests you, or make your own post to start a new discussion or to share something with the other members.

Hide automatic Project fan page updates

Depending on when you join the Project fan page, you’ll probably see automatic updates in your Facebook news feed within a few days. If you like seeing these updates, you don’t need to do anything else. Check out the ones that sound interesting and ignore the ones that you don’t care about on any particular day.

If you don’t want automatic Project fan page updates to appear in your news feed, you can easily disable them by following these steps:

While signed in to your Facebook account, go to the Facebook home page at http://www.facebook.com/.
Scroll through your Facebook news feed (the center column of your home page) and find any one of the Project fan page updates that have appeared.
Move the mouse pointer over the Project post until you see a Hide link show up near the right side of the post.
When you move the mouse pointer over the Hide link, it becomes a button. Click it.
On the mini-menu that appears below the Hide button, click Hide Microsoft Project.

Facebook will briefly display a yellow confirmation box, informing you that Project updates will now be hidden from view.

Even though Project fan page updates are hidden from view in your Facebook news feed, you can still visit the Microsoft Project fan page at any time by entering Microsoft Project into the Search box near the top of any Facebook page and then clicking the search result. It’s a fast way to return to the fan page whenever you want to check for updates on your own.

Restore hidden Project fan page updates

If you previously disabled Project fan page updates from your Facebook news feed and you’ve changed your mind about seeing automatic updates, you can easily restore them by following these steps:

While signed in to your Facebook account, go to the Facebook home page at http://www.facebook.com/.
Scroll to the very end of your Facebook news feed (the center column of your home page) until you see the navigation bar in the page footer:
Click the Edit Options link.
Near the top of the Hidden from News Feed popup dialog box, click the Pages link.
Scroll down until you see Microsoft Project, and then click the Add to News Feed button.

When you have completed these steps, you will once again see automatic Microsoft Project fan page notifications in your Facebook news feed.

Share what you know!

Post to the wall! It’s just a conversation with like-minded people who enjoy and rely on Project in similar ways as you.

See Project 2010 at the SharePoint Conference

2009-10-16T17:14:42Z

If you are attending the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Vegas next week, you will have multiple opportunities to learn more about Project 2010.

Click here to learn more.

Dealing with organizational resistance

2009-10-13T18:17:38Z

While I’m no project/portfolio management expert, I do know a thing or two about common issues that people tend to encounter in this industry, particularly when rolling out a Project Server implementation. One relatively big issue is organizational resistance. You make this big investment in Project Professional and Project Server, because you know it’s what’s best for your business, and then, once you roll it out across the company, you hear little complaints coming in…”I don’t want to fill out timesheets,” “my Excel spreadsheet is working fine for me, I don’t want to learn a new tool,” and so on. No surprises there…the learning curve is steep for the tool itself, and for the formal process you’re trying to implement. We know that, you knew it when you rolled it out, no big shocker. So given all that, what can you do to ease the transition and help avoid the inevitable pushback from the people you’re asking to use this new solution?

Again I have to emphasize that I’m no expert, so I’m sure many of you out there have more informed suggestions that I hope you’ll share in comments on this blog post. I can, however, offer these suggestions, gleaned from a decade of documenting project and portfolio management software solutions:

Set some expectations. When you tell your organization that you’re going to roll out Project Server, that’s not going to mean the same thing to everyone. Some may have no idea what to expect, while others may have had previous experience with Project Server, or may have heard about other implementations and challenges that their peers in other companies have encountered. Be specific about what Project Server means for your organization. It may mean people will be filling out timesheets for the first time. It may mean project managers will have a more formal reporting structure. By communicating these expectations before Project Server is actually rolled out, you’re giving people a chance to let the ideas bake, voice their concerns, and get some clarity on what these expectations really mean for them.
Explain the benefits. Personally, I think this one is (arguably, of course) the single most important way you can prepare your organization and avoid some of that rollout pushback. Think of it this way…you’re rolling out Project Server, and for the first time, you’re asking full-time salaried employees to fill out hours spent on tasks in a timesheet. Something some of your employees may not have done since their summer jobs as fry cooks during high school. People are going to complain, not fill them out, and get their hours in late every week. That’s just the nature of rolling out timesheets. (Did I really just say all of that out loud?) But if you tell them WHY you want them to fill out timesheets (because it helps to accurately predict how much time will be needed for tasks in future projects, for one), and what benefit it offers THEM (maybe it means fewer status meetings with managers, or more evidence of getting work done on time or early come annual review time, that sort of thing), you’re bound to encounter less resistance. I’m not saying people won’t complain, because they will, but at least this way they might be less inclined to complain as loudly.
Provide training. The reality is that for many people, Project client and Project Server are really difficult to learn. Even just pointing them to resources like the Up to speed video series or the Project Map can be enough to ease some of the anxiety about learning a new tool. If you can afford full-on in-person training, even better. The more prepared your teams are, the more successful your EPM solution will be.

These are just a few suggestions for ways you can prepare your organization for what’s to come. I’d love to hear other suggestions, or pointers to resources you find helpful in preparing organizations for new Project Server rollouts. What are your thoughts?