Nintex Workflow for Project Server

 

What are the options of developing a project server 2010 workflow? For all of you that are in the process of doing that, please refer to Alex Burtons great post on the Nintex Workflow for Project Server which was released yesterday.

http://epmsource.com/2010/12/02/first-look-at-nintex-workflow-for-project-server-2010/

As Alex mentioned, he is actually an employee of a company that is part of Nintex, but I must agree with Alex, this tool rocks big time.

I have installed and configured workflows in Nintex now and here are my experiences. It is a great solution for organisations that would like to drive their governance using automation and workflows.

We have been developing workflows now in Visual Studio quite extensively and we also used the SDK solution starter. Both options are ok for the right workflow, but both have either limitations or are very time consuming.

With Nintex, organisations have the ability to give the business user the power of developing their workflow, either across different enterprise project types or even for individual projects.

What Alex did not mention so far ( I know Alex its only your first post ) is that Nintex does much more than Project Server workflows, it allows customers to seamlessly integrate SharePoint content with Project Server content and that really rocks !!!

Imagine you can make the status of a document dependent on moving a project into the next stage of a project life cycle. Yeap, that is all possible ( and much more) without a lengthy effort of custom developing workflows in Visual Studio.

Also with Nintex you don't just interrogate SharePoint data, but any Line of Business data can also be integrated into the workflow, making possibilities endless.

So without wanting to sound bias ( which I am not) have a look at this and decide for yourself  

http://www.nintex.com/

Happy “worklfowing”

Did you know? Task custom field calculations in PS 2010

I just stumbled across a 2010 limitation that I have not seen before. When creating task custom field formulas, PS will give you a nice red warning to have less than 5 task formulas due to potential performance issues. I believe that this is only a very general guideline, but certainly enough to have Microsoft warn you.

I will struggle at times to obey to this rule since I often use calculations within task custom fields, so EPM’es be aware and let me know if you have come across performance issues when using more than 5 task custom field formulas.

Project Server 2010 Web Casts

Since Project Server 2010 is just around the corner, I am doing some webcasts regarding the Business Intelligence solution of Project Server 2010. I am sure you will find it most interesting, especially because of the new features of Project Server and in particular SharePoint Server 2010. If you are interested please select the link below for registration :) By the way all web casts are also recorded, so if you are from Australia you don't need to be up in the early hours :)

Project 2010 Business Intelligence

Title	Abstract	link
MSDN Webcast: Project 2010 BI & Portfolio Reporting (Part 1 of 2): Advanced Techniques	Web Cast 1 users will have the ability to understand how to utilize Excel Services, Reporting Services and Dashboard Designer to create organizational specific Dashboards	https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032449565&Culture=en-US
MSDN Webcast: Project 2010 BI & Portfolio Reporting (Part 2 of 2): Advanced Techniques	Within Web Cast 2 users receive a deep dive experience on how to generate reports utilizing Project Servers data sources. This web cast will also allow users to generate a Visio Services Report and Power Pivot analytics by utilizing the Project Server 2010 Data Sources	https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032449567&Culture=en-US

Looking forward seeing you online.

How to import a mpp file into Project Server 2010 or how to manipulate your Ribbon

 

I came across a little issue. I was not able to find the import project into enterprise function.

Apparently the Beta and RC MS Project Professional Version have different ways to control the import wizard.

So irrespectively of what version you are running, you may want to include this command into your ribbon. So how do you do that?

Below is a little instruction on how you can control the ribbon and manipulate it with new commands.

This example is based on using the import wizard, which is required if you want to import an existing project to Project Server,  but you can essentially do this for all command.

1. Open Project Professional 2010

2. Navigate to the open button which will lead you to the backstage page

3. Select Options and then select “Customise Ribbon”

4. On the right hand side select the project group and then select the “New Group” at the bottom of the dialog window. This will add a custom group

5. On the left hand column under “choose commands from” select All commands and find “import project to enterprise”

6. Select the Add button. That will add the command to the newly created group

7. Select OK and navigate to the Project Tab

8. On the very right you will now see the import project to enterprise icon.

You can do this with all ribbon tabs :) Enjoy playing.

Project Server 2010 Demand Management

I am just at the project server 2010 ignite session in Sydney and it was most interesting. One thing becomes apparent, project server 2010 really rocks. Microsoft has done a great job, especially when it comes to project lifecycle management. A big part of this is Demand Management.

Over the last couple of month I have started working with the Demand Management component of Project Server 2010 and I promise to post some more about this shortly but lets see what Demand Management actually means:

What is demand management for Microsoft

Here are the main Challenges for Organisations organisations face:

• Organisational ideas compete for attention and resources in project and product portfolios.
• Organisations need to find the most beneficial suite of projects for benefit optimisation.
• No realistic implication for Pet projects implementation.
• No idea of what resource implication project proposals may have.

The solution that Microsoft came up with is referred to as Demand Management:

• Collaborative platform featuring workflow management, business case, schedule tools, and a portfolio analysis engine that organizations need to comprehensively manage the demands of their organisation.
  
• Portfolio What If scenario planning giving ability to objective decision making in regards to projects and resources.
  
• Track progress against strategic goals to act early in case of non success

Are you excited? How this all works will follow shortly. :)

Project Server 2010 Web Cast

Hi, i thought you may want to check out the web cast I am going to do in January

In this webcast we provide insight on how you can take advantage of the great reporting features in Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. By using Excel Servises, Project Server delivers a suite of pre-defined reports out of the box. during the presentation we outline how users are able to generate thier own reports and report templates, give an overview on how to manage projects and portfolio dashboards by creating KPI reports using Perfomance Point Services and show how to visualise project and portfolio management processes by generating and integrating a dynamic visual report using Visio Services. The Web cast will give you a good introduction of the reporting capabillities of Project Server 2010.

PS: for thouse Australian viewers, sorry it is in the morning :( but it will be recorded I believe.
Check out this link to the register:

Register for Webcast

Project & Project Server 2010

I am just in the Brisbane Airport waiting for my plane to Adelaide. Over the last week I had the pleasure being at the Project Server Conference 2009 in Phoenix where Project and Project Server 2010 was introduced. Before I start writing about my impressions, I would like to say thank you to all the MVP's I have meet last week. Many of you I have known now for years, but only a view I met face to face. Every time we meet, it feels like seeing an extended Family and I am very happy, honored and proud to be part of this elite of fine, smart and passioned professionals. Cant wait to see you all again.

Additionally I had the pleasure of meeting many people last week that share the same passion then I and one of the main reasons why I attend these conferences is to share my experience with same minded professionals of which some have become friends from all over the world, Finland, Germany, Russia, Israel, France, USA, Malaysia,New Zealand........ I feel very privileged.

OK now 2010:

Quite a view things have already been written over the last couple of days and as most of the bloggers I am also taken by the amount of great work and effort the Microsoft Project Team has been putting into the product. I already had the chance to see 2010 in action before hand during Beta1 and the conference has only backed up my thoughts. WAU, YEIPEEEE, UNBELIEVABLE, FINALLY, MIND BLOWING, these where the immediate words that sprang to my mind and finally I am able to talk about it :) since the NDA has been lifted.

Lets Start with Project Server 2010. The most important part to notice here is that Project Server 2010 requires SharePoint Server Enterprise 2010 to be deployed. This has a lot of license implications for many of my customers, but also a lot of additional feature sets. It took me about 2 sleepless nights before I started to accept the fact that Project Server is now a truly enterprise solution, not just from a feature set ( which it already was) but also from a licensing point of view. Microsoft has not reveled the license cost yet and I doubt that we will have final figures for a while now. So be aware of that.
Secondly ( which I believe was required) the entire infrastructure has to be 64 bit, including SQL Server. Most of my clients run 64bit anyway, so that should not be such a big issue, but for some organisations that means hardware upgrade which was required anyway :)
Now lets talk about feature sets. I don't really know where to start because there are so many :)

• Project and Portfolio Server are now one product and it looks INCREDIBLE. My prediction is we do not have any more competition. With this solution primaveras of the world watch out. You can not beat what Microsoft delivered in a seamless solution. Not only does it look great, it does the job!!!!
• Project Server is a SharePoint Solution. All your EPM specialist you will need to become SharePoint Specialists too. There is no life without SharePoint. I personally love it. In the past I had to sell SharePoint to have the featuresets. Now it all comes out of the box. Excel Services, Visio Services, Workflow, Collaboration, KPI's, Perfomance Point, Forms Services and and and I dont know when to stop. That of course means endless possibilities for our customers. I will post more detailed featurests about SharePoint later. By the way the SharePoint conference is on the 15th October. You may want to consider going. This will be a huge event.
• No More ActiveX and OWC. All Grids are now bases on Ajax and JavaScript. THANK YOU MICROSOFT. No more complicated desktop deployments. All Server based and extensible to accommodate for any requirement.
• The Reporting Engine is Excel Services. That is great, well I already use Excel Services in 2007 extensible and think that this is a great move. Finally business users can create their own reports using Excel, their most loved reporting tool.
• Lost of new 3 letter acronyms :) EPT ( Enterprise Project Types). EPT's allow you to create as many different project types as you like ( e.g. proposal, small Projects, Enhancements, large Projects etc). I will write much more about this since this functionality gives you the ultimate flexibility.
  PDP ( Project Detail Page) allow you to associate your own customised detail per EPT. I know that sounds a bit complicated but makes pure sense. :) Also more about this later
• Departments. Finally you can determine custom fields on a department by department level. This means that Departments can have their individual custom field filter
• Delegation. Allows you to act as someone else in case of Holiday etc. That did cause a lot of discussion during the deep dive sessions :) but I am sure it will be very interesting for organisations.
  

I haven't even started with the new feature sets yet :) but unfortunately my plane is boarding in 2 minutes, so you have to bare with me for more information later. My concluding sentence is......I cant wait to show my customers how I am able to help them with the new great Project Server release and I cant wait till it finally is released :)