A new venture

I knew that 2009 would be a great year and it has finally happened. After 6 years with SDM building their EPM business, I have decided to open my own EPM Practise and partner with a group of outstanding professionals. I am very happy to announce our new Company
i-PMO EPM Partners. (http://www.i-pmo.com.au). We are a team of currently 7 people with a presents in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide. We concentrate on the delivery and successful deployment of Microsoft's EPM solution with the technical expertise of integration work and custom development within the Microsoft EPM and SharePoint environment.

Additionally we offer various trainings including Project Server, Portfolio Server and MS Project Training. I am very excited about our new venture and know that we will be the EPM force to recon with in Australia. The entire team has many years of experience implementing EPM solutions throughout Australia. The ability to fully concentrate on delivering true value and business benefits to organisations that have a need and desire to deliver projects on time, within budget and to the full customer satisfaction will be our key to success. Lets get it started :)

Project Server and SQL 2008 Part 2

Christophe Fiessinger left an excellent comment with great blogs that he wrote on his blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/.

Thanks Christophe!!. These are excellent posts regarding the SQL 2008 benefits and upgrade ( if you have the Microsoft VPC image). Have a read and enjoy: :)

to check out Reporting Services 2008 benefits for instance, check this
http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2008/12/09/microsoft-sql-server-reporting-services-2008-sample-project-server-reports.aspx

to upgrade your existing PS 2007 VPC I've also posted this: http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2008/12/17/how-to-upgrade-your-existing-microsoft-project-vpc-running-on-sql-2005-to-sql-server-2008.aspx

New year, new challange Project Server and SQL 2008

It has been a very turbulent 2008 with many changes to the company I am working for, but now it is 2009 and I know this will be a most interesting year in every way. I started the year with a holiday with my wife and kids AND Project Server 2007 :)

Adrian, a friend and college of mine and I spent a day installing Project Server and MOSS onto a Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 image. We did get the cube working ( after a couple of hair pulling events) and we did install the new Report Builder 2.0. The Report Builder 2.0 not only has a ribbon look and feel, finally Microsoft decided to allow the word output format out of the box which is excellent. All in all the installation was strait forward. Here are a couple of tips to consider when installing Project Server and MOSS on a windows and sql 2008 environment.

WINDOWS 2008 BE AWARE things:
- When installing Project Server 2007 and / or MOSS 2007 on a Windows 2008 environment ensure that you have the PS / MOSS media INCLUDING SP1,otherwise the install will be a very short experience :) Windows 2008 doesn't like non SP1 media

SQL 2008 BE AWARE things:
- When setting up the cube within the SQL 2008 environment refer to this link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd285466.aspx
BUT there is one issue with this link. It askes you to download the backward compatibility components based on Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - February 2007 this is actually not working. You will need to use the backward compatibility components of the
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack, August 2008 ( which makes kind of sense :) )

- Furthermore, if you want to use the Report builder. By default when installing SQL 2008 Reporting Service, it will install Report builder 1.0, which es the same then 2005. If you want to have the REAL NEW Report builder, you will need to download Report Builder 2.0 which can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9f783224-9871-4eea-b1d5-f3140a253db6&displaylang=en

This Report Builder has great new features, a ribbon look and feel AND the ability to generate Word document "Out of the Box" YIEPPEEE.

So all report fanatics without technical skills, check out the report builder :)
Have a great start to 2009

Andy I will miss you

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Andy Neumann. Andy and I have been working together for the past 4 years and we triggered off the EPM business at SDM, our employer. Yesterday Andy resigned to join OBS, a very good Microsoft Partner and one of the best SharePoint providers in Australia.
Andy I will truly miss you and would like to thank you for your wonderful advice, professionalism and above all wonderful friendship that we share. I truly hope that you and I will have the chance to be a team again one day.
I know you will do an outstanding job at OBS, and they will be most happy having found such a smart asset in you. Without you, EPM would have never even been close as successful as it is now. I know that every single person that worked with you at SDM share my sadness seeing you go.

Presented at TechEd 2008 in Sydney

Better late then never. I seem to chase my tail at present. The Tech Ed is now finished. I was in Sydney for the week and had 2 presentations at the Microsoft Tech Ed,

- a MVP theatre presentation which was based on enabeling business users to create reports using the SQL Server Report Builder utilising Project Server Reporting Database,

- and a TechEd presentation where my fellow MVP friend Ben Walters ( an Infopath MVP) and I presented on how to govern a project initiation process using inforpath forms and approval processes using Windows Workflow Foundation to finally create a project from a project idea. Once the project is managed in Project Server we reported against the project progress usign Excel Services. Essentially we utilised MOSS and Project Server :)

The presenation was ok, unfortunatly our VPC did not work for the first 10 Minutes ( dont you hate that), but the amount of questions we had was something I have never seen before in a presentation on this magnitute. We had at least 40 - 50 questions and spent the last half an hour only answering questions. So what started bad ended strong. At least this is the feeling I had. Lets see how next year goes :)

Interesting 3rd party timesheet add on

Finally QuantumPM, from what I can see beeing a great EPM organisation ( no I have not worked with them before :) ) have released a great product called "JustOne" which fills the biggest gap that Project Server 2007 timesheet and task update has.

Essentially it allows users to update timesheet data AND remaining work in the timesheet, it then updates the task automatically. It means a one stop shop for task and timesheet update.

Having said this, I have not used it as yet, but hope to check it out soon. Anyway, for all of your Task and Timesheet users in Project Server 2007 check out this product.


http://www.quantumpm.com/products/JustOnce.html


Here is the description directly of their web page:

- Easily report time for each task

- See Remaining Work dynamically recalculated as actual time is updated
(change remaining time if needed)

- Time automatically imported from timesheet to tasks

- Timesheet sent to Timesheet Manager and status updates sent to Project Manager

- Timesheet and task submission status are kept in synch automatically

- keeps timesheet and task status in synch

- Comments and Rejected status displayed on My Timesheet page per timesheet

- Corrective dialog box reminds users to make updates

Make Planned work disapear in Timesheets

Chee it is so nice to work with great people. This post is dedicated to Piet Remen, a great person, and developer in my team. A customer asked if it is possible to get rid of the annouing planned work in the timesheet and Piet found the way. Thanks Piet.

As we know, we can make the overtime and billable work disapear, but not the planned work :( ( god knows why). Anyway here is the instruction on how you can hide the planned column in the Project Server 2007 timesheets:

Use the following procedure to hide the ‘Planned’ work section displayed by default in the my timesheet input screen

1. On the Application server, open the CSS file named [pwastyle.css] in the SharePoint 12 hive structure.

Should be something like C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\PWA\STYLES

2. Locate the class named [XmlGridPlannedWork]. Within the class, add the following highlighted code to the class and save the file:

3. Done!

Easy Peezey. Planned work has been banished to the Project Server abyss and is no longer visible.

Dont you just love great developers :)

Project Server 2007 Timesheets the goods and bads

By now we all know that Task updates and timesheet entry are 2 separate functions within Project Server, generally that is a good thing. The not so good thing is that task updates and timesheet entry is not tightly integrated in Project Server 2007. A user will actually need to import timesheet data into my tasks or vice versa. That is cumbersome as we know.

Having used Timehseets for a while now, I thought I write the pro's and contras of Project Server's timehseet functionality.

Lets start with the Pros:

• You can maintain timesheet data and task data separate:
  Why is this a good thing I hear you say :) . Well, many organisations would like to plan project tasks in a much more granular level than actually entering time against. Essentially it means that you can maintain your project task information separately from the timesheet data. The timesheet data can be entered on a Project level ( not task level ).
  
  The downside to this is obviously that a PM still requires to reconcile the Project data based on the actual time entered on a Project level. This can be an unnecessary overhead.
  
• Timesheet has a separate workflow to Task update
  When users enter timesheet data and submit this data, it will go to the so called "Timesheet Manager". This could be a resource manager or team leader. The timesheet data can then be approved or rejected by the timesheet manager. This will not influence the project at all.
  
  Should you want Project Managers to approve the time spend on a project, what needs to happen is Timesheet data needs to be imported into the My tasks and then needs to be submitted by the resource. This will ensure that the PM will receive the Project update ( not the timehseet update).
  Since many organisations want to have this done in one hit, Microsoft made code available that allows you to automate this function. Check out the following link:
  http://www.codeplex.com/EPMTSST
  
  The downside is that a resource cannot update the remaining work, since only the actual timesheet data is populated in the My Task and the task update is automatically submitted to the PM
  
• Non Project Tasks - Admin Tasks
  timesheet data can include not only project work, but also administrative tasks, which are managed separately from project tasks.
  
• Administrative Time
  Some Administrative tasks can go through an approval process. ( e.g. annual leave ). Once this admin task has been approved, the resource utilisation will show that the resource is not available
  
• Great Reporting
  Project Server consists of many OLAP cubes ( 14 in total ) some of them are fully dedicated to timesheet information. You can essentially get all timesheet data out of the OLAP cubes, making the management of timehseeting much easier.
  
  Further to this Project Server consists of a fully dedicated reporting database. You can extract any timehseet data out of the reporting database with any SQL reporting tool like reporting services, or the report builder.
  
• Timehseet Periods
  You can manage your organisational timehseet periods separately from your project periods. Generally I would assume that weekly periods are appropriate, but you can have daily or monthly periods if you like
  
• Timehseet Classification
  For Accounting purposes, you have the ability to create your own timsheet classification. Timehseet classification allow you to uniquely identify different types of timesheets, which could be useful for financial consolidation. BE AWARE.... only the general classification is imported into the task update.
  
• Different Times
  A user can maintain Actual time , Actual non billable time, overtime, and non billable overtime
  
• Surrogate Timesheet
  You can maintain timesheets for someone who is not able to update his/her timehseet

I am sure I forgot some of the great features of the timesheet. To ensure that you have all the info check out this link which explains the timesheet functionality in detail:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197418.aspx

Now to the well..... not so nice features, the cons :)

• Integration with My Task
  As much as it can be a good feature not to have your tasks updated based on your timesheet automatically, as much it can be a curse. I personally find it more of a curse than a good feature. One of the compelling reasons to use the timesheet / taskupdate in Project Server 2003 was that it automatically updated your tasks as well. I truly hope and believe that this will be better in the P14 ( next release )
  
• Adminstrative Tasks for everyone
  You cannot determine that certain tasks are only for certain user groups. That is extremely annoying, especially if you have a long list of admin tasks. Essentially it means that a developer can see and enter time against an admin task that is only for Account Management. I hope that this will be rectified in the next release.
  
• Timesheets do not automatically update
  Once you create a timesheet, it actually ( depending on how you set it up) looks up the tasks you are supposed to work on this week and updates your timesheet with these tasks. GREAT, but what happens if the PM gives you a new task that you meant to work on this week? I would assume that the newly assigned task is displayed in the timesheet, but no it is not. You will actually need to hunt for it using the "add lines" picker. Which brings me to my next con :)
  
• Add lines picker
  Come on Microsoft you can do better than that. If I have many projects and tasks, how do I find the my tasks in the add line picker? It is not a nice User Interface and I hope that the next release will include a more appealing dialog window.
  
• Year to Date....
  The year to date vacation time used and the year to date sick used, which can be found in the timesheet header section cannot be reset. hmmmmm. It would be nice to have some kind of admin function that allows me the reset these numbers. Also, Vacation is not the generally used term in Australia, it is Annual leave. It would have been nice to consider a name change.
  
• Timehseet approved, task isnt approved
  It is great that you can have different approval process in timehseet and tasks, but ( and I guess that comes back to the tighter integration), if you have a timehseet approved, and then submit your task update, which may was rejected, it is complicated to update your already submitted timesheet. you essentially have to recall your timesheet, change the actual figure, import the task again, resubmit both timehseet and task. hmmmm not sure what the best answer is, but I do know that this is tedious. Lets hope MS comes up with something more slick in the next release.

Well, I dont think I have all the cons covered, but believe the main annoying ones. Please give me your experience with the timesheet. All in all I am sure the Project Server is on the right track with task update and timesheet, but there are still some miles to cover :)

I hope you enjoyed this post

Project Server Backup and Restore Tool

Based on the Project Server 2007 Resource Kit, the most valuable tool, I believe is the backup restore tool. Since it is very hard to move server settings from one to another server ( from test to production for example), it made our life just very hard when implementing Project Server on customer site. So I had to check out this EXCELLENT tool from Microsoft Here is how it works:

After extracting the Project Server 2007 Resource Kit, you will find a file called "Playbooks.exe". Double click this exe file and you will be prompted with the following screen:

Enter the URL. The following UI will appear ( can take a short while )

Please note the parts you can backup from the server. Excellent !

Click the backup button and the backup will start:

Once the Backup is completed the following dialog window will appear:

All you need to do now is click on the restore tab, and enter the URL of the new server;

You have the option to either replace or merge the settings of the new server. All you then need to do is click on the restore button and the restore runs. By the way, any error that may occur, will result in a log file and the restore is aborted. Once the restore is successfully completed you will get a notification.

Now that's what I call a backup restore tool :) Thanks EPM Team :)

Project Server 2007 Resource Kit

The Microsoft EPM team has released the Project Server 2007 Resource Kit. There are some great tools in this resource kid like:

• Portfolio Analyzer Views Migration:
  Allows an administrator to bulk edit the location of an analysis server for multiple data analysis views.
  
• Project Server Settings Backup and Restore (Playbooks):
  Allows an administrator to backup Project Server settings and restore those settings to another Project Server.
  
• Project Server Data Populator:
  Allows an administrator to populate Project Server with projects, resources and other objects. Useful for helping capacity and performance testing.
  
• Project Workspace Site Relinker:
  Allows an administrator to relink the connection between Project Server and Project Workspace sites.
  
• View Effective Rights:
  Allows an administrator to query the Project Server to determine the effective permissions of users against projects or resources.

You can download the kit at this link

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A33D253C-6424-48E4-B87E-0861D1977BB7&displaylang=en#filelist

Changing the Title of my blog

I have decided to change the title of my blog from Project Server rocks to crazy Germans EPM Blog. The title comes mainly from my boss, colleague and very good friend Andy Neumann. Since he decided to create a link to our intranet site at work where he called it the crazy Germans blog :) So here we go, it's official now. Thank you Andy :)

Actaully the main reason is because I want to start writing about Portfolio Server as well, since this is part of Microsoft's EPM solution and since I am implementing this part of the EPM solution these day's, I thought I share my experience with this, well....., interesting peace of technology. Many people seem to "bag" the software, but to be honest, it is a most valuable tool, once you know how to use it, and as with everything, when you know it's "querks" you can prevent downfalls :). Anyway, more to come.

Initial Testing Project Server SP1

I tested the deployment of SP1 on our VPC Image and it was straight forward. You will need to install WSS 3.0 SP1 before you install the Project Server SP1. Also make sure that you install MS Project SP1. THis is not entirely necessary, but it does make sense to deploy the whole SP1, including the client.

After intial testing there are some small things you need to consider:
- A new version of ActiveX will need to be installed. You need to make sure that users have the right to install ActiveX or need to deploy it via group policy

- Publishing a Project via PWA still causes errors, in particular traffic lights. I have run multiple tests, publishing the project via PWA, but the traffic light is not calculated. Only after I published the project via Project Professional will the traffic light be re-calculated :( that is disappointing.

- When approving tasks updates the changed hours entered in the task approval screen are now in red, making it easier to see what actually has been updated. That will make the approval easier.

- The cube build after SP1 was ok, even though I did get an event log error. Not sure if this is my environment and since the cubes build successfully and are working fine, it may well be that this is only on my environment. I will monitor and update the blog should issues occur.

All in all the installation is easy and at this stage no major issues have occurred. I have not made an end to end test, but the typical things like task update, approval, generation of views, added new resource etc I have done and it all works well.

Now that is a nice Christmas present :) Enjoy upgrading and please don't forget to follow the instruction Microsoft gave, especially PLEASE backup your environment before deploying SP1. If you have any customisation ( reports, custom web parts and a like) you will need to make sure to extra test them.

ENJOY :)

Office SP1 confirmed for the 11th December

Now it is official :)
http://blogs.technet.com/upstate-ny-technology/archive/2007/12/04/2007-office-system-service-pack-1-to-release-to-web-tuesday-december-11th.aspx

For more information, refer to the Office download site at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/default.aspx

Microsofts SP1 Christmas present

Apparently Microsoft announced the release of SP1 for Project and Project Serverfor the next 2 weeks. That would mean before Christmas. Well, who doesn't believe in miracles anymore :) Thanks Microsoft that is an excellent present.

Microsoft Links that help

Heather O'Cull from Microsoft has made a new post on her blog called Help with Help.
This is from Heathers blog. I thought it would be good to have these links too. Thanks Heather.

It can sometimes be a bit challenging to find just the right spot among Microsoft's many web sites to find that solution to your Project question.

Here is a quick list of the major sites that contain Project help content:

Office online
Office Online is the primary spot to find Help content about all Office products. You can specify where you want to search for Help, and you can restrict the scope of your search to online or offline or to a specific category within a program. You can search for up-to-date Help, templates, training, videos, or additional online content .
Go to http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/FX100487771033.aspx

Popular links:
Project Roadmap--http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/ha102143771033.aspx?pid=ch102202741033

Available fields--http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102369301033.aspx?pid=CH100788901033

RSS feeds for Project-- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/ha102127501033.aspx

Community resources-- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA011587371033.aspx?pid=CH010685781033

MSDN
If you are Developer, you want to go to MSDN. MSDN provides articles, whitepapers, interviews, and sample code for software developers using Microsoft products.
Go to
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905469.aspx

Popular links:
Portfolio Server download materials--http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=18848D8B-6784-4E6A-B716-96D571EEB676&displaylang=en

Project 2007 SDK--http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2672f6f9-7028-4b30-99a2-18cb1eed1abe&displaylang=en

Getting started with development for Project Server-- http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456485.aspx

Technet
If you are a Project IT Pro, you will want to go to Technet to learn everything you wanted to know about Installing and deploying Project and Project Server across your organization.

Go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/projectserver/default.aspx

Popular links:
Managing your timesheets in Project Server 2007--http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/3e36877a-657c-4299-8a3a-b259daabbc051033.mspx?mfr=true

Operations manual for Project Server 2007-- http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/91c0c38a-51e1-4aaa-a675-a8d56cd5f08a1033.mspx?mfr=true

If you need to troubleshoot a problem with Project, search Microsoft's extensive Knowledge Base articles on our product support pages.
Go to:
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11381 for Project client
http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11388 for Project Server

Excellent links :)

Timesheet & My Tasks Solution Starter On CodePlex

Christophe Friessinger from Microsoft just published this on his blog. Finally a way to bring time sheets and task updates closer in Project Server 2007

Check out his blog on
http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2007/11/16/timesheet-my-tasks-solution-starter-on-codeplex.aspx

if you are interested in developing a tighter integration between Time sheets and My Tasks. For more info go to:
http://www.codeplex.com/EPMTSST

Have fun :)

Task Custom Fields are displayed in Project Custom Fields

This post is dedicated to my colleague Laith from Sydney. He discovered how a task custom field can be viewed via a formula in a project custom field. Usually, if you create a project custom field formula in Project Server 07, you are not able to refer to a task custom field. Here is a way of doing so:

Create a task custom field ( please note, needs to be a numeric field like number or cost). In my example I simply called it Test.

Make sure that the rollup is used ( e.g. sum). Save the task field. By the way, this can also be a formula, as long as you use the rollup function.

Now create the project custom field ( my example is called Project Test) with the formula where you can use the task custom field ( test in my example )

You will see that the project custom field will take the task custom field (which normally is not the case).

Save the custom field and now you will be able to use the task custom field to either enter data ( or calculate based on a formula ) and at the same time the project custom field will show the value of the sum of the task custom fields.

---- Task vaues are entered and summed ----

--- Project custom field displayes the task custom field value ----

This function will allow you to add summarises task custom fields into the Project Center for example ( e.g. total work for development tasks ). A great way to give more project details to key stake holders. Not to mention the reporting cababillities. Thanks Laith great way of dealing with this.

What will Project Server next release bring?

As per my last post here is a little update on what Microsoft has shown us at the Project Server Conference regarding new features of the next version of Project Server ( no release date - but certainly another 1 to 2 years)

Project Goes Excel

New Features in Project Professional include much more flexibility maintaining data, not strict schedule engine controlled data (e.g. start and end dates), information can be entered like in Excel and columns are automatically added ---VERY COOL----

New Feature includes “Timeline” – great visual feature allowing us to have an overall timeline with phases and deadlines that is visualised. This will also be available on in PWA. I can see that this is the best way to check an overall timeline with “key information”. You can do something similar in Visio already, but Project has this now too. I think that is a great new visualisation of a Project Schedule.

The Ribbon is coming and looks great and extremely flexible. I like it :)

Project Server

More and more desktop features go to the Web. This is great !

Project schedules can be maintained in PWA – this looks like Project Professional in PWA and allows users to maintain a schedule like you would on the desktop. It includes change highlight and Multi level undo ON THE WEB in PWA - very nice

NO MORE ACTIVE X ( Yieppeee)

All in all a very exciting show that Steve Balmer showed in his key note. The only problem is that we will have to wait quite some time till the next release :)

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007- Evaluation Software

Microsoft has published an evaluation version of Portfolio Server.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d1219a5f-6f01-455b-869e-200425931d2d&displaylang=en&tm

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 helps your organization realize its potential by identifying, selecting, managing, and delivering portfolios that align with your strategic priorities. Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 is a key component of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution and helps ensure that you gain visibility, insight, and control across your project, program, and application portfolios

The Project Server Conference 2007

Today the project server 2007 conference finished in Seattle. Lots of information to compute, I will write a little more about it in a later blog, but firstly I would like to write about the fellow MVP's I met. The first night of the conference the MVP group had dinner. It was excellent to meet Bud and Tim from the States. Both very nice gentlemen with a great knowledge of EPM.

Then I saw Dale and Gary, the MVP's I refer to as "the rock stars of Project Server". I met Gary and Dale a view years ago in one of the previous Project Server conferences, so it was great to see them again, not to mention the pleasure to talk to these guys about Project Server 2007. I also met Scot, a fellow MVP who works with Gary and Dale. A person who seems extremely knowledgeable around Project Server and SharePoint. I did go out with him and Jennifer to the after party last night and hey I did wake up with a hangover. :) Never mind it was a great evening.


---- The Project Server Experts: Gary on the right, Dale in the middle and me ------

I also meet Bill Raymond, the MVP with the great web casts that he shares with the community. A very nice person and also extremely knowledgeable. He mentioned that he has been involved with Project and Project Server for a very long time and you can tell this based on the knowledge he has. All in all it is excellent to see all the MVP's. The American MVP's have the ability to catch up on a more or less regular basis, but living in Australia only allows me to meet them at the Project Server conference. So great to see you guys.

The conference was very interesting. We had the chance to talk to many Microsoft Program Managers and Developers. It was also most exciting to see what the next release of Project and Project Server has to offer. I can't wait :) Anyway, I will write more about the conference when I am back in Australia, for now ...... thanks Microsoft for organising the event.