Microsoft Project 2013 – what’s new on Reporting

With the launch of Project 2013 coming closer and closer (no I don’t know when), I thought it may be of interest on what new features are coming in 2013. There are certainly quite a new set of features that you will find most beneficial. On top of the list is reporting for me  

Lets have a look when you open MS Project you will most likely get a bit of a shock   because we are used to Gantt Charts and other views. Check out what you get in 2013:

 

I know it looks soooooo different  

However you can quickly go back to your beloved Gantt Chart by changing the view  

OK so what does this new reporting look and feel mean? It means that you have more cumulative data sets for burn down charts for example:

Who says you cant manage an agile project in MS Project now?  

Also, the user interface to create your new reports are much closer aligned to MS Excel, especially in the 2013 release.

A new Reporting Ribbon is provided for the user to make report generation much more intuitive

By Selecting a new Chart for example will enable you to choose the Graph just like in Excel

Once Selected you will see a “Field List” on the right hand side which allows you to select fields you wish to include:

The ultimate Structure of the data still remains the same with the difference that cumulative values are now provided in the schedule ( Cumulative Baseline work, work, Actual Work, Cost, % complete, regular work etc).

The big change is in the user interface that is for sure. In the past we still had this old fashion way of generating reports without any graphs unless you utilised the Visual Reports, which are still part of this version.

You can of course also print your report, making reporting and communication much easier.

I hope you will enjoy the new reporting feature as much as I do.

The next big thing - Client, Server and Cloud

Most of you have already found out that the next release of  Project and Project Server is around the corner. That also means I can start my blog activities again :) So Welcome.....back :)

So why is the next release the next big thing? There are lots of posts out there already that start to go into detail of the new release. However I would like to give you an overview of what options you have utilising Project in the future.

Client Software:
Firstly there is of course your well known client software of MS Project. That will allow you manage a schedule on your Laptop of PC as a stand alone version.

Server Software:
Most of you that work in an Enterprise Project Management environment know Microsoft Project Server ( the next release will most likely be called Project Server 2013). It allows your organisation to manage projects in a centralised manner with the Server in your office.

Project Online:
Now that is a new one :) Project Online allows you to manage an Enterprise Wide project management capability without having the software or hardware within your office ( yes....the cloud). this is a really cool and stable way maintaining project information without having to worry about the hardware. If you are interested have a look at Alex Burtons great blog introducing how you can sign up with Project Online.
project online hidden gem click to run

By the way currently is the customer preview ( or Beta ). You can check it out at
http://www.microsoft.com/project/en-us/preview/default.aspx

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 :)

SP2 is comming

Microsoft just released the date for the 2007 Microsoft Office System and the 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2. It is due to come out on the 28th April. Check out the blog for the realease on:
http://blogs.technet.com/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2009/04/16/service-pack-2-for-the-2007-microsoft-office-system-due-to-ship-april-28th.aspx

Accourding to the blog these are some of the changes that are comming out for:

MS Project:

• The scheduling engine, Active Cache, and Gantt charts all have improvements.
• There is additional reliability with earlier versions of the .mpp format.

Project Server:

• Better memory management in the queue service.
• Performance to certain database table indexes is improved.
• Resource plans, build team, cost resources, and the server scheduling engine have improved.

Finally no more SP1 & Infrastructure & Cummulative hotfixes to install anymore :)

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