Hey Guys!

 

Michael Jordan, a Lead Architect at Microsoft, has been delivering a great series on Project Server 2007. In the series, he presents on the aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007. You can register for the upcoming webcasts and catch up on the ones you have missed at the Microsoft Project Webcasts page.

Thanks

Waqas

 

Special thanks to Do More Than Manage for this entry, released on November 12, 2008, 12:00am

There are various posts around on setting up MOSS 2007 to use the PDF IFilter, and some stuff on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 as well.  I’ve found a method which works for me, so I wanted to put this together in one place - not least of all so I can find it when out on site with a client. 

Out of the box neither WSS 3 nor MOSS 2007 will index content located in Acrobat PDF files, so you need to set up the IFilter.  I’ve also found that that PDF files loaded prior to the installation of the filter won’t be re-crawled automatically, so to be on the safe side you might want to kick off a full crawl.

Here is what I’ve found works for WSS 3.0:

Thanks
Waqas Sarwar

Special Thanks to Worker Thread

 

The Ramp Up program (www.MyRampUp.com)  has just launched a brand-new learning track: SharePoint for Developers, Part I today. This includes:

• Level 1: Web Parts
• Level 2: Data Lists
• Level 3: Event Handlers
• Level 4: Workflow
• Level 5: Silverlight Web Parts

Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based program that can help users save time in learning Microsoft technology. The easy-to-access content (provided by subject-matter gurus) is specifically tailored to the Ramp Up program, and offered in a variety of forms (whitepaper, v-lab, codecast and slidecast). This SharePoint track, along with the other currently offered tracks (eg, Visual Studio 2008), teaches the important skills in a guided path, making the learning process easier and more efficient. Currently, there are no assessments in the program, so it’s quicker than ever to graduate and receive the reward (25% off on certification and 50% off on e-Learning - only for graduates of Ramp Up).

Thanks
Waqas Sarwar

Originally by chrisfie from Christophe Fiessinger’s Blog on November 6, 2008, 3:58am

This is a great assets for all SharePoint and Project Server developers: http://microsoft.com/spg

Overview

This guidance helps architects and developers build SharePoint intranet applications. A reference implementation (RI) demonstrates solutions to common architectural, development and lifecycle management challenges.
This guidance discusses the following:

• Architectural decisions about patterns, feature factoring and packaging.
• Design tradeoffs for common decisions many developers encounter.
• Implementation examples demonstrated in the RI and in the QuickStarts.
• How to design for testability, create unit tests, and run continuous integration.
• Set up of development, build, test, staging, and production environments.
• Managing the application life cycle including upgrade.
• Team-based intranet application development.

Regards
Waqas

Originally by chrisfie from Christophe Fiessinger’s Blog on November 6, 2008, 3:58am

Microsoft have released new contents regarding using Active Directory GPO to enforce settings. The process can be used for Microsoft Project 2007 deployment to standardize the usage of the tool.

 In a MS Project Server 2007 EPM environment, there are settings your should check or uncheck based on how you are planning to use the system. Standardizing those settings make it easier from the user experience of the tool & make things easier for later issues.  

Best Regards

Waqas Sarwar

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Originally from MS Project Server on November 3, 2008, 5:34pm

You manually create a Project Summary Task

25 Microsoft Project Tips and Tricks

The following is a collection of Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Project that we have accumulated over the years and teach in our training classes. Unless otherwise noted, these tips and tricks work with all versions of Microsoft Project.

1. In the Gantt Chart, doubleclick on the right edge of a column header to "best fit" the column.
   
   
2. To quickly change the name of a column, doubleclick in the column header and enter a new name for the field in the Title field. For example, you may want to abbreviate the Duration field name to Dur to allow the field to be narrower.
   
   
3. To quickly change the field in a column, doubleclick in the column header and select the new field from the Field Name list. While in the Field Name list, press the first letter of the desired field to go to that field.
   
   
4. In the Gantt Chart Table (or any table), to quickly hide a column, click on the right edge of the column header and drag it to the left until it disappears (becomes a 0 width column). To display this hidden column, place the cursor a little to the right of the column separator bar where the column used to be, click and drag to the right.
   
   
5. You can wrap text in the Gantt Chart to display text on multiple lines if you increase the row height. To increase the row height, place the cursor between any two row numbers (if the ID field is displayed in the first column and is "locked"), click and drag down to increase the row height. Only Text fields wrap and only if the column is narrower than the text in the field.
   
   
6. When printing Gantt Charts (or other timescaled charts) you can adjust the width of the timescale to fit the page without changing the timescale units. Doubleclick on the Timescale and increase the number in the % field (or Enlarge field in some versions of Project) to make the timescale take up more of the page or decrease the number in the % (or Enlarge) field to make the timescale narrower. The latter step is useful when a chart is just a little too wide to fit on a page.
   
   
7. To select two or more non-adjacent tasks, click on a task (in the table area), hold down the Ctrl Key and click on another task in the chart. Continue holding the Ctrl key to select other tasks. This is especially useful for linking or unlinking tasks that are not on consecutive rows.
   
   
8. To change information for a number of tasks at once, highlight the desired tasks (select non-adjacent tasks using the method described above) and select the Task Information button. Enter the common information in one of the fields displayed in the "Multiple Task Information" dialog box.
   
   
9. To remove a date constraint from a task, select the task (or multiple tasks) and select the Task Information button. Click in the Advanced tab, change the Type field to As Soon As Possible and click OK. This removes any date constraint in the task and allows it to be scheduled based on the dependencies rather than a date entered (perhaps accidentally) by a user.
   
   
10. If a task does not move (reschedule) based on a dependency, it may contain a "fixed" date of some kind. A fixed date could be an Actual Start or a constraint such as Must Start On or Start No Earlier Than. Use the Tasks with Fixed Dates Filter to view only those tasks in a plan that contain fixed dates. You can then determine if these tasks should have these types of fixed dates. Use the previous tip to remove an unwanted constraint.
    
    
11. If after removing the Actual Start and any constraint (such as Must Start On or Start No Earlier Than) a task still does not reschedule based on a dependency, check the Resource Leveling feature. Make sure Automatic Leveling is turned off by selecting Resource Leveling from the Tools menu and choosing Manual. If a task still does not move, it may contain a delay based on a previous Resource Level. Select Resource Leveling again from the Tools menu and choose Clear Leveling. Select whether or not to remove Leveling from the selected tasks or for the entire project.
    
    
12. After applying a Filter in a Gantt chart press F3 to view all tasks again instead of applying the All Tasks filter.
    
    
13. Press Alt-Home in the Gantt chart to position the chart on the start of the project.
    
    
14. If you have indented tasks to create Summary Tasks and Detail Tasks, click the little box with the minus sign to the left of the Summary Task name to quickly hide the detail tasks below it. Click the box with the plus sign to display the detail tasks that were hidden.
    
    
15. In the Gantt chart, you can create dependencies by clicking on the Gantt bar of a task and dragging to another Gantt bar to create a Finish-to-Start dependency between the two tasks.
    
    
16. To quickly modify or delete a dependency, doubleclick on the dependency line between the two tasks to display the Task Dependency form (be sure to place your cursor directly on the dependency line).
    
    
17. In any drop down list such as the list of Resource Names or the list of Filters you can press the first letter of the item you are looking for to quickly go that item.
    
    
18. Use the Insert key on your keyboard to quickly insert rows and columns. In the Gantt chart, click on a row and press the Insert key to insert a blank row above the selected row. Click on a column header to highlight a column and press Insert to insert a column to the left of the selected column. You can also use the Delete key to reverse this process but be careful…
    
    
19. In the Network Diagram (or PERT Chart in some versions of Project), to move multiple task boxes, click in the chart area, drag the cursor to select any number of boxes and release the cursor. Then, click on the border of a box and drag the entire selection of boxes to a new location. In Project 2000, 2002 and 2003 you must first select the Format menu, Layout and then Manual Box Positioning to enable the ability to move task boxes around. 
    
    
20. An often overlooked but handy report is the Calendar view using a Resource Filter. Select Calendar from the View menu. Select the Using Resource… Filter and type in the name of the desired resource to display the Calendar for a particular resource. This produces a nice printout of a resource’s tasks with each month of a project on a separate page.
    
    
21. For Project 2000, 2002 and 2003, to prevent an item from appearing in the legend for the Gantt  chart, select the Format menu, Bar Styles and place an asterisk (*) before the name of the item that you do not want to appear. In Project 98 you can delete the bar styles you do not use to avoid displaying them in the legend.
    
    
22. Right click in the Toolbar area to display the list of available Toolbars. A check next to a Toolbar indicates that it is currently displayed. Click on a Toolbar to display or hide it.
    
    
23. In the Gantt Chart (or any chart with a table and a chart area) doubleclick the separator line between the table and chart to automatically push the separator line to the closest column edge.
    
    
24. To split the screen and place a specific View into the lower pane, hold the shift key while selecting an item from the View menu. You can also split the screen by selecting Split from the Window menu or doubleclick the small horizontal split bar in the lower right corner of the screen. Doubleclick it again to remove the split (or choose Remove Split from the Windows menu).
    
    
25. Just for fun - Create two 10 day tasks. Place the cursor in the Finish field of the first task and click the Copy button. Place the cursor in the Start field of the second task and select Paste Special-Paste Link from the Edit menu. Place the cursor on the Finish field of the second task and click the Copy button. Place the cursor on the Start field of the first task, select Paste Special-Paste Link and watch the tasks "walk" across the chart. Delete one of the tasks to stop.
    

We hope you have found these tips and tricks useful. If you have a tip that you would like to share, please send it to us and we will gladly add it to the above list the next time we update it. Send all Tips and Tricks to: info@criticaltools.com

Thanks

Waqas Sarwar

This post is orginally from http://www.criticaltools.com/Tips.htm

 

 

We’re pleased to announce that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for the 2007 Microsoft Office system is expected to be released in the near future.  Although we aren’t yet announcing the exact release date, it will fall between February and April of 2009.

 

Historically, we have waited to communicate details about service packs until their release (or very shortly before).  As we communicated with SP3 for Office 2003 and SP1 for the 2007 Office System, we will be taking steps to increase transparency and visibility into the Office servicing model at the request of our customers.  To that end, we would like to start sharing some details into what will be included in SP2 for the 2007 Office system.  This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this service pack and we will share more details prior to the final release, but we want to start communicating to customers what they should be aware of at a high level. 

 

To be fair, this is not the first time we have talked about SP2.  Several months ago, we announced that we’ll be further demonstrating our increased commitment to interoperability by including support for Open Document Format (ODF), XML Paper Specification (XPS), and Portable Document Format (PDF) in SP2.  In addition to those file format additions, some other highlights that you’ll find in SP2 include:

 

For Office Desktop Programs:

·         Improved Outlook Calendaring Reliability

·         Improved Outlook Performance

·         Enabling Object Model support for Charts in PowerPoint and Word

·         Improved cryptographic functionality by supporting all cryptographic algorithms offered by the operating system

·         Improved functionality in Excel’s charting mechanism

·         Ability to ungroup SmartArt graphics (and as a result, the ability to add animations to them in PowerPoint)

·         Ability for Visio to export UML models to an XML file compliant with the XMI standard

·         Tool that enables the uninstall of Office client Service Packs

 

For Servers:

·         Performance and manageability improvements to variations in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) including STSADM commands for repairing links between source and target pages

·         Improvements around processing status approvals from Office Project Web Access into Office Project Professional 2007

·         Improvements to read-only content databases and index rebuild timer jobs in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

In the coming weeks, individual product teams across Office will begin updating their blogs and highlighting some of the specific work that they’ve included in SP2.  You can find the links to some of the blogs at the end of the post.

 

In the next few days we will also invite a select set of Office enterprise customers to a private SP2 beta.  From these customers we hope to gather great feedback about the service pack, including areas that we’ll need to improve upon before we release it to the general public.  Based on the success of the SP2 beta program and customer needs, we will certainly evaluate whether to expand this in the future.

 

Please check back for additional updates!

 

Thanks,

Office Service Pack Team

 

Access Team Blog

Daniel Escapa’s Blog (OneNote)

InfoPath Team Blog

John Guin’s Blog (OneNote)

Excel Team Blog

Project Team Blog

Outlook Team Blog

PowerPoint Team Blog

SharePoint Designer Team Blog

SharePoint Designer Support Blog

Windows SharePoint Services Blog

Word Team Blog

The ISA Server team recently wrote a nice blog post explaining some of the issues you may face when deploying SharePoint in an extranet.  Many of these issues can be avoided by spending some time up front on planning and testing.  Close collaboration between your firewall/proxy administrators and your SharePoint administrators during this phase is often the key to a smooth deployment.  Here are some helpful articles on TechNet to get you started:

• Planning an Extranet Environment for Office SharePoint Server
• Design extranet farm topology
• Plan alternate access mappings

Thanks.
Waqas Sarwar

Troy Starr, Windows SharePoint Services:
Test Published Monday, October 13, 2008 12:56 AM by sptblog

Daylight Saving Time (DST, in some countries it is called summertime) exists in many countries. The start dates and end dates of DST change from year to year, and countries may change their policies for DST occasionally. This DST update is an effort of SharePoint product team to reflect these new changes. It includes updated time zone definition information for the following countries:

• Iraq
• Argentina
• Chile
• Iran
• Morocco
• Pakistan
• Venezuela

For more detail of this update, please refer to

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956612

The update can be download here: x86 x64

You can always refer to this article for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 update deployment guidance.

Special Thanks to Jie Li, Technical Product Manager, SharePoint, Published Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:49 AM

The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hotfixes for reported problems. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule. Cumulative updates are scheduled for every two months, so customers can be better prepared to test and apply new updates. Those who need an emergency fix can request critical on-demand (COD) fix. For information, please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878.

The detail of August Cumulative Update (CU) for Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 can be found here:

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package (Wssmui.msp): August 26, 2008

Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008

Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008

Customers are not needed to install these updates unless they are affected by specific problems described in the KB articles. And these cumulative updates will be rolled in to Service Pack 2.

To upgrade from RTM to this new CU, you need to follow the path below:

1. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Service Pack 1

2. The 2007 Microsoft Office Servers Service Pack 1

3. the Microsoft Office Servers Infrastructure Update x86 x64

4. KB 953397: Excel Server Security Update x86 x64

5. KB 955586: Document Lifecycle Workflow Update

6. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Global)

7. August Cumulative Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Local)

8. August Cumulative Update for Microsoft Office Servers

After applied all these updates, run SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard or “psconfig –cmd upgrade –inplace b2b” in command line. This need to be done on every server in the farm with SharePoint installed.

The version of databases should be 12.0.6327 after all these updates.

For a better guided update process, customers would also like to check out the following guides. These articles provide a correct way to deploy updates, as well as known issues and how to do slipstream builds.

Deploy software updates for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288269.aspx

Deploy software updates for Office SharePoint Server 2007

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263467.aspx

 

Thanks Jie Li Technical Product Manager, SharePoint for this Nice Post, Published Monday, September 29, 2008 12:23 PM

I will be going deeper in this posting, particularly on the scenario of moving just the databases and then re-provisioning the site.  But don’t expect me to be mentioning every single dialog box and permission that you require.  I will be writing at a level whereby if you don’t understand what I am saying then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing this – or at least you need to read around a bit and then come back.  For permissions see this blog posting, and for full details of full farm restore go here.  Remember that any additional Process Accounts added to the SSP must still exist and be verifiable in the new system.  Forgotten this one?  Then go here.

So the only extra I intend to say about full farm backup and restore is that it does not keep such things as LDAP forms based authentication extended sites and settings (Thanks Boris Bazant for this tip!).  As I mentioned in my part 1 post – some external customization will need to be re-applied (e.g. additional web parts, server side event handlers in the GC).

The scenario for the main part of the post is moving from my Production Server (BriSmith620) to my test system (A Hyper-V image called BriSmithV0832).  I already have a working site which I don’t want to break, so this is a partial move – and the projects in my Production Server have workspaces both in the root site under PWA (the instance I am interested in is actually called CAL – created to troubleshoot some Calendar issues)  and in another web application at Port 94.  So I will be moving over 4 project databases and 2 content databases.  I can’t move my port 80 to port 80 as it will break existing stuff – so I will move 94 to 94 and 80 to 8080.  I have Issues lists with items in several projects – the aim will be to see these still working post migration…

I’ve already backed up my 6 databases – and restored them with names Blog_Archive etc for the Project ones and Blog_80_Content and Blog_94_Content (actually on the same server with different names) so on with the restoration of my PWA site and content.  First I just provision a site against the 4 databases.  If you have restored the content db at this point it will fail – if you use the same name for the site – as a collection will already exist.  And if you delete the site away goes your content – Catch 22.  So we are leaving the content stuff for now…

Usual stuff is entered for creation of a site

Click OK and wait for it to be provisioned…

And here we have it!  (Must get round to those timesheets)  Any customizations we had made in SharePoint would be gone (themes, top links etc.) but customizations in PWA would be retained (Notice the My Timecard edit to the menu name in the left nav bar).  But of course none of the workspaces are found, and the issues and risks link also find no active issues for me.

Next I will add the port 94 content db to a new Web Application on Port 94.  I create a new Web Application and name the database the one I have restored.  Didn’t bother with a screen shot, just changed the port to 94, put in a suitable account for the new application pool and put in the Blog_94_Content database name.  Once this is active I can browse to the workspaces (assuming I know the names) and the issue is there – but clicking through to the issue detail gives a File Not Found SharePoint error.

The workspaces listed on the home page don’t link to port 94, but port 80, and the Project Workspaces page shows blank for the sites.  By going to the Edit Site Address option the site can be entered for the project.

Once this is set and the workspace provisioning setting matched to the port 94 address that was in use on the other server the home page then shows the correct links and sees that I have active issues.

If I follow the link to the workspace, then the issues and click through to the issue detail it works – the file not found is resolved!

For larger jobs than this simple set of Projects the RelinkAllWSSSite tool from the Project Resource Kit comes in very handy.  Now we have our port 94 sites all sorted – and we could just do the same for our ones that were on port 80 – and leave them on port 8080 – but that doesn’t get them back were they started.  Stsadm export and import comes to our rescue.  First I will add a new web application on port 8080 and use the port 80 content database from the original server.  At this point we can browse to the sites just substituting http://brismithV0832:8080 for http://brismith620 to confirm they are there.  To export and import we use stsadm –o export –url <full url> –filename <path to save site> –nofilecompression.  In this case

C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o export -url "http://brismithv0832:8080/CAL/Project1 with Workspace in PWA" -filename "C\backup\savesite.bak" –nofilecompression

If on Windows Server 2008 then your command prompt will need to be running as administrator to avoid an Access Denied.

You will get a long listing of progress (or you can use the –quiet flag) and hopefully it should finish with success!

Now we can import, just using the default port 80 address to get our site where we want it (just change the URL and export to import.  In my case I can also change CAL to Blog in the URL as my PWA site has changed.  Once this is complete we have the site where we want it – we edit the site address as we did earlier and all should be working!

Along the way with the export/import we lost the task links – I will dig into this a bit more but I guess you might expect this as the export probably has nowhere to keep that information, and also I see my Active Issues count isn’t picking up the moved workspace issues.  The best approach is certainly keep the workspaces away from your PWA site to start with.  But the issue is still there – it still understand which project it belongs to.

I’ve stepped through with a single project so you understand the idea – you can speed things up with Powershell or just creating a batch file.  If you go this route then stsadm –o enumsubwebs –url <url where sites are> >> c:\sitelist.txt will enable you to get a quick list of sites into a text file.

Every requirement will be slightly different – full farm backup/restore will hopefully work for most, but the details I’ve given here should help when you want perhaps a partial move of single instances.  Always consider customization too – usually you will need some manual steps for those.

Let me know how this works for you.

Thanks Brian Smith's for this outstadning Blog: Posted on Friday, September 26, 2008 6:58 AM

The Microsoft Office team has changed the way that it delivers hot fixes for reported problems by moving away from the current priority-driven hot fix release model to a scheduled delivery model. This change comes in the form of cumulative updates and critical on-demand (COD) hotfixes. The objective is to deliver high-quality fixes in an acceptable time and on a predictable schedule-every two months so its creates more predictability for customers.

Customers who need an emergency fix can request a shorter turnaround time for a COD hotfix.

Please refer to the following knowledge based article for more information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953878

The August Cumulative Update (CU) for Project 2007 and Project Server 2007 (as well as the rest of the Office suite) is the first CU release. Releases will now happen very two months so the next ones are scheduled for October 08, December 08, etc…

Install or not to Install?

Our general guideline for applying hotfix is:

• Each hotfix package is intended to correct only the applications that are listed in the knowledge base article.
• Apply the packages only to systems that are experiencing these specific problems.
• If you are experiencing any of the two known issues described in KB 953750 (Infrastructure Update).
• If you are not severely affected by any of these problems, we recommend that you wait for the next 2007 Office suites service pack that contains the hotfixes in these cumulative update packages.
• If additional issues occur or any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request.
• The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for a specific cumulative update package. To create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support

 

Installation Order

Assuming you are running the released version of Project Server 2007, here is a high level procedure, please refer to the TechNet articles for detailed deployment steps:

Step	Related Links
1. Deploy Service Pack 1	Announcing the release of EPM 2007 Service Pack 1 (includes links to KB, downloads and deployment documentation) Deploy Service Pack 1 for Office Project Server 2007
2. Deploy the Infrastructure Update (IU). We recommend deploying the IU first because you will get all the latest updates for WSS and SharePoint Server.	Announcing the availability of the Project and Project Server 2007 Infrastructure Update Microsoft Project Infrastructure Update Webcast Slides Deploy the Infrastructure Update for Office Project Server 2007 Install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Servers (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
3. Deploy the August Cumulative Update. Since the August CU are individually package (one EXE for Project Server and another one for SharePoint Server for instance), then you will have to deploy each one depending on the hotfix required. 4. Run hotfix EXE 5. Run PSCONFIG on each server within your farm to finalize the update 6. Verify Installation by verifying the version of each of the four PS database using the following command: SELECT * FROM VERSIONS Result should be: 12.0.6327.5000	See links below for KB and download location.

Ideally Project Professional 2007 and Project Server 2007  should be on the same version but it is not a requirement:

• Project + IU with Project Server + IU + August CU
• Project + IU + August CU with Project Server + IU

 

Knowledge Base Articles and Downloads

Title	ID	KB URL	Download URL
Cumulative update packages for August 2008 for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and 2007 Microsoft Office servers	957022	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957022
Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008	956060	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956060	http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=956060
Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008	956061	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956061	http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=956061
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: August 26, 2008	957109	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957109	http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=956057
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package: August 26, 2008

I just wanted to pass on word that starting October 1^st, 2008, Michael Jordan (Lead Architect – MCS EPM Global Practice | WW COE for EPM) will present a series of Project Server 2007 webcast on TechNet targeted at IT Professionals. 

These 60 minutes webcasts will present in details key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007 specifically:

·         Solution Overview and System Elements

·         Solution Elements and Data Flow

·         Workload Scenarios and Reference Architecture

·         Network Communication

·         Server Administration

·         Maintenance and Monitoring

·         Deployment into a SharePoint Server Intranet Farm

·         Disaster Recovery

·         Virtualization

 

You need to register for the free of charge webcast by clicking the link; then you get emailed a link to sign on and participate in the web cast on its date and time (please note only the first two webcast are available for registration at this stage).

Each TechNet webcast is recorded for later viewing which should be through the same registration URL.

For a listing of all EPM webcasts on TechNet check the following: http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx

 

Webcast Title	Abstract	Date
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Solution Overview and System Elements	In this webcast, we introduce the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 solution and the main product components. We describe key concepts such as high availability and scalability, which should be taken into account when planning and deploying Project Server 2007. This introductory webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007. We discuss the main considerations when planning for high-availability deployments—when to scale up and out, points of failure, and software/hardware boundaries.	Wednesday, October 1, 2008   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Solution Elements and Data Flow	In this webcast, we describe the elements of the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 solution (Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007, Application Server, Microsoft SQL Server), and we cover Data Flow components and key areas for scalability. This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007. We discuss the main considerations when planning for high-availability deployments—when to scale up and out, points of failure, and software/hardware boundaries.	Wednesday, October 22, 2008   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Workload Scenarios and Reference Architecture	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Workload Scenarios and Reference Architecture to help you plan your deployment. We discuss typical product operations broken out by user roles and how it affect performance.  We present typical reference architecture based on key capacity planning characteristics.  This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, November 12, 2008   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Network Communication	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Network Communication and specifically ports, protocols and network traffic. We present network considerations when deploying Project Server and Project Professional 2007, this includes an overview of the Project Professional's Active Cache mechanism.  This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, December 3, 2008   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Server Administration	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Server Administration best practices. We discuss SharePoint's Central Administration, Shared Service Provider Administration and Project Web Access Administration.  This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals.  In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, January 14, 2009   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Maintenance and Monitoring	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Maintenance and Monitoring best practices. This session will cover maintenance plans that should be put in place as well as performance counters that should be monitored.  We also discuss how to deploy software updates for both Project Server and Project Professional 2007. This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, February 25, 2009   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Deployment into a SharePoint Server Intranet Farm	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Deployment best practices into a SharePoint Server intranet farm (out of the box Project Server 2007 is deployed on top of Windows SharePoint Services V3). We discuss SharePoint Server deployment pre-requisites, deployment scenarios and best practices. This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, March 18, 2009   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Disaster Recovery	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Server Disaster Recovery options and best practices. We discuss how to recover from a catastrophic failure on your SharePoint/Project Server far;, this includes what are the options to recover from a loss of any component of your SharePoint/Project Server farm: SQL server, Application Server, Disk etc … We present farm and database restore options.  This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, April  8, 2009   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 - Virtualization	This webcast covers Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Server Virtualization best practices using Windows Server 2008's Hyper-V. We discuss deployment best practices with respect to virtualization, including optimum architecture configuration (which component should be deployed on a  virtual environment and which ones should be deployed on a physical environment), and how to architect a high availability virtual farm.  This webcast is part of a webcast series targeted at IT professionals. In the series, we present in detail key aspects to consider when you evaluate, plan, deploy, and operate Project Server 2007.	Wednesday, April 29, 2009   11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time

 

Michael Jordan’s Biography

 

Michael Jordan is the Lead Architect for Microsoft Services’ EPM Global Practice and member of the World Wide Center of Excellence. Michael has been with Microsoft for 8 years serving in technical roles from Application Development, Systems Engineering, SQL Database and Project Management. He has been working with EPM for the last 4 years architecting, troubleshooting and implementing large deployments at priority customer sites. As a member of the EPM Global Practice he performs a role as an extension to the Product Group by providing field feedback, spec reviews, product guidance and running customer programs for marketing initiatives.

 

Key Resources
Enterprise Project Management   ·         EPM Connect: The Business Exchange for EPM Solutions and Services   ·         EPM University: Online, instructor-led, deep dive technical training on EPM   ·         EPM Solution Office online EPM Home Page	Project Desktop   ·         Easier with Project:  Project Desktop Home Page   ·         Microsoft Project on Office Online
IT Professionals   ·         Project TechCenter on TechNet   ·         Project Portfolio TechCenter on TechNet	Developers   ·         Project Developer Home Page

 

Thanks to robert.m.hoover for this post, which is posd on  Wednesday, September 24, 2008 9:30 PM

 

Now a days i noticed taht lot of people have question about the creation of Enterprise Custom Field in Project Server 2007. Now finally Microsft add this topic into their Office Learning Material. I hope you will enjoy this stuff(Thanks to Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Content Publishing team for the updating.)

Create a custom field  

Use this article to learn how to create, import, insert, and rename a custom field.

Watch this: Create a custom field 

This video walks you through the process of creating a custom field that is associated with a list, and that uses graphical indicators.

Work with the Gantt Chart view 

This article provides information on how to use each part of the Gantt Chart view.

Project Server Quick Reference Guide for project managers 

This quick reference guide displays all the tasks a project manager is likely to do with Project Server. A team member version is due out soon.

Podcast: Britney Spears, the ultimate project manager

This is a link to an external podcast about Britney Spears as the ultimate project manager. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but makes good points about project management skills in general.

What’s all this talk about Web 2.0

This Office Hours article discusses Web 2.0 and software plus services model.

There are a number of factors that dictate how Microsoft Project “thinks”.

The two main factors are:

• The Scheduling Formula
• The Task Type

The Scheduling Formula leverages three variables:

• Units - The percentage of time required by a resource or resources to complete the task
• Duration - The number of working days required to complete the task
• Work - The effort required to complete the task

Many people say that the scheduling formula is: Units x Duration = Work

When you initially assign a Resource to a Task, this is the formula that is leveraged. Let’s demonstrate:

We will create Task 1 that is 5 days in Duration

 

We will now assign a Resource to this task

As soon as we assign this Resource to this task, Work changes to 40 hours.

Here is the how that number was calculated:

Units x Duration = Work
100% x (5*8) = 40
Or
100% x 40 = 40 hours

But using simple math, we can re-write our equation to solve for a different variable.

Our original formula solves for Work:
Units x Duration = Work

But we could re-write the formula to solve for Units:
Work / Duration = Units

Or we could re-write the formula to solve for Duration:
Work / Units = Duration

So we have shown that The Scheduling Formula can actually be written three different ways:

Units x Duration = Work
Work / Duration = Units
Work / Units = Duration

Now let’s prove that Microsoft Project also thinks this way.

In order to demonstrate this, we must introduce The Task Type or the Type field:

By default, Type is set to Fixed Units. But there are actually three different Task Type variables:

• Fixed Duration
• Fixed Units
• Fixed Work

 

Now to test Microsoft Project

Using our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Duration.

 

We will leave Type set to Fixed Units and change Work to 80 hrs

Here is how Duration was calculated:

Work / Units = Duration
80 / 100% = 80
Or
80 / 100% = (80 / 8)
Or
80 / 100% = 10 days

 

Returning to our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Work.

Leave Type set to Fixed Units and enter 10 days Duration

Here is how Work was calculated:

Units x Duration = Work
100% * 10 days = 80
Or
100% * 10 days = (10 * 8)
Or
100% * 10 days = 80 hours Work

 

Returning to our original scenario, let’s force Microsoft Project to solve for Units

Change Type to Fixed Duration and enter 20 hours Work

Here is how Units was calculated:

Work / Duration = Units
20 / 5 days = 50%
Or
20 / 5 days = 20 / (8 * 5)
Or
20 / 5 days = 20 / 40
Or
20 / 5 days = 0.5

 

To Review:

There are three different Task Types:

• Fixed Units
• Fixed Work
• Fixed Duration

There are three different variables of the Scheduling Formula:

• Units
• Work
• Duration

Depending upon how the Task Type is set in combination with which Scheduling Formula variable is altered dictates which variable Microsoft Project solves for.

The Task Type and Scheduling Formula Cheat Sheet will help you control how Microsoft Project “thinks”:

See The Microsoft Project Task Type and Scheduling Formula Cheat Sheet here.

See this article in Slide format here.

See this article in Video format here.

Purchase “The Cheat Sheet” Mouse Pad here.

• Watch this: Use lag and lead timeThis demo shows how to use lag and lead time to create gaps and overlaps between tasks in a project.
• Watch this: Show the critical pathThis demo shows you several ways to display a project’s critical tasks. It also shows how to display multiple critical paths in a single project.
• Create work breakdown structure (WBS) codes This topic has been updated with more information about basic view usage.
• Set lead or lag time (float) between tasks This topic has had a number of terms added to make it more searchable from the perspective of the PMBOK.
• Use templates in Project 2007 More information on templates.
• Create a custom field   Use this article to learn how to create, import, insert, and rename a custom field.
• Watch this: Create a custom field  This video walks you through the process of creating a custom field that is associated with a list, and that uses graphical indicators.
• Work with the Gantt Chart view  This article provides information on how to use each part of the Gantt Chart view.
• Project Server Quick Reference Guide for project managers  This quick reference guide displays all the tasks a project manager is likely to do with Project Server. A team member version is due out soon.
• Podcast: Britney Spears, the ultimate project manager This is a link to an external podcast about Britney Spears as the ultimate project manager. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but makes good points about project management skills in general.
• What’s all this talk about Web 2.0 This Office Hours article discusses Web 2.0 and software plus services model.

 

 

 

This Include the following Topics:

 

1. Work with document libraries

2. Work with calendars

3. Work with slide libraries

4. Work with workflows

5. Work with Excel Services