Project Server Administration - Project Server Help Blog

5/12/2010

Project Server 2010 Must Read

Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010
sets the deployment Gold Standard. Do not start your Microsoft Project Server 2010 implementation without it!

New York, NY, May 13, 2010 –msProjectExperts essential reference for Microsoft Project Server 2010 begins shipping June 14, in step with the general availability launch of the Microsoft Office 2010 suite. "We are pleased to announce the pre-sale availability of our most popular book in our series for Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010," commented Gary Chefetz, Microsoft Project MVP and the book's primary author. "My co-authors Dale Howard, Tony Zink and I are very excited to be first to market with Project Server 2010 guidance, especially considering the importance of this release," he continued.

Project Server 2010 is a landmark release of Microsoft's market-leading project and portfolio management software. "This is the one I've been waiting for," remarked Chefetz. "This release fulfills the potential I saw in this software when I first started using it as a PMO Director in 2000, when Microsoft first released Project Central. Project Server 2010 connects enterprise project management, enterprise portfolio management, resource management and business intelligence in an unprecedented package through the marriage of Microsoft's project management and SharePoint 2010 technologies."

Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010 covers all aspects of Project Server deployment, from installation through configuration, and includes non-technical topics such as preparing an organization for an enterprise project management deployment and providing techniques for organizational change management. "Time and again we see organizations master the technical challenges of deploying an enterprise project management tool, but fail to plan for the organizational challenges, which very often prove to be the most difficult," Chefetz said. "We tackle this right up front in Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010, and follow this guidance with best-practice considerations throughout the book."

At 912 pages, Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010 includes extensive SharePoint Server 2010 management guidance and a strong introduction to configuring and managing Microsoft's business intelligence stack, including Excel Services and PerformancePoint Services. "We show you how to get started with SharePoint Server 2010 workflows, how to build and deliver Excel reports and how to build dashboards for your Project Server 2010 implementation," commented Chefetz.

Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010 is available directly from msProjectExperts or your favorite bookseller. For a limited time only, you can pre-order your copy from msProjectExperts at special pre-order pricing.

Contact: info@msprojectexperts.com

Posted at 11:55 AM by Gary Chefetz | Category: Project Server Administration; Project Server Development; Project Server General; Project Server Usage; Project 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (3)

5/11/2010

Prepare for Project Server 2010 -- Go Back to Excel School

Content in this post is derived from Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010

As many of you already know, Project Server 2010 is finally here, and it brings many powerful new features in tow, including the flexible and approachable Microsoft Excel based reporting infrastructure available in the new Business Intelligence Center. Project Server 2010, along with the Excel Services feature provided by SharePoint Server 2010, now offer the ability to publish Excel-based reports to the web for business users to consume without the need to download and launch them in Excel. These reports draw data from the Project Server Reporting Database or one of possibly several OLAP databases via a built-in collection of Office Data Connection (ODC) files.

Business users can view these web-enabled Excel workbooks in whole, or you can control what they can view by only exposing the data that you choose.

Excel Services allows business users to view an Excel workbook as a web page...

...and it also allows you to very easily embed workbook components, such as tables and charts, into a dashboard (a.k.a. SharePoint web part page).

Whether you are planning to implement Project Server 2010 now or a year from now, I recommend that you take the opportunity to brush up on your Excel skills in preparation for Project Server 2010 reporting. Even if you are currently using Project Server 2007 and do not plan to upgrade for a while, you can still use these concepts in your current system (especially if your Project Server is deployed with MOSS 2007)!

Spend some time learning about the following Excel features and tools, and you will be several steps closer to developing powerful Project Server reports... therefore providing more decision power to the users of your system.

PivotTables and PivotCharts

Although many of us have heard of them, an area in Excel that many people do not fully understand is PivotTables and PivotCharts. A PivotTable is a table that displays a breakdown of data in various ways, such as work hours broken down by year, by region, and by amortization type. This allows the business user to perform a detailed analysis and identify patterns in the data.

To learn more about working with Excel PivotTables and PivotCharts, visit the Office Online web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP101773841033.aspx

Conditional Formatting

Similar to graphical indicators in Project Pro and PWA, Excel Conditional formatting allows you to set up flexible rules to visually format ranges of data, providing business users with quick visual cues to identify the data of interest. Cells of data in a workbook can appear with different background colors, color fill gradients, and icons.

To learn more about working with Excel conditional formatting, visit the Office Online web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP100739391033.aspx

Connecting to External Data

Microsoft Excel can display static data that you manually enter into a workbook, and it can connect to an external data source such as the Project Server Reporting Database or an OLAP database and extract live data for reporting. To extract data from a live data source, Excel uses an Office Data Connection (ODC), which contains information describing the data source, how to connect to the data, and which data to retrieve.

The data connection information can reside directly in the Excel workbook file, or it can reside in a shared ODC file. Project Server 2010 provides several ODC files, making it easy for you to connect to the desired data source, extract the data, and display it in Excel for reporting purposes. These ODC files reside in the Business Intelligence Center.

To learn more about working with Office Data Connections, visit the Office Online web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101672271033.aspx

Creating Calculated Fields

When building an Excel report, you may need to display a field of data that is not easily available in the data source; in this instance, Excel allows you to build a mathematical expression, similar to a formula in Project Pro or PWA, to calculate the required data based on one or more fields of existing data. This can be especially useful when fetching data from an OLAP cube that has a limited set of available data fields.

To learn more about working with Excel calculated fields, visit the Office Online web site:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101672271033.aspx

As I stated previously, these are valuable Excel skills to master, regardless of your Project Server version… so set some time aside now and go back to Excel school.

Good luck!

Posted at 8:47 AM by Tony Zink | Category: Project 2010; SharePoint 2010; Project Server Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

4/3/2010

Project Server 2010 Exchange Server Sync Gotcha for Test Domains and VM Environments

Here is a little gotcha that can catch you off guard in a Virtual Machine Demo environment or in a lab or test domain. When I'm writing, I like to use my domain admin account as one of the test accounts in Project Server lab instances to speed up my ability to go from the application to diagnostics. I do this for convenience. Well, that convenience reared an ugly head when I activated Exchange synchronization for my domain account. At first it appeared as though the impersonate PowerShell commands were simply not taking, yet with additional retries the impersonation rights would seem to stick for a while. My colleague, Stephen Sanderlin, ultimately identified the impersonation rights disappearing act. The following is an excerpt from our upcoming book, Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010. Please remember to heed the admonishments about not using this security hack in production environments.

Special Considerations for Test, Dev and Demo Domains

Every hour, Active Directory runs a process to ensure that members of protected groups are not subject to any manipulation of their security descriptors. If a security descriptor for a user account that is a member of a protected group, such as Domain Admins, does not match a security descriptor that is defined on the adminSDHolder object, the system overwrites the user's security descriptor with a the appropriate security descriptor from the adminSDHolder object. Therefore, when you set the MS-Exch-EPI-May-Impersonate extendedRight on a user that is a member of a protected group, the system will overwrite this permission on an hourly basis.

This is problematic only if you use accounts with elevated privileges to demonstrate Exchange Synchronization. Your alternative is to follow security best practices and use separate logons for this purpose.

To work around this issue you must grant the MS-Exch-EPI-May-Impersonate permission to the adminSDHolder object. To do this, execute the following steps:

On your Exchange server open the Exchange Management Shell
Run the following PowerShell command before you run the command for individual users who are members of protected groups. Note this is the same command you run for individual users, however you run this on the adminSDHolder object rather than an individual user.

add-adpermission -identity "adminsdholder" -user <account> -extendedrights ms-exch-epi-may-impersonate

Protected Groups in Active Directory include:

Account Operators
Administrator
Administrators
Backup Operators
Domain Admins
Domain Controllers
Enterprise Admins
Kerberos
Print Operators
Read-only Domain Controllers
Replicator
Schema Admins
Server Operators

Posted at 9:13 AM by Gary Chefetz | Category: Project 2010; Project Server Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/25/2010

Project Server 2007 Hack -- Sticky My Tasks Header Row

If the PWA 'My Tasks' page has more than a few tasks to display, the system forces you to scroll the data grid downward to view all of your tasks:

However, when you scroll downward, the column headings such as 'Task Name', 'Start', 'Finish', and 'Progress' scroll upward with the rest of the data in the table, making it easy to confuse the data in the columns:

To force the top (header) row in the 'My Tasks' web part to "stick" to the top while scrolling through tasks, follow these simple steps...

NOTE: You must be a Project Server administrator in order to implement this hack; if you are not, then please contact your local friendly Project Server admin!

1. Visit the PWA 'My Tasks' page and select Site Actions > Edit Page in the upper right corner of the page:

2. With the 'My Tasks' page in editing mode, click the 'Add a Web Part' bar that spans the top of the 'Main' web part zone:

3. In the 'Add Web Parts' dialog, scroll down the list of available web parts, select the 'Content Editor Web Part', then click the 'Add' button:

4. After the system adds the 'Content Editor Web Part' to the top of the 'Main' web part zone, click the 'open the tool pane' link within the web part:

5. In the 'Content Editor Web Part' panel that appears on the right side of the screen, click the 'Source Editor...' button:

6. In the 'Text Entry' dialog, enter the following text, then click the 'Save' button:

<style type="text/css">

tr.XmlGridTitleRow

{

top: expression(offsetParent.scrollTop);

left: -1px;

position:relative;

}

</style>

7. In the 'Content Editor Web Part' panel, expand the 'Appearance' section by clicking the [+] button, enter a 'Title' such as 'Sticky My Tasks WP Header', select 'None' from the 'Chrome Type' pick list, then click the 'OK' button:

8. If desired, rearrange the web parts on the page such that the new web part is located below the 'My Tasks' web part (this will prevent a white space above the 'My Tasks' web part), then click the 'Exit Edit Mode' link in the upper right corner of the page:

9. Rejoice as you scroll the list of tasks and find that the header row "sticks" to the top of the web part!

Good luck!

Posted at 7:15 PM by Tony Zink | Category: Project Server Administration; SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (7)

2/22/2010

Project Server Trick -- Hide Those Stubborn Name, Start, and Finish Fields in a PWA View

In most PWA views (Project Center views, Project detail views, etc.), there are three fields that Project Server will not allow you to remove from the view:

Name (project name, task name, etc.)
Start
Finish

What if you want to hide one or more these fields from a view... either because they are irrelevant to the information that you need to display, or because there are other fields (either built-in or custom) that better display the desired data in the view?

In this example, I create a Project Milestone Report that only shows milestone tasks, and for each milestone, the report shows the milestone's ID, Name, Finish, and % Complete... with each milestone's Start date hidden because it is irrelevant.

1. Move the unwanted field(s) to the right side of the table.

In the Table and Fields section of the New View / Edit View page, select the Start field and move it to the bottom of the Displayed fields list by clicking the Down button:

2. Set the unwanted field(s) to 1-pixel width.

With the Start field selected, select the Field width option, then enter a width of 1 pixel.

After adding a filter to the view (Milestone equals Yes) and configuring other view parameters, save the view.

Displaying the new view shows that the Start field appears to be hidden:

However, dragging the vertical splitter bar (separating the data table from the Gantt chart) to the right shows a minor indication that there is an extra single-pixel-wide field on the right side of the data table:

Grabbing the right edge of the right-most column and dragging it to the right exposes the hidden Start field:

Good luck!

Posted at 11:07 PM by Tony Zink | Category: Project Server Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

2/5/2010

Data Differences between the Timesheet Cube & MSP_Project_Timesheet Cube in Microsoft Project Server 2007

The fact that Project Server has two different "Timesheet" cubes, alone, is an understandable source of confusion for many users, but when people then discover that in most Project Server implementations where both of these contain actual work data, that most often these contain very different data they get really puzzled. This can be particularly noticeable when you look at the data summarized by resources or projects. While much of the task and assignment line-level data may appear to be identical, even this data can vary widely. Not only is this a source of confusion, it's rather disconcerting to many new Project Server users who immediately become suspicious of all the data in Project Server 2007.

To get comfortable with the data differences you first have to understand that the data for these two cubes originate from different data sources. That's why the Microsoft product team created two distinct cubes in the first place. The Timesheet Cube shows actual work reported through the timesheet system in Project Server 2007, which is completely isolated from the actual work record recorded in the project other than the fact that data entered through the timesheet system can be pushed through the My Tasks page and into the Project Plans themselves. The SP_Project_Timesheet shows the actual work record as it is recorded in the Project file. Because the product team wanted to make the configuration of Project Server 2007 as flexible as possible, you can choose to configure your system to collect time in the Timesheets without ever sending the information to project, or you can choose to send some information to the project, or you can configure Project Server 2007 to force all users to enter all time (Time entry by Timesheet only. Users will sync to update tasks option) through the timesheet and you can mandate that the actual work record in Project 2007 always be equal to the time collected in the Timesheets (Restrict updates to Project Web Access option). Of course, you can also choose to disable the Timesheet system, but then this data duplicity issue doesn't apply.

There are numerous reasons why the data in these cubes are not always in sync, including some obscure bugs in the project client that caused alteration of actual work and that have just recently been resolved in the December 2009 CU. With that said, bugs are the least common reason for discrepancies unless you're using the Restrict updates to Project Web Access option, which locks down the system rather tightly. Without applying that setting, project managers can update the project plans directly, which can cause actual work to change in many ways. For example, suppose a PM updates a task status directly in the project plan where a resource is assigned. This action causes the system to impute actual work for the assigned resource that will never show in the timesheet cube. As this is a very common practice, in many, if not most cases, you are very likely to see more actual work registered in the project plan than in the timesheets, unless of course, your PMs are also in the habit of deleting completed tasks, which has the exact opposite impact. Using the more restricted setting, however, puts the system into a very rigid and unforgiving state in its effort to maintain integrity between the Timesheet record and the Project record. Unless organizations have very experienced Microsoft Project practitioners operating a high-level of maturity with the tool, this setting is not practical because it causes most novice users untold grief in managing their plans.

Remember, also, that the Timesheet cube may contain actual work entered against Administrative task classifications and that this data shows only in the Timesheet cube and never makes it into a project record. If you use the Administrative time feature, you need to exclude this data in your analysis views in order to begin to compare roll-up data between the Timesheet cube and the SP_Project_Timesheet cube, which remains a problematic challenge unless you are willing to commit to the restrictive system options.

Posted at 10:25 AM by Gary Chefetz | Category: Project Server Administration; Project Server General; Project Server Usage | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/7/2010

Project Server Trick -- Add Process Instructions to the New Issue and New Risk Forms

As I mentioned in my previous post, 'Hacking PWA with Web Parts' (http://www.projectserverhelp.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=7), many pages in PWA and in the Project Workspaces are web part pages, and you can manipulate them easily through your web browser. You can add, remove, and rearrange web parts on these pages quite easily without any programming. You can usually identify the editable web part pages quite easily by simply pulling open the 'Site Actions' menu located near the upper right corner of a page; editable web part pages show the 'Edit Page' option under the 'Site Actions' menu:

However, if you pull open the 'Site Actions' menu on any of the 'New Item' pages in a Project Workspace, such as the new Risk form shown here, you see that the menu has no 'Edit Page' option:

The 'New Item' pages in a Project Workspace are in fact editable web part pages, but we need to perform a javascript trick in order to switch the page into edit mode.

While displaying a 'New Item' page in your web browser, enter the following directly into the web browser address bar, then hit the [Enter] key...

javascript:MSOLayout_ToggleLayoutMode()

...and voila, the javascript switches the page into edit mode!

You can now add any web parts you like to the 'New Item' page, such as a Content Editor Web Part (or CEWP... one of my favorites!) to display process information or instructions for logging a new project risk:

When you are finished manipulating the page, click the 'Exit Edit Mode' link in the upper right corner of the page, located immediately below the 'Site Actions' menu:

You will then see your beautifully re-crafted 'New Item' page... ready for use:

For more information about how to add, remove, or rearrange web parts on a web part page, see my previous post, 'Hacking PWA with Web Parts' (http://www.projectserverhelp.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=7).

Good luck!

Posted at 10:51 PM by Tony Zink | Category: PM Processes; Project Server Administration; Project Server Usage; SharePoint | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/5/2010

Project Server 2007-2010 Admin Tip -- Naming Enterprise Lookup Tables

Here is a quick naming convention tip for Microsoft Project Server 2007 and 2010 Enterprise Lookup Tables. To avoid any confusion when working with several Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables in Project Server, consider naming your Lookup Tables with the "Lookup" suffix:

Notice that I have not only named my new Lookup Tables with the "Lookup" suffix, but I have also renamed all of the built-in Lookup Tables as well:

To rename an existing enterprise lookup table, simply click on the Lookup Table name on the Custom Fields and Lookup Tables PWA page, edit the name on the Edit Lookup Table page, and save:

When you rename Enterprise Lookup Tables, notice that the Enterprise Custom Fields listing on the Custom Fields and Lookup Tables PWA page automatically updates to reflect the name changes as well:

The Lookup Table column in the Enterprise Custom Fields listing shows whether each Custom Field is using one of your configured Lookup Tables:

Some fields have no Lookup Table listed, either because they are manually-entered or calculated (as indicated in the Formula column).

An Added Reminder About Naming Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables

It has been said many times in our little community, but I cannot talk about naming Lookup Tables without also reminding you of a cardinal rule for naming Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables...

For your own sake (and sanity!)... ONLY use the following when naming these entities:

Uppercase letters
Lowercase letters
Numbers
Spaces
Underscores

Do not EVER use special characters when naming Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables!

Good luck!

Posted at 1:19 PM by Tony Zink | Category: Project 2010; Project Server Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/11/2009

Revised Installation Help for Microsoft Project Server 2010 BETA

I want to let those of you who have downloaded our sample installation chapters for Microsoft Project Server 2010 Beta know that I have found and corrected errors that you should be aware of:

1) On page 22, for Target Applicaton ID, "ExcelServices" is specified when it should be "ProjectServerApplication"

2) In all occurrences in the documents where SQL 2005 AMO and SQL 2005 Native Client are specified, it should specify the 2008 versions.

I'm pleased to say that I've already corrected these errors in the chapters, and I've added new content on creating additional Project Server 2010 instances. You should read this if you plan on creating additional instances as 2010 demands some unique security considerations and additional gyrations when you intend on serving multiple audiences. More importantly this is guidance not yet available from Microsoft. Read this if you want to learn how to segregate report viewer security between Project Server instances.

If you are planning on installing the Project Server 2010 beta, grab your free copies of our beta installation chapters at http://www.msprojectexperts.com/betainstall

Posted at 2:41 PM by Gary Chefetz | Category: Project 2010; Project Server Administration; SharePoint 2010 | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

11/30/2009

Installation Help for Microsoft Project Server 2010 BETA

msProjectExperts releases installation sample chapters for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2010 BETA versions as free community download.

New York, NY December 3, 2009 – Today, Microsoft Project Server 2010 Beta users get an implementation boost from msProjectExperts, which released Beta versions of the installation modules from Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010 for free download. The modules cover both Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 installation and Microsoft Project Server 2010 installation and basic configuration.

"We're making the modules available as a free download as part of our continuing commitment to the Microsoft Communities," said Gary Chefetz, Microsoft Project MVP, co-author of Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010, and founder of msProjectExperts. "Microsoft's documentation is understandably sparse when new beta software releases, so we want to provide early beta adopters with an alternative that adds depth and value to the initial installation experience," said Chefetz. The download is available on the company's website: http://www.msprojectexperts.com/betainstall.

The sample modules from Implementing and Administering Microsoft Project Server 2010 contain fully-illustrated in-depth installation instructions to guide first-time Microsoft Project Server 2010 users with a visual reference to verify that they are on the correct path when installing the software. The authors, including Dale Howard who is also a Microsoft Project MVP, provide insights into the various software components, explaining what they are and how they contribute to the SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010 environments. "Where Microsoft provides a dozen or so pages to get you through an installation, these modules dig deeper with more than 110 pages that help you understand the big-picture environment rather than simply providing only the barest steps," Chefetz added.

The modules include descriptive introductions to the various software components and service applications that comprise the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 environment and that are leveraged by Microsoft Project Server 2010 to build a complete EPM solution. The authors include copious notations as well as warnings about bugs and "gotchas," along with best practices for installing and configuring the SharePoint and Project Server beta versions. People who download the sample chapters are automatically invited to participate in the private pre-publication book sale that msProjectExperts conducts 30 days prior to ship date.

About msProjectExperts
msProjectExperts is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading provider of consulting services, training, software add-ons, and books and courseware for the Microsoft EPM environment. Headquartered in New York City, msProjectExperts is in its eighth year serving both business and government sectors.

Contact
Jennifer Herman
msProjectExperts
(646) 736-1688 x22

Keywords: Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Project Server 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Project Management, Enterprise Project Management, EPM

Posted at 4:08 PM by Gary Chefetz | Category: Project 2010; SharePoint 2010; Project Server Administration | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

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