To all that have written and visited in the past months, I thank you for stopping by.  I've been basically ignoring this blog due to other projects.  As I'm now a bus commuter, hopefully I can use that time to do better care and feeding of this blog. 

On to the letters....

LETTER #1

I just read your blog entry on leveraging custom fields in Project Server 2003 and I hope you can give me some advice. Our organization has been using the Project Properties metadata for reporting in Portfolio Analyzer for some time now with success, but now they want to start reporting against custom fields applied at the Task level. As you state in your article, custom fields aren't available to Portfolio Analyzer. Do you know how I can solve this problem? Would upgrading to 2007 be an option?

EDPC> Yes, upgrading is an option.  In 2007, custom fields can be added to the cube structure using the cube configuration options. 

As for 2003 cubes, check out these SDK articles on extending the OLAP cubes:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/aa168479(office.11).aspx (general overview of OLAP extensions)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-ca/library/aa208428(office.11).aspx (includes how to add enterprise task outline codes in the sections for Extending Task Earned Value)

LETTER #2

...For us the separation of tasks & timesheets is an annoyance (I thought 03 handled that just fine). But the real problem is that 07's timesheets have completely eliminated the totals column!  I was hoping SP1 would correct this fairly glaring error, but apparently not.  Providing totals by task and by project for the timesheet period seems like such a basic feature of a timesheet -- why was it removed?  And how can it be put back in?  And how are people managing without it? 

EDPC>In Project 2003, we installed several ActiveX controls which desktop administrators did not like.  In Project 2007, we had an initiative to remove the ActiveX and move to DHTML grids.  In the transition, every function was not migrated.  Why totals didn't make it, I don't know since I wasn't involved in this area at the time.

As for totals, I've seen people exporting to Excel to sum the results.  This is obviously not well integrated but it does work. 

By Office definitions, adding totals would be considered a new feature which creates numerous downstream implications (documentation, support, localization, etc.)  As such, we usually don't add new features in Service Packs.  Service Packs are designed to address issues which improve the stability of the product. 

The separation of tasks and time sheets was actually a very significant request by many customers.  If you plan 30 hours of work per person but your internal billing requires 40 hours to be billed, the split entry handles this much cleaner.  One of our internal business units, who does time entry, updates the My Tasks first.  Then, they import this into the time sheet and log whatever time is remaining. 

We also have some which use the My Work view to see a calendar representation of the assigned tasks.  This can be used to update your tasks on a daily basis.  Click on the My Work header in the left hand navigation to view this page.  If people update their tasks daily and log time weekly using the import, time entry accuracy should improve.  Otherwise, we are all fiction writers at the end of the week.  I usually can't remember everything I did Monday on Wednesday!

LETTER #3

Very useful article. http://evildoctorporkchop.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!88E61D218103A246!620.entry  But what about the remainder of the workflow? Once the task has been re-assigned, it doesn't actually get into that persons task list. Any idea what steps need to be taken further?

EDPC>  All task changes have to be approved by the Project Manager of that project and the project has to be republished for the new team member to see the change.  So, have the Project Owner take a look in Task Updates, Select All and Accept.  Then have them republish the project.

Judging from the keynote, it looks like a packed house!  I'll be in the Project Labs from 11am to 1:30pm on Tuesday if you want to talk face to face.

http://blogs.msdn.com/officeoffline/default.aspx 

Especially the Project post.  :-)

That thought popped into my head as I was driving my new car up a big hill in Bellevue.  I finally traded in my 98 Volvo S70 for something a bit smaller, more economical and more fun to drive.  I'm one of the lucky 40,000 people who have bought the new Honda Fit.  For those of you outside of the US, you might know this car as the Jazz. 

My Volvo kept giving me vibes of serious issues ahead even though nothing ever broke.  Maybe Volvo had finally trained me that their cars, while good and comfortable, do tend to get a bit finicky as they get older.  Sort of like its owner.  :-)

I wasn't looking forward to a maintenance event which could easily cost more than the value of the car.  It didn't help that my wife HATED that car.  Her contention was that Volvos must be built by 6'5" engineers.  Her 5'2" frame never quite fit the seats, armrests, or headrests as intended.  So it had to go.

I went online and did the online quote thing on all of the area Honda dealers web sites.  Only two dealers got back to me.  Lynnwood Honda and Bellevue Honda.  The folks at Bellevue Honda were nice as we have the van serviced there.  Essentially though, they were marking up the Fit out of my target price range and that was a no-go.

I'm still a bit floored that dealers will provide such a mechanism for quote generation and ignore it.  What a great way to miss sales.  Things did get much better as we proceeded with the purchase.

Lynnwood Honda actually got back to me the day I submitted the quote.  The person I dealt with there was Rick Fonseca, their Internet Sales Manager.  He seemed to understand that I wanted to do this over email and call occasionally as opposed to the normal "come in and we'll talk you to death until we sell you a car" mentality that I've encountered.  If I can buy a house cross-country over email and fax, I should be able to buy a car that way.

So, Rick set me up, let me know what was coming in and gave me a very reasonable price.  As these cars are in big demand here, many dealers are marking them up well over MSRP.  The highest I've seen was $21,000 on a car that has a $16, 565 list price.  I only know this as I finally had to walk into a few dealers to get them to talk to me.  Also, many want to charge you extravagant fees for extended warranties.  The price that Rick quoted included a 7 Year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty. 

Essentially, it was the best overall deal.  As the quote was so reasonable, I expected extraneous charges to be on the purchase order.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was not the case.  The purchase went well and some minor issues were taken care of immediately.  Basically, this was the least stressful car purchase I've ever made.  They get my recommendation for where to buy your next Honda.

The next surprise was the level of service I got from Wells Fargo.  I decided to finance part of the car through Wells.  I knew they didn't have the best interest rate, but on this small sized loan, it wasn't going to be a large difference.  Also, it is just easier to manage all of your financial stuff in one place.  We had worked with Leda Alexander before for part of our house financing.  So, I called Leda to set up the auto loan.

Leda had changed positions at Wells and was doing small business banking now.  She had also moved from the branch by Microsoft to the Tukwila location, which is near Sea-Tac.  It's quite a distance from Microsoft.  You can see the distance between the two flags in the map below.  Not close by any means.  So, I half expected her to hand me off to someone else nearby. 

Instead she set up the whole loan, got the paperwork together and met us after banking hours, near our house, 18 miles from her office, so that we could sign the paperwork.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  Now that's customer service!  So, if you need a small business banker and you want a great person who's willing to go the extra mile to take care of your financial matters, I would highly recommend her.

Anyway, I've having fun driving the Fit with it's go-cart like handling and great gas mileage.  I'm averaging about 32 miles per gallon with a 50/50 mix of city and highway driving.  I've had it only a week and I've already put 600 miles on it.

A picture of the Fit in Vivid Blue Pearl (the color that I bought) is below. 

Having owned a Civic in the past, I knew it takes a bit of skill with your gear selection to get the most out of your 109 horsepower engine.  Yeah, I could add a turbo for $$$ to get the horsepower up to 180, but then I would just get myself in trouble.  :-)

Again, 3rd gear is your friend. 

It's been awhile since I've been on this blog.  It feels a little like walking into a relative's house that you haven't visited in a while.  You know where everything is, but it still feels a bit strange.

As you may know, I took over management of the Project Server Team Blog a few months ago.  From a blogging perspective, this has been a challenging assignment.  It's one thing to blog on your own blog, where you can pretty much do whatever.  It's another matter when you are representing the team.  Overall, I feel we are getting the posts out that need to be there, but we still have a ways to go before the pipeline is full.  I'm open to suggestions for posts.

I've also been working on Project 14 for several months.  This is my first time going through the beginning of the ship cycle process at Microsoft.  In some ways, it's very familiar and in other ways, it's different from any other software development cycle I've been through. 

One of the critical differences at Microsoft is that I really own the features for which I'm writing the specs.  It's incredibly important that I gather customer evidence, do partner research, collaborate with development, marketing, test and other Program Managers to make sure I've got all of the angles covered.  But in the end, I really own the thing.  My success at Microsoft is truly in my hands.

In other jobs I've had, I was responsible for the outcome but all of the key decisions were typically made elsewhere.  In the Microsoft model, I've got to facilitate and own these key decisions.  Given the number of years that a release is in use and the revenue that is at stake, these decisions are critical to the long term success of our product.  No pressure, though.  :-)

In my "spare" time, I'm also managing a hosted instance of Project Server 2007 internally for Microsoft employees.  This has been a challenging task.  Typically, when you implement Project Server, you have some standardization across organizations which makes it a bit easier to design a solution.  In our case, there is no cross-organization standardization.

So, we designed the solution where each group could add custom fields, resources, views and templates.  We also implemented a single level RBS which has a 4 letter abbreviation format.  The RBS is used by the groups/categories to restrict the projects and resources.  Custom fields and views are prefixed with the same 4 letter abbreviation so that these can be distinguished across groups.  Interestingly, very few(2) custom fields have been created. 

We are getting some great direct usability feedback as many of these internal users are new to Project and Project Server.  ne of the feedback items was to make it clearer as to where to see project details.  There was some confusion among new team members as to which link to use to see the project details.  They kept clicking on the link to the Project workspace to see the project.  After looking at the home page from their perspective, I can see why.  So, some changes were in order.

The quickest way to do make it easier was to add the Project Center web part to the home page.  You can also edit the web part heading to instruct the user to "Click here to see project details".  The other alternative would have required the PM to place the Project Details web part on the home page of the team site.  While it's pretty easy to do, it wasn't something I wanted to require of new users.  In the end, I put Project Center on the home page.  I also left the Project Workspaces web part below it so that users could easily navigate to the workspaces.

For fun, I'm continuing to experiment with my Zune.  (Disclaimer:  I know nothing about the internal plans for Zune.  Heck, I don't even know anyone on the team.)  It's the best video player I've ever had.  I've moved a number of videos to it and it just rocks.  I've been able to watch movies, video podcasts and recorded TV at lunch easily.  I wish it were easier to get rentable video content as I can't see buying TV episodes.  The screen is great looking.  Now, I need to find a decent case that won't cost a fortune.  Based on what I've found, I might be hard pressed to find both.  Suggestions? 

Anyway, I'm attempting to do more writing here.   Expect more behind the scenes stuff rather than hard, technical information.

I wanted to bring this study on creativity to your attention.  Though not stricly related to project management, you have to admit we are quite a creative bunch!  If you can help in either posting about this study or participating in it, it would be sincerely appreciated.

BACKGROUND

My personal friend Dr. Amy Randel, Management Science professor at San Diego State University, is conducting research on creativity and drivers of creativity.  She is looking for volunteer pairs in the technology industry to fill out a survey in January.  Please note, a co-worker will also need to fill out a survey.  I volunteered to help spread the word as I see this as an interesting study.

Creativity has not been well studied so you will be greatly expanding what is known about creativity and its contribution in the workplace.

IF YOU WANT TO PERSONALLY PARTICIPATE

If you are interested in this voluntary exercise, please send an email to the following address: workstylestudy@yahoo.com A email will be sent to you with the survey link information.  This process is being done to validate who is filling in the survey.

IF YOU WANT TO DISCUSS THIS ON YOUR BLOG

Here’s the study overview from Amy.

We are conducting a study on types of creativity and drivers of creativity, including motivation and personality.  As part of this study, we are looking for participants to complete an anonymous 20-30 minute on-line survey and to have a co-worker complete a short 5 minute on-line survey.

Participants can receive a summary of results (with confidentiality protected) upon request.  Participants in this study also will receive the benefit of participating in research on creativity.  As recent articles in Business Week and Fortune have described, creativity is an essential ingredient in the global economy.  This study will contribute to the small, but building body of research on creativity in the workplace.

The two primary professors working on this study are Amy Randel, Ph.D. (San Diego State University) and Kim Jaussi, Ph.D. (SUNY Binghamton).  Both professors regularly publish studies based on survey research in companies.

Data collection for this study is expected in Spring of 2007.

Amy’s bio can be found here:  http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~cba/facdev/randel.html.  Kim’s bio is here:  http://som.binghamton.edu/faculty/jaussi.htm

UPDATE:  This technique uses the fact that the Zune software can monitor any directory for changes.  I found that this didn't work consistently if you use a directory not under the Zune directory in the tree.  So, I recommend creating your target directory under the Zune directory.  Also, theoretically, this technique will work with any podcast software that can retrieve podcasts to a specific directory on the local PC.  I'm most familiar with Doppler, so that's what I used. 

*********************

I kept reading about how the Zune doesn't support podcasts.  Well, since the main reason I want a Zune is to listen to podcasts/video podcasts on the way into work, I felt motivated to tackle this issue.

NOTE:  This sort of works but there's still some holes in it.  For example, in Doppler, I can't designate a playlist per feed without getting an error and I can't seem to get the default feed name to create a playlist automatically.

NOTE 2:  Feel free to try it but your results may differ.  Also note, I don't have a Zune to try the final step of playing it on the player.  However, I do have the software installed on my Vista PC.  I'm making an assumption that if I can get these podcasts to show up in the Zune software, then it should sync it to the player and play there.  I would love for someone to test this.

Ok, I'm a big fan of DopplerRadio as a free(!) Podcast client so this solution uses Doppler.  Procedure as below.

1. Install the Zune client software. 
2. Open up Windows Explorer and go to the following folder  C:\Users\[YourUserName]\Music\Zune\
3. Create a Podcast folder under the Zune folder.  So you should wind up with this:  C:\Users\[YourUserName]\Music\Zune\Podcasts 
   • The Zune software automatically monitors changes in this folder for new files. 
   • So, the Zune software will automatically add these files to the library, which I hope means it will automatically sync to the player.
4. Go to http://www.dopplerradio.net and downloaded the Ver 3.0 CTP and install
5. When you go through the Doppler setup process, set the download folder to C:\Users\[YourUserName]\Music\Zune\Podcasts   You can leave all of the other settings as the default.  I did check the Force retrieve on Startup, but it's not necessary.
6. Add your subscriptions to Doppler and then select Retrieve
7. Once everything is downloaded, open the Zune software.  All of your new files should be in the view.

For those of you with a Zune player, let me know if this procedure allows you to automatically sync and play these files on the Zune.

We've rolled out the new Microsoft Enterprise Project Management University set of courses for designing, installing and managing Project Server 2007 installations.  You can get course information and pricing at http://www.msepmu.com.

To get an idea of just how rainy, compare the latest photo of Snoqualmie Falls with my usual photo.  There's just an incredible amount of water coming through.   You can get a bigger view of this picture and others at http://www.snoqualmiefalls.com  

After seeing people's houses being swept away on TV, I'm thankful I live on high ground.  KING5 has good coverage of the situation online at http://www.king5.com. 

UPDATE 1

Ameya has a blog post on this connector and some of the background:  http://blogs.msdn.com/ameyab/archive/2006/10/18/project-server-2003-and-visual-studio-team-system-2005-connector-available.aspx

***************************

We are pleased to announce general availability of the Project Server 2003 - Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2005 Connector  application.

Where to Get It

The Connector can be downloaded here: http://www.avanadeadvisor.com/TFS-ProjectServerConnector.zip. The Connector is largely based on the sample Project Server 2003 - Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Beta 2 Connector available on GotDotNet. The Connector is also available as a part of the Avanade Software Lifecycle PlatformT.

You can learn more about it here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/why/avanade/default.aspx.

About the connector

Microsoft® Office Project Server 2003 and Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 Team System (VSTS) are two powerful applications that are each used in different ways for management of software development projects. Up-to-date project information requires a seamless integration between the development environment and the project management tool. Managing projects, resources, and related information for an entire enterprise requires a holistic view and integration of project management data with the software development lifecycle. The Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solution with Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 can help organizations effectively manage and coordinate people, projects, and processes. The Microsoft EPM solution provides tools for strong coordination and standardization between projects and project managers, centralized resource management, and high-level reporting on projects and resources. Through familiar tools and ease of integration with a broad range of programs in the Microsoft Office System, the EPM solution promotes broad participation for greater accuracy, accountability, and acceptance. Microsoft Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) provides a solution for software development teams that integrates designing, developing, testing, and managing a project. VSTS integrates with Microsoft Office Project Standard 2003 and Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 for desktop use and allows project managers to plan and manage projects on a local computer. However, because there is no integration with Project Server, the project data for each team is available only in a stand-alone plan. There is no simple way to aggregate project data across multiple projects. The Connector synchronizes Project, Resource and Task data between the two systems. Project Managers, Resource Managers continue to work in the EPM environment while the development team works in the development environment, i.e. VSTS, and data seamlessly flows between the two systems. Updates to work items in VSTS are automatically applied to the corresponding assignments and tasks in Project Server and vice versa. Project Managers have complete control over the inflow of the actuals into the project plan. In addition, resource management functions for all development projects, like managing time and utilization for resources working across multiple projects, team staffing etc. can be performed in Project Server. Lastly, portfolio and program level reports can easily be generated for projects being executed in VSTS and managed in Project Server. More about the Avanade Software Lifecycle Platform (SLP) Avanade Connected Architectures® for Lifecycle or ACA® Lifecycle 2006 is an asset that implements the Avanade SLP vision. It provides a software development lifecycle environment

At the PMI Global Congress 2006 – North America yesterday, Microsoft Learning launched the Microsoft Office Project 2007 Certification program to help advance project management as a profession and maximize value for the very large Microsoft Office Project user community.  The official announcement is here:  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/oct06/10-20project2007.mspx

I also talked with one of the Project Conference coordinators yesterday and she told me that the http://www.msprojectconference.com site would be used again for the 2007 conference.  The site was also updated last night so please check out the new information. 

I also had the chance to talk to some loyal readers of this blog at the Congress.  Thank you all for the wonderful feedback.  I was able to get some great ideas for future articles.  Again, thank you for your readership!!

This is the first part of a three part series on proposals.  These posts would not be possible without the help of Tara Hopwood, who is responsible for quality assurance on this feature.

As you have been looking through Project Server 2007 B2TR, you will have noticed a link for Proposals and Activities.  While I've been talking about Activity Plans, we haven't discussed Proposals.

What are Proposals?

Proposals are intended to enable organizations to do basic future planning for proposed projects.  This function is designed to provide a way to reserve resources via resource plans and to layout timelines and major milestones.  Once a proposal is approved, it should be upgraded to a Project Pro type project for managing the details. 

Like Activity Plans, But Different

Proposals also utilize the same user interface as Activity Plans, so my posts on Activity Plans will also apply as to how you can create and manage proposals. More details here. In the data base, they also share the same Project Type value of 4 (which you may need to know for reporting purposes.)

The major difference between Activity Plans and Proposals is the State field.  In Activity Plans, the State field is null and doesn't appear in the user interface.  In Proposals, the State field is present and can be manually set to one of three values when Project Server is used in standalone mode or automatically managed by an external workflow when Project Server is used with Office Server.  You may hear this workflow capability referred to as DLC, which stands for Document Lifecycle. 

In Part 2, we will discuss how to setup and use the proposal feature in standalone Project Server mode.  In Part 3, we will look setup and usage in the Office Server + Project Server usage mode as well as discuss how to avoid some stumbling blocks in setting it up.  Stay Tuned!

tags: Project 2007, Project Server 2007, Project 12, Office 2007, Office 12, Microsoft, Project Management, Beta 2, Beta 2 Technical Refresh, B2TR, Proposals, Tara+Hopwood

From our technical writers, they've updated the docs to reflect B2TR.

Links

The Beta 2 TR update of the Project 2007 SDK is published.

• Portal:  Project Developer Portal in the Office Developer Center on MSDN includes links to the Project 2007 SDK,  Project 2007 blogs, as well as the Project 2003 SDK. Following are the other main pages in the Project Developer Center:
  • What’s New for Developers in Project 2007 includes links to MSDN Webcasts.
  • Project Community includes an RSS feed for the Project 2007 Team Blog, and other Project blogs and sites.
• SDK Online: Project 2007 SDK in MSDN online library: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/ms512767(office.12).aspx

· SDK Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2672F6F9-7028-4B30-99A2-18CB1EED1ABE&displaylang=en

• pj12ProjectSDK.exe includes two HTML Help files:
  - pjSDK2007.chm (conceptual topics and managed code reference)
  - pj12ReportingDB.chm (a preliminary Reporting Database Schema reference)
• pj12ProjectSDKSamples.exe includes the following complete sample projects that relate to topics in the SDK.

What’s New

The Beta 2 TR SDK includes updates of the seven “How to” and “Walkthrough” topics in the Beta 1 and Beta 2 releases, plus the following:

• How to: Create a Project Workspace and Link it to a Project
• How to: Use the OLP to Link an Object to a Task
• Using the ProjTool Test Application (guide to the sample application in the download) 

Beta 2 TR conceptual topics include updates of the Beta 1 and Beta 2 topics, plus the following new topics:

• Windows SharePoint Services Infrastructure for Project Server
• Using the Object Link Provider
• The Reporting Database and Report Data Service 
• PSI Methods for the RDB
• Events for the RDB
• Prerequisites for Reference Code Samples

The PSI reference is updated with new code samples for methods in the Project and Resource Web services, among other changes.

Related content and SDKs include the Office Developer Centers, SharePoint Developer Center, the SharePoint SDKs in MSDN online, and the following downloads for Beta 2 TR:

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Software Development Kit

SharePoint Server 2007: Software Development Kit

 tags: Project 2007, Project Server 2007, Project 12, Office 2007, Office 12, Microsoft, Project Management, Beta 2, Beta 2 Technical Refresh, B2TR, SDK

The recent Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 B2TR web cast was recorded so you can view it at your leisure.

To view, go to:  https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/view, enter the following details:

• Your name:  <Your name>
• Recording ID:  2Q2N7P
• Recording Key:  rg+SJG5DX

Sometimes the playback does not start immediately or stops mid-way – please try the steps above again, it may be a transient problem.  Enjoy!

tags: Project 2007, Project Server 2007, Project 12, Office 2007, Office 12, Microsoft, Project Management, Beta 2, Beta 2 Technical Refresh, B2TR

Project 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0847fcdf-14a0-4cc0-b946-4f0dd9d2b88a&DisplayLang=en

Project Server 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b741a82-063c-4c63-8507-1b8e520adb2e&DisplayLang=en

All othe