Project Server Blogs

Project Server 2010 to 2013 Migration Reference Sheet

May 23rd, 2013

Following on from the last few upgrade and migration posts, I thought I would pull together a simple reference sheet that takes you through the migration process from Project Server 2010 to Project Server 2013.

The sheet takes you through the key steps and commands required to migrate between Project Server 2010 and Project Server 2013.

The reference sheet can be downloaded from http://sdrv.ms/12qUa8M or by clicking on the picture above.

Filed under: IT Professional, Project 2010, Project 2013, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 Tagged: Migration, Project Server 2010, Project Server 2013, Reference Sheet, Upgrade

Project Server 2010 to 2013 Migration Reference Sheet

May 23rd, 2013

Following on from the last few upgrade and migration posts, I thought I would pull together a simple reference sheet that takes you through the migration process from Project Server 2010 to Project Server 2013.

The sheet takes you through the key steps and commands required to migrate between Project Server 2010 and Project Server 2013.

The reference sheet can be downloaded from http://sdrv.ms/12qUa8M or by clicking on the picture above.

Filed under: IT Professional, Project 2010, Project 2013, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 Tagged: Migration, Project Server 2010, Project Server 2013, Reference Sheet, Upgrade

Revisiting the Retro Encabulator

May 23rd, 2013

Talking about this at work the other day and figured it was worth a post.  If you’re not familiar with the retro encabulator, or its predecessor, the turbo encabulator, then this is well worth a watch.  If you are familiar and haven’t watched in a while, it’s probably worth a look as well.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Happy Towel Day.

May 23rd, 2013

I am early this year, but anyway: Happy Towel Day!

Happy Towel Day. is a post by Bas de Baar. Read more about Shrinkonia.

Project Server and Project Online: New posts this week

May 22nd, 2013

A few new posts this week over on the Project Support blog.

• For the most recent I got to play with new shiny stuff – a MacBook Pro, and put it through its paces running against Project Online.
• The April 2013 rollup CU package for  Project Server 2013 was released (contrary to my initial posting…)
• I covered a UI issue in Project Server 2013 and Project Online – transparent dropdowns.
• A walk-through of the access points for PWA in Project Online – covering navigation, licensing and permissions.

Enjoy!

Part 3: Visualization of project lifecycle with help of Dynamic Workflow solution starter and FluentPro EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010

May 22nd, 2013

This is a part 3 of my series of post related to the project life cycle design and data visualization with the help  of EPM Pulse.

In this part, I will provide an overview of the process of building portfolio-level dashboards with the help of FluentPro EPM Pulse.

Portfolio is a group of projects. Organization can have several portfolios or only one that will contain all the projects that should be performed over a specific time frame. Projects can be included into the portfolio directly or using the Portfolio Analysis features of the Microsoft Project Server platform.

Portfolio dashboards display aggregated information about set of projects and how entire portfolio aligned with goals.

EPM Pulse has 4 sets of widgets that can be used in building portfolio dashboards:

• Set of widgets that display project start / finish dates on charts ( when started, when planned to start, when planned to finish, when finished, started / late / on track, on which workflow phases / stages the projects are, completion on time)
• Portfolio Financial information (Planned / Baseline costs, budgets, actual costs, cost distribution, costs by department, cost variances)
• Project Execution Information (Planned / Baseline work, budgeted work, actual work, work distribution, work by department, work variances)
• Resources-related information (Utilization, Over-allocation, Generic Resources, Availability, Capacity)
• Portfolio summary for Risks and Issues

Using these widgets companies can visualize the state of their portfolio and what is the the most important - do some additional analysis and slicing/dicing of the data.

Selecting projects for dashboards

EPM Pulse provides ability to define quite complex rules for filtering projects. To access this functionality click on Project Filter button. Users can filter by any standard and custom project level field and use multiple conditions. It is possible to  manually select several project or use select all - this will select all projects that match that filter criteria - that means that list of projects in a dashboard can be dynamic and updated in real-time

Timeline

EPM Pulse has a powerful tool for navigating dashboards in a time - Timeline control.


It is visible on all dashboards and in all modes. Changes made to the timeline and project filter will be saved to the dashboard if in the edit mode.

Timeline has several options:
- Auto (earliest start date - latest finish date)
- Day (current)
- Week (current)
- Month (current)
- Quarter (current, calendar)
- Year (current, calendar)
- Custom (users can define custom range).

Note: Majority of the widgets are time-enabled, but there are some that are not - mostly ones that display summary of financial / work information for the entire portfolio. In the description for each widget user can find if it is not time-phased (this is specially stated on one's that are not timeline-enabled). Depending on timeline selection, widgets will use appropriate time scale, but user can override this by using the Timeline setting for the widget (where it is applicable). For example - user might want that Work Distribution widget will be always show data grouped by week, no matter what selected on the timeline.

Sample dashboards

Dashboard #1

Dashboard #2

Dashboard #3

After building 4-5 dashboards, creation of a new dashboard that contains about 10 widgets should take  about 4-5 minutes.

Integration of portfolio dashboards into PWA / SharePoint Sites

Summary

This was a final post on this series. Please visit our blog for the new posts - soon there will be very similar post for Project Server 2013 platform, and instead of Dynamic Workflow solution starter we will use SharePoint Designer 2013.

Webinar about EPM Pulse

We would like to invite you to our webinar on about benefits of using EPM Pulse and Project Server 2010 together. Webinar will take place on June 11th at 9AM PST; You will learn more about EPM Pulse and creating a portfolio and project level dashboards.

Please sign up here - and it is absolutely FREE.

Other posts in this series

• Part 1: Visualization of project lifecycle with help of Dynamic Workflow solution starter and FluentPro EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010
• Part 2: Designing Project level dashboards with EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010
• Part 3: Designing Portfolio level dashboards with EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010

Description of Microsoft Product Activation

May 22nd, 2013

Part 2: Visualization of project lifecycle with help of Dynamic Workflow solution starter and FluentPro EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010

May 21st, 2013

In this post, I will provide an overview of FluentPro EPM Pulse, overview of widgets in EPM Pulse that we've created and will show how to build project dashboards in EPM Pulse and  integrate them into PDPs and Project Sites.

In the next post - Part 3 - I will demonstrate how to create portfolio level dashboards with the help of EPM Pulse.

So Let's not wait any longer and let's get stared.

Assumptions

• Workflow was created as described in Part 1
• All the elements were created as described in Part 1
• EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010 installed (Watch video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFpyzPiNUGM )

EPM Pulse overview

Building dashboards for different stages

Project Planning Stage

On the next stage, Project Planning Stage, we should be focused on the project schedule / milestones, work / cost distribution and resource availability. We will use the same approach for creating dashboard but will use slightly different set of the widgets.

Please add following widgets (just as a sample set):

• Project Financial Summary (Baseline), Cost S-Curve, Planned Cost distribution from Financial Tab
• Burndown Chart, Work S-Curve from Project Progress tab
• Planned Work Distribution, Project Milestones, Project Performance Summary (Baseline) from Project Summary Tab

After re-positioning / re-sizing of widgets, dashboard that I just created looks as following:


Feel free to add / replace charts or create one more dashboard for this stage.
Note: Do not forget to make dashboard public - this will be required to add them to PDPs.

Project Execution Stage

On this stage we need to see in-flight information. Progress. Late tasks. Milestones.
Dashboard that I just created for this stage looks as following:


Again - use creativity - EPM Pulse provides access to over 70 widgets, build multiple dashboards.

Project Closing / Project Closed Stage

On this stage we recommend displaying summary metrics from project how it was executed and perform a "lessons learned" analysis on the project. What went wrong? What was great and accurate? What can we improve with next projects?  We've developed a number of widgets for that as well - users can find multiple widgets focused on accuracy and variations that serve the best for these goals (for sure, we can display only what can be "measured", this is just one aspect of "lessons learned" or retrospective review).


Sample dashboard that I just created for this stage looks as following:


Now - we have 4 dashboards created and we can add them to the PDPs that we already have.

Adding dashboard to PDP

Go to Server Settings - Project Detail Pages and click on Project Initiation Dashboard PDP.
Go to Site Actions and select Edit Page
If there is no EPM Pulse Viewer webpart, add it - click on Add a Web Part, select FluentPro EPM Pulse on the left and select EPM Pulse Dashboard Simple Viewer. Press Add button


Go to the EPM Pulse Viewer webpart on the page and click on Edit Webpart and in first dropdown select Dashboard that we created (Project Initiation Dashboard).


That's it. Perform this step for all PDPs and now projects will display EPM Pulse dashboard on one of the PDP depending on project workflow stage.

Wasn't that extremely easy? Isn't that looks good? I would say - awesome!

Webinar about EPM Pulse

Part 1: Visualization of project lifecycle with help of Dynamic Workflow solution starter and FluentPro EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010

May 21st, 2013

It this post, I will try to provide a step-by-step instructions how to a full create environment with simplified workflow using Dynamic Workflow solution starter and later in next post we will visualize information using dashboards created in EPM Pulse. This will be a pretty big post - but it will allow users to get started with Project Server 2010 with workflow and great data visualization. Be prepared for some reading and couple hour of manual creation of configuration elements in Project Server (if you do not use FluentBooks for Project Server 2010).

This post will cover several sections:

• Installation of Dynamic Workflow solution starter
• Definition of Workflow
• Create Fields & Lookup Tables
• Define and create Drivers and Driver Prioritization
• Create PDPs
• Create Phases
• Create Stages
• Create Workflow
• Create EPT

Assumptions

• You have some experience of administering of Project Server 2010
• You have Project Server administrator rights
• For simplicity we will not use Departments feature in Project Server 2010
• This post assumes that you have resource pool built and maybe using generic resources along with work and cost resources

Installation of Dynamic Workflow solution starter

I will assume that you have a Dynamic Workflow Solution Starter that you compiled and is ready for installation. If you don't:
- please go to http://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/P2010SolutionStarter, click on downloads and download source.zip
- open solution with Visual Studio 2010 and compile the Solution Starter
- You need to have following files in order to deploy Solution Starter:

Open the DeployPowerShell.Cmd file and edit its content - you need to edit Site URL:

--------------

@echo off
Set DeploymentPackageFolder="."

Set SiteUrl="http://w2008r2ps/demo2"
Set SolutionFolder="./"
Set SolutionName="DMDynamicWorkflow.wsp"
Set FeatureName="DMDynamicWorkflow_DynamicWorkflow"

cd %DeploymentPackageFolder%
PowerShell -file .\Deploy.ps1 %SiteUrl% %SolutionFolder% %SolutionName% %FeatureName%

pause

---------------

In my case, the URL with PWA where it will be deployed is http://w2008r2ps/demo2.
You need to log to the computer as farm administrator and run this script DeployPowerShell.Cmd from command line:



We strongly recommend to run RestartServices.bat after Dynamic Workflow solution starter install. This will restart IIS and Queue services.

To make sure that Dynamic Workflow in up and running, go to your browser and type the following URL:
http://w2008r2ps/demo2/_layouts/WrkSetng.aspx (replace http://w2008r2ps/demo2/ with you PWA url):


Click on Add a workflow:


In the window that displayed you should see the DM DynamicWorkflow  - that means it was installed and we expect it to be functional.

Designing a Project Server Workflow

To make things a slightly simplified, we will create a workflow with 5 Phases and 5 Stages (one phase can contain one or more stages, but we should be good with just one stage per phase). Our workflow will be potentially ready for the Portfolio Analysis and will include all the required elements:

Phase	Stage	PDPs	Description
Project Initiation	Project Initiation	- New Project Information  - Strategic Impact	On this phase / stage, project request is initiated by users; All requests are captured so they can be later prioritized and only selected projects will go to detailed planning / execution. On this stage, initial planning is performed.
Project Selection	Project Selection	- Project Summary  - Strategic Impact  - Schedule  - Project Selection Dashboard	On this stage, the portfolio analysis component can be "plugged-in". In our scenario there will be no portfolio analysis, and only projects that are selected will move to the next stage.
Project Planning	Project Planning	- Project Summary  - Project Key Performance Metrics  - Schedule  - Strategic Impact  - Planning Summary Dashboard	On this stage, detailed plan should be create, project should be resourced
Project Execution	Project Execution	- Project Summary  - Project Key Performance Metrics  - Schedule  - Project Status Information  - Strategic Impact  - Execution Dashboard	Project Execution and Tracking
Project Closing	Project Closing Stage	- Project Summary  - Project Status Information  - Schedule  - Statistics Dashboard	Project is completed or canceled. PMO, Mamangement and Project Managers shoud analyze information and perform a "lessons learned" exercise
Project Closed	Project Closed	- Project Summary  - Project Status Information  - Schedule  - Statistics Dashboard	Project is closed. This is the terminal stage of the project.

As you can see, I've listed all the Phases, Stages and PDPs that will be visible on those stages - and to make system more flexible, we will have different sets of PDPs for each stage.

There is one element that is missing in this table. It is possible also to control a "read-only" status of fields on specific workflow stages. Again, for simplicity, in this scenario we will make all the fields read-only on Project Closing and Project Closed stages.

So, our workflow structure is defined (designed), now we will get a technical section - creation of all elements.

Creating Custom Fields and Lookup Tables

Custom fields are created via Server Settings -> Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Table section

we will create following lookup tables with values:

Lookup Name	Value
FP Indicator	Black
	Green
	Red
	Yellow
FP Project Type	Program
	Project
Portfolio	Portfolio A
	Portfolio B
	Portfolio C
Program	CM tools
	FluentPro Audit Family
	FluentPro Data Visualization Family
	FluentPro PS Customization
	FluentPro Web Tools
	Project Site Tools Family
Resource Role	Business Analyst
	Coordinator
	Developer
	IT
	Manager
	Project Manager
	Quality Assurance
	Training Lead
	Vendor

On the next step, we will create following fields:

Field Name	Entity	Type	Lookup Table
Budget (Provided)	Project	Cost
Budget (Requested)	Project	Cost
Budget Document Reference	Project	Text
Business Objective	Project	Text
FP Project Type	Project	Text	FP Project Type
Go-Live Date (Actual)	Project	Date
Go-Live Date (Forecast)	Project	Date
Major Accomplishments Current Period	Project	Text
Major Accomplishments Next Period	Project	Text
Portfolio	Project	Text	Portfolio
Program	Project	Text	Program
Project Description	Project	Text
Project Notes (General)	Project	Text
Project Progress Notes	Project	Text
Project Scope	Project	Text
Resource Role	Resource	Text	Resource Role
Status - Budget	Project	Text	FP Indicator
Status - Quality	Project	Text	FP Indicator
Status - Red Explanation	Project	Text
Status - Resources	Project	Text	FP Indicator
Status - Schedule	Project	Text	FP Indicator
Status - Scope	Project	Text	FP Indicator
Status - Update Date	Project	Date
Status - Yellow Explanation	Project	Text

Creating Drivers and Driver Prioritization

For our scenario - I will create 4 drivers and we will prioritize them - so we can define in future strategic impact for each of the projects.
To create drivers, to to PWA and click on Driver Library link in main menu on the left.

You will get to the page with drivers (it should be empty by default):




Use buttons on ribbon to create new drivers



Please note that you should define and create your own drivers that are specific for your organization.

To prioritize drivers, click on Driver Prioritization in PWA main menu. To create new prioritization, click on New on the ribbon. Window will appear where you need to enter prioritization name and select drivers that will be included into prioritization:


Then click on Prioritize Drivers and system will walk you via several steps of prioritization, depending on number of drivers included.

Creating PDPs

As next step, we need to create PDPs. PDPs are SharePoint pages that can display information from project level custom fields with help of special web part, called Project Fields web part. Users can place other webparts to PDPs - standard or custom. We will create 3 types of PDP:
 - PDP for project creation
 - PDP that will host EPM Pulse Dashboards
 - PDPs that will display information from project

We will create the following PDPs:

• New Project Information
• Project Selection Dashboard
• Planning Summary Dashboard
• Execution Dashboard
• Statistics Dashboard
• Project Summary
• Project Information
• Project Key Performance Metrics
• Project Status Information

Create Workflow Phases

To create Phases, go to Server Settings -> Workflow Phases and click on "New Workflow Phase" button. In displayed window, enter the name of the Phase, Description ( Optional) and click on Save Button.


Phases that should be created listed below:

Phase

Project Initiation

Project Selection

Project Planning

Project Execution

Project Closing

Project Closed

Create Workflow Stages

As the next step, we will create Workflow Stages. To to Server Settings -> Workflow Stages and click on "New Workflow Stage":


Enter the Stage Name, Select appropriate phase and select and add PDPs that should be displayed on this Stage. At the bottom, you can select fields that should be required and read-only.

Please get list of PDPs for each stage from the following table:

Phase	Stage	PDPs	Description
Project Initiation	Project Initiation	- New Project Information  - Strategic Impact	On this phase / stage, project request is initiated by users; All requests are captured so they can be later prioritized and only selected projects will go to detailed planning / execution. On this stage, initial planning is performed.
Project Selection	Project Selection	- Project Summary  - Strategic Impact  - Schedule  - Project Selection Dashboard	On this stage, the portfolio analysis component can be "plugged-in". In our scenario there will be no portfolio analysis, and only projects that are selected will move to the next stage.
Project Planning	Project Planning	- Project Summary  - Project Key Performance Metrics  - Schedule  - Strategic Impact  - Planning Summary Dashboard	On this stage, detailed plan should be create, project should be resourced
Project Execution	Project Execution	- Project Summary  - Project Key Performance Metrics  - Schedule  - Project Status Information  - Strategic Impact  - Execution Dashboard	Project Execution and Tracking
Project Closing	Project Closing Stage	- Project Summary  - Project Status Information  - Schedule  - Statistics Dashboard	Project is completed or canceled. PMO, Mamangement and Project Managers shoud analyze information and perform a "lessons learned" exercise
Project Closed	Project Closed	- Project Summary  - Project Status Information  - Schedule  - Statistics Dashboard	Project is closed. This is the terminal stage of the project.

Creation of Workflow using Dynamic Workflow solution starter

To create new workflow using the Dynamic Workflow Solution starter, go to URL


http://w2008r2ps/demo2/_layouts/WrkSetng.aspx (replace http://w2008r2ps/demo2/ with you PWA url):


Click on Add a workflow:



Click Next. Select a Workflow Stage from the drop-down and set the radio buttons as displayed on the next screen:



Add all stages as we defined above so your final workflow should look as displayed on next picture:

Click on Submit button - your workflow is ready to be used.

Creation of EPT (Enterprise Project Type)

Next step in our configuration is creation of EPT - Enterprise project type. EPT is a special "package" that defines what attributes should carry the project and combines all together workflow, project file template, project site template and set of PDP pages (for non-workflow project types).

We recommend to create a new project type that will be used to create projects with workflow that we designed but you can update any existing PDP.

Project Server Administrators can change Enterprise Project Type for project at any time if that's required as well as restart the workflow.

To create new EPM to to Server Settings - > Enterprise Project Types and click on "New Enterprise Project Type" button.

In displayed window, specify the Name of new EPT, Workflow name that we create on previous step, Project Plan and Project Site template (if any custom will be used) and click Save button.

I created EPT called FluentPro Project.

Our new EPT will be created and now we can start creating our projects and moving them to specific stages using Submit button on Workflow Status Page.

How to save time and not create everything manually?

You can download trial version of FluentBooks for Project Server 2010 and FluentBooks workspace that contains all elements except workflow. Using trial version, you can upload this workspace and it will create all elements in your PWA.

FluentBooks download: http://www.fluentpro.com/productsfluentbooks.html
Workspace Download: http://www.fluentpro.com/downloads/DynamicWorkflowWorkspace.zip  

Steps are pretty simple:

1. Accept EULA, download and install FluentBooks on your server or on desktop that has connectivity to PWA
2. Download workspace from the link above and unpack from zip
3. Start FluentBooks, go to File - Open and open this file
4. Go to Upload /Export and make check-box selection as shown on the picture below


5. Click on the button "Select All Elements"
6. Enter URL of your PWA and credentials (if you current user has admin rights, you can use "Use Current Account"
7. Press Export button and FluentBooks will upload all the configuration.

You will save at least 2-3 hours of your time with using FluentBooks - and this trial version is absolutely free.

Note: There will be no workflow created yet; after you create a workflow please update EPT and select workflow that was created.

Summary

We created all required elements and workflow. As next step, we will create several dashboards using EPM Pulse and we will integrate them into the PDPs that we created, so on every stage the corresponding dashboard will be displayed.

Other posts in this series

• Part 1: Visualization of project lifecycle with help of Dynamic Workflow solution starter and FluentPro EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010
• Part 2: Designing Project level dashboards with EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010
• Part 3: Designing Portfolio level dashboards with EPM Pulse for Project Server 2010

Project and Visio at WPC 2013

May 20th, 2013

Each year Microsoft and Partners from all over the world come together to celebrate and re-connect with their peers and Microsoft at the World-Wide Partner Conference (WPC)! This year we will gather in Houston, Texas, July 7-12. Below is the preliminary schedule of Project & Visio related events (information is preliminary and subject to change). Hope we will see YOU there!

Sunday:

• Expo Welcome Reception (Project & Visio Kiosks are open) 4-7pm

Monday:

• Expo – Project & Visio Kiosks @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 11:30-5:30
• Microsoft Office Division Value Keynote 1:30-2:30pm
• Visio Session:
• 4:30-5:30pm OFC06i Extending ROI on your SharePoint engagements with Visio Services, speaker Chris Crane, Krishna Mamidipaka
• Expo Happy Hour – Project & Visio Kiosks @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 4:00-5:30pm
• Microsoft Office (MOD) Partner Reception in the evening (invitation only)
• If you are registered for the WPC13 the invitation will be sent to you and selected number of attendees from your company (please note seats are limited).
• PPM Partners - make sure that you correctly mark the PPM Competency in your WPC13 registration!

Tuesday:

• Expo – Project & Visio Kiosks @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 7:30-5:30
• Project Sessions:
• 10:30-11:30am OFC10i Grow your business with the new Microsoft Project, speaker Chris Crane, Jan Kalis
• 3-4pm OFC15 Understanding the Right Choice of Project Management for Today and the Future, speaker Chris Crane, Jan Kalis
• PPM Partner of the Year presentation in the Cloud Theater (Expo hall) 4:30-4:50pm
• Chance for you to connect with the PPM Partner of the Year Winner
• Expo Happy Hour – Project and Visio Kiosk @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 4-5:30pm

Wednesday:

• Expo – Project & Visio Kiosks @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 11:30-5:30
• Visio presentation in the Cloud Theater (Expo hall) 4:00-4:20pm
• WPC Partner Celebration Featuring Lenny Kravitz - evening

Thursday:

• Expo – Project & Visio Kiosks @ Microsoft Office Division Booth 7:30-1:30

Looking forward to see you in Houston!

Jan

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