Archive for June, 2008
Project Server 2007 - Additional Certification
29 June 2008
.- Microsoft Enterprise Project Manager
- Microsoft Certified IT Professional (EPM 2007)
- Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (Project Server 2007 – Microsoft Partner Competency on Information Worker Solutions)
- Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (Project Server 2007)
- Microsoft Certified Technical Specialist (Microsoft Project 2007)
0″ size=2>Now I am little bit confused on the next step. There are two paths that I can take one goes to PMP and Project Management and another goes to .NET 2.0 and 3.0 to Enterprise Architect. I will take the decision this week after discussion with my friends and collegeues.
Best of Luck 
Popularity: 1% [?]
Deployment Practices: Why Resource Max Units Should Never Be 100%
29 June 2008Reason number one is that in all but the most extraordinary situations it is modeling a situation that is just not possible.
But first some background on what Max Units really is. Max Units defines the percentage of a resource’s full calendar working “period” that they can be assigned to work on tasks before Project sees them as being over-allocated.
Example:
A resource’s calendar says they come in at 8am and work until 5pm and take a 1 hour lunch. They do this Monday – Friday. That is an 8 hour work day\40 hour work week. So if the Max Units is 100% then if the resource is assigned to work 9 hours in one day they will be seen as over-allocated. Same for if they are assigned to work on 2, 1 hour tasks during the same hour. This goes down to the minute level too so if two 1 hour tasks overlap by 1 minute then for that 1 minute they are over-allocated.
This helps the PM create models of assignments and get an idea of how many hours each team member is being assigned to tasks and how that falls across time, other assignments, etc.
So now you might be seeing what is wrong with 100% Max Units. It says that if I work an 8 hour day, I am available to work 8 hours on tasks. On it’s face this sounds logical but dive a little deeper and it becomes obvious that this is just not possible. Nobody ever arrived at work at 8am, took a 1 hour lunch, and then left promptly at 5pm AND got 8 hours of work done on tasks. EVER.
OK wait, I take it back. It is possible that someone did this on your project: IF your project schedule has tasks for things like: going to the bathroom, answering non-project related emails, going to a company meeting, being tapped on the shoulder by your cube-neighbor and being asked for “just a quick 5 mins. of help” (that turned into 30 mins), the list goes on and on. So if your project contains a task for every possible distraction from YOUR project and you expect your resources to track all of that then never mind. You can set your Max Units to 100%. (just count on a lot of churn on your team.)
But for most of us it is not possible to work 8 full hours on PROJECT WORK in an 8 hour day. Doing so means that you were present for more than 8 hours so that all the other things had time in your day along side your real work. The best way to help our models (because that what project schedules really are: models of what we want our project work to look like) be more accurate is to lower Max Units to something more like 85%. That would be the highest I would ever go on any project I was managing. I have seen it set as low as 75% at some sites but generally I see 80-85%.
What this means is that if you have a 1 day duration task and you assign a resource that has an 85% Max Units value, Project will calculate the Work for that task to be 6.8 hours. This means that you are modeling that on average this resource spends 1.2 hours of their 8 hour day doing something OTHER THAN working on your project. A Max Units value of 75% means that 2 hours is spent doing other things. Of course some will get more than 6.8 done in a day and some will get less done. It depends on the nature of their job, their relationship with other projects, other teams, etc. So the value you set will never be perfectly accurate but it WILL certainly be MORE accurate than 100% which is nearly always wrong. The point here is to make your model as accurate as you can.
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I’m hoping to start a small series of Deployment Practices posts here covering things I have found to be useful ideas, practices or methods for deploying Project Server. Please email me if you have suggestions or questions.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Write a Great Post When You Look for Help in the Microsoft Communities Newsgroups
27 June 2008My participation in on-line communities began during the bad old days of dial-up BBS and continued through participating in UseNet groups since the very early days of Compuserve, and I have a deep appreciation for the wealth of information and support these forums provide. Through the years, I’ve often wished that I could point people to a good how-to for effective newsgroup posting. With the introduction of this blog, I thought it was high time to whip one up!
The first thing you should do when you seek help in the Microsoft Communities news groups is not to start writing! Rather, you should start by searching the archives to see if someone has already asked the same question and an answer is readily available, which spares you the wait time. You should consider leveraging Google Groups to do your searching as Google retains the most history available for your search, unlike the Microsoft news servers, which contain only 30 days of history. To search the Microsoft.public.project.server newsgroup on Google, use this URL: http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.project.server
Note that you can search other project newsgroups or other Microsoft Newsgroups if you substitute the name of the group after the last forward slash in the URL. For instance, “microsoft.public.project” for the Project client newsgroup or “microsoft.public.project.developer” for the developer’s group.
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Verify that you cannot find a post that sheds light on your problem, and then start writing. The most important information you should specify in your post is the software version you are using, and if possible, include the service packs or updates applied to your system. Keep in mind that three versions of Microsoft software can be considered supported at any one time, so if you don’t include this information, your first turnaround message is likely going to be someone asking you for this information.
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Next, include a careful and complete description of the problem. Be certain to explain the actions to take to recreate the problem. Always include copies of any error messages that you receive being careful to copy and paste, or carefully transcribe them if necessary. Do not try shorthand or abbreviate this information! More is better.
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Include information describing what you have done to troubleshoot the problem. For instance, if one user experiences a problem, do other users experience the same problem when they take the same actions? Does the user experience the problem on one machine or all machines? Do only some users experience the problem and not others? If so, what might these users have in common? If you haven’t used some probing techniques like this before you start posting, go back to the system, experiment a little, and report your findings. This type of preliminary trouble-shooting can save days of back-and-forth in the newsgroup.
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Avoid “me-too” posts. By this I mean, you find a post that sounds like it may be your problem, so you jump in and add a reply that starts with “I have this same problem…” and ends with “have you found a solution?” There are several problems with this type of approach. Firstly, you might have similar symptoms, but a very different problem. Keep in mind that many software errors are “catch-all” in nature and can be quite meaningless in that they can apply to hundreds of error conditions. In these situations, you are starving your potential respondents of valuable information. Another problem with “me-too” posts is that the original post may no longer be available on the server for a respondent to retrieve. Remember that someone reading directly from the Microsoft source servers can only access 30 days of history, so do not make your volunteer helper have to go off searching and hunting, as your question will seem more like work than a pleasure to answer. Always take the time to describe as much about your experience as possible and do not jump to conclusions that same symptoms equals same problem.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Interesting 3rd party timesheet add on
27 June 2008 Finally QuantumPM, from what I can see beeing a great EPM organisation ( no I have not worked with them before 
) have released a great product called “JustOne” which fills the biggest gap that Project Server 2007 timesheet and task update has.
Essentially it allows users to update timesheet data AND remaining work in the timesheet, it then updates the task automatically. It means a one stop shop for task and timesheet update.
Having said this, I have not used it as yet, but hope to check it out soon. Anyway, for all of your Task and Timesheet users in Project Server 2007 check out this product.
http://www.quantumpm.com/products/JustOnce.html
Here is the description directly of their web page:
- Easily report time for each task
- See Remaining Work dynamically recalculated as actual time is updated
(change remaining time if needed)
- Time automatically imported from timesheet to tasks
- Timesheet sent to Timesheet Manager and status updates sent to Project Manager
- Timesheet and task submission status are kept in synch automatically
- keeps timesheet and task status in synch
- Comments and Rejected status displayed on My Timesheet page per timesheet
- Corrective dialog box reminds users to make updates
Popularity: 3% [?]
Microsoft Hypervisor Technology (Hyper-V) is RTM
27 June 2008Released today, a good overview in this press release: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/jun08/06-26hyperv.mspx
Time to upgrade your EPM VPCs: http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2008/06/25/how-to-upgrade-microsoft-project-vpc-to-hyper-v.aspx
Hyper-V RTM Packages
This is the complete Hyper-V RTM package for Windows Server 2008 x64. This package must be installed on the Hyper-V Parent Partition. It includes the Hyper-V Server components for Full and Core installations. In addition, is contains the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Management components for Full installations. Note This package is permanent. Once installed, it cannot be uninstalled.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F3AB3D4B-63C8-4424-A738-BADED34D24ED
Hyper-V Management
- Windows Vista SP1 x64 Management package http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=88208468-0AD6-47DE-8580-085CBA42C0C2
- Windows Vista SP1 x86 Management package http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=BF909242-2125-4D06-A968-C8A3D75FF2AA
- Windows Server 2008 x86 Management package http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6F69D661-5B91-4E5E-A6C0-210E629E1C42
Popularity: 1% [?]
Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server TechCenter
25 June 2008We have just launched a new “TechCenter” dedicated to Project Portfolio Server in TechNet, expect more documentation in the future:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/projportserver/default.aspx
Popularity: 1% [?]
How to analyze Microsoft Project Server HTTP traffic
25 June 2008What is the bandwidth requirement for Project Web Access (PWA)? How long does it take to load specific PWA pages? What are all HTTP calls for each component that make up a page? Why is the page taking so long to load? etc… If case you did not know, the easiest way to gather this information and answer the previous questions is to use this free tool called Fiddler.
What is Fiddler?
Fiddler is a Web Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP(S) traffic, set breakpoints, and “fiddle” with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler includes a powerful event-based scripting subsystem, and can be extended using any .NET language.
Fiddler is freeware and can debug traffic from virtually any application, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and thousands more.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Microsoft Live Mesh
25 June 2008My friend Brian (The Knowledge Base) Kennemer, invited me to participate in Microsoft’s Tech Preview of Live Mesh. Live Mesh allows you to connect your devices in a cloud, share folders across devices and with others, and stay informed about changes to data via a feed. I am sharing mpFx code with a few colleagues by sharing my source directory out via Mesh. Unlike a traditional network share, Live Mesh shared folders are peer-to-peer (+ cloud for management), thus allowing my colleagues to have an offline copy of the source code, which they can then synch back up to when they reconnect. Ray Ozzie and team have been working hard on Mesh for a while and its Groove heritage is apparent but much improved upon.
I have been experimenting quite a bit with Mesh. I shared out my Microsoft Project local cache to a couple machines so I can take a project offline to work on it on any device. As long as I am careful not to open Project on different devices simultaneously, this works pretty well (BUT DON’T DO THIS WITH PRODUCTION DATA). My little problem with sharing my OneNote notebooks is handily solved, thank you very much.
I am off to visit the Mesh team’s wish list. I have a bunch of single-user applications that I would like to restrict access to shared data across multiple machines. The applications essentially need to be singletons across multiple devices in order for the shared data to not get corrupted. It would be neat if I could wrap the startup of one of these applications in a shortcut that would be responsible for asking the Mesh cloud for a lock-token for the application. If I then tried to start the application on another device (also through a specialized shortcut), Mesh would prevent me from doing so in order to maintain data integrity. Right click on executable and "Run as Mesh Shared Application"…
Popularity: 1% [?]
Make Planned work disapear in Timesheets
25 June 2008Chee it is so nice to work with great people. This post is dedicated to Piet Remen, a great person, and developer in my team. A customer asked if it is possible to get rid of the annouing planned work in the timesheet and Piet found the way. Thanks Piet.
( god knows why). Anyway here is the instruction on how you can hide the planned column in the Project Server 2007 timesheets:
Popularity: 1% [?]
How to upgrade Microsoft Project VPC to Hyper-V
25 June 2008Assuming you have downloaded the latest EPM 2007 demo VPC, please find below the procedure to convert it to Hyper-V (from Virtual PC); yes I have upgraded my Lenovo T61P from Windows Vista to Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64-bit to run Hyper-V anywhere!
| Within Hyper-V Add Hardware –> Legacy Network Adapter (required to activate Windows later on) |  |
| Since the host is now 64 bit (Hyper-V requirement in case you missed it) the guest OS needs to be re-activated |  |
| Activate Windows 2003 again |  |
| If the network connection worked fine you should see this -> |  |
| Un-install the Virtual Machine Additions (Add/Remove Programs) and restart the Virtual Machine |  |
| Using VMConnect, go to Action –> Insert Integration Services Setup Disk |  |
| Accept all updates and restart the Virtual Machine. You can also un-install the Legacy Network Adapter and use a regular Network Adapter. |  |
| And voila! |  |
More info on Hyper-V can be found here:
Popularity: 1% [?]