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Archive for October, 2008

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Microsoft’s Theory of I.T.Evolution Event

30 October 2008

 

At IT Evolution 08, get a front row seat as we unveil technologies like Hyper-V, App-V and Virtual Machine Manager that will help you ride the hottest trend in IT today -Virtualization.
Come and attend this big show as per your country schedule below

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October Cumulative Update

30 October 2008

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Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project.msp): October 28, 2008

30 October 2008

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***NOW AVAILABLE: The October Cumulative Update for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2007***

30 October 2008

Christophe has posted the links to the October Cumulative Update for Project and Project Server 2007 to his blog.  Get it while it’s hot!

Also, in case you missed it, Christophe also posted the first sneak peeks at SP2 for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2007.  There’s not a lot there yet, but he posts a release timeframe between February and April of 2009. 

Thanks for sharing, Christophe!

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Announcing the release of the October Cumulative Update for Project and Project Server 2007

30 October 2008

The October Cumulative Update was released on October 28th (please refer to this post: Announcing the release of the August Cumulative Update for Project and Project Server 2007 for more information on Cumulative Updates and the first one released last August).

Within the next weeks a TechNet article will be published to explain its deployment procedure and best practices.

Knowledge Base Articles and Downloads

Title	ID	KB URL	Download URL
Cumulative update packages for the 2007 Microsoft Office core suite applications and for 2007 Microsoft Office servers: October 28, 2008	958847	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958847
Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project.msp): October 28, 2008	958138	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958138	http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=958138
Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp.msp, Pjsrvwfe.msp): October 28, 2008	957696	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957696	http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957696
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hotfix package: October 28, 2008	957691	http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957691 (not published yet)	ef=”http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957691″>http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957691

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Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (Coreserver.msp): October 28, 2008

957693

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693

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Project Server 2007: Microsoft Office October Cumulative Update and Associated KBs Now Available!

30 October 2008

Great job by our writers for this October Cumulative Update (not to mention the PM, Dev and Test involvement).  We not only have the updates – but the documents are also posted so you can see what we have fixed and decide if you should install these updates.  The full details can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958847 and the links within that document will take you to the specific KBs for Project etc.  Christophe also has the KB and download links for the ones I know you care about at http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2008/10/29/announcing-the-release-of-the-october-cumulative-update-for-project-and-project-server-2007.aspx.

Great work everyone!

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Back to Basics: Understanding resource leveling

30 October 2008

Resource leveling is the act of taking a project with people assigned to a bunch of tasks, and making it so that they don’t have to work overtime. Okay, that might be oversimplifying it a little, but essentially that’s what you’re doing.

Seriously, what’s resource leveling?

Let’s back up a bit. So you’ve got a project with several tasks, and resources assigned to those tasks. Some resources are assigned to multiple tasks, which has resulted in a handful of resources being overallocated. That is, the tasks they’re assigned to require more time than they have available for work.

Microsoft Office Project has a cool feature that evaluates your work, generic and committed resource allocations, and adjusts your project so that your resources are no longer overallocated. You simply click Level Resources on the Tools menu, and Project comes up with a solution.

How does leveling work?

Okay, so admittedly, Project’s resource leveling feature is pretty neat, but it’s designed as a tool, not a replacement for an actual project manager. You’re going to need to know what adjustments were made to provide an overtime-free work force, and evaluate whether the solution that Project came up with will work for your project.

When you tell Project to level resources, it does a couple of different things. In some cases, it simply moves the tasks around, so that the overallocated resource works on tasks consecutively, instead of simultaneously. For example, let’s say you’ve got two tasks, Task A has a five-day duration, and Task B has a two-day duration. The tasks are completely unrelated in the schedule, but John is currently scheduled to work on both of them on Monday and Tuesday.

There are no restrictions on when the project needs to end, so when you level the resources for the project, Task B is simply moved to begin after Task A.

In some cases, when you level resources, Project splits a task to make room for the overallocated resource to complete a task during a specific scheduled time. Using this same example, let’s say John has to complete Task B on September 2^nd and 3^rd. When you level resources in this scenario, Project creates a split in Task A, so that John works on Task A for one day, then goes over and works on Task B for two days, then goes back and finishes Task A after Task B is complete.

Prior to leveling, you may want to do a few things to control how the leveling will affect your tasks. You can set task priorities, to control which tasks take precedence over other tasks, and you can set project priorities, so that if you’re working with a common pool of resources among multiple projects, the right projects take precedence.

Helpful Hints:

- If you set the priority to 1000, the task will not be leveled.

- To level only certain resources - go to the Resource Sheet, highlight the resources you want to level, and then click on Level Resources.

Where can I learn more?

Learn more about resource leveling in the following articles:

· Distribute project work evenly (level resource assignments)

· Goal: Resolve resource allocation problems

· View resource workloads and availability

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Meet the Project Server UA team

28 October 2008

We’ve heard that people wonder if there is an army of writers here at Microsoft that publish Project Server content, but since the reality is quite different I thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to our team. Here are some pictures of the Project Server UA team and short bios in their own words:

 

 

Efren Edwards (EfrenE@microsoft.com):"My name is Efren Edwards and I’ve been writing IT-Pro content for Office UA since the Project Server 2003 release.  I’m very optimistic about our ability to provide a great content set for this upcoming release of Project Server, especially now that we have four writer available.  Away from work much of my free time is spent coaching my son’s little league baseball team."   

 

 

Mike Plumley (MikePlum@microsoft.com): "I’ve been working as a writer for about ten years. I’ve worked as a contract writer at Microsoft for the Windows Server, SQL Server, and Project Server groups; and also as a documentation manager and group manager for a Microsoft vendor. Prior to my Microsoft experience, I worked several years as a software developer for a couple of small custom software shops. I worked with the Project Server group on documentation for Project Server 2003 and returned as a full-time writer to work on Project Server 2007 and beyond. In my spare time (when the weather’s nice) I’m a photographer and videographer, lately specializing in infrared photography."

 

Darryl Mondrow (DarrylM@microsoft.com):  "For over a year I’ve been a writer on the AWS UA IT Pro team and focused solely on the Duet project. I recently joined the Project Server IT Pro UA effort and look forward to my contribution adding to its success. You can reach me at darryl.mondrow@microsoft.com."

 

 

 

 

Roger Haight (RogH@microsoft.com): "Roger Haight is a Technical Editor who has spent 15+ years at Microsoft inserting punctuation in documentation for developers and IT professionals. "

 

Robert Hoover (RobHoo@microsoft.com): "I’ve been in project management for about 5 years now, having gotten my project management start at a structural and telecommunications engineering company. I have a love for the order that is generated by various project management methodologies, and I like to put that to use in my work here at Microsoft.

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2009 Microsoft Project Conference

28 October 2008

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Project Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008 – Error Messages With Data Analysis Cubes(OLAP)

28 October 2008

I haven’t seen the official support announcement for Project Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008 or the TechNet documentation but they should not be far away – but I have been trying to build cubes on my servers and seeing issues.  I have had no problem at all with SQL Server 2008 as a database engine but couldn’t build a cube.  Also many colleagues had no issues with OLAP on 2008!  It can’t just be me can it?  My farm was a simple two server affair – one App/WFE and a separate SQL Server.  The main error I was getting was:

Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server brismithSQL08. Error: Cannot connect to Analysis Services version ‘10.0.1600.22′ (or Analysis Services version ‘10.0.1763.0′ if you have loaded the Cumulative Update 1 for SQL Server 2008)

This error looked like one fixed in CU3 for SQL Server 2005 and relates to the 2005 Analysis Management Objects not being able to connect to SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.  I decided to load the latest Cumulative Update for SQL Server 2005 which would also contain this fix – so went for CU10.  The strange thing was that on my x64 application server I couldn’t load the x64 hotfix as it said nothing to fix – but the x86 one was happy to load – and resolved my issue!  Digging deeper I established that the thing it upgraded was client tools that I had installed with the Business Data Catalog Editor which comes with the SharePoint SDK (and contains SQL Express) – and is x86 only.  So going backwards I tried other alternatives.  Loading the client tools from a full SQL Server 2005 installation worked.  If you don’t have these to hand another option (without needing to load the DB engine of SQL Express) is to load the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Toolkit Service Pack 2 and then the CU10 hotfix.  Hopefully the official documents will give a cleaner way to achieve this but for now this may help unblock some tests, so thought I would share.

Along the way I also discovered some other “gotchas”.  As my repository was in SQL Server 2008 I needed to load the 2008 version of the Native client from the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack, October 2008.  But you also need to have the 2005 version as it is a pre-req for the Management Objects.

If you haven’t installed the Decision Support Objects from the Backwards Compatibility Components expect a very clear error:

Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Analysis Services session failed with the following error: The Application Server needs to have Analysis Services DSO Component installed.

If you don’t have the native client (or the right native client) expect this error:

Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Analysis Services session failed with the following error: Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server BriSmithSQL08. Error: Cannot connect to the repository. Analysis server: BriSmithSQL08 Error: Provider cannot be found. It may not be properly installed.

And finally if you don’t have the Management Objects Collection (for Analysis Management Objects – AMO) then expect this one:

Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Analysis Services session failed with the following error: Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server BriSmithSQL08. Error: ActiveX component can’t create object

These errors assume that all permissions are set correctly and the setting of these does not differ from the 2005 instructions.  You may also see these errors in other circumstances too – I’ve just noted some obvious occurrences based on missing components.

I’m guessing my colleagues that have had no problems may have been on a single server – or at least had extra components loaded on the application server which meant the AMO was already at the required level.  I was just unlucky…

Useful links 

• The 2005 Feature pack from February 2007 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=50b97994-8453-4998-8226-fa42ec403d17&DisplayLang=en
• The 2008 Feature Pack from October 2008 - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=228de03f-3b5a-428a-923f-58a033d316e1&DisplayLang=en
• SQL Server 2005 CU 10 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956854/LN/
• SQL Server 2008 CU1 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956717/en-us
• Requirements for using SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services with the Project Server 2007 Cube Building Service - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197552.aspx

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