The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) group has released a beta version of the Feature Pack for integration of TFS 2010 with Project Server. The beta version is a “go live” release. If the user agrees to the pre-release license agreement, the Feature Pack can be installed and will be supported in a production environment. However, it is not the final release, and is still subject to change, so you should first test it in a non-production environment. Note

Very excited to announce this key milestone today on the main Project blog today: Announcing Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack Beta . Following all the interest and excitement heard as recently as last month in Europe at Tech.Ed and at Project Momentum, its great to have bits out that you can now use to test this out. As usual this is journey and expect more announcements on the topic of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Microsoft Project 2010 and Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010, Better Together in the coming months. In the meantime start your download and happy testing!

We are excited to announce the release of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack Beta to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers. Integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a huge leap forward for organizations that want to bridge the gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams using Team Foundation Server. The feature pack further strengthens Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management Solution by enabling these teams to work together more effectively while not getting distracted or overwhelmed by each other’s’ detail. It enables teams to work together more effectively by: Providing executives with insight into portfolio execution, alignment with strategic objectives, and resource utilization of their software development projects by leveraging the quantitative data stored in different systems. Bridging the impedance mismatch between the Project Management Office and Application Development by facilitating better coordination between teams using disparate methodologies , like waterfall and agile, via common information and agreed upon metrics. Enabling development and project management teams to use familiar tools to collaborate and communicate project timeline and progress such as Microsoft Project, Project Server, SharePoint and Visual Studio. Please check out Brian Harry’s post: Portfolio Management: TFS Project Server Integration in Beta for more details on this exciting new solution and try it yourselves ! Key resources Product documentation Recent demo at Tech.Ed Europe last November: Application Lifecycle Management – Microsoft Project 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, Better Together Ask a question: Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration Forum Questions and Answers Q. How does this Feature Pack differ from the out-of-the-box Team Foundation Server and Microsoft Project add-in? A. The Microsoft Project add-in allows project managers to use Microsoft Project to connect to Team Foundation Server to collaborate and participate in the planning and execution of software development projects. The Feature Pack enables integration between Team Foundation Server and Project Server and allows planning and status information to be synchronized between the two systems. Q. Are there any prerequisites or dependencies for this Feature Pack? A. Dependencies are: Team Foundation Server 2010 + SP1 beta Visual Studio 2010 + SP1 beta Project Server 2010 or 2007 For a detailed description of dependencies and prerequisites go to MSDN: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=207133 Q. Do customers need to apply this Feature Pack to Team Foundation Server or Project Server? A. The Feature Pack must be applied to Project Server (2010 or 2007). The Team Foundation Server 2010 SP1 beta must be applied to Team Foundation Server 2010. Check out the documentation for more details. Q. What MSDN Subscription level is required to download the beta? A. This Feature Pack will only be available to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers (go to your MSDN download center , you should find the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack as an available download). An organization must own at least one license of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. With that one license, the software can be downloaded and installed and then all users with access to either the Project Server or the Team Foundation Server products that are integrated can benefit. Q. Can I use this release in production? A. The beta comes with a “go-live” agreement. If the user agrees to the terms in the pre-release license agreement then they are eligible to use the environment in production. As usual we recommend testing out this beta release in a test/staging environment prior to any product rollout. Q. When will the final version be ready? A. Pending your validation, it will ship sometime in the first half of next year (2011). Christophe Fiessinger Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Project https://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie

See Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta

A new feature in SharePoint 2010, Resource Throttling can help keep your servers running smoothly, even during peak hours. Learn how to configure Resource Throttling . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

Written by: Raj Badarinath Raj Badarinath is the VP Marketing at WinWire Technologies Inc., Gold Certified Managed Partner specializing in collaboration and analytics focused around Microsoft SharePoint technologies with a global delivery model. WinWire was founded in 2007 by ex-Microsoft professionals and has approximately 150 employees who are spread across our corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, CA and two development centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. When we founded WinWire Technologies more than three years ago, keeping operating costs as low as possible was essential to our success. Our communications infrastructure included a diverse range of consumer and business technologies including Google Gmail, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 and Microsoft Project Server 2010 internally manage cache synchronization by tracking revisions to major entities such as projects and maintaining records for deletions of those entities. Although the Draft, Published, and Archive databases in Project Server are not documented, and direct access to those databases is not supported, a basic understanding of cache synchronization in Project Server can be useful in determining issues of performance optimization. (This article was written by Patrick Conlan, Microsoft Corporation.) Warning:

Because Project Server 2010

Last week we introduced SharePoint Online Workflows . Workflows allow users to easily trigger a customized email to be sent when a new item is added to SharePoint Online. In part two of this series, Brett demonstrates how you can easily configure a workflow using SharePoint Designer 2007. One example of how you can use a configured SharePoint Workflow is to create a task when the Sales opportunity value meets or exceeds a pre-set value in another SharePoint Online list. The tasks are then linked to Outlook so the executive can easily review and approve.

Discover how you can access common tools during Windows Server 2008 R2 installation so you can perform administrative tasks without having to restart the installation. Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag