When: Thursday, July 26, 2012 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (GMT) Where: 1 Shottery Brook Office Park Timothy’s Bridge Road CV37 9NR Stratford Upon Avon United Kingdom Hosted By: Technology Associates Technology Associates is one of the leading IT solutions companies specialising in Microsoft Project and Enterprise Project Management Solutions. Since 1990, Technology Associates have provided deployment, consultancy, development and training services to more than 500 organisations including some of the world’s leading companies, and we have an international presence in countries in EMEA, USA, and APAC.     Technology Associates have deployed hundreds of EPM solutions and deployed more than 2,000 Microsoft Project solutions. The company holds Microsoft Gold Competencies in Project & Portfolio Management, Application Integration and as an ISV, along with eight other silver competencies. With such a stong technical tour-de-force we have built a solid reputation for delivering high quality services and solutions, and providing exceptional value for money. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, with Offices in New York, San Francisco, India and Barcelona, and a strategic partner network covering AsiaPac, Middle East and ROW, we work internationally in delivering IT solutions to our customer base in over 39 countries. Find out more at www.techassoc.com Follow us on Twitter – https://www.twitter.com /TechAssoc   Register for this event now at: https://tapcoadmin260712-rss.eventbrite.com Event Details: Course Content: Understand Project Connect 2010 Administration Concepts & Setup   ·          Understand the different areas of the PWA Home page. ·          Understand how to set up e-mail notifications for users and their teams. ·          Demonstrate how to save Microsoft Project information offline. ·          Demonstrate how to view, edit, and update projects & tasks ·          Understand how to create, and delegate task assignments. ·          Understand how to create and link documents, issues, risks and documents to tasks. ·          Show how to view projects in the Project Center & how to create and maintain the views. ·          Show how to view resources in the Resource Center & how to create the views. ·          Demonstrate how to view resource and assignment data related to one or more projects. ·          Understand how to edit enterprise resource information. ·          View and update task changes to a Microsoft Project plan. ·          View and update calendar changes. ·          Understand Check In/Check Out of Projects, resources and documents. ·          Understand Outlook integration. ·          Understand User Types and what permissions each has. ·          Understand how data is stored in Project Server Databases and in SharePoint. Project Connect 2010 Administration   ·          Understand the different Administration options. ·          Understand the communication and notifications process. ·          Understand the Task Views, Time Periods, Fiscal Periods and options. ·          Describe the provisioning process for creating worksites. ·          Understand how to view and upload documents for projects. ·          Demonstrate searching of documents in the document libraries. ·          Understand how to create and edit an issue or risk. ·          Understand the functionality of Microsoft Project Server (specifically within the Project Connect solution). Describe the differences between Project Connect and the full EPM solution. ·          Understand the responsibilities of an Administrator and adopt best practices. ·          Discuss the various views available, their purpose and how to customize them. ·          Understand the process for time tracking and progressing updates. ·          Demonstrate and understand the significance of Enterprise Custom Fields and Outline code fields at Project, Task and Resource level. ·          Understand the Messaging and the Queue services in Project Server. ·          Describe, understand and be able to apply Multi-value fields. ·          Recognise what the Active Cache is and how it works.

At SP1 Project Server 2010 and SharePoint introduced support for SQL Server 2012.  I had a question posted on some issues a customer had hit – so I thought I’d set my server up for building an OLAP cube against SQL Server 2012 – just to see if I could.  I already knew I’d need to set up a few things – but as I wanted to see errors I just went for it – and started with a PWA instance that built successfully against my SQL Server 2008 R2 Analysis Services machine.  My Project Server databases were also in this SQL Server 2008 R2 server – so that would add some other interesting things to consider.  I should also point out that my SQL Server 2012 was sitting on a Windows Server 2012 RC machine – so not a supported scenario currently – but I like to live on the edge (I know – I should get a life instead…) Just to recap what goes on when we request to build a cube, which will help you understand where the errors might be coming from – and there may well be other errors you could see if things are configured differently to my scenario. A Cube Build request goes on the Project Server queue The details of the requested configuration are picked up – and the application server contacts the Analysis Services server (firewall permitting) with the cube details.  Also the account running the queue service will need the right permissions to do this – needs to be added as server administrator on Analysis Server Once the Analysis Services server has the cube details then it will know where to get the data from (Reporting DB) so makes a connection. A couple of points here – if you are using an alias for the database server from your Project Server farm then this is the server name passed to AS – so it will also need to know what the alias refers to.  This is true even if the AS machine is also the DB Server.  And the account running Analysis Services needs data reader access to the reporting DB. So I’ve done none of that preliminary setup, so I’m expecting some errors.  The first however, was unexpected: Error 1. [7/3/2012 7:00 AM] Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server . Error: Deserialization failed: Requested value ‘EnterpriseCore64’ was not found. This was reported by the cube build – I’ll add the ULS and Event Log errors at the foot of the posting for the search engines to digest – and talking of search engines a quick Bing gave me the answer to this first issue – SQL Server 2012 Cumulative Update 1, which contains the fix described here – https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2683293 – Error message when you use AMO to connect to SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: “Deserialization failed: Requested value ‘ ‘ was not found”.  The ServerEdition could be one of EnterpriseCore64 (as mine was) EnterpriseCore BusinessIntelligence64 BusinessIntelligence The Cumulative Update itself can be found at https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2679368 – Cumulative update package 1 for SQL Server 2012. Installed the CU and moved on… Error 2. [7/3/2012 7:50 AM] Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Failed to process the Analysis Services database Test2012 on the server. Error: Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Resource Type’, Name of ‘Resource Type’ was being processed. Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Timesheet Status’, Name of ‘Timesheet Status’ was being processed. Server: The current operation was cancelled because another operation in the transaction failed. Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Timesheet Period Status’, Name of ‘Timesheet Period Status’ was being processed. This is very similar to an error you would see even before 2012, and refers to the Native Client for SQL Server SQNCLI10 – not being registered.  This is where we need to be very specific – and the version of the native client is related to our client application code that is requesting the build than either the Analysis Services or the SQL Server version.  Regardless of if you are running 2005 or 2008 or 2012 (or anywhere in between) you will need to have the 2008 Native Client installed from here – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=8824 – Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Feature Pack, October 2008 – and specifically the sqlncli.msi which is about half way down the page – and the direct link to the X64 package is here .  Also note that this is referring to the build FROM the Analysis Services server – and it is complaining about the Native Client being missing from there – which it needs to connect to my database server (which happens to be 2008 R2 – but that is irrelevant).  If you look on the AS server you will see that the structure of the cube has been created – so we successfully connected to the server, but it could go off to the database server to get the data.  In a fresh install against SQL Server 2012 you would also need to add the Native Client to the application server – but as it is one of the SharePoint pre-reqs this is normally taken care of.  To confirm the native client requirement you can also look at the Connection string already created on the AS Server as part of the Project Reporting data source – Provider= SQLNCLI10 ;Data Source= ;Initial Catalog=ProjectServer_Reporting;Integrated Security=SSPI;Persist Security Info=False.  I have seen some workarounds described suggesting changing the Provider here – and that would work if you were to rebuild from AS it would get over-written at the next build.  Added the Native Client to my Analysis Services 2012 machine and continued… Error 3 [7/3/2012 8:33 AM] Failed to build the OLAP cubes. Error: Failed to process the Analysis Services database Test2012 on the server. Error: Internal error: The operation terminated unsuccessfully. Server: The current operation was cancelled because another operation in the transaction failed. OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC error: Login failed for user ‘DOMAIN $’.; 28000. Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Task List’, Name of ‘Task List’ was being processed. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the ‘Start Date’ attribute of the ‘Task List’ dimension from the ‘BriSmith2012’ database was being processed…. This error was longer – just repeated for different attributes of the dimension.  The key to this is the Login Failed – and in this case it refers to a machine name (the $ on the end) as my Analysis Services is running as NT ServiceMSSQLServerOLAPService So the connection is via the machine name.  Added the DOMAIN $ as a Login on the Databse Server with db_datareader role membership to my ProjectServer_Reporting database and continued.  If your Analysis Services is runni
ng under some other credentials then you may need to enter these rather than a machine name. [7/3/2012 9:03 AM] Cube build request completed successfully. In my installation I didn’t hit any permissions issues regarding the AS administrator, or any firewall issues – just because my server and domain setup was already taking care of these potential problems – your mileage may vary. Overall, apart from the 1st error these are very similar, if not identical, to problems you could run into with any version of SQL Server – but hopefully a worthwhile reminder of the cube building process and the components and permissions it relies on.  Only Bing and any other search engine needs to read on from here… Logs. Error 1 ULS Logs – a string of errors here – the first few were Medium, then a couple of criticals – I’ve just posted a couple – these should contain anything worth finding on a search.: 07/03/2012 07:00:21.46    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x27B4)    0x2834    Project Server    Analysis Cube Building    myne    Medium    PWA: /PWA”> https:// /PWA , ServiceApp:Project Server Service Application, User:DOMAINUser, PSI: Error generating Project Server cubes. Error: ‘Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server . Error: Deserialization failed: Requested value ‘EnterpriseCore64′ was not found.’    4c420a8a-c27c-47b8-88c9-46baaf8ab1ec 07/03/2012 07:00:21.47    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x27B4)    0x2834    Project Server    Analysis Cube Building    8swo    Medium    PWA: /PWA”> https:// /PWA , ServiceApp:Project Server Service Application, User:DOMAINUser, PSI: [CBS] Status message: ProjectServer BuildOlapCubes failed with exception: Microsoft.Office.Project.PI.CBSCommon.CBSProcessException: Failed to connect to the Analysis Services server brismith12-15. Error: Deserialization failed: Requested value ‘EnterpriseCore64’ was not found. —> Microsoft.AnalysisServices.XmlSerializationException: Deserialization failed: Requested value ‘EnterpriseCore64’ was not found. —> System.ArgumentException: Requested value ‘EnterpriseCore64’ was not found.     at System.Enum.Parse(Type enumType, String value, Boolean ignoreCase)     at Microsoft.AnalysisServices.DesignXmlReader.ReadPrimitive(Type type, XmlAttributes attributes)     … 07/03/2012 07:00:21.47    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x27B4)    0x2834    Project Server    Analysis Cube Building    8icz    Critical    Standard Information:PSI Entry Point:   Project User: DOMAIINUser  Correlation Id: 4c420a8a-c27c-47b8-88c9-46baaf8ab1ec  PWA Site URL: /PWA”> https:// /PWA   SSP Name: Project Server Service Application  PSError: CBSASConnectionFailure (17003) Cube build failed to connect to the Analysis Services server. Verify the data source connection is valid. Error: Setting UID=19d8edf4-019c-437a-a435-2fd160b71592 ASServerName= ASDBName=Test2012 ASExtraNetAddress= RangeChoice=0 PastNum=1 PastUnit=0 NextNum=1 NextUnit=0 FromDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 ToDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 HighPriority=True    4c420a8a-c27c-47b8-88c9-46baaf8ab1ec The Application Event Log just shows a pretty generic Cube Building failure message. Source:        Microsoft-SharePoint Products-Project Server Date:          7/3/2012 7:00:21 AM Event ID:      7682 Task Category: Analysis Cube Building Level:         Error PSError: CBSASConnectionFailure (17003) Cube build failed to connect to the Analysis Services server. Verify the data source connection is valid. Error: Setting UID=19d8edf4-019c-437a-a435-2fd160b71592 ASServerName= ASDBName=Test2012 ASExtraNetAddress= RangeChoice=0 PastNum=1 PastUnit=0 NextNum=1 NextUnit=0 FromDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 ToDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 HighPriority=True Event Xml: Error 2 ULS logs – plenty of errors here, mostly saying the same thing – so I’ll just post the critical one: 07/03/2012 07:49:52.90    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x27B4)    0x12A4    Project Server    Analysis Cube Building    8icz    Critical    Standard Information:PSI Entry Point:   Project User: DOMAINUser  Correlation Id: 5984d4c1-558e-4bb2-9373-68053f894a7d  PWA Site URL: /PWA”> https:// /PWA   SSP Name: Project Server Service Application  PSError: CBSOlapProcessingFailure (17004) Cube build failed during an OLAP Processing operation. CBS queued message: Setting UID=19d8edf4-019c-437a-a435-2fd160b71592 ASServerName= ASDBName=Test2012 ASExtraNetAddress= RangeChoice=0 PastNum=1 PastUnit=0 NextNum=1 NextUnit=0 FromDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 ToDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 HighPriority=True. Error: Failed to process the Analysis Services database BriSmith2012 on the brismith12-15 server. Error: Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered  Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Resource Type’, Name of ‘Resource Type’ was being processed. Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered  Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Timesheet Status’, Name of ‘Timesheet Status’ was being processed. Server: The current operation was cancelled because another operation in the transaction failed. Errors in the back-end database access module. The provider ‘SQLNCLI10’ is not registered. The following system error occurred:  Class not registered  Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Timesheet Period Status’, Name of ‘Timesheet Period Status’ was being processed.    5984d4c1-558e-4bb2-9373-68053f894a7d The Event Log entry was very similar – Source: Project Server  Event ID was 7691 and Task Category Analysis Cube Building, followed by a generic Queue failure Event ID 7704. Error 3 Here is the critical one from the ULS logs: 07/03/2012 08:32:44.12    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x27B4)    0x2CF4    Project Server    Analysis Cube Building    8icz    Critical    Standard Information:PSI Entry Point:   Project User: DOMAINUser  Correlation Id: fdf04238-ff5a-4153-baca-723f634011cd  PWA Site URL: /brismith8100/PWA”> https:// /PWA   SSP Name: Project Server Service Application  PSError: CBSOlapProcessingFailure (17004) Cube build failed during an OLAP Processing operation. CBS queued message: Setting UID=19d8edf4-019c-437a-a435-2fd160b71592 ASServerName= ASDBName=Test2012 ASExtraNetAddress= RangeChoice=0 PastNum=1 PastUnit=0 NextNum=1 NextUnit=0 FromDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 ToDate=07/02/2012 06:55:08 HighPriority=True. Error: Failed to process the Analysis Services database Test2012 on the server. Error: Internal error: The operation terminated unsuccessfully. Server: The current operation was cancelled because another operation in the transaction failed. OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC error: Login failed for user DOMAINSMachineName$’.; 28000. Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of ‘Project Reporting data source’, Name of ‘Project Reporting data source’. Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of ‘Task List’, Name of ‘Task List’ was being processed. …. Event log same as before the – Source: Project Server Event ID was 7691 and Task Category Analysis Cube Building, followed by a g
eneric Queue failure Event ID 7704.

The June CU is out for Project and Project Server – and we have the full details posted at https://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2012/06/29/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-june-2012-cu-announcement.aspx .  Thanks Rob for the information. A couple of quick points worth mentioning: We have a delay on the roll-up package for 2010 – so if you usually use the roll-up and need to test Project Server fixes you can do this with the individual package until we get the rebuild – hopefully later this week. On the 2007 side the June CU for Project Server does include the fix for the Reporting Publish issue I wrote about at https://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2012/05/23/project-server-2007-reporting-project-publish-queue-job-fails-to-complete.aspx – so if you have been suffering with that one your wait is over.  Sorry for the inconvenience that I know this issue caused many of our customers. Final point – and a frequently asked question – what is the difference between a hotfix and a cumulative update?  In reality nothing – for Office and SharePoint the Cumulative Update is really just a hotfix released on a defined timetable – every other month, around the last Tuesday of the month.  The KB article will always describe it as a hotfix – and it generally does not mention the term Cumulative Update.  The TechNet Update Center is a great place to go for all information on the updates – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ee748587.aspx .  There is an RSS feed too!

The 2012 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award Winners were announced for all categories across Microsoft Partner competencies, products and regions by Jon Roskill, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft. In our category – we recognize the best of the best Microsoft Project partners and award them the prestigious “ Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year ” award! This year – we have seen great case studies and stunning solutions that Microsoft Project partners have built – and all this underscores the great success and power of Project 2010! Please join us to celebrate the success of Project and Portfolio Management Partner (PPM) community and congratulate the winner and finalists!   Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year 2012 – SharkPro Software !   SharkPro Software built a unique solution that reduces the time, cost, and complexity of project and portfolio management deployment – yet by building on top of the Project Server 2010 – customers can seamlessly grow in their Project and Portfolio Management maturity. SharkPro Projects offers flexibility to be easily accommodated to customer business needs and includes on-premise and hosted deployment options. The scale of SharkPro Software extends through PPM Partner community and it’s becoming a world-wide solution for Microsoft Project 2010. Shark Pro’s offering integrates with other Microsoft products – like Dynamics and SharePoint – and thus offering customers a complete platform experience.   Three award finalists BrightWork allows organizations to instantly deploy an initial affordable amount of work, project and portfolio management on SharePoint. This delivers immediate visibility and control and then over time organizations can evolve and mature by adding more templates and dashboards as needed and as ready. This best practices template approach pioneered by BrightWork allows organizations to start small and to grow and mature as ready and as needed. BrightWork uniquely supports the management of the mix of projects (in Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Project Server), by aggregating the projects to one central set of dashboards in a SharePoint Portal. Prosperi has been focusing on Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint solutions and Consulting  since 2002. It has an impressive customer list that includes some of Brazil’s most prestigious enterprises and provides tailored solutions to companies in a range of different industries. EPMFAST : Project Server configured with project management methodology, carefully crafted to meet the requirements of diverse organizations. EPMFAST Mobile : Project Server dashboard for smartphones. METROwebpart : METRO style menu for SharePoint sites. UMT has consistently delivered innovative services and products that have helped transform the PPM industry. UMT has gained unparalleled understanding of customer needs by forming enduring relationships with Global 1000 organizations across a variety of industries. In June 2012, UMT announced the availability of the latest version of their financial management solution for Project Server 2010. UMT Project Essentials 2012 is arguably UMT’s most ambitious release to date providing powerful new capabilities including multi-currency support, financial snapshots, change request management and workflow design that seamlessly extend Project Server 2010. UMT Project Essentials is already being used by Project customers and partners around the world to gain visibility and control across project and portfolio financials. To learn more about this solution visit www.umtprojectessentials.com Honorable mentions solutions Number of solutions clearly stood out – some of them are listed below – featuring the Earned Value Management, Mobile Applications, Portfolio Management, Resource Management, Innovation Process Management and Line of the Business Integration. For more please refer to Microsoft Project 2010 Solution Spotlight .                                                                          Honorable mentions case studies We have hand-picked 3 case studies in government and manufacturing built by the following partners. Click on the logo to learn more. For more Microsoft Project case-studies, please refer to Microsoft Project 2010 Customer Success .       Jan Kalis https://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/ , Twitter @MeetJKalis Product Marketing Manager | Microsoft Project/Visio Microsoft Corporation

A little while ago the Project development team had the honor of meeting our makers so to say – Brian MacDonald and Jeff Lill. They’re the original creators of the first version of Project for Windows which was released in 1990. They started as two local kids who grew up just a few miles from the Microsoft campus. In high school they thought it was cool how you could program little LED lights to go on and off. This fascination inspired their future in software development. They spent some time attending the University of Washington and while they were there built a spell checker app, Corrector.  Unfortunately it was the third spell checker app to the market and while InfoWorld rated it the best in the industry, they only sold 24 copies. Brian thanks his good spelling today though to having to manually enter the entire dictionary. Jeff even did some internships with Microsoft since they needed money to finance their company. After the spell checker app, they started working on a spreadsheet product for Macs called Crunch. Shortly after that, Microsoft came out with Excel and in Brian’s words “really just crunched ‘Crunch’ “. At this time they had a lot of connections into Microsoft from Jeff’s internships and Brian’s wife working there. They were at a party with Bill Gates and he mentioned they should stop competing and start working together. Microsoft was trying to recruit developers to make GUI (graphical user interface) apps for this new platform called Windows. They already had a spreadsheet and word processor but were looking for developers to create a database application (which would go on to be Access) and a project management application. Brian and Jeff chose the latter. While Brian and Jeff had a lot of passion around software, they didn’t have much project management expertise. As Jeff said though, they were arrogant enough to know they could do it. So they dove in and looked at competitors, did a bunch of customer interviews including with another local company, Boeing, read project management books and attended conferences. It was actually while they were on a site visit to Boeing that a light bulb went off and they came to the decision that they wanted to build a toolkit that had a broad enough appeal that anyone could use it for project management. At the time, most project management applications were built by consultants and the software would back up the methodology that the consultant was selling. Most companies though already had methodologies in place and just wanted software to support it. This decision turned out to be a pivotal one and something we still strongly believe to be correct today. In Project 2010 , you’ll see that you can manage projects how you want to manage them. How does it feel that people are still using the tool you built today for huge projects totaling billions of dollars? It feels great! We had always hoped that would be the case. – Jeff Anything about people’s reactions to it surprise you? Right around the time the second version of Project was coming out, Windows started to just explode in popularity and along with it any software that ran on Windows. We initially saw our audience as people who had “Project Manager” in their title but found that the product had a much broader appeal. People were using it to create schedules/Gantt charts to help show their management/team that they had their acts together and were on top of things.  – Brian That was very exciting for them and helped the product really take off. They also thank this success to their initial goal of being a toolkit instead of specific solution. This is why features such as the ability to re-title columns were available back in the original release. What kinds of improvements did the second version of Project for Windows have over the first? Print preview, support for macros, and improvements to the leveling algorithm were some of the top ones. Yes, leveling was in v1. According to Jeff – “All the software solutions had it and all struggled with making it work how humans would expect”.  We are still trying to make this easier today by adding features like change highlighting in Project 2007 and the Team Planner in Project 2010. What do you think of the current version of Project? It looks great. A lot looks familiar with the overall user interface but it definitely looks more modern (they were happy to hear that we now have more than 16 colors). Per the timeline view, that was what we were trying to achieve with the Gantt chart (sharing the schedule with stakeholders) but has an even broader appeal. – Brian Brian went on then to create Outlook which originally started out with the goal of being a task management application. It was only during coding and after much debate that they decided to add email support to it. We think they made the right decision. Jeff worked on Project a bit longer and then went on to do Team Manager. Today they both work in the Bing organization. Some fun facts: · There isn’t a Microsoft Project 2.0 because someone else had copyrighted Project 2.0 · Bill Gates tried to convince them to re-write Project in BASIC and they said no. · The last bug fixed for Project 1.0 for Windows was around supporting the Gantt Chart view with the Task Form. In short, I would like to thank Brian and Jeff for creating this great product that so many of us use every day and rely on to accomplish a wide range of projects.

Following our time in Maryland last month for Gartner’s annual PPM event in the US, the Microsoft Project team will also be sponsoring this year’s Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit in London. The two day event represents… “Europe’s premier gathering of program and portfolio management executives charged with improving how organizations select, implement and manage IT projects and investments. The Summit will help you anticipate portfolio fluctuations, and adapt your programs with a view to reducing risk and fully realizing the value.” We’re looking forward to hearing from users like yourselves. You can stop by our booth and join us for a panel discussion on Tuesday, plus our presentation on Wednesday. Check back after the Summit for an update and event recap. In the meantime you can follow us on Twitter where we’ll share the activity from London. Tuesday, June 19th Time Place Welcome Keynote 8:45am-9:45am Westminster B & C Solution Snapshot be there at 10:15am, 10:35am-10:55am Showcase floor- Plaza Suites 2 & 3 Panel Session 11:00am-11:30am Main Auditorium – Westbourne B & C Session 12:25pm-12:45pm Showcase floor- Plaza Suites 2 & 3 Wednesday, June 20th Time Place Session 10:15am-11:15am Westminister A Sponsor Session 11:30am-12:00pm Westminister B And if you haven’t already, be sure to check out the exicting announcement of Microsoft’s Surface

Just wanted to make you aware to two recently release solution packages that are available on the Microsoft TechNet Gallery: I am pleased to announced the release of two Microsoft Project Server 2010 reporting solutions on TechNet Gallery: Project Burn and Forecast Report and Project Spend Report . Both solutions can be deployed and tested with the Microsoft Project Server 2010 v2 Demo Virtual Machine . These reporting solutions leverages Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and were created by Emmanuel Fadullon, a Principal Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS). The User Guide for the Contoso Project Burn and Forecast Report demonstrates how to use the Project Burn and Forecast Report to estimate the projected spend rate (“Average Monthly Burn Rate”) based on the current spend plan, and it also allows you to forecast a spend plan based on a what-if spend rate in a budget-reduction scenario. The Contoso Project Spend Report User Guide walks you through using the Project Spend Report particularly the use of a key concept — a unifying Expense Code, to track Project Total Actual Cost.  The Total Actual Cost is then categorized into its component costs by project work alongside sustainment and common services activities maintained in associated projects in lieu of Administrative Time and Timesheet entries in order to facilitate cost categorization by Expense Code.  Please note that these reporting solutions are not supported by Microsoft Premier Support and instead are meant to demonstrated the rich reporting capabilities of Project Server 2010. We recommend working with Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) Partners or MCS to modify these solutions to meet your specific reporting needs.

Please find below a summary of the Microsoft Project and Project Server presence at both the upcoming Microsoft TechEd North America 2012 in Orlando June 11-14 and at Microsoft TechEd Europe 2012 in Amsterdam June 26-29. Beside sessions listed below, yes we will have a Project booth staffed by product experts so don’t be shy and ask questions about your favorite Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution at the booth. Title Description Speaker OSP301 – Turning Project Data into Real-World Reports: An Overview of Business Intelligence Options Learn how Microsoft Project Server 2010 leverages existing SharePoint BI tools to provide elegant reporting options to the enterprise. Attend this presentation to see how Project Server data may be surfaced using such tools as Business Connectivity Services, Visio Services, Excel Services, PerformancePoint and the REST API. Specific reporting examples are provided that may be easily reused at any level of organizational project management maturity. Andrew Lavinsky OSP332 – Best Practices for Deploying Microsoft Project Server 2010 on a SharePoint Farm Are you interested in deploying Microsoft Project Server 2010, but don’t know where to start? In this session we provide you with an overview on how to deploy Project Server 2010 in a SharePoint 2010 Farm. Specifically, we discuss how to deploy Project Server in an existing or separate farm, asses the proper capacity planning, and how to tackle upgrading and migration. Gary Crich AAP313 – Scrum Under a Waterfall It would be so easy if everyone at our companies just used Scrum—or at least Agile. No one would lean on the team for dates and deadlines, and everyone would know that change is a good thing. It’d be one great big happy project management family. But let’s face it—an all-Agile organization isn’t always possible. Maybe you have a Project Management Office (PMO). Maybe you work for a government contractor. Maybe you have regulatory requirements. Maybe you’re the first Scrum/Agile project at your company. Maybe your company simply *likes* it this way. Whatever the reason, Agile teams frequently report into Waterfall organizations. Your team thinks “backlog” and your bosses think “project plan.” How do you make it work? How do you ensure communication and foster trust between the two groups? How do you bridge the project management impedance mismatch? Enter Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Project Server. The chocolate and peanut butter of the project management world. These products integrate and replicate so that the Agile/Scrum and Waterfall groups can work with the tools they want to work with, play nice together, and get what they need to do their jobs. In this session, we not only discuss how to use the TFS-to-Project Server integration but we also talk about strategies to improve communication between the two constituencies. Along the way we discuss some of the difficulties with making Scrum/Agile work in a Waterfall-centric organization and what you can do to minimize the headaches. Benjamin Day OSP02-LNC – Integrating SharePoint and Project Server 2010 – Deployment Approaches, Integration Options and making the most of the SharePoint Enterprise Features The key focus of this session is to understand three popular approaches to implementing SharePoint and Project Server together and the key benefits to each method. In addition you will also learn: •Understanding how SharePoint and Project Server work together •Using the enterprise features of SharePoint to leverage Project Server data •How SharePoint and Project Server techniques differ and can cause issues with implementation Giles Hamson   PS: I’ll personally be attending TechEd Europe.

We recently released the new Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow on the Microsoft TechNet Gallery. The Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow is a special kind of help file that provides you with information that you need to upgrade to Microsoft Project Server 2010. It provides information that is common to each upgrade path – planning, preparation, and specific procedures for each supported upgrade method.  This guide also provides you with information about how to download and use the Microsoft Project Server 2010 virtual migration environment – the recommended method for upgrading your Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 data to Office Project Server 2007 (which you can then upgrade to Project Server 2010). The Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow MSI file can be downloaded from the Microsoft TechNet Gallery and installed to your Windows computer.  .NET Framework 3.5 is required for installation. Feel free to install it, look through it, and give us any feedback you may have! Thanks!  

This is an issue that several of my readers raised in response to the posting about the orphan baseline posting a few weeks ago, and we know that this is something that more and more customers are now hitting.  The problem was introduced with the February 2012 Cumulative Update for Project Server 2007, and was also present in the April CU too – so if you have installed either of these and have started seeing Reporting (Project Publish) queue job fails to complete then read on. The symptoms are that a project will successfully save and publish, but the Reporting (Project Publish) job will fail to complete, and the error will look something like this (truncated – but the ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed piece will be repeated based on your queue setting for the retry limit. Error summary/areas: Reporting message processor failed ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed Queue GeneralQueueJobFailed Error details:                                 The issue occurs because we are missing a NULL check when accessing the task baseline cost – so if it is NULL we get the “Object reference not set to an instance of an object” message.  We are working on a hotfix to correct this behavior, but we also have a workaround that can provide some immediate relief.  This is a macro that can be run on affected project and will set a zero (non-NULL) assignment baseline fixed cost in place of the NULL we are tripping up on.  Below is the macro code that will need to be added to Project in the macro editor, and executed against the plan.  DISCLAIMER: As with any macro code you should review and understand exactly what this code is doing and that you are comfortable to run this on your own plans (and read the disclaimer) – and should also execute this in a test environment first.  It would also be good practice to take an Administrative Backup in your production system to ensure you have good backup copies of your plans (in addition to any normal SQL Server backup).  Also worth mentioning at this point that you should really have the number of project administrative backups set to give you several versions of your plan (Project Retention Policy (versions) – under Server Settings, Database Administration, Schedule Backup. ‘DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY ‘ ‘THIS FIX CODE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. ‘MICROSOFT FURTHER DISCLAIMS ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING WITHOUT ‘LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR OF FITNESS ‘FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR ‘PERFORMANCE OF THE CODE REMAINS WITH YOU. ‘ ‘IN NO EVENT SHALL MICROSOFT OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES ‘WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF ‘BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION, ‘OR OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE ‘THIS MACRO, EVEN IF MICROSOFT HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ‘SUCH DAMAGES. BECAUSE SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR ‘LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, THE ‘ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.   ‘This macro attempts to work around the reporting publish failure that occurs when there are tasks ‘with baselines and where the BaselineCost contour is NULL. The symptoms that you see in the queue ‘for the “Reporting (Project Publish)” job has details similar to: ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘This code simply walks through the tasks in the tasks in the project and if there are ‘baseline(s) set, then the code sets a time scaled baseline cost = 0 on the day prior to ‘where the baseline start is scheduled.  This sets the baseline contour so that the ‘”Object reference not set to an instance of an object” problem can be overcome during the ‘reporting publish job. Sub FixPublish() Dim t As Tasks Dim tsv As TimeScaleValues Dim i As Long Dim bCalc As Boolean On Error Resume Next ‘get the current application calculation state bCalc = Application.Calculation ‘set calculation to manual (helps with performance while the code runs) Application.Calculation = pjManual Set t = ActiveProject.Tasks ‘walk through the tasks in the project. If a task as a baseline(s) then set a timescaled baselinecost = 0 For i = 1 To t.Count     If Not t(i) Is Nothing Then         If t(i).BaselineStart “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).BaselineStart – 1, t(i).BaselineStart – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaselineCost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline1Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline1Start – 1, t(i).Baseline1Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline1Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline2Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline2Start – 1, t(i).Baseline2Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline2Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline3Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline3Start – 1, t(i).Baseline3Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline3Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline4Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline4Start – 1, t(i).Baseline4Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline4Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline5Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline5Start – 1, t(i).Baseline5Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline5Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline6Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline6Start – 1, t(i).Baseline6Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline6Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline7Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline7Start – 1, t(i).Baseline7Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline7Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline8Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline8Start – 1, t(i).Baseline8Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline8Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline9Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline9Start – 1, t(i).Baseline9Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline9Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If         If t(i).Baseline10Start “NA” Then             Set tsv = t(i).TimeScaleData(t(i).Baseline10Start – 1, t(i).Baseline10Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline10Cost, pjTimescaleDays)             If tsv(1).Value = “” Then                 tsv(1).Value = 0             End If         End If     End If Next ‘fix the project summary task With Activ
eProject.ProjectSummaryTask     If .BaselineStart “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.BaselineStart – 1, .BaselineStart – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaselineCost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline1Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline1Start – 1, .Baseline1Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline1Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline2Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline2Start – 1, .Baseline2Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline2Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline3Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline3Start – 1, .Baseline3Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline3Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline4Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline4Start – 1, .Baseline4Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline4Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline5Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline5Start – 1, .Baseline5Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline5Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline6Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline6Start – 1, .Baseline6Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline6Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline7Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline7Start – 1, .Baseline7Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline7Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline8Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline8Start – 1, .Baseline8Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline8Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline9Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline9Start – 1, .Baseline9Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline9Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If     If .Baseline10Start “NA” Then         Set tsv = .TimeScaleData(.Baseline10Start – 1, .Baseline10Start – 1, pjTaskTimescaledBaseline10Cost, pjTimescaleDays)         If tsv(1).Value = “” Then             tsv(1).Value = 0         End If     End If End With             ‘set the application calculation state back the way it was Application.Calculation = bCalc             End Sub To use this macro you can follow these steps: 1. Open Project Professional 2007 and connect to your server instance having the problem. 2. Go to Tools > Macro > Security . 3. Note the Security Level . 4. Set Security Level to Low or Medium .  This will allow the macro to run. 5. Go to Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor (or alt+F11) 6. Copy the text from the macro above, from the first line of the disclaimer to the End sub line 7. Double click ThisProject in the Visual Basic Editor, and paste in the macro to the window that opens (probably titled Project1 – ThisProject(Code) 8. Save this plan as a file if you need to use again, as FixPublishError.mpp, and return to the normal Microsoft Project view (Alt+F11) 9. Open the plan whose Reporting (Project Publish) job fails. 10. Go to Tools > Macro > Macros… 11. Select the FixPublishError.mpp!FixPublish macro. 12. Click Run . It will take a few seconds to a minute for the macro to run. 13. Save and publish the plan. 14. Monitor the queue by going to PWA > Personal Settings > My queued jobs. 15. Confirm that the jobs related to your plan complete successfully. 16. Reset Security Level to what is was before changing it to Low. There is one condition that currently isn’t resolved by the macro, and that relates to hitting the NULL value for any ghost tasks you might have in your plan (these can exist due to dependencies on tasks from other plans).  It is possible that this will be resolved if the source project has already been fixed up – we are still reviewing this. Thanks to Adrian for the fix up macro, Sriram for helping get this blog post out and for DFS and Christoph for the posts on my blog raising the issue. Sorry for the inconvenience this issue has caused you, and I will update this post as we get more information regarding a more permanent fix. Finally here are some lines from the ULS logs that relate to this problem – just to ensure that the search engines have something to digest and to help those searching on these terms. 05/23/2012 10:38:09.29    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4)    0x0EE8    Project Server    Project Server Reporting    9e09    High    PWA:https://servername/PWA, SSP:SharedServices1, User: DOMAINUser, PSI:   [RDS] ReportProjectPublishMessage for project 0b9e52ec-6bb6-4ca3-823b-d7561d821d1c failed. Error: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.     at Microsoft.Office.Project.DataEdit.Reporting.ReportingData.GetTaskBaselineCoreTimephasedDataSet(BaselineEntity[] baselineEntityArray, Int32 nIntervalLengthMinutes)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.ReportingProjectDal.TransferTimephasedData[T](Guid projectUID, TimephasedTransferInfo transferInfo, ReportingData timephasedReportingData, ProcessSourceData`1 processSourceData, GenerateTimephasedDataSet`1 generateTimephasedData, Int32 pageSize, LogStatsMethod logStats)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.ReportingProjectDal.UpdateTasksTimephasedData(Guid projectUID, ReportingProjectData projectData, ReportingData timephasedReportingData, Int32 pageSize, String& transferPhase, LogStatsMethod logProjStats)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ProjectPublishMessageProcessor.SaveProjectTimephaseData(String& transferPhase)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ProjectPublishMessageProcessor.runRDSTransformation(ReportProjectPublishMessageEx projectChangeMessage). Phase: SetAssignmentBaselineTimephasedFixedCost    3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db 05/23/2012 10:38:09.29    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4)    0x0EE8    Project Server    Project Server Reporting    9e05    Critical    Standard Information:PSI Entry Point:   Project User: DomainUser Correlation Id: 3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db  PWA Site URL: https://servername/PWA  SSP Name: SharedServices1  PSError: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) RDS: The request to synchronize change(s) to project Project UID=’0b9e52ec-6bb6-4ca3-823b-d7561d821d1c’. PublishType=’ProjectPublish’ failed.  Message: ‘ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed’  Error:Object reference not set to an instance of an object.    3ff34f2c-815e-4f95-9798-7f17dc5737db 05/23/2012 10:38:10.30    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x0AE4)    0x0D18    Project Server    Project Server Queue    7h5x    Medium    PWA:https://servername/PWA, SSP:SharedServices1, User: DOMAINSSPAdmin, PSI:   [QUEUE] ProjectQ: Group  d4364343-3402-45ef-afd0-f84c8834e5d3 type = ReportingProjectPublish aborted at Message 1    e45e8c63-38fa-49d8-9555-710851b22c90