One of the most important aspects of any Project Server implementation is the ability to accurately record and report on actual work values when they are submitted by resources. The desire to ensure that the integrity of actual work, or “actuals”, is maintained within Project Server is one of the most critical customer requests. When implementing a Project Server based solution for time tracking and progress reporting there are a lot of questions that come up like: What’s the best way to have my resources report time for their assignments? How do I make sure that the resource-reported value and the project plan stay in sync? Where should I retrieve data from if I want to integrate Project Server with an external billing or ticket tracking system? Admittedly the breadth of configuration options available in Project Server can create some confusion and lead to solution configurations that are not optimal for the maintenance of actual work values. To help ease the process of recording and reporting on actual work we’ve created the Best practices for submitting and reporting on actual work (Project Server 2010) documentation. To give you a sneak preview of what the document contains here are the primary tenets of best practices for actual work integrity: Use single entry mode Protect user updates with protected actuals Use submitted work from timesheets, instead of project plans, for timephased reporting Use administrative time categories to track non-project work You can find more details for each of these best practices in the linked document.

Take a look over at https://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/12/14/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-december-2011-cu-announcement.aspx for the full details.  Also don’t forget the webcast in January giving you the inside scoop on what we are delivering in these Cumulative Updates. TechNet Webcast: Information about Microsoft Project and Project Server December 2011 Software Update (Level 200) https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032493964&culture=en-us A couple of my favorite fixes – the correction of an earlier problem that saw many non-English sites having English headers on the Project Center, My Tasks and Resource Center pages, and a change to single entry mode behavior so that you do not see unexpected changes to your timesheet entered data.  More about these and all the other fixes on January 10th Webcast with Adrian Jenkins and me.

Good news for all the Visio enthusiasts out there! Did you know that you could visualize, edit and even create a new project plan in Microsoft Office Visio 2010 (Professional or Premium) and then export it to Microsoft Project? Courtesy of the Visio product team, the Visio 2010 Add-in for WBS Modeler enables effective integration between Visio and Project by offering the ability to manage project elements in a graphical view, as well as capabilities to layout a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) in Visio. The Modeling process in WBS Modeler offers a wide variety of options to manipulate the WBS data and layout. Custom ribbon elements enable intuitive import and export between Visio and Project. Sibling and Child tasks can be added to existing tasks at every level within the project plan. Shape data can be defined and assigned for every element within Visio and this data binding remains in place when exported to project. Download the add-in today and get more out of your Visio and Project investments.  

We recently published a series of nine articles about how to test a Microsoft Project Server 2010 deployment as an enterprise project management system administrator or solution tester. Use the series as a guide to test the functionality of a newly deployed Project Server 2010 instance. The articles in this series discuss the functionalities that are on the Server Settings page, and some initial tests that you can run to connect and check server communications by using the Project Professional 2010 client application. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg502592.aspx

The Can’t-Miss Conference of the Year With just 3.5 months before Microsoft Project Conference 2012, excitement over Microsoft Project Conference 2012 has been through the roof! Come celebrate the phenomenal momentum of Project 2010 with us at the conference. There will be a concentration of learning, networking, and growth opportunities you can’t get anywhere else. Remember, Microsoft Project Conference doesn’t happen every year (the last one was in 2009) so you definitely don’t want to miss this.  We’ve got Over 100+ hours of Sessions! We received over 170 submissions (note: over 200 hours of great community content!)through our Call for Content. Here are some content highlights over the three tracks (Business Value & Insights, Product Sessions, and Deployment, Administration & Developer):  15 customer-led sessions (representing 6 verticals)  where customers share personal success stories using Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management (PPM). Project desktop best practices for scheduling, program management, Earned Value, and more. Project Server best practices for Demand Management, Portfolio Analysis, Resource Management, Time Management, Business Intelligence, and more. Key solutions overviews and case studies for Application Lifecycle Management, Innovation Process Management, Product Lifecycle Management, Dynamics AX integration, ERP integration, and more. Technical best practices for IT Professionals and Developers. A full list of session titles and abstracts will be available in mid-December on the official conference website .  Get hands-on Project 2010 Training at the Conference Whether you are currently using or looking to invest in Project 2010, Microsoft Project Conference 2012 provides awesome computer-based and instructor-led training opportunities. On-site at the conference, you can begin your mastery of Project 2010 and make the most of your investment through: Project Professional 2010 (Managing Projects 70-178) desktop training Project Server 2010 (Configuring 70-177) computer-based training with your Project Conference 2012 registration (Hurry: limited seats are available for this hands-on training session.) Instructor-led training sessions Fantastic Sponsor and Exhibitor Excitement The Sponsor and Exhibitor momentum has also been wonderful! We’d like to thank these partners for their support and continued dedication to Microsoft Project. Check out the list of sponsors and exhibitors . If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor or exhibitor, it’s not too late! Contact ProjConf@microsoft.com for details. This is the event for You and the Project Community! Great content and a wealth of training are just some of the reasons for you to attend Microsoft Project Conference 2012. This is also the key event for the worldwide community to see, share, and evolve. With such richness of expertise and depth of knowledge in the community, you’ll be able to discover ways to take your project management success to the next level. Tell us what excites you about the event on Twitter or facebook .

When: Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:30 AM – Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 5:00 PM (GMT) Where: Technology House Shottery Brook Office Park Timothy’s Bridge Road CV37 9NR Stratford Upon Avon United Kingdom Hosted By: Technology Associates International Limited Technology Associates International Limited is one of the leading global project management consultancies specialising in Microsoft Office 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 throughout the world.     Technology Associates have deployed hundreds of EPM solutions and deployed more than 2,000 Microsoft Project solutions. With twelve Microsoft Competencies under our belt, and three at Gold level including PPM, ISV and Application Integration, 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 EPM and SharePoint solutions to our customer base in over 39 countries. Register for this event now at: https://taiprojdes2010090112-rss.eventbrite.com Event Details: Course Outline: The goal of this two-day instructor-led course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage projects with Microsoft Project 2010 Standard or Professional Editions. Who Should Attend: This course is intended for Project Managers, Project Schedulers, Managers, Supervisors, Team Leads and other people responsible for managing projects. These individuals are involved in or responsible for scheduling, estimating, coordinating, controlling, budgeting and staffing of projects and supporting other users of Microsoft Project. Typical products and technologies that are used include Microsoft Project 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Pre-requisites: Students should have a working knowledge of the following: • Basic project management concepts and terminology. • Basic Windows navigation skills.   Objectives: After completing this course, students will be able to: • Explain the new user interface of Microsoft Project 2010. • Initialize Microsoft Project settings. • Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) • Create task relationships in a project schedule. • Configure advanced task information and use the Task Inspector. • Create and manage resources. • Assign and level work resources. • Review and finalize the project schedule. • Track and update project schedules. • Customize Project 2010 features. • Communicate project information in your organization. • Manage multiple projects and resource pools.  

Yes you can thanks to Brian and Brian: Impress the family: Make Thanksgiving Day a success with Project 2010 On a separate note check out these recent announcements from Jan: Project 2010 Demo Pack Version 2 NOW available to Microsoft Partners! IMPORTANT: PPM Competency Transition Period PCU3ED, TPG and UMT –Three Project Conference 2012 Premier Sponsors I wish all of that are based in the US a happy thanksgiving week-end!  

Quick note to save someone down the road some time and frustration. 🙂 When working with VBA TimeScaleValue collections in Microsoft Project 2007 or Microsoft Project 2010 remember that timescaled values that fall on nonworking days are not zeros. They are also not NULLs. They are in that shadow world between numbers and NULLs. They are “”. Why is this important you ask? It is NOT important if you are just going to set the Value directly as in: TSV(Counter).Value = $400.00 It is VERY important if you are doing a running total of creating a rollup inside of a loop (in my case a For…Next looping through sets of Tasks, as in: TSV(Counter).Value = TSV(Counter).Value + TaskObject.Cost10 If you fire that second line of code off and the TSV(Counter).StartDate is a nonworking day AND there is not already a number in that value then the value that is there by default is that crazy shadow “” value. The result is a Type Mismatch error because you are trying to add your TaskObject.Cost10 to a non number. So to get around this you have to test the current value of TSV(Counter).Value to see if it is numeric: If IsNumeric(TSV(Counter).Value) = True then TSV(Counter).Value = TSV(Counter).Value + TaskObject.Cost10 Else TSV(Counter.Value = TaskObject.Cost10 End If Now the first pass through this TSV ‘slice’ will show a nonnumeric value and it will just set the value to be the Cost10 value for the TaskObject. But on the second pass through this slice it will be a numeric value since you just set it on the first pass and then it can start your ‘rollup’.

Brian Kennemer over at Deltabahn , a Microsoft Partner specializing in Project Server deployment consulting, recently updated his Thanksgiving dinner project plan and we wanted to share it with you all. You can download the .mpp file here . This is just a guide, but a great example of how flexible the tool can be and how it can be used to improve everyday activities. If you don’t already have a copy of Project 2010 be sure to  download the trial here , give it a try, and tell us what you think! And you can learn more about the US holiday on Wikipedia . Start with the Resource Sheet view in Project 2010. You may want to track your cooking tools and supplies along with the overall budget. Here’s a generic view where ” Helper 1 ” could be your partner, a friend, or even one of the kids. Inactive Tasks is a great way to think about the unexpected and plan for surprises. Maybe your brother/sister decides to bring a +1 or the kids invite their friends from college. Notes in Task Information is a great place to keep all your important information in one place. Copy over your planning notes from OneNote and add comments on what to do differently next year. Special thanks to Brian ( briank@deltabahn.com)  for sharing his Project plan with us. Whether you’re a seasoned Thanksgiving veteran or hosting Thanksgiving dinner with the family for the first time, a well crafted project plan can help you minimize the stress of organizing such an important event. You can use Project to plan larger scale catering events, festivals, or even a wedding. Unfortunately, you may be on your own with the in-laws. Microsoft Project can only do so much. We encourage you to share your Thanksgiving plans and experiences with us in the comments. And, if you have other ideas on what we should plan with Project or a template of your own, please share as well. You can “Like” us on Facebook and share your thoughts there, too. Check out an earlier post by Heather on where to find great templates for Project . Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving from all of us on the Microsoft Project team to you!

This is just a snippet of T-SQL to return the Project Name, Task Name, Task Start, and Task Finish dates for all tasks in the Project Server Reporting Database that are scheduled to start between the current SQL Server system time and the current system time plus 7 days. The core of this is really just the use of SysDateTime and the DateAdd functions. Other than that it is a very basic query. This gets asked for every once in a while so I will put it out here for those searching.   1: SELECT MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectName, MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskName, 2: MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate,MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskFinishDate 3: FROM MSP_EpmProject_UserView INNER JOIN 4: MSP_EpmTask_UserView ON MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectUID = 5: MSP_EpmTask_UserView.ProjectUID 6: WHERE (MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate > sysdatetime()) AND 7: (MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate < DATEADD(dd, 7, sysdatetime()))