Blog

Community Video Picks

There are thousands of videos made every day and posted on the internet that span various topics and interests. I wanted to take this week’s video blog post to highlight some of my favorite videos that focus on Microsoft BPOS and Cloud Computing. I have spent a lot of time roaming the internet to try and find the latest and greatest BPOS videos to add to our YouTube channel favorites section . The following videos are some of the best that I have found. 1.

Handling Changes to the Project Start Date

How often are you told that your project will start on date x and then it is moved to date y, maybe date z before it finally gets going? Now when your project start date moves, you can just update the start date in the Project Information dialog and a lot of dates will update but not all of them (ex. deadlines, constraints, tasks with actual work). If you want those to move you need to go through Move Project. The advantage of Move Project is that everything in the project is moved with respect to its original offset from the project start date. For example, in this project task b has a deadline 5 days into the project and task c has a constraint to start 2 days after the project’s start date. Now I select Move Project to update the project start date to 1/12/11. And everything in the updated plan has the same offset as it had before. Task b has a deadline 5 days into the project and task c has a constraint to start 2 days after the project’s start date. In Project 2007 and earlier, you can access this functionality on the Analysis toolbar, Adjust Dates but there are a few limitations: deadlines and tasks with non-zero percent complete aren’t moved.

This Week in BPOS News 1/14

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we take a look at the new Office 365 for Education announcement, and we get a fresh look at the USDA’s move to Microsoft’s Cloud. Live@Edu grows, evolves into Office 365 for Education, leapfrogs Google Apps for Education In our first story, ZDNET Education writer Christopher Dawson takes a look at the new Office 365 offer for education that will take the cloud to the next level. Currently, Microsoft offers Live@Edu which is a set of collaboration tools aimed towards academia. Earlier this week the Office 365 blog announced that an education offering will be available. Be sure to check out the video below if you are interested in the recent Office 365 education announcement. The ZDNET article turns its focus from the Office 365 announcement to comparing the two main cloud for education solutions with Office 365 and Google Apps. The post makes a lot of interesting points that and outlines how the Office 365 education solution is the next step for Live@Edu and how it takes a competitive leap against Google Apps for education. Do you agree with the author that Office 365 for Education “leapfrogs” Google Apps for Education? Leave your comment below. US Department of Agriculture Deploys Massive Cloud Solution In our second story, we get an update on the US Department of Agriculture’s move to the Cloud. We previously discussed the start of the USDA moving 120,000 users to Microsoft’s cloud on our blog. This most recent article asks an important question, “Is cloud computing truly scalable and can a solution be rolled out quickly?” Author Ian McKenzie suggests that due to the USDA moving to Microsoft’s Cloud, the answer to both questions is yes. The article touches on other large government transformations to the cloud including “the State of California , the State of Minnesota , and New York City embracing cloud computing.” Ian also dives into the complexity of moving a governmental organization as big and dense as the USDA to the Cloud. He points out that Microsoft’s Cloud solution should help the 120,000 federal workers collaborate and engage on a greater level, while the government sector saves money through lowering costs with the Cloud. Do you think that the USDA moving to the cloud proves that cloud computing is a scalable solution that can be rolled out quickly? Leave your comments below. What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

Cmdlets to manage Exchange Control Panel from a Command-Line

Understand and Use the Exchange Control Panel

Get an overview of the Exchange Control Panel and how you can use it to manage Exchange from just about anywhere . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

Understand and Fix the Outlook Web App Security Warning

Find out why users may be getting a security warning when accessing their Exchange 2010 inboxes via the Outlook Web App. And discover the easy fix. Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

Help! Where’s the Help?

OK. I’ll admit it. Sometimes documentation for Project and Project Server isn’t always easy to locate. It tends to be spread out. And sometimes it can be difficult to determine if the Help documentation you’re reading is from an official site. Worse, some URL’s have changed, and some new locations have been created. Let me help you set the URLs (and your Favorites list) correctly. Official Project Help sites Product information From this site you can try and buy Project, reach our partner and user communities, compare Project versions, learn tips and tricks, learn from modules and exercises, and see Project in action with demos, customer success videos and stories. Project desktop Help on Office Online Office Online contains Help for primarily the end user of Project and Office applications. Find Help articles, tutorials, and videos on basic Project functionality. Project Web Access Help on Office Online Help for Project Web Access end users can be found on Office Online. Help for Project Server administrators, however, is on TechNet . Project Server Help on TechNet TechNet is geared toward administrators of Project and Project Server.

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services: Blackberry Service Overview (Level 200)

Join us tomorrow for the next installment of our Microsoft BPOS Webcast series. Join Kevin Wang from Microsoft for this webcast as he gives an overview of Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) and BlackBerry services. Click here to register for our webcast. When : Thursday, January 13, 2011 9:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) Duration: 60 Minutes What : TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Business Productivity Online Services: Blackberry Service Overview (Level 200) Where : Register here You can view other sessions from Microsoft Online Services: Get the Winning Edge If you have questions or feedback, contact us .

TFS and Project Server 2010 Integration: Microsoft Beta Connects Developers, PMs

Good article from Janis Rizzuto from Projects@Work about the Team Foundation Server and Project Server integration feature pack to start the year: Microsoft Beta Connects Developers, PMs 🙂 Hope you all had great holidays and back in full swing, a great Microsoft Project 2011 year in perspective.