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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:

Regular readers may remember the bad things that happened in Project Server 2007 if you loaded the SharePoint (WSS) templates known as the Fab 40 – https://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2007/12/03/project-server-2007-users-beware-the-fabulous-40.aspx – and more specifically the ProjectTrackingWorkspace solution.

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

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 history of Microsoft Online Services and how it came to be Office 365. We also look at why BPOS is right for you and your business. 1. The Road to Office 365: The Past , The Present , The Future Mary Jo Foley is the premiere writer about Microsoft News and information for ZDNet. She has close eye on the Microsoft Online Services front and has taken this week to write an in depth three part series entitled “The road to Office 365.” This series focuses on Office 365 and its past, present and future. In the first part of her series , Mary focuses on the history of Microsoft Online Services which goes back to the year 2003. The article features a comprehensive look at the history with Eron Kelly, Senior Director for Office 365. This is a very interesting read that lays the groundwork for her next article entitled “The Road to Office 365: The Present.” In her second piece , Mary Jo Foley takes a look at what is presently occurring with Office 365. This article examines how the engineering team is managing their workload with creating a new service offering, and also dives into the work the support team is doing to create a better experience for customers. In the final segment of her three part series, Mary Jo Foley peers into the future of Office 365 . This piece starts by discussing the possible release scenarios for Office 365. Mary provides insights on how she pictures customers moving to Office 365. The article then focuses on the community and communication effort that is going to be emphasized for Office 365. “It’s a whole different relationship with the customer now,” when it comes to services, Cole said. “The customer experience becomes the entire life cycle; it’s not just learn and try and buy. It’s a whole end-to-end solution.” We are excited to help bring Office 365 to customers in the near future. As part of the community team, I am thrilled to help make our customer experience better than ever. You can read more about Office 365 on the Office 365 blog . What are your thoughts about the road to Office 365? Would you like to learn anything else not covered in the three piece series? Leave a comment below. 2. Gobble Gobble….BPOS is no Turkey! For our second story we take a look at a Thanksgiving themed BPOS story. Although this article comes to us a week late, it still resonates today. Rich Blank, Management Consultant for Independent, answers a couple of questions that he himself has previously asked. “Is it [BPOS] any different than web hosting?” “Which version do you need?” “Why BPOS?” Rich dives into these questions will real life experience to support his answers. I highly recommend this article for anyone wondering if BPOS is right for them and their business. 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.