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With the increase popularity of Twitter I just leveraged Microsoft FuseLabs SocialGadgets Exploration to visualize “Microsoft Project” (more info. here: https://designer.socialgadgets.fuselabs.com/ ) Tag Cloud for Microsoft Project : Timeline for Microsoft Project : Tag Cloud for SharePoint :

Saw this recent question on our public forum: how can I display project information on my project site (around referred to as the project workspace)? In Project Server 2010 it’s actually very easy thanks to a very useful web part that is part of the Microsoft Project 2010 Solution Starters on MSDN Code Gallery ( https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/P2010SolutionStarter ); yes there are plenty of others useful solutions as well so I highly encourage you to check out these free of charge solutions (and yes we also provide source code if you want to further customize them). Basically deploy the Workspace Project Custom Field Web Part (folder: WorkspaceProjectCFWP), add the web part to your custom project site template (Site Actions | Edit Page| Insert Web Part | Custom | Project Custom Fields Web Part ): Edit Web Part and pick and choose which fields you want to add (contains all standard project fields and all enterprise project custom fields): and voila! As a reminder on what you can do and can’t do with the out of the box Project Web App (PWA) web parts check this post from yesterday: Adding Project Server 2010 web parts to SharePoint sites

After you start working with Project, if won’t be long before you get creative and start customizing views, tables, filters, reports, and so on. And it won’t be too long after that when you begin to think about leveraging your creativity by applying it to all your future projects. Welcome to the Project organizer. The organizer is a dialog box that allows you to copy Project elements between files, or between a file and the global template. What is the global template? It is a special Project template that is associated with every project file that you create. For example, suppose you customize the Gantt chart with cost columns, then rename the view “Corporate Cost Gantt.” And now you want to use the new Gantt chart in all future projects. Here’s what you do. For Project 2007, on the Tools menu, click Organizer . For Project 2010, click the File tab, click Into , and then click Organizer— but see note below for some differences. In the Organizer dialog box, click the Views tab. The list in the right box contains the custom views in the currently open project. Note

I am sure you are all following my recent advice and actively following this TechNet RSS: Newly published content for Project Server 2010 https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=186461 New and updated content typically appears Thursday night (Seattle time/PDT) and today take a note of the following important articles our technical writers have put together: Plan for Project Server 2010 Web Parts

Thanks to Guillaume from TPG for pointing this out, and for Rob for digging out the answer.

Following this post in January: Latest Microsoft Project RSS Feeds – January 2010 and with the Microsoft Project 2010 excitement and enthusiasm as well as the multiplication of blogs, please find attached my latest OPML files (collection of RSS feeds I subscribe to from all regions of the world); I use this to stay on top of news and announcements around the product. It’s also exciting to see how many more blogs, RSS keep appearing every day. A very encouraging

Dear all – I will continue posting developer-related information to this blog, but there was a lot of “other” content that would not fit perfectly here. So I have created a new blog on https://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/ where I continue posting Project 2010 relevant information and top of mind thoughts Few are there already If you are interested, please add https://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/ to your favorite RSS aggregator. Thanks! Jan

Bonjour, in case you have missed it we made an important announcement today: Microsoft Office 365: The Power to Think Big and Be Small, to Be Big and Act Fast . How does it impact the Microsoft Project world? Check this post from Arpan: Enabling Better Collaborative Project Management with Office 365 and Project Professional 2010 More information on the official Microsoft Office 365: https://www.office365.com ; sign up for Beta!

Today, Kurt DelBene announced Office 365 , which we believe will define the future of productivity. Office 365 is a new cloud service that brings enterprise-grade productivity to everyone. This is an important announcement for the industry and Microsoft. I encourage you to watch today’s global press conference about Office 365 on the Microsoft News Center ( www.microsoft.com/presspass ). I wanted to blog about this news to explain what it means for Microsoft Project 2010. As many of you know, we offer Project Server 2010 cloud hosting through numerous partners that many customers are already taking advantage of today. With SharePoint Online as part of Office 365, we now deliver great collaborative project management in the cloud through the Project Professional synchronization to SharePoint just as we do today for our on-premise customers.

With the recent release of Microsoft Project Server 2010 (PS) last May and its rapid adoption by customers, a recurring question I have seen and been asked is how can I integrate Project Server 2010 with application X? Where application X can be a combination of the following: Application Type Typical Scenario Application Example Accounting (ERP) Import financial information, and WBS SAP R/3, MSFT Dynamics SL and AX, Oracle etc. Billing/Invoicing (ERP) Export PS timesheet information to generate invoices, a classic in IT charge back and or service organizations SAP R/3, MSFT Dynamics SL and AX Human Resources Import resources information like skills, RBS, billing rate, etc.… SAP or custom systems Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Transfer customer service work information to PS MSFT Dynamics CRM, Siebel etc. Ticketing, Maintenance, Keep the Light on Import work performed in these other app. into PS via Statusing API or push project plan and assignments to another app. to track the execution System Center Service Manager, Remedy etc.… Time tracking, time sheeting Import data into PS to have full view of resources execution SAP CATS, etc. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Transfer tasks and assignment to a team of developers MSFT Team Foundation Server, etc. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Yes I have seen customer bring PPM data from competitors product in our stack due to the ease of use of our platform and the enhance collaboration and reporting capabilities with SharePoint 2010 IT PPM competitors The following Microsoft Project Server data type/entities are typically synched : Project Server Data Type/Entities Description Projects Projects can be tied to portfolios, programs, WBS, etc. Tasks Tasks are associated to WBS, work items, work package etc. Resources Resources typically are synched from Active Directory and additional information like skills/role come from another system etc. Task’s Status A common scenario where task updates are made in another system and needs to be transferred to PS the ChangeXml API Timesheets Timesheet data is typically transferred out of PS to another system for billing, etc. Lookup Tables Import LT data definition from another system. And there are more I have seen or heard but basically they revolve around the above application types. So how do I interface PS with these other mission critical applications (also referred to as Line Of Business Integration or LOBI) within my organization? This is obviously a very broad topic and this blog post is by no means exhaustive but let me try to get you started in answering this question. Well as you can guess IT DEPENDS! The biggest challenge and the most complex part of such integration is clearly defining the scenario , documenting what data will be transferred between the two systems, what’s the “master” and what’s the “slave”, exception handling (if an update is rejected what happens for instance? If a task is deleted what happens? etc.) The second phase is implementing the bridge and for that as mentioned in this recent post: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Integration with SAP you have two options: either use an existing partner solution that is publically available (search here for instance: https://www.microsoft.com/project/en/us/partners.aspx or BING it) or you can build your own connector and in that case look at the Microsoft Project 2010 Software Development Kit . Points to consider when integrating PS with LOB (by no mean exhaustive): What’s the specific use case ? Interface scalability and performance – was on a recent call with a partner who realized their interface to another system did not took too long to process updates… What PS data entities (Project, Task, Resource, Lookup Table) needs to be updated and transferred? How is the custom data mapping defined? Interface logging and monitoring – would expect any solution whether its of the shelve or custom made to provide visibility of data updates so that it can be easily monitored and maintained File format required to transfer data 9XML, CSV etc.)? Can validation rules and business rules be easily created and modified? What are the additional Custom Fields required in PS to enable the transfer? Are there existing partner solutions available or do I need to build a custom interface ? Reporting requirements for this interface? KPI, dashboards etc.