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Project Server 2010 supports both resource roles and generic resources . On the surface, these terms may appear to be redundant. If you want to call out a Developer in my project, do you do so by identifying a “Developer” role, or by creating a generic resource called, “Developer”? You use roles during resource constraint analysis, part of the portfolio analysis process. Resource constraint analysis is the process of looking at the resource needs of a project proposal, and comparing that with the resource capacity of the organization. (For example, Proposal A needs 5 Developers, and our organization has 4 Developers available.) In Project Server 2010, resource constraint analysis relies on roles. You can identify “Developer” as a role, and then assign that role to either named resources (“real” people), or to generic resources (placeholders). Project Server 2010 will only consider resources with defined roles during resource constraint analysis. You use generic resources , on the other hand, are used as placeholders for named resources. You may have a generic resource named “Developer” that also has the role of “Developer.” Just like saying Joe is a developer, when you use a generic resource, you are saying that “Developer” is a developer. In the context of portfolio analysis, you should use generic resources when you know the role type and quantity needed for a project (for example, two Developers), but you don’t have to know the names of the actual people who will do the work. Want to read more? The following topics cover resource constraint analysis in detail, with clarification on roles and generic resources: Overview: Setting up resource constraint analysis Define primary resource roles Create resources to represent capacity Create generic resources to represent demand Specify resource demand in a project proposal

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.