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As the cloud environment moves from its conceptual state to a real living breathing reality, it brings with it a deep dependency to an area of IT that I predict will become central to how effectively the capability of the cloud is utilized. This same dependency underpins datacenter growth and change as well. That area is information management.

The Virtual Migration Environment (VME) Guide for Project Server 2010 is now available in Microsoft TechNet.

Here is a list of content available for Project Server 2010. For comments or suggestions please email us at epmdocfeedback@microsoft.com

Today we are launching the latest release of Microsoft Project. This event is an exciting one for my team and for me on many levels. Following Office 2010 RTM on April 16 , today represents the culmination of over 3 years of development for the most innovative, the most advanced and the most integrated version of Office and Project we have ever released. It takes an incredible set of people to deliver on the kind of challenges that a new version of Project and Project Server represent. I would like to first thank my team, the Microsoft Project Business Unit , for their relentless efforts, their innovative spirits and technical depth, and more importantly for their unwavering passion in driving this complex project to completion. I also wanted to recognize and thank the myriad of people who contributed directly or indirectly to this product, our customers, our partners, our MVPs, our TAP team, the Project planning and marketing organizations, our Field, our support and services folks, all of whom have had a great influence in shaping Project 2010. Project 2010 is the most significant release for Project in over a decade and delivers new innovative capabilities across the Microsoft Project family of products: Project Standard 2010, Project Professional 2010 and Project Server 2010. · Project 2010 features the simple and intuitive Microsoft Fluent user interface and dramatic ease-of-use enhancements for both occasional and professional project managers. · Project and portfolio Management are now unified in a single server to provide end-to-end capabilities – a consistent Web interface, common data store, and centralized administration. · Project Server 2010 is built on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Enterprise Edition bringing together the leading PPM software with the powerful SharePoint business collaboration platform. · Project 2010 integrates with familiar Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server, providing powerful work management capabilities delivered through familiar and connected tools. In summary, 2010 represents significant investments on both our client and server. The fresh, simple and intuitive features of Microsoft Project 2010 will enable teams and organizations of all sizes to analyze, select, plan and deliver the right projects . On the client, we have focused on improving the experience and capabilities, adding groundbreaking views such as Timeline and Team Planner and new concepts like our Fluent user interface, while allowing new users familiar with Office tools to fully leverage the power of Project Standard and Professional with minimal ramp up time. On the server, Project 2010 is a revolutionary new release of Microsoft’s EPM solution built on the Project Server 2007 foundation and fully integrated with SharePoint 2010. By centralizing all aspects of project and portfolio management on a single, unified platform, fully leveraging the advanced features and capabilities that SharePoint Enterprise offers, we are delivering with Project 2010 the most comprehensive, integrated EPM solution on the market today. As I talk to Project customers worldwide, it has become clear to me that over the past few years Project has become a mission critical tool in the enterprise application fabric. With 20 million users worldwide and over 10,000 named accounts on our EPM solution, it is no surprise that when we set out to define the 2010 areas of investments, we decided on quality as our top business driver and we prioritized every step of the way accordingly. Consistent with our original goal of making 2010 a “no brainer upgrade” for our EPM customers, the Project engineering team put a few stakes in the ground early on in the release: · Upgrade from 2007 will be smooth and easy : we are taking an incremental approach to changes to our database and our web services, as such we are offering a predictable and robust upgrade experience from Project Server 2007. · Compatibility with 2007 is top of mind : compatibility with partner and customer solutions was the main driver for this goal, we ensured that Project 2010’s web services are backward-compatible with 2007. · Driven by customer feedback: Any area that received significant investment was driven by direct customer feedback. We worked with our partner ecosystem, Field, MVPs and, of course, TAP customers to refine or improve key areas in Project and PWA. · Reduce barriers of adoption : From ensuring a consistent experience with SharePoint to removing technical roadblocks such as our previous dependence on ActiveX controls, we’ve worked towards making PWA even easier to deploy, adopt and use. · Test the product broadly, deeply and early : By putting a new structure in place to leverage our early adopters both externally (TAP) and internally (internal “dogfooding”), Project 2010 is the most real-world tested version of Project at release time. Our TAP program has allowed us to discover a total of 1439 issues, 825 of which were discovered unique and fixed. · Benefit from Project 2007’s technical feedback : Thanks to the close technical relationship between Project 2007 and Project 2010’s codebases, we’ve been able to roll-up every single fix (Service Pack, Cumulative Update) from 2007 to 2010. At our release on April 16, Project 2010 already had 3+ years of customer feedback baked into it. These guiding principles have not only shaped the final product, but have had a profound impact on how the Project team designs, develops and tests software for the 2010 release and for releases of Project to come. Today we are marking the official launch of Office and Project 2010 , for those who follow the news around Project however, you have been able to see, hear or even experience the new innovations we are bringing to market in 2010, through one of the many events the Project marketing and product teams have organized following Project Conference 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona last September. With over 1200 registered attendees, 250 partners and a representation of 731 companies from 49 countries and 47 states, Project Conference 2009 was one of the most successful and impactful to date. The buzz and anticipation created during the event was incredible and led up to the unprecedented success of our Project 2010 Beta program . Additionally, the Project 2010 Beta campaign website garnered a significant number of visitors and a very high level of interest from existing as well as new Project users. Finally, the Office 2010 launch today is your opportunity to participate and learn . Please join us at www.the2010event.com to see Project 2010 in action. As you document and share your launch experience , please remember to “tweet” and “RT” and to utilize #join2010 hashtag. Visit www.microsoft.com/project as your one-stop-shop to learn more about Project 2010 today and to download the free trial . Thank you for reading this post, I hope you will enjoy the launch activities and events surrounding the release of Office and Project 2010. Ludo. Ludovic Hauduc – General Manager – Microsoft Project Business Unit

Work management solutions for individuals, teams and enterprises. Hear how Microsoft® Project 2010 increases productivity through simple and intuitive user experiences, reduces costs and drives efficiency through unified project and portfolio management, and delivers a powerful work management platform through familiar and connected tools. The future of productivity is now playing. See it today at www.the2010event.com . Join the Project 2010 Live Q&A What: Project Server 2010 When: 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm (PST), 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm (EST) Date: May 12 th

Project 2010 is now available through multiple channels. See these posts for more information: Project 2010 Professional/Standard and Project Server 2010 are read for download on MSFT Volume Licensing Project Server 2010 Download is Live on MSDN/Technet

If you are an experienced project manager then it’s likely that you are familiar with the Assignment Units field. For those who aren’t, Assignment Units determines the rate at which a resource is assigned to work on a task. This field is set to 100% or the Resource’s Max Units (whichever is the lesser of the two) by default, although it can be less or more depending on the needs of the project manager. In Project 2007, and previous versions, when this value differs from 100% we show it next to the resource name in the Gantt chart. For Project 2010 we’ve made some changes to the way that the Assignment Units field is calculated. Primarily, these changes were made in response to customer feedback about the way calculations were impacted when resources entered overtime work. For this release we’ve clarified the definition of the Peak field and the Assignment Units field which previously had some functional overlap but now fill more defined, separate, roles. As a result of these changes the Assignment Units field is no longer automatically modified to be greater or less than default value of 100%; as a consequence the field does not show up in the Gantt chart as often as it used to. This has led to some confusion which I’m hoping to clear up with this post. For an example of this, see the two screen shots below in which all the three day, fixed duration tasks were increased to 30 hours of work (up from the initial 24 hours of work) after the resource had been assigned to the task: Project 2007 SP2: Project 2010 (Auto Scheduled task and Manually Scheduled task): In Project 2010 we still show Assignment Units in the Gantt when the value is directly altered from 100%, but we have changed the product behavior so that changing scalar work after making an assignment on a task will no longer automatically alter the Assignment Units field as it did in previous versions. To understand the new behavior let’s have a short look at the intent and purpose of Assignment Units. When a resource is initially assigned to a task in Project there are three important values that characterize the assignment: duration, assignment units, and total work. The equation that governs the relationship between these three values is one of the core project scheduling functions, sometimes called the “iron equation of scheduling.” It’s defined: In this way a resource with the standard 8 hour/day calendar assigned at 100% to a 3-day task would be calculated: Thus, the assignment would have 24 hours of total work. But as it turns out, in previous versions of Project we were using the Assignment Units field to track two slightly different aspects of the resource assignments on each task: · Keep track of the workload initially assigned to the resource as detailed above. · Show the maximum workload experienced by or assigned to the resource. Because the field was being asked to do two different things users could experience inconsistent behavior around the extending of task duration in versions of the product prior to 2010. To help resolve this inconsistency we’ve leveraged the Peak field which already handles the second function leaving the Assignment Units field free to track the workload as initially assigned. Here’s an illustrative example: Let’s say that we have a three day, fixed duration task and let’s assign this task to Steven who’s working with the standard 8 hour/day calendar. When we make the assignment we see that Steven has 24 hours of total work for the assignment. This is how it will appear in Project 2007: And now in Project 2010: So far, things are about the same. Now let’s increase the scalar work on the task to 30 hours, that is, change the value for Work in the table on the left from 24 to 30 hours. In both versions we see that the work is distributed evenly (according to the default flat contour) across the three day assignment. Remember, the task is fixed duration not fixed units, so the work assigned will change to accommodate the new increased workload. In Project 2007 the value for Assignment Units increases to 125% to accommodate the change in total work on the assignment: In this example, any increase in the duration of the task would result in work being defined according to the Assignment Units value consistent with 10 hours/day. This is not consistent with the desired behavior for Assignment Units which is to maintain the value at which the resource was initially assigned to the task. According to our iron equation, and customer feedback, the subsequent edit of scalar work should not have caused the Assignment Units value to be altered. In Project 2010 we see that the Assignment Units field has remained at 100% which was the workload initially assigned to the resource while the Peak field has changed to reflect the maximum workload on the resource of 10 hours/day: There are two assertions that we have made in the conceptual framework around the scheduling engine that are now better served by the new differentiation between the Peak field and the Assignment Units field: · Overallocation should only be indicated when the resource is directly assigned more work than a can be completed at the Max Units allocation. Many users used the Assignment Units field as displayed in the Gantt chart as an indicator of overallocation. This was not always accurate. · Increases in task duration should maintain the initial assignment allocation. Here are a couple examples that demonstrate these points: Overallocation Take the previous example’s three day task. Let’s say that Steven worked on the task and entered actuals as shown below. For the first two days he worked 8 hours per day, but on the last day he worked 10 hours to ensure that all work on the task was completed. Here in Project 2007: Note two things here. First, the value for Assignment Units is calculated based on the maximum effort expended by the resource on the task, which in this case is 10 hours on the last day of the assignment. Because of the increase in the value for Assignment Units the relationship between assigned work, duration, and assignment units is not valid for the first two days of the assignment. Additionally, this Assignment Units value will now appear in the Gantt chart seeming to indicate an overallocation even though the Project Manager did not assign Steven to more than 8 hours/day initially. This violates our first scheduling assertion. Now let’s examine how Project 2010 handles the scenario: Here we see the Peak field is still 125% which is consistent with the additional actual work on the last day of the assignment. However, the Assignment Units field remains 100% and will not show an apparent overallocation for the resource consistent with the initial allocation. The scheduling assertion that overallocation only be shown when created by the Project Manager is maintained. Additionally in Project 2010 we’ve added new UI elements that help users more easily identify when a task contains a resource overallocation. The primary element to demonstrate this condition is the red “overallocation indicator” shown next to the task name in the grid: We’ve also provided the Task Inspector which provides more information regarding issues with the assignment, and guides the user to possible solutions: Increased Duration Continuing with the previous example Steven enters 10 hours for the last day of the assignment as previously described and then the Task Duration is extended by two days, the new work would be determined based on the Assignment Units. While this is the correct conceptual behavior we see the following in versions leading up to and including Project 2007: The two new days are assigned at 10 hours per day. It’s unlikely that the Project Manager expects Steven to work at the same rate as he did on Wednesday, so extending the assignment at the rate of 10 hours/day is not expected given the Project Manager’s initial assignment of 8 hours per day. Additionally, the new work has been assigned in a way that will make it impossible for the built-in tools, like resource leveling, to resolve the overallocatio
n and difficult for new/novice users to correct the issue. Simply changing the Assignment Units field back to 100% will not fix the problem; it will just scale the work contour. In Project 2010, we see the following behavior: This is more in line with what the Project Manager might expect and consistent with our conceptual framework. New work should be assigned at the original workload, and the resource should not appear over allocated. In this case we see how we are not more consistently following the Iron Equation when it comes to assigning new work to the resource. Here’s the breakdown: Where the Peak field captures the max (or “Peak”) assignment value of 10 hr/day for the Wednesday of the assignment. Common Questions A couple common questions have cropped up around our new behavior in this area, and I’ll try to address them here. “Allocation units no longer display in the Gantt!” Actually it does. You can still set it manually and it will show up in the Gantt. As previously mentioned some users were relying on the appearance of the Assignment Units field in the Gantt to indicate overallocation on a task but this was not the intended use of the Allocation Units field and was potentially inaccurate way to determine overallocation. Instead we’ve provided the overallocation indicator and the task inspector for this purpose. “Why not show the peak field in the Gantt instead of assignment units?” The display of the Allocation Units in the Gantt chart was meant to inform the user when they have a resource assigned to a task at a value other than 100%. If we show the Peak field in the Gantt there is potential that it would show up even when the user had initially assigned the resource at 100%. One example would be when accepting actual work updates from my tasks. “How is VBA based on the old behavior impacted?” Any script that relied on the Assignment Units field showing the maximum value for the assignment on a task should be altered to reference the Peak field for this information instead. Also, note that edits to the duration or timephased work or actual work for the assignment will no longer impact the Assignment Units field. If you want that field to change when any of these values are altered you must now explicitly set the Assignment Units field directly but also note that changes to the Assignment Units field directly will impact the assignment work (fixed duration) or task duration (fixed units) the same way they did in Project 2007. “What about fixed units tasks?” The only difference between the fixed duration tasks as described in this post and tasks that are defined as fixed units is that when the scalar work on a fixed units task is changed the duration of the task will change to accommodate the additional work. Here’s a demonstration of the “increase scalar work on the task to 30 hours” example from above but using fixed units tasks instead of fixed duration. First Project 2007: And now Project 2010: Because we are working with fixed units tasks, edits to the scalar value for work will not impact either the Assignment Units field or the Peak field. However, if timephased work entry will behave consistent with the behavior observed in the examples for fixed duration tasks. Hopefully this clears up some of the questions around the changes made to the Assignment Units behavior in Project 2010. We feel that the end result is more in line with what users expect from the product, and will resolve some longstanding complaints around overallocation and task extension.

Creating a New PWA Instance 1. Access the Sharepoint 2010 Admin Console and select Manage Service Applications 2. Click on Project Server Service Application 3. Click on Create Project Web Access Site 4. Input the properties of the new project Web App site by selection the Web Application to use and the name of the Project Server databases to use, and press OK to provision the new site.

Reposting from https://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2010/04/07/how-do-you-report.aspx Project wants to know how you report. As we plan for future product improvements, we want to learn more about how you report on your project’s status today. · What tools do you use? · How often do you report on your project’s status? · What data do you care about? · How do you share your reports? · What do you find difficult with your current process? Please send any information you’d like to share to projrep@microsoft.com Screenshots of the reports you use are very useful too – feel free to blur out any confidential data. For example, we just care to see that your report contains late tasks, we don’t need to see the actual tasks that are late. To learn more about Project 2010 reporting improvements, check out this post.

We’re excited to announce that we recently published a new whitepaper by Chris Vandersluis for the