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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 which further strengthens Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Solution. The integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a considerable advancement for organizations that want to bridge the collaboration gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams. The Feature Pack will enable teams to work together more effectively by: Providing up to date insight into portfolio execution, alignment with strategic objectives, and resource utilization of software development projects by leveraging the quantitative data stored in different systems. Automating the exchange and sharing of project information across teams and improving coordination between teams using disparate methodologies, like waterfall and agile, via common data and agreed upon metrics. Enabling development and project management teams to collaborate and communicate project timeline and progress using familiar tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Project, and SharePoint. Our Microsoft IT team has been using the Feature Pack internally for a while. As in many organizations, the software development teams and the project management teams weren’t collaborating as effectively as they could. Tools, even methodologies, were different and didn’t talk to each other. Now after implementing the Feature Pack, developers don’t have to spend time getting status updates, there is much better schedule alignment between teams and there is better visibility and clarity overall! “By sharing data more efficiently, the team was able to reduce weekly time spent in status meetings to two hours from 20 hours. Now developers and project managers can focus on their work instead of spending hours each week in status report meetings, and managers can make better, data-driven decisions. In addition, managers and developers have streamlined access to information they need and have better insight into the entire ALM process.” – Michael Lucas, Senior Program Management Lead in Microsoft IT at Microsoft One of our partners in Brazil that has the Microsoft ALM competency, TechResult, has also deployed the Feature Pack with the following the results: “Team Foundation Server provides visibility and traceability all over my Project. Project Server provides governance across my organization. By integrating them I can extract the best from an ALM platform.” – Daniel Franco Abrahão de Oliveira, ALM Team Manager, at TechResult Now, you can download the Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack from MSDN download center . We will continue publishing additional resources in the coming weeks, such as a demo Virtual Machine with a presenter script, additional case studies, and more- so stay tuned and we’ll let you know via this blog when they are available! Below are some of the key resources available now: Solutions For Application Lifecycle Management: https://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/solutions/management White papers: Reconciling the Agile Team with Enterprise Project Management PDF – XPS Project and Work Management with Project Server 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010: PDF – XPS MSDN Product documentation (scenarios, installation, configuration): https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/gg455680.aspx MSDN Public Forums: Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsprojectsrvint I urge you to take a look at connecting your software development and project management teams with today’s release. Questions and Answers Q. Is there a demo virtual machine (VM) with this feature pack and sample data I can use? A. We are working on a demo VM that will include the RTM version of the feature pack (along with all the pre-requisites) that will showcase the integration between Project Server 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010; this VM will includes detailed demo scripts. Expect a release around the April 2011 timeframe. Until then you can use the CTP demo VM released last July 2010. 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. Please read this article Operational Differences in Managing Projects Using Team Foundation and Project for more information. Q. Are there any prerequisites or dependencies for this Feature Pack? A. Dependencies are: Team Foundation Server 2010 + Service Pack 1 (SP1) –> KB article: TFS 2010 SP1 Changes Visual Studio 2010 + SP1 –> KB article: VS 2010 SP1 Changes Project Server 2010 or 2007 For a detailed description of dependencies and prerequisites please check this MSDN article: System and Setup Requirements to Support Integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server . Please check out Brian Harry’s post for additional information: VS/TFS 2010 SP1 and TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack have Released Q. What MSDN Subscription level is required to download the Feature Pack? 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. Christophe Fiessinger Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Project https://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie

Effective immediately, Microsoft announces the Exchange Online Service Level Agreement (SLA) has been updated to include service level components for virus and spam protection delivered by Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE).

Our latest blog post features another video from our BPOS Support series . In this video we learn how to Troubleshoot Access and Connectivity to Microsoft Online Services Portals . Microsoft Online Services can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. Portals allow for secure connections to your company’s Microsoft Online Services accounts. The video below will take you through troubleshooting tips and tricks for Portals. Learn more about Microsoft Online Services with our other support and how to blog posts . What support videos would you like to see? We want to hear from you in the comments section below or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

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 two stories that illustrate why public sectors are moving to the Cloud with Microsoft. 1. Microsoft Sees Increasingly Rapid Adoption of Its Cloud Computing Services Among U.S. Government, Education Organizations Last week Microsoft U.S. held the Public Sector CIO Summit in which Microsoft announced cloud computing pacts with 16 more government and education organizations. Our first BPOS story takes a closer look at the recent announcement and increasingly popular adoption of Cloud Computing in the public sector. Curt Kolcun, VP of U.S. Public Sector at Microsoft, talked about why Government and Education establishments are looking to the cloud, “Public sector organizations are looking for enterprise-grade cloud solutions, and that means providing high levels of security, functionality and support,” Kolcun said. “We’re seeing government and education organizations of every size and dimension using Microsoft cloud solutions to help reduce costs and increase productivity in support of their missions.” The new Microsoft cloud computing customers are detailed in the article from Microsoft News Center . They include Vanderbilt University, public schools in Portland, and local governments like the city of Chicago. Check out the entire article here to learn why government and education organizations are choosing to go the Cloud with Microsoft. What do you think of the announcements made in this press release from Microsoft? Do you want your local governments to move to the Cloud? Leave your comments below. 2. Microsoft Unveils Public Sector Cloud Deals In our second BPOS article , we unveil more public sector cloud deals for Microsoft. This Information Week article further outlines some of the public sector announcement made by Microsoft. There is in depth coverage and quotes coming from the Public Sector CIO Summit that adds more context to this week’s stories. The article features a quote from Gail Thomas-Flynn, VP of Microsoft state and local government, who talks about competition with Google. “Google is coming at it from a completely online, more consumer orientation,” said Gail Thomas-Flynn, Microsoft’s vice president of state and local government, in an interview Wednesday. “With Google it’s cloud only. … But what if you’re in the cloud and you want to come back on premise? With Microsoft, you have that option.” The interview with Gail Thomas-Flynn provides some more context around why these public sectors are choosing Microsoft. I recommend that you read this article to gain a third party perspective of the Public Sector CIO event. Be sure to leave your thoughts and 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.

One question that came up recently was around the different behavior when starting from the same template but creating a new plan in Project Professional 2010 or in PWA through the Project Center or via the Project Web Service Method CreateProjectFromTemplate.

Below is another video from our BPOS Support series . In this video we learn how to Troubleshoot Missing Items in SharePoint Online . SharePoint Online is a powerful web based collaborative tool that is a part of Microsoft Online Service. The video below will assist administrators and users troubleshoot missing items in SharePoint Online. This is a very helpful video that will increase your productivity through identifying what happened to missing items. Some ways an item could go missing include: Deleted and in Recycle Bin of a SharePoint site or site collection Hidden because of the View settings of its SharePoint list or document library or misconfigured Web Part. If you use SharePoint Online, then be sure to take a look at the video below. Learn more about Microsoft Online Services with our other support and how to blog posts . What support videos would you like to see? We want to hear from you in the comments section below or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

Great white paper published in January from Microsoft Business Intelligence team: Choose the right business intelligence technology to suit your style (white paper) From the white paper’s introduction: This white paper discusses five different styles of BI reporting: Self-Service Analysis – Self-Service Analysis describes free-form reporting and analysis by users so that they can integrate data from disparate sources and drill-down and understand the root cause for data anomalies. These non-technical users value the ability to perform their own reporting and analysis without relying on IT or others. Business Reporting – This style describes formatted reports that are created by advanced business users or analysts. Reports are typically based upon approved corporate data, and then shared more broadly with managers, teams, or departments. In this style, IT involvement is moderate, usually overseeing the distribution and monitoring of the reporting environment and building of the structured data layer upon which the reports are built. Parameterized & Operational Reporting – Similar to the Business Reporting style, Parameterized &Operational Reporting is also characterized by fixed-format reports. The reports, however, are authored and managed by IT instead of business users and usually follow a pixel perfect format and rendering style. Consistency, scalability, manageability, and automated distribution are some of the key characteristics of this style. Performance Monitoring – This style describes dashboard-style reports that allow users to quickly and easily monitor the performance of their business. This style is catered to executive level or department leadership who require at-a-glance visibility on the health of the business, but it often also permits further investigation via interactivity. Scorecarding – Scorecarding is a style that describes highly summarized views with Key Performance Indicators (or KPIs) measured and scored against predefined targets such as a balanced scorecard. This style is generally a part of a performance management program, though it can also be used to measure operational performance. This white paper provides readers a practical guide on how to identify both which BI style is being used as well as the tools that best fit each of the styles. The white paper outlines the following: The key characteristic of the BI style in the Description section. The Tool Options to consider along with the recommended “Best Fit” for the characteristics of the style Infrastructure considerations A Case Study highlighting how the “best fit” technology was used to support that style

Microsoft announces expanded BPOS-Standard support for the Mac OS with the introduction of a new Microsoft Online Services Sign In application that supports the recently released Office for Mac 2011 . The new Sign In application for Mac OS is scheduled to be available by the end of March 2011. In addition to support for Office for Mac 2011, the new Sign In application includes a number of bug fixes and enhancements that improve the performance and stability of the application for the Mac OS.

Following the release of Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) last week, and following a session I attended on the benefits of SP1 in Hyper-V I wanted to try it out on the base SharePoint Server and Project Server 2010 demo virtual machine you all have access to ( https://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9728417 ). Basically the two two features with SP1 are Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX (yes there are plenty of content on TechNet, see this for instance for more information Hyper-V Dynamic Memory Configuration Guide :

Changing Single Entry Mode (SEM) isn’t going to be an every day occurrence for most customers so hopefully not too many people will run in to this one – but it can take a while to work out what has happened to your tasks if you do happen to get caught out by this one.