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Friday, November 27, 2015

#Project Online and #ProjectServer - Reporting Enhancements

Reporting is an integral factor to any successful PPM deployment, and Microsoft is continuously investing in reporting capabilities, making it bigger and better.

In this blog post, I will bring together few recent updates to reporting options that can help get the best out of Project (online and on-premises) data, and will share links to all the sources available.

1.      SSRS – SQL Server Reporting Services


SQL Server Reporting Services are amazing, it enables you to create interactive, tabular, and graphical or free form reports from relational, multidimensional, or XML-based data sources. SSRS is the most powerful tool to surface data on to reports till date, from simplest to highly complex reports, SSRS is your tool.

And now there are some good new related to SSRS devotees, Microsoft has recently announced about the number of enhancements to Reporting Services in SQL Server 2016.


SQL Server 2016 preview version is already available for some time now, and Microsoft SQL team has released number of new Reporting services features to preview version:
Few of the highlighted items are as below:

·       Pin Reporting Services report items - Including charts, gauge panels, maps, and images - to Power BI dashboards. Dashboard tiles always show up-to-date data thanks to scheduled refresh. Click a dashboard tile to drill through to the complete Reporting Services report.
·      Design reports using Visual Studio 2015 with an updated version of SQL Server Data Tools.
·       ·      Uses .NET Framework 4.x code in report expressions, report code, referenced assemblies, and extensions for report security, data processing, rendering, or delivery.

Some more details here:
·      ·      Position report parameters the way you want : I am quite excited about this particular enhancement, for the first time ever, you see the Parameters pane in Design view, handing you, the report author, design-time control of parameter positioning:
·       ·      Export reports to PowerPoint
·       ·      Create Treemap and Sunburst charts
·       ·      Design reports in an updated version of Report Builder with a modern theme
·       ·      View and interact with reports in modern browsers (thanks to a new HTML5-based renderer)
·       ·      Print reports from modern browsers (without installing an ActiveX control)

Below is the summary of all the information published till date:


1.      Power BI and Project Online


Power BI is around for some time now, Microsoft Power BI is a collection of online services and features that enables you to find and visualize data, share discoveries, and collaborate in intuitive new ways.


In new Power BI experience, Power BI displays dashboards on the Power BI service that are interactive, and can be created and updated from many different data sources. Based on the same technology as Power View, Power BI Desktop supports existing Power View reports and provides the future path to a HTML5 based interactive report experience on-premises.

In this blog post, I am particularly interested in mentioning how the Project world can take leverage of Power BI offerings.

Lately Power BI team has introduced a Power BI pack for Project online users. The Project Online content pack for Power BI allows you to explore your project data with out-of-box metrics such overdue projects or a burn-down of current project work.

Also with new SSRS capabilities as mentioned above, Pin to Dashboard, we can now pin any existing Project chart to Power BI dashboard very easily. This help an end user in particular, to quickly put together a nice dashboard using several existing SSRS reports without seeking support from technical wizards.

Glimpse of few project reports from Power BI pack are below:


 



Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Announcing Availability of #SharePoint and #ProjectServer 2016 BETA 2 versions

A while ago I have shared about the release of SharePoint and Project Server 2016 preview versions, available for users to install only for evaluation purposes.

And here comes another great news, Microsoft has recently announced general availability of Project Server and SharePoint 2016 Beta 2 versions.

Earlier this month, November 2015, at European SharePoint conference 2015 Microsoft’s top leadership has made this big announcement. Jeff Teper, Microsoft’s corporate vice president OneDrive and SharePoint, has announced in a conference that:

SharePoint 2016 Beta 2 will be released before the end of November, and should be out before US Thanksgiving (November 26). It will be 99 percent feature complete, so we should get a better view of what SharePoint 2016 RTM will actually look like.

The Beta version is available to download and use, only for evaluation purposes. You can find links to relevant sources at end of this post.

Now as Microsoft has announced that it’s a 99% feature complete release, which means that we can safely anticipate about what we going to receive as RTM release in next year. I would like to quickly bullet point the updates to Beta version since the Preview version.

·       Profile synchronization with Microsoft Identity Manager
·       ·       Data Loss Prevention
·       ·       Extensible Hybrid App Launcher
·       ·       Profile Redirection

Please note, for Preview version users, that you will not be able to upgrade from SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview to Beta 2. You have to implement it as a fresh installation.

And here are the links to all the sources and download page for SharePoint and Project Server 2016 Beta:
Title
SharePoint 2016
Project Server 2016
Download SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2, this also includes Project Server 2016 Beta 2 binaries as an improvement to the current deployment process. Project Server will be available as a service just like other SharePoint services.

Announcement about SharePoint Server 2016 and Project Server Beta 2 Versions Quick Start Guide

Explore SharePoint Server 2016 Beta 2

Explore Project Server 2016 Beta 2



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