Create/Manage Issue/Risk List Centrally using Content Type - Part 1

This is sort of a refresher blog, posted originally sometime back by fellow consultant and Project MVP Andrew Lavinsky and which you can find it here. In this blog i will define the Content type and its uses in two parts, that is how to manage the Project site metadata centrally. And how to hide the default not required columns from the Issue/Risk forms without breaking the sync, since you might already aware that the out of the box fields of Risk/Issue list cannot be removed/changed else you will end up with a mess.

So in this first part, i will define how to create/manage centrally Issue and Risk list metadata using Content types. And this procedure is applicable to both versions, i.e. Project Server 2007 and Project Server 2010.

You can define Content types to organize, manage, and handle content in a consistent way across a site collection within a Sharepoint farm. So basically you can create a content type for Issue or Risk list, and can control the list metadata from a central interface, any changes i will do can be trickle down to the existing or the newly created Project Sites. Changes in the Issue/Risk list could be quite often and this can save the life of poor system administrator as the administrator don't have to do the changes in every project site, he can manage the changes from the central location. 

Next i will create list content type for Project Site Issues list, and will walk you through the steps to define and manage the content type. Please be aware that in a similar fashion, content type can be created for Risk, project documents etc. etc. 

1. Create content type on the top level site in site collection, i.e. PWA. Go to Site Settings, Under the section galleries click Site Content Type:

2. Select create button:

3. Name the content type as Project Issue, select the type as List content type and i prefer to categorize the content types in their relevant group to make it easier to find later:

4. This will redirect you to the configuration page, from here you can create all the required data:

5. I will create Issue Number field for demonstration purposes only:

The content type for Issue list is created, ideally i should incorporate this content type to the Project site template but for the demonstration purposes i will just add this to one of my existing project site.


6. Open the Project Site, click on Issues lists and select list settings:

7. From there, select Advanced Settings:

8. Set the list to allow the Management of Content Type:

 9. After the changes are applied, you will be back to the settings page where you can see that Project Issue content type is already deployed:

10. From here, add new content type:

11. Once done, you can now set the newly added content type as the default one to be used. You can also keep more than one Issue tracking list based on different methodology from here:

12. You can now add all the list columns to this new content type. Go to the list settings, and click on the new Project Issue content type:

13. Select from the available columns box and add them all:

That's it, we are all done and set to use our centrally created content type Project Issue list. To verify this, create new Issue by clicking on Add new item:

And you must see on the form the column i have created, it automatically picks up any column you create in future and saves you the hassle of adding new column while browsing to the every project site. 

In my next post i will show the steps to achieve one of the most received request from the clients, that is to hide some of the default columns from the form. You might already aware that we cannot simply delete/modify the default Issue/Risk columns in order to remove them from the form, as it will break the synchronization. But the good news is that you can hide those not required default columns from the form without deleting them, yes you heard it rite without delete :). And that you can only do if you use the content type. 

Any comments/appreciation is widely welcome as usual.

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Project Server 2010 - Resource Picker on PDP

Recently I came across a customer request that: How to select a resource from Project server  group by the Project Manager, or have resource picker web-part,  in the Project Detail Page (PDP)? I stumble upon this query and thought I should write a detail blog because the answer is that there is no OOB way of achieving this. - surprised!

Now you might can see this as one of the very common request, where the user has to mention the Project stakeholder or Project sponsor details on project detail page for reporting purposes. Your first guess might be to use the project owner web part for such purpose, but soon you will realize that its one of the default system behaviour and you cannot utilize owner field for anything else but to define the owner of the project. Moreover the irony is that there is no resource picker webpart available for such requirement as well. So how to collect Project Sponsor information? One way, or the easiest way, could be to create a enterprise custom project text field for the PDP and capture the information in plain text format. But this doesn't sound very attractive, isn't it? 

So in this blog I will show you the usage of Project Server solution starter called Autocomplete web part,  that kind of meet this requirement. 

1. Download the latest version of Solution starter from here.
2. UnZip the PDPCustomizaton folder
3. Go to the Deployment folder and edit the deploy.bat file and set the URL with your PWA URL.
Although the Readme document file comprises of steps to deploy the webpart is already there, but for the sake of putting everything in one place i am mentioning the deployment steps also.

4. Run command prompt as an administrator and execute Deploy.bat.

5. Once successfully deployed and activated you can then go to the server settings, create enterprise project custom field single line text called "Project Sponosor'", and click project detail pages section of PWA.

6. Click on the name of new project Project detail page to edit

7. Click Add web part, and select PDP Customization -> Autocomplete web part and click Add button.

8. Edit web part setting by clicking Edit Web Part. Select the enterprise project custom field of PDP you want to appear as resource picker and select the group from where you want to select the resource for that custom field.

9. When done apply the changes to the project detail page and stop editing. Now open the page and you will see the Project Sponsor field with the picker icon next to it. Click on the icon will allow you to select from the group's resources as Project Sponsor.

At run time the web-part changes the behavior of project custom field to appear just like a resource picker would, and allowing the user to select the resource from the group that will then save in the project custom text field.


This is one easy way of achieving the desired requirement, however the option of developing a custom web-part to achieve this is always available. Hope to see some comments if this helps you by any means.

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Project Server 2010 SP1 Download available!

Microsoft Project Server 2010 SP1 is now available to download.


Microsoft Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) provides the latest updates for Project Server 2010. 
This service pack includes two main categories of fixes:

• Previously unreleased fixes that were made specifically for this service pack. In addition to general product fixes, these fixes include improvements in stability, performance, and in security.
• All the public updates that were released through June 2011, and all the cumulative updates that were released through April 2011.

You can go download this workbook to browse the complete list of fixes this SP1 provides to Project Server. Just for reminder that the webcast covers the details of the SP1 is on 6th July, those interested to attend can register here.

happy downloading and patching, and do share you comments regarding the release and experience.

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Gartner rating for MS EPM

Some more good news for the enterprises seeking to have the best Project Portfolio management solution to help the business processes.  Microsoft EPM received the highest rating possible in the recently released Gartner Project and Portfolio Applications MarketScope.

The MarketScope is an evaluation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the MarketScope, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This MarketScope graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research note and should be evaluated in the context of the entire report

You can visit gartner Marketscope Project and Portfolio Management  site for more details.

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Project Server 2010 Collaboration - Sync of excel data with List (both directions)

One of the 'great' advantages of having Enterprise Project Management solution in-place is to have effective ways of information sharing between the Project team members. Being developed on top of the sharepoint architecture, it already inherits all the sharepoint features and options to leverage Project team members to help them collaborate in better ways.

Often i came across to the clients ultimate wish out of the solution is to have impressive/color-ful/state-of-the-art reporting to please the higher-ups. And what bothers me more is the kool after-thought response of the users related to the adaptability planning of the solution. Because a Project Management solution is a cultural change, at least I think like this, and the project to roll-out such cultural change can never be a success unless the adaptability plan would be ready upfront.

I usually present Enterprise Project Management Solution to my clients/users/customers divided as 4 pillars. And one of the most overlooked pillar, in my experience, is the Collaboration part of the solution.

I will touch the Collaboration part a little in this post, since its a huge domain to cover, in terms of features the product offers, the usability etc. etc. I have always been a vocal supporter of the use of excel sheet, for various stuff, in parallel while managing Projects. My focus in this post would be on how effectively the whole office suite can work together to enhance the project teams information sharing effort. And to be more precise about the post topic, I would explain how to create and sycn excel spreadsheet with SharePoint site in both ways, i.e. from spreadsheet to SharePoint list and from SharePoint list to excel spreadsheet.

In excel 2010 the capability to synchronize spreadsheet with sharepoint list is not available, yes unfortunately this is the fact of life :),  so we have to go little over the top to cover this deficiency of the excel 2010.

• Download and install: Excel 2007 add-in: Synchronizing tables with Sharepoint lists.

• Create or open excel spreadsheet, make sure if you open a saved file it must be .xls
• Create an excel table

• from the ribbon menu, select Design tab, and click Publish and allow sync

• enter the sharepoint site name

• click publish, and the table will be published on the sharepoint list with all the data you have just feed-in.

I can hear some WOWs .... :), but this is not it. you can also change the data of the same list and sync it back with your spreadsheet.

• change some data in the list, eg. insert few more rows

• go back to the spreadsheet, rite click on the table, select table option and click on synchronize with SharePoint.

and there you go, your data is synchronized in both directions. 

Office suite together with Project Server can help enterprise to execute the business smoothly and effectively. There could be many scenarios where the above solution can help the Project team save time and effort.

Happy synchronizing, and as usual you value-able feedback is always welcome.

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Project Server 2010 - Another great SP1 feature

June is here and so is the Project Server 2010 SP1 release date :)

Just want to share with you another one of the great feature you can look for in SP, and that is to 'Automatically Publish the updates' to the projects. SP1 can let you set the option of publishing the updates to the projects automatically if the update qualifies to one of your rules. In past, I have developed a custom utility for one of my client who need to bulk publish the changes to the project so that the PM do not follow this step as part of the updates to the project. And i can see this option now as of a great use to such requirements, for more details you can see the Christophe's blog about this.

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Project Server 2010 - I like it and Tags & Notes

I came across this query from one of my customer, and i think its a good share since i cannot see much about this in case of Project Server. As we all are already aware that Project Server 2010 is build on top of Sharepoint 2010, and in sharepoint 2010 some improved and enhanced user colloboration features were introduced. 'I Like it' and 'Tags and Notes' are to name a few, they can provide you facebook etc. sort of social communication capabilities while staying in the sharepoint portal. Since it appears in Project Server Project Web App that is users home page automatically as part of the sharepoint feature, it would not be very unlikely that your users wants it to be removed from the PWA.

The question was: How can we remove this from the PWA?

The solution is to deactivate the feature from the farm and it will disappear from the PWA page. Open Central Administration, go to the System settings and click Manage Farm Features

 

Scroll the page and look for the feature: Social Tags and Note Board Ribbon Controls and deactivate the feature.

And this will remove the feature from your PWA page.

Keep checking the blog as i might write about the use of the these features in details in my next post. Also If this helps you, please feel more than welcome to share or leave your coments on the page.

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Project Server 2010 - SP1 Features in detail

In continuation to my Project Server 2010 SP1 announcement blog, i have just discovered in detail about few of the 'great' fixes the SP1 will bring based on the huge requests of the users. And they are:

1. Time-phased support for manually scheduled tasks
2. Improvements to project scheduling in Project Web App

Time-phased support for manually scheduled tasks:

Microsoft introduced the manual scheduling or user-controlled scheduling in Project 2010, which is a collection of features designed to give you more control over how tasks are scheduled. This gives you more control over your schedule but one of the areas you didn’t have control was editing timephased data for them. With Project 2010 SP1 you can now edit timephased data for manually scheduled tasks on the Project Client and Project Server. For more details, see this.

Improvements to project scheduling in Project Web App:

With introduction to the ability to create/edit Project schedule through Project Web App. One of the limitations though was that the only way to edit projects that contained Fixed Work or Effort Driven tasks was to use Project Professional 2010. Project Web App only allow you to edit or create project with Fixed Unit tasks. With Project 2010 SP1 you can now edit project plans containing Fixed Work tasks and Effort Driven tasks in Project Web App. For more details about this new fix, click this.

I am sure most of us, Project Server Consultants, were eagerly needed the above fixes as often it was hard to convince the users about limitations of scheduling through Project Web App. 

Until the next post, happy Projecting ... :)

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Project Server 2010 SP1 Release date

Microsoft revealed this week that it is on track to ship the first service pack for Office 2010 by the end of June. Office 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) will be made available for the Office productivity suites, the Office Web Apps, and SharePoint 2010, and will provide functional changes as well as bug fixes, Microsoft says. And with this release, Microsoft will also be officially supporting Google's Chrome browser in the Office Web Apps.

SP1 releases for both Office client suites and SharePoint server products will be made available. All language versions of SP1 will release simultaneously. Initially, Service Pack 1 will be offered as a manual download from the Download Center and from Microsoft Update, and no sooner than 90 days after release, will be made available as an Automatic Update.

• Outlook fixes an issue where “Snooze Time” would not reset between appointments.
• The default behavior for PowerPoint "Use Presenter View" option changed to display the slide show on the secondary monitor. 
• Integrated community content in the Access Application Part Gallery. 
• Better alignment between Project Server and SharePoint Server browser support.
• Improved backup / restore functionality for SharePoint Server
• The Word Web Application extends printing support to “Edit Mode.”
• Project Professional now synchronizes scheduled tasks with SharePoint task lists.
• Internet Explorer 9 “Native” support for Office Web Applications and SharePoint
• Office Web Applications Support for Chrome 
• Inserting Charts into Excel Workbooks using Excel Web Application 
• Support for searching PPSX files in Search Server 
• Visio Fixes scaling issues and arrowhead rendering errors with SVG export
• Proofing Tools improve spelling suggestions in Canadian English, French, Swedish and European Portuguese.  
• Outlook Web Application Attachment Preview (with Exchange Online only) 
• Office client suites using “Add Remove Programs” Control Panel.

For more details, go through the MS official update site: http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2011/05/16/announcing-service-pack-1-for-office-2010-and-sharepoint-2010.aspx

Look forward to SP1..

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Project Server - Working offline with the Project

Quite often i have seen post on Project Forums regarding working on Projects in offline mode. The good news is that Project Server does allow users to take the Project offline and work, and when connected back to the server can synchronize the changes back to the server. But there are certain steps needs to be followed to accomplish this to avoid corruption of project data OR to end up with different versions of project files on the server.

First, you'll have to take a project "offline." In this process the project is stored in the cache on the computer you're using to take it offline. To take the project schedule offline:

• File - Info - Manage Accounts - Work Offline

•  File - Close
• Specify "Save" the file; "Keep project checked out"; and click OK

•  Close and exit Project Professional.

Now, to open and work on Project offline:

• Open Project Professional and connect in offline mode.
• Click "Work Offline."

In case you want to verify that you really are working on the Project offline, you can always check the 'connected' indicator at the left bottom of the Ms Project. A globe with the red mark reflects that the Ms Project is open in the offline mode, and the globe without the red mark appears while connected with the server.

Once connected in a offline mode, you can open the Project schedule from the cache. To open the Project file from the cache:

• Click File | Open.
• Click on the project schedule to open.
• Click Open.

You can now update the project in the offline mode. The reason, we have checked-out the project and then disconnected from the server, is to prevent the change in the project schedule at the same time from a different user. After you've made your changes, save and close the project schedule:

• File - Save.
• File - Close

While doing this, you must aware about this important step that: Don't check in the Project schedule. Just close Project Professional.

To bring an offline project back online and synchronize with the server: 

• Open Project Professional and connect to Project Server
• Make sure that the lower right corner indicates that you're connected to the server:
• File - Open.
• Select the project plan and click Open (do not double click the Retrieve Projects from the server)

You can now verify, from the status bar, that Ms Project is connected with the server and your offline Project schedule changes are automatically synchronized with the server.

Save the Project schedule to the server, and Publish (if required). And there you go, you have updated the Project schedule offline and synchronized it back to the server successfully.

Please drop a line if you find it useful, and happy scheduling.

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