Deliverables

In order to export the deliverables and manage them on SharePoint site do the following:
1. Open the project in Project Professional
2. From Collaborate menu click on Manage Deliverables

3. Click on the task (ideally milestone) that you want to publish to the web as deliverable
4. From the left hand side click on Add New Deliverable..
5. Tick Link to Selected Task
6. Give the Deliverable a name (example project finish date)
7. Click Done

Pushing Project Professional 2007 Users’ Configurations

Have you ever had a requirement to push the configurations of Project Professional to the users (so they don’t have to go Project Server Accounts, add account, etc)?
It is quite frequent requirement from my clients these days because:
a) They don’t want to add overhead on their users
b) Minimizing the support calls

So after spending a very little effort comparing two images of clients' O/S, one with Project Pro configured and one without configuration you can see the difference in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\MS Project\Profiles\"Path"=http://servername/PWA


So I guess to push this configuration you can use roaming profile or even it in group policy so that users can't screw it up, but one of my clients checked the ADM files and this isn't an option unless you write a custom policy.

The Seup configuration file FILES\Setup\config.xml is not valid

When insatllting project server (or any other office server) the languge of the server should allign with the O/S languge setting, if not you get the following message:








The Seup configuration file FILES\Setup\config.xml is not valid. Run setup again without using a setup configuration file, or fix the configuration file.

BTW: do not forget to restart the server if you change the O/S languge setting before trying the set up

So they say Project Professional is an Effort Driven Application

So they say Project Professional is an “Effort Driven Application”.... hmmmm what does that mean? I have been asked this question for like million times, the answer.... well technically is from project professional (or standard) tools menu, options, schedule tab and there is a very little check box which says “New tasks are effort driven”

But what does that actually mean, well it means that Work in constant, huh but what does that mean? It means that Microsoft Project Professional will keep the work value of any task constant if you make any changes to the tasks assignments units or duration, based on the following equation:

Work = Duration X Assignment Units

Example: let us say that you have a task A that you have said it is 2 days in duration, then you assigned a resource X to work 100% on the task, then the work will be 2 days based on the equation:
Work = 2 X 100/100 = 2

Then let us say that you said: you know what I would like resource Y to work on the same task as 100% as well, hmmmm, what happens is that you are changing the Assignments Units, but we said that MS Project is Effort Driven, so it will keep the value of work constant (i.e. work = 2) then what is left to calculate, well it is Duration....

2= Duration X 200/100, Duration = 1 Day

Hence MS Project reduces the duration of the task (assuming the task’s work is constant). And that what actually happens when assign a resource (using the assign resources button) then you assign another resource or change the resources assignment’s units, MS Project changes the task’s duration (but usually it is not what you want to do)
Conclusions:
1. Because Ms Project is an Effort Driven application it is meant to estimate WORK (i.e. effort) of your tasks and then assign resources to calculate the duration. So Do Not Estimate Duration.
2. If you want to estimate duration and then calculate work, then make sure that you:
a. Untick the option “New tasks are effort driven”
b. Change the task type (from the same tab) to “Fixed Duration”
3. Do Not Use the assign resources button, instead go to Window Menu and click on Split. There you can control all the parameters of the equation plus the “effort driven” and the “task type” all in one place.

4. Microsoft should’ve added work column to the standard Gantt Chart view J, not just the duration column, it is as if they encourage users to estimate duration but at the same time assumes that work is the bases of estimation... and I think it is confusing a lot of users Project Managers)

And I start blogging

I have been thinking of blogging since a very long time, but I always had the question of Why? why people blog? and I guess I finally got it, it is not to keep your market value high but it is to document your thoughts, ideas and knowledge so you can remember them later :-) Anyway this blog I am dedicating for my passion about the Microsoft Project Management solution (known as EPM) and all the technologies around it and these are:

1. Project Professional
2. Project Server
3. SharePoint (both WSS and MOSS)
4. SQL Server
5. Microsoft Portfolio Server
6. IIS
7. and even Windows
   
   I don't mean to keep it technical blog only but actually I want to document both my technical and business experience and thoughts online and see how it is growing.
   So if you here enjoy, if you are not, don't worry you don't know about this blog anyway :-)