projectified

Cool Sample PSI Apps and OLAP Info

Chris Boyd and Brian Smith do it again.

Check here for two cool sample applications, one for showing how to create, read and update custom fields via the PSI and another used for reading custom field data and then publishing projects, again via the PSI.

Check here for good info about OLAP cubes, Data Analysis (timeouts, plan guides and the tempdb)

Project and Project Server SP1 Are Here!

The haters should note the date please. :-)

This TechNet article covers the how to (Read it before you update):

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/c3b86049-7cba-4b9c-8335-e37fb6e7518a1033.mspx?mfr=true

Here is WSS SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4191A531-A2E9-45E4-B71E-5B0B17108BD2&displaylang=en

Here is Office Servers SP1 (which includes Project Server and Office SharePoint Server):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ad59175c-ad6a-4027-8c2f-db25322f791b&DisplayLang=en

Here is Project 2007 SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CEC3E1E2-D802-4A03-BC78-05C48472559B&displayLang=en

Here is the Project Server MUI SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D322BA67-B199-4503-8AFF-6813B320D708&displaylang=en

Here is the Office Server MUI SP1:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A6C26FD-0BEB-40D5-8CBA-15164FAAB150&displaylang=en

And for Good Measure here is the Office 2007 SP1 download:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC51594-992C-4165-A997-25DA01F388F5&displaylang=en

What's in Your Bag?

I have seen these posts in a few places so here is mine. Here is a list of everything in my Laptop bag:

1. Timbuk2 Large padded laptop bag. There are two sizes, get the bigger one. I have also noticed that Timbuk2 started making a version of this bag out of a lessor material. Mine has a backing on the inside of the outer material that is waterproof. The new ones do not have this. Not sure it matters since I'm not planning on getting it wet. :-) Great bag! Holds everything and is tough. I have had this bag almost a year and it looks brand new!
2. Toshiba M5
3. Spare laptop battery
4. iGo charger for laptop and phone
5. Cingular 8525 Phone (If Cingular reads this PLEASE release the upgrade to 6.0. PLEASE!!!)
6. Zune for music
7. IPod 30gig Video for Video (when the Zune lets you get TV shows I will can my IPod)
8. Cannon Powershot SD30 camera
9. GPS sensor for Streets and Trips
10. Bag with about 10 different USB cables (Ipod, Zune, Phone, etc) plus small screwdrivers, etc
11. Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000. Great if you are on the road and have small kids. Video chat through Live Messenger is not the same as being home but it helps my daughter!
12. Microsoft LifeChat ZX-6000 Wireless headset.
13. 80 gig USB hard drive (Music, Document backups, etc)
14. 320 gig USB hard drive (Virtual machine library, full machine backups)
15. 4gig USB Flash Drive
16. 10 foot Network cable
17. Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000. Coolest\Geekiest mouse EVER. Bluetooth so you don't need to waste a USB slot on it. Just the right size and if you press a button and turn it over it has PowerPoint slide controls and a laser pointer!
18. Compact USB hub
19. Ziploc with tiny packets of decongestant, Ibuprofen, etc)
20. Small Moleskine notebook
21. Large quad rules Moleskine notebook
22. One novel (Right now it is an old Horatio Hornblower), one non-fiction book (Right now it is Halberstam's Best and the Brightest)
23. Travel Document holder for tickets, receipts and the like
24. CPR Kit (gloves and and mouth to mouth mask) (because you never know when you might need it)

Live Writer is Amazing (Now)

When I first tried Live Writer a while back it was 'OK' but just 'OK'. It did most of the things that other posting apps did but it did not blow me away.

I just downloaded it today after being reminded about it in Christophe's post today. Wow. They did a lot of work on this application.

One of the things I like the best is that it has a Web Layout view that obviously goes up to your provider and gets your template layout and sizes the editing page to match the settings of your blog.

It also does the things you would expect like grabbing your categories and doing things like spell check and other formatting. It also does a good job of making image insertions easy. It has built in defaults for auto-thumbnailing your images but also makes it easy to save your preferences as the new default.

It also provides an addin model so you can extend the functionality of the tool. Addins include adding custom "BlogThis" extensions to various browsers (as you would expect) but also to tools like Visual Studio (making it easier to blog your code directly from VS.) Others include an addin that makes it easy to post links to items in SkyDrive, insert streaming Sliverlight applications or link to Flickr pages.

Nice Work Team! Check out the Writer Team Blog for the scoop.

The Rest of the Man Cage

Some people asked about the Man Cage. Here it is in full context. You can see that it goes all the way up the first flight. The last thing you want is bears on the roof! This picture also shows how the building is up on pilings so there is a lot of room under the building where someone on the stairs cannot see.

Programmatic Access to Enterprise Custom Fields in Project Server 2007

If you have poked around VBA in Project Professional 2007 you may have noticed that there is not what I would call "direct" object model access to the enterprise custom fields you create in Project Server 2007. For one thing these fields are not like they were in Project Server 2003. In 2003 you got 30 Outline Code fields and you renamed them but via VBA you still accessed the field as OutlineCodeXX. In 2007 you create enterprise fields 'from scratch.' They are not just renamed fields. They are new fields. The object model is not dynamic in a way that allows it to add new members as they are created. This means that you cant just get to a field by the old method: Activeproject.Tasks(1).OutlineCode1.

To access an Enterprise Task field called "Task Alignment" you would use the following code:

Activeproject.Tasks(1).GetField(FieldID:=Application.FieldNameToFieldConstant(FieldName:="INSERT FIELD NAME),FieldType:=pjTask)

You use the GetField method. This method requires the FieldID. To get the FieldID (since it is unlikely you know it) you use the FieldNametoFieldConstant method.

Default Assignment Owner

There are situations where the team members that are doing the actual work on tasks do not have ready access to a computer. This makes their use of Project Server Web Access to report status on their task assignments impossible or at least highly unlikely. In the past situations like this would require assigning the tasks to a supervisor and then having the supervisor submit status for the resources. But this was not a great solution as it obscured the usage levels of the actual resources and was confusing for the supervisor to keep track of who was assigned to any given task. Project Server 2007 adds a feature that makes this kind of situation much easier to handle.

Every Assignment on a project in Project Server has a property called "Assignment Owner" that contains the name of the Project Server user that will be entering status updates for that assignment. If the Assignment Owner for an assignment is "Brian Kennemer" then it will show up on my "My Tasks" page in PWA. Every resource in Project Server has a property called "Default Assignment Owner." This property defines the default name that is put into the Assignment Owner field when that resource is assigned to a task. By default it is the name of the resource but you can put any active user into the field for a resource. So in our situation above the solution would be to put the name of the supervisor into the Default Assignment Owner field for each of their team members. Then whenever a task is assigned to one of the team members that assignment will show up on the My Tasks page of the supervisor.

With this solution the tasks are assigned to actual team members so their usage and availability can be accurately tracked and the assignments show up on the supervisors My Tasks page for easy status updates (the name of the assigned resource shows up in the view to help the supervisor keep track.)

If you have this situation in your deployment look into this feature. If you need a hand drop me an email.

Blogging from Word 2007, Again

OK. Maybe I'm the only one that does not know this already but I will post it just in case I'm not the only one. ;-) During the beta of Word 2007 I first looked at blogging from Word 2007. It was pretty cool but it killed me that it did not go up and get my categories from TypePad (my blog provider.) I brought it up as a feature request pretty early and the response was that it was not likely to make it. I never thought about it again. After I upgraded to the RTM version Word must have been using an old set of account settings for my blog provider because it was still not giving me my categories. So today I deleted the account and created it again and it gave me a different set of options for connecting and sure thing, when I create a post now the category list is populated from my TypePad categories. Shazaam!

The "Man Cage"

I'm more than a little afraid of the kind of search hits this post is going to get me but here it goes: This is the Man Cage. It is a VERY sturdy solid steel cage around the outdoor stairwell to the control room of this facility. Why would you want a giant steel cage around a stairwell you ask? So in case there is a Polar Bear hanging around under the building (you can see on the left that the building is up on 'stilts') where you can't see him from the door you don't get killed! ;-)

Arctic Hummer

Not sure what I would do with it but this is just cool!

Projectified on the Arctic Coast

Hanging out on the north coast of Alaska. Click on the picture and look at the distant white horizontal line about the level of my ears. That is permanent pack ice in the distance. In less than a month the water behind me will be solid ice. Pretty damn cool.

Nice view but the swimming is horrible. ;-)

Colby Africa is Blogging Project Server Development!

So there is a new blog that will be of interest to those in the Project\Project Server world. Colby Africa is now blogging about various things including developing around Project Server. Colby has a long history in the project management software world. He worked for Microsoft in the Project product group back in the Project 98 days. He then joined Pacific Edge a short time after I did and took part in some of the best work that PacEdge did around portfolio management software. He is now working for IIL and is doing some integration and customization work around Project Server and is blogging his experiences.

This will be a must read. Colby is crazy smart and knows his stuff. Check it out.

Project 2003 SP3…Still Piping Hot!

The new SP is here for Project and here for Project Server.

Notable additions for the desktop is the ability to open Project 2007 mpp files.

Office 2.0 Conference and the Project Conference

I will be taking part in a panel discussion at the Office 2.0 conference dealing with project management and how it is impacted by collaborative software. It will be held on Thursday, September 6th, 2007. I'm pretty excited about it. Panels are always fun. It is great to hear real professionals talk candidly about their views on any subject. This subject though will be even more interesting because it has so much to do with the core of a big area that companies are really getting serious about: improving how they scope, plan, track, and perform their work, whether they call them tasks, projects, programs or whatever.

I will also be delivering a best practices session at the Project Conference in late October (the exact schedule of where my session falls is not final yet.) I will be speaking about best practices around resource demand management using Project Server 2007. The Project Conference is always a good time. Meeting customers and other field professionals is always a learning experience. Seeing how other organizations are working with the tool is the best way to improve your own skills in the field.

If any readers of this site will be at either of these conferences please look me up and say hello. It would be great to talk to you!

Latency and Project Server 2007

Brilliant post on Christophe's blog. A must read.