EPM, Microsoft Project and You

BY: Collin Quiring

The February Cumulative Update was recently released for Project Professional 2010.  As with most updates, this brings a few questions to mind.

How do I know which version, or build, of Project Professional 2010 is on my computer?

How do I know which version, or build, is the latest one available?

From the Project Server perspective, how do I restrict the Project Professional version my users are using to access the server?

Why does that matter?

When Project Professional and Project Server are released to the world and it begins to get a large installation base and is in everyday use all sorts of scenarios and usage variations are implemented by the people using the tools.  In so doing, some unintended consequences occur, some bugs are found and some “business realities” or “business logic issues” are discovered that aren’t part of the current version of Project.  As other integrated tools, like SharePoint, are modified in some way then Project also needs to be modified.  Therefore, updates are released for the software.

As software updates are released, these issues are resolved.  And, so it is important that all the users have the most recent version of Project Professional installed on their computers.  While most organizations have a process to update software, it isn’t always easy to know if everybody accessing your server has the most recent version.  Even if you don’t use Project Server, it is still important for everybody to be using the same version of Project.  What if a user has two copies or Project Professional – one on a desktop computer that is definitely part of the routine update process and a company issued notebook that they don’t always get updated?

And, again, why does this matter?  Why do I care if they all have the same version of Project Professional?  Let’s have a made-up example where there is a bug in Project where every time a Task Name has the letter “R” in it the system changes that to a “3”.  Well, that would be fixed in an update.  And, everybody that updates their version of Project to the latest version would no longer experience that problem.  However, if somebody does NOT update their version, opens a previously fine file and makes a change and then saves it, their version might affect all the “R” characters and make them “3’s” again.  This causes increased frustration as users have to determine if there is a new bug or if somebody has an older version – and, they have to figure out who has that version.  All of that work is in addition to having to correct all the project files that are affected.

So, how do I know which version of Project Professional 2010 is on my computer?

With most things Microsoft, there are many ways to determine this but the easiest way is to open Project, go to File and then Help.  On the right hand side of the screen is the “About Microsoft Project”.  There is also a link that says “Additional Version and Copyright Information”.  This is an important link.

In my case, BEFORE THE FEBRUARY UPDATE, the screen looks like this:

And, the important piece is when I click on the link:

The important piece of information here is the Build Number, the first number in the top row of the About information box.

In this case, before installing the February update, I am using build 14.0.4751.1000.  So, if you are not using Project Server, or if you just want to know, you can ask everybody to go to their computer, open Project Professional and look at this to determine which version they are using.

If you are using Project Server 2010, there is a setting that allows you to restrict the Project Professional build that people are using to access the Server.  In the Server Settings, Additional Server Settings, Project Professional Versions text box you can enter the version that you want users to have.  This will be the “oldest” version that you allow users to have when connecting.

In this example, BEFORE the update, I am requiring version 14.0.2215.1000.

But, now that the February CU is available, I want everybody to have that version.  So, all I have to do is modify this field to the latest version.  After modifying and clicking Save this is the new requirement. NOTE – it takes effect immediately, so don’t make this change until you have either warned your users this change is coming or you are fairly confident that everybody is on the new version.  And, it would be nice to notify your Help Desk about the error messages that will be produced by Project (shown below).

Since I want to use the February CU, I will change this field to say 14.0.5315.5000 since that is the new build number.  How did I know that?  I explain that a bit later as well.

Now, if a Project Professional client attempts to get to my server with a version that is not at least 14.0.5315.5000 they will get an error.  And, this is why it is nice to warn the users and your Help Desk that this is coming – the error message is a bit cryptic.  When the user tries to sign into Project Server, they will get this error message.  Error ID 12015(0x2EEF) with Error Description “An internal error occurred.”  These do not just jump out at you and tell you that it is an error that came from the version change.  It looks like this:

However, if you click on More Info, you do get a bit more information.  Notice that in the message it says that this is an UnsupportedProjectProfessionalVersion – which is what we would expect.

And, just to be thorough, if the user clicks on More Info or not, they get a second error box that says that the Enterprise Global template could not be retrieved and that there might be a database error.  While we know that is not the case, it sounds like a very bad thing and may cause widespread panic.  Ok, maybe just a lack of trust in the database.

However, once the Project Professional client is updated to the February CU, then no errors will appear.

What does Project Professional look like AFTER the February CU is applied?  Well, the first screen looks the same.  It still shows version 14.0.5128.5000:

However, when clicking on the Additional Version link, I get a different result, showing the new build number 14.0.5135.5000:

That answers the version questions and the compliance issue.  But, how did I know which version to use for Project Server?  I guess one way would be to implement the update and just look at the version.  But, that isn’t always precise because there might be a difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions or there might be some other modification to the system that you are looking at that gives you a different version number.

The best way to know the correct version number is to look at the KB article that Microsoft provides.  For the February CU, the article is located at:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2496946.  That article also gives information about what the update includes but it also gives the version information.  That is copied here:

x86

Download information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Microsoft Windows Installer .msp file information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

After the hotfix is installed, the global version of this hotfix has the file attributes, or a later version of the file attributes, that are listed in the following table:

Project-x-none.msp information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

x64

Download information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Microsoft Windows Installer .msp file information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

After the hotfix is installed, the global version of this hotfix has the file attributes, or a later version of the file attributes, that are listed in the following table:

Project-x-none.msp information

Collapse this tableExpand this table

Since we were using the 64-bit version for this example and since I was looking at the Project Professional information in File, Help, the pertinent information to me is the File Version for Winproj.exe.

There are a lot of articles, blogs and even some books about how Project Manager’s should be selected.  Also, stories abound about how people find themselves in the role of Project Manager because “they were there” or by some other fortunate series of events (or some would say, misfortune J ).   The same is often said for the team that is assembled – they were there, or they were the only people available or whatever other criteria was used to choose them.  Unfortunately, in many cases, the team and the Project Manager are chosen not because of skill sets or abilities but due to any of a thousand different reasons.

My son and I have been enjoying a television show on the History channel called “Top Shot”.  This is yet another reality show and in this one 16 people from around the United States compete for a $100,000 and the title of being “The Top Shot”.    They go through various team and individual challenges where they use different weapons (firearms, bow and arrow, tomahawks, etc) and people are eliminated.  A key piece of information is that the worst marksman is NOT necessarily the one eliminated.  The best marksman is NOT necessarily the one that is the most likely to win.

How does this apply to Project Teams?  I was thinking about the way the 16 people were initially chosen.  Basically, anybody that wanted to be on the show could apply (with a list of rules and legalese with some simple requirements – like never having made terroristic threats).  As a participant, you must have skills in the area of marksmanship.  I was thinking that this would be a great way to obtain the Project Team – have folks volunteer!  But, then reality sunk in and I realized that getting volunteers to form the team for a project are few and far between.  And, the prospect of giving one team member a prize of $100,000 for being on your team seems unlikely.  It would be great to get the people with the correct skills to volunteer for a project.  Barring a great bank of volunteers trying to get on a project, at least having a known skill set pool to help select from would be great.  And, some sort of criteria, other than immediate availability, for how a person gets on the team would be beneficial.

What about the Project Manager?  I have only watched Season Two of Top Shot but assume that the way the group leader’s were selected on Season One is the same as this season.  The best two marksmen in the very first competition become the Team Leaders.  Those Team Leaders then pick their teams from the other 14 participants.  One of the two new Team Leaders interviewed everyone and made a list of how he would rank the team members based on his own criteria.  The other team leader seemed to only talk to a few folks, get their opinions, and then decided on a few key people that he wanted and the rest kind of fell into place.

 In Top Shot, the method of selection for the team leader is a bit random and a bit selective, or specific.  First, the “specific” part – every one of the 16 people are highly skilled marksmen and they all have passed the requirements to be potentially selected as the lead.  Therefore, from a purely skill set perspective, they are all relative equals.  However, the random part is that they all had to use a weapon that they no doubt had never seen before and had to hit a target – and the “best” or “most skilled” marksmen may not have shot the closest to the bull’s-eye in this one event.   And, being the best skilled on this one occasion or being the best skilled overall doesn’t necessarily make a person a leader.  To me, this is very like picking a Project Manager based upon who came into work on time or early on the second Tuesday of the month. 

This does have me thinking though about the way the Project Managers are chosen.  Maybe we could at least start choosing Project Managers based on some minimum set of rules about their skill sets, rather than just their availability.  Or, perhaps if we got a team together in a room and then had them select their own Project Manager we might get some better teams and better leaders on our teams.

BY: Collin Quiring

I always wonder why a blog goes silent.  While it takes great discipline and scheduling to update a blog on a regular basis, there are plenty of folks that do it.  For a long time I was able to do it as well.  However, for a number of personal and professional reasons I have been all but “offline” for a few months now.  I have written a few entries in my head and have some notes about some as well but haven’t been posting anything.  I am hoping to start getting active again now.  This post will be more of a hodgepodge of “little things” of varying interest to you.

• First, Tanya Foster and I have been working on a book on how to use Microsoft Project Professional and Microsoft Project Server for Resource Management.  This is only concentrating on the Resource Management piece.  The book is currently in review and I will update everybody when it is closer to being published.

• One tidbit of knowledge that I have recently learned involves the Project Server 2010 “force check-in” background process.  I noticed that when a schedule was forced to check-in it sometimes took a few moments and other times it took significantly longer.  I didn’t understand the difference and just chalked it up to random “stuff” on the server, my connection or whatever.  However, Brian Smith recently explained to me that a force check-in isn’t just a “check-in” but it actually tries to process outstanding status updates as well.  It probably does other things as well and perhaps Brian will one day blog about that but this was a big “ah-ha” moment for me as I know that I was trying to check in some schedules that had outstanding updates – and that is what took them so long to check in when I was forcing it.  Now, as a general rule, you probably should not be force checking-in schedules very often, but that is a different story for another day.

• We are big believers around here in obtaining certifications – as individuals and as an organization (although Microsoft calls them Competencies for organizations).  We have blogged about it in the past ( http://pmpspecialists.com/Blog/2010/05/new-microsoft-competency-for-partners-%e2%80%93-why-should-the-customer-care/ and  http://pmpspecialists.com/Blog/2010/02/microsoft-project-certifications-%e2%80%93-how-do-they-create-the-test-3-of-3/ and  http://pmpspecialists.com/Blog/2010/10/pmi-membership-and-pmp-certification-%e2%80%93-by-the-numbers/ ).  The Microsoft Project 2010, Managing Projects certification exam has gone live.  The exam number is 70-178.  The “Microsoft Project Server 2010, Configuring”, exam 70-177 is expected to go live in June.

• More information about 70-178 can be found here:  http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-178&Locale=en-us

• More information about 70-177 can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/Exam.aspx?ID=70-177&Locale=en-us

• This one is of interest to me:  Project Management Institute (PMI) is creating a new Agile Certification pilot program, beginning in May of 2011 (http://www.pmi.org/en/Agile/Agile-Certification-Eligibility-Requirements.aspx).  While I am not necessarily a big proponent of Agile I do understand that it is the “next big thing” and it may have a place in the Project Management world.  I did see at the last PMI Conference that there were lots of Agile presentations and I attended a couple of them.  One of the two that I went to was extremely confusing as I guess the presenters assumed that everybody in attendance was already familiar with Agile.  There are many folks that would debate that Agile is not really its own Project Management methodology and that Agile is actually a software development method (see http://blog.pmtechnix.com/does-agile-project-management-exist/ for a snippet of that debate).  We shall see where this certification and Agile goes in the future.