EPM, Microsoft Project and You

By:  Collin Quiring

 

Just a quick muse.

 

The saying “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery” has been around a long time and I have been thinking about it the last few days quite a bit.  I am getting ready to do a massive SharePoint Server 2010 installation and a Project Server 2010 installation.  In so doing, I have been doing quite a bit of research lately to make sure that I have an understanding of how these tools are installed and the steps for setting them up and then maintaining them for the users.

 

In my research, I do some generic Google and Bing searches for SharePoint and Project to see what has been done by others already.  And, I keep running into tools that claim to be “as good as” Microsoft Project or Project Server.  But when I look at these tools that claim they are “as good as” Project or Project Server I have found that they mean that their tool does one thing and one thing only – and they think it is the same as Project.  I have found this to be quite disappointing.

 

One tool that claimed to be great at Resource Management had a very efficient interface and did one or two things really well but as soon as I tried to do something that I normally can do in Project, I found that “as good as” didn’t mean “as comprehensive as” the Project tool.  There are also add-on tools that are available for Project - some of those are great and some are useless, but at least they claim to be “add-on” and NOT a replacement that works “as good as” like these other tools claim to be. 

 

Project might not be perfect, but it amuses me about how many tools want to be “as good as” Project and are doing their best to imitate it.  In fact, some tools even give the same look and feel of Microsoft Project.  It just makes me think that Project must be doing some things right if so many other companies want to imitate it!

BY: Collin Quiring

Microsoft Project Server and Project Professional work very well together most of the time. However, every now and then, particularly if you use multiple instances or Servers, some challenges can arise. Recently, I was confronted with an annoying issue that I have resolved in the past and thought that I would share it with you just in case they were experiencing the same issues. And, while I am at it, I am going to mention a few other errors that I receive every now and then when using Project Server and Project Professional.

First, the easy part: how it is supposed to work. I know that Microsoft has documentation about this but in a nutshell, here is how you connect Project Professional to Project Server.

1. Open Project Professional

2. Go to Tools, Enterprise Options, Microsoft Office Project Server Accounts

3. Select Add

4. Enter something you will remember in the Account Name field

5. Enter the URL in the Project Server URL field

6. If you are using forms or windows authentication select and enter the appropriate information

7. If this is the only or the main URL that you use, then select the default.

8. After clicking OK, you are back at the Project Server Accounts box

9. I always recommend that you select “Manually Control Connection State” in case you add more instances or often go “offline” but that is up to you.

10. And, that is it – just close Professional and the next time you open Professional it will connect (or give you the option to connect).

Now, that is the way it works for most people. And, it works fine for most of the time, especially for those that only connect to one instance. However, in other cases, interesting things that can happen.

To understand the issues that I run into you need to know my situation. I have both Project Professional 2003 and Project Professional 2007 on my computer. I also connect to about 15 different instances with 2007 and 6 different instances with 2003. Of those instances, only a few of them are local to my computer’s network so I am using my internet connection to access the majority of these sites. The servers I am accessing are either within a client’s domain or are being hosted by PMP Specialists. (This post is about Project Professional setup so assume for this post that the server and user/password are all correct.) Also, for clarity, I am running Vista and Office 2007.

Normally, having both 2003 and 2007 on my computer at the same time isn’t an issue with the way that Professional works. However, every now and then an update from Microsoft will render one of the versions of Project to stop working correctly. I usually find this out at the most inconvenient moment and when I don’t have the time to fix it!

One of the most common ways that I find there is an issue is when I try to open a file directly from Project Server. When in Project Web Access (PWA) and you select a project file to open, the Project Server automatically goes out and opens your Project Professional. The catch is that it sometimes tries to open the other version of Professional. This is because of a change on the local computer, not the server. The error messages are not necessarily intuitive either. And, the Server sometimes seems to time out or to be doing nothing at all so this is a time for patience. Clicking refresh or clicking on other items only makes it worse when the Server catches up. It sometimes takes a minute before the error message appears.

For example, the error message I get when I use 2007 and the server opens up 2003 is some version of the error message below. Note, I am using a 2007 file, created in Professional 2007 and a 2007 Server and the error still mentions Project 98.

Error message:

“Project cannot open the file

· Check that the file name and path are correct

· Check that the file format is recognized by Project

Project files save in a version earlier than Microsoft Project 98 can’t be opened.

If your file is from an earlier version, open it in that version, click Save As (File Menu), and save in MPX format. Open the MPX file in the current version of Project. When you use this method, project data is imported, but formatting is lost.”

At this point, I usually have an easy fix. I open up Professional 2003 first and go to the help drop down and select the Detect and Repair. After that runs, I can try again. This seems to fix the issue for me about 1/3 of the time.

If the issue isn’t resolved and the server is still trying to open the wrong version then the next step that I take is to go to Professional 2007 and run the Help, Microsoft Office Diagnostics.

Interestingly, that doesn’t seem to find problems usually. But, it must flip a bit somewhere because that seems to resolve the problem about ½ the time when I try it second.

If neither of those work I go to Windows Update and run that. After running Windows Update, I sometimes have to repeat the steps above for 2003 and 2007 but have never had to do other steps – to get Server to open the correct version of Project.

Another type of error that I get when connecting Professional and Server is if I have Professional open already and connected to a different instance. Then, when trying to change some server settings or otherwise using PWA to open or use Professional a new error message appears. This is an easy one to resolve as the error message is pretty clear.

It says:

“Project Professional 2007 is currently running under a profile that does not match your current Project Web Access login. Restart Project Professional with a different profile, or exit Project Professional and then let Project Web Access automatically start Project Professional.”

So, close Professional and re-open it with the correct instance, or let Server try to open it for you.

The next error isn’t really an error – it just makes you think it is. When you use Server to open Professional, you sometimes get the message

“Project cannot be fully opened because it is awaiting your input. Either continue with the input process until Project is fully running or quit Project and click Update again.”

The reason for this one is simple, it is waiting for you to enter your credentials. If, like me, you have multiple instances setup and/or just have the “manually control” option setup, then Professional will be waiting for you input. Sometimes this doesn’t become the focus of your computer and so when you don’t enter your information after a bit, the Server is prompting you. Just find the login box prompt on your computer, make sure you have the right instance selected, and sign in.

Another error which appears to have two potentially different solutions is this:

“Project cannot recognize this file format.

Do you want to open this file as text only.”

This is caused by one of two different issues. The first is that you have Professional to open, but in the wrong version. This example was caused by the 2007 Server opening Professional 2003. As we know, this is correct, the 2003 and 2007 versions aren’t compatible. So, make sure that you have the correct version of Professional open.

The second cause of this issue is that you don’t have the Server URL in your IE Trusted Sites zone. I have had the correct version of Professional open and still get this message and then when I add the URL into the Trusted Sites (and close Professional) and try again, all works well.

Another error that may be caused by the Trusted Sites or an invalid URL is this one:

“Login Failed. Project could not connect to the server

Please check your username and password and try again.”

I have seen this error because of the URL not being in the Trusted Sites (usually this is because the URL’s network/domain settings or your network/domain settings have an option that allows traffic through only if the URL is in the Trusted Sites).

I have also seen this error when the URL is typed incorrectly in the Project Server Accounts connection box. In Professional 2003, there was a “test connection” option but in Professional 2007 there isn’t one so you can have a typo in the URL and not know it until you use Professional to try and connect. If you go directly into Professional and then try to connect, you should get a message similar to this one if the URL isn’t correct. (Remember, we are assuming that the Server, userid and password are all correctly configured and working.)

“Could not connect to Server

Project was not able to connect to Project Server because of the following error:

Project Server could not be contacted

If you retry and are still unable to connect, try the following:

· Check your network connection and see if you are able to connect to other websites

· Check the URL of the Project Server you are trying to connect.

· Use Internet Explorer and make sure you can connect to Project Web Access.

· Contact your server administrator for further assistance.”

The best way to make sure that the URL is correct is to go to PWA and then copy/paste that URL into Professional. BUT, be sure to take off the “default.aspx” or whatever extension you have. For example, if the URL in PWA is: https://projectserver/pwa/default.aspx only put https://projectserver/pwa in Professional.

Another issue that happens to me every now and then is that Server gives an error that it can’t open or use Professional. In fact, the error is usually that you have to open Professional – even though Professional is already open, or, sometimes, after it just opened Professional. I am not sure if it is the caching, a timeout between responses or something else that happens but sometimes the Server wants to be the cause of Professional being open and you have to close Professional first. And, other times, you have to open Professional first and then use Server. This seems to happen most often when working with administrative items like custom fields but it does happen in the Project Center every now and then as well. The only solution is to close/open Professional in the opposite order than it was before.

I have one more “error” to mention. Sometimes, after opening Project Professional from Server, it opens without the project opening. No error messages. It just opens Professional and then stops. So, you are looking at “Project 1” and not the project that you expected. In my experience, this has happened when using Forms Authentication and for whatever reason, and some point in the communication between Professional and Server the system decides that you don’t have permissions to open the project. This has been a user authentication issue– even when they can open Professional first and open the project file and even though they can see everything in PWA. This is a rare occurrence and seems to be restricted to certain systems.

Now, when you connect and disconnect from more than one instance or Project Server in a day it is easy to get confused about which instance you are in. Tony Zink wrote a great little article about it and so I refer you to his post titled “Which Project Server Instance Are You Connected To?” at http://www.projectserverhelp.com/Lists/Posts/AllPosts.aspx

BY:  Collin Quiring

 

Project Professional 2010 and Project Server 2010 come with great modifications and an improved user experience.  Part of that is to allow all sorts of flexibility in many areas of the tool.  While this is a good thing for many reasons, there is one area that has concerned me since starting to review the first versions of the 2010 version.  My concern isn’t specific to Project (or any specific 2010 product either) as this has been around for years but it seems to be a bigger issue with each newer software release and the 2010 release really brought it to the forefront of my thoughts.

 

The question that keeps lingering in the back of my mind is:  What do you do when best practices and the capabilities of a tool collide?  “Best practices” being broadly defined as whatever the organization considers their best practices, whether derived from their internal processes, industry standards or bodies of knowledge.

 

One answer is just to turn off or otherwise disable the capabilities of the tool.  That isn’t always possible or easy to do though.  And, almost every time I have done that it doesn’t take long for somebody to wildly protest that they need either that capability or a corresponding one that no longer works correctly.  Constantly reviewing “best practices” is valid as well but that never results in every capability suddenly becoming acceptable usage.  Another solution is to train everybody in the way that you want them to do things – which seems to work better in theory than reality.  It isn’t easy to force people to use a tool the way you want them to use it.  .

 

Some might say that you shouldn’t force people to use a tool a certain way – but, of course, we do that every day.  How many companies use a note field as a valuable reporting field and require certain characters to be put into the field in a certain order?  Or, how much variability do employees have when reporting their time for weekly payroll?  How many variations are there in Outlook to book a conference room – and yet every company I have been to has only one way to do it “right” so that it is actually reserved.

 

It is almost counter-intuitive but the more capabilities a tool has, the more administrative work it requires.  The administrators have to understand all the various input possibilities and deal with how that information is stored and used.  Reporting and views have to be created that allow for all the variables (even if some variables aren’t “allowed”). 

 

I don’t have a definitive answer to the question but as I struggle with how tool capabilities affect best practices I would love to hear if somebody has a great solution.

 

 

BY:  Collin Quiring

This blog entry is about the conference itself and not really about Microsoft Project as I have decided to talk about them separately – even though the conference is all about the tool.

 

On the first day of the Conference the keynote was given by Ludo Hauduc, General Manager of the Project Business Unit.  This was an interesting keynote and he gave a quick history of Project Management and then of Microsoft Project.  Some of the facts that were interesting to me were:

 

·         Project has 20 million users

·         There are 10,000 Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Customer Organizations

·         There are 6,400 Microsoft Certified Project 2007 Professionals

·         There are 35,000 members of MPUG (Microsoft Project User Group)

·         There are over 1,000 partners helping Microsoft with Project

 

Also as part of the keynote session were some “guest speakers” from a couple customers and partners about their usage of Project and Project Server. 

 

Also, some customer and partner awards were distributed.  I bet that over time, the customer and partner awards segment becomes more and more popular and that the competition starts heating up.

 

For the rest of the day there were numerous sessions of varying intensity on business and tool topics.  I will talk more about what I attended and learned in upcoming Project blogs.  In addition to the educational sessions was a great new feature of the conference – Hands on Labs.  These were self-paced labs with a number of pre-selected topics.  I think that this was a great aspect of the conference this year!  This allowed for some “how to” and some education on how the tool worked.

 

In the evening, EPM Live hosted an event at Corona Ranch.  This was a great break after a day of sitting in classrooms.  There was a short rodeo event as well which ended up involving some Project Managers running around the arena chasing a calf.  One of them tackled the calf much to the crowd’s delight.

By: Collin Quiring

 

Microsoft Project Server isn’t the most complex software or server that Microsoft produces.  However, it does require SQL 2000 or SQL 2005, Project Server 2003 or Project Server 2007.  Depending on how you set up the server(s) that manage your installation also require customizing the systems and your ability to reach Project Server over Internet Explorer (or other browser).  Then, there are backups that must be performed daily and the patches to the operating system that regularly come out.  This requires somebody to maintain the hardware and software and be on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Plus, there are the costs to license the software.  And, in some cases, the department that wants the tool isn’t the IT department, so they have no inherent ability to implement this themselves.

So, what is the solution?  Software as a Service, or SaaS, is one great solution.  None of the technical requirements are reduced – but the risk to the company is transferred to the provider.  The provider of SaaS is the one that has to have somebody available at all times for Project Server.  They have to be able to maintain the server for you.

Microsoft has even jumped into this arena with their Software Plus Services idea.  This is really just SaaS with a different title.  While many companies are jumping into SaaS in many areas of their business, not very many are using it for Microsoft Project.  There was recently a cover story in ComputerWorld about companies that are successfully using SaaS.  (http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=325805)

For many small companies the expenses and resource requirements are too much.  For other companies, the maintenance and effort for Microsoft Project Server and SQL Server aren’t high enough on the priority list to be given the attention that they deserve.  In both these cases, SaaS provides a great opportunity to allow the business operations of the company to continue working without the worries of Information Technology.

Microsoft Project Server works great in the SaaS model and we have implemented for organizations of all sizes.  If you are looking at Microsoft Project Server and aren’t sure about how/when/where to install it or maintain it, I would recommend looking at SaaS.

In the case of Microsoft Project 2007, Task Drivers are defined as the factors that affect the Start Date of a particular task.  In Project Professional, on the Menu Bar, under Project, is the option to display Task Drivers.  When a task is selected and Task Drivers are displayed, information about what is affecting that task’s start date is shown.  For clarification purposes, the name of the task and the start date are displayed in the top section of the Task Driver’s pane.

 

In the lower section of the pane the information is subdivided by different headings with the pertinent information.  If a certain driver doesn’t exist for a task, it isn’t displayed.  For example, if you didn’t apply leveling to your task, then the Leveling Delay driver will not be displayed.

 

The potential drivers and causes for why they might appear are:

 

Driver                                                                   Cause                                                   

Actual Start and Assignments                     Actual data was entered

Leveling Delay                                             Resource leveling was done

Constraint Type/Date                                  A constraint is set

Summary Task                                              A constraint is set on a task’s summary task

Predecessor Tasks                                       Linked tasks

Subtasks                                                       A summary task will list the subtasks

Calendar                                                       If a calendar is affecting the task (may display                                                                      the Resource name because of their calendar

 

Examples:

A simple example of this is explained here.  For the task selected, task id 6 “Secure Core Resources” we see the task information in the top part of the pane.  In the bottom part of the pane, we see the predecessor task and that the calendar for the resource “Ann” is affecting the start date.

In this example, task id 9 has a predecessor but the real driver on the start date is that a “Start no earlier Constraint” has been set and the calendar being used for the resource is affecting it.