If you are testing Project Server 2010 by upgrading your Project Server 2007 databases in a test environment, then you may notice that the new 2010 feature of manual scheduling is not available. I worked with a customer today who had performed an upgrade in his test environment and noticed that the great new feature he had heard about for manual scheduling just wasn’t available. This is caused by Backward Compatibility Mode being on as a result of the upgrade.
So, what’s the point of Backward Compatibility Mode? Well, after you upgrade to Project Server 2010 (either by the in-place or database-attach upgrade method), BCM allows you to avoid having to upgrade your Project Professional 2007 client computers at the same time. This means you can upgrade to Project Pro 2010 on a schedule that suits your budget without having to take a single larger hit at one time. Once everyone is upgraded to Project Pro 2010, you can turn off BCM and enjoy all the new features that are available and, to be honest, really cool.
Keep in mind, however, that once BCM is disabled it cannot be re-enabled. Verify that you want to disable BCM if you are going to make the change.
This article describes Backward Compatibility Mode and its effects and also how to turn it off.
As announced on the Project Server Admin blog: Microsoft Project Server and SharePoint Server 2007 and 2010 December 2011 CU Announcement
Custom views are an extremely powerful way to relay critical information when you use a lot of enterprise custom fields (ECF). Because ECFs, by definition, are not included in default views, you can add them to default views or create your own custom views in the project plan and add them there.
This article describes how to create a custom view and add ECFs to it so that the view is available to all users as part of the Enterprise Global Template, then continues to describe how to create a project manager created custom view where the view can be copied easily from one project to another by the PM.
The ECF requirements will need to documented and relayed to the Project Server administrator so the fields may be created. Additionally, the custom view description/requirements will need to be relayed, as well, so the admin can create the view and add it to the Enterprise Global Template in order to make it available to all project managers. There will likely be a review board or some sort of process control to ensure that the views being created and added to the Enterprise Global Template are necessary and deserve to be elevated to Enterprise Global Template availability.
Note: Creating a view in PWA to match a view in Project Pro is outside the scope of this article.
The steps for creating tables and views are identical in Project 2010, however the access method differs because of the Ribbon. You will find screenshots of how to access Tables and Views at the end of this article.
The Project Server administrator is the person who will make changes to the Enterprise Global Template and create the new view.
1. Go to PWA URL.
2. Click on Server Settings > Enterprise Global.
3. Click on the Configure Project Professional button.
4. Project Pro will open and check out the Enterprise Global Template. The title bar will show Microsoft Project – Checked-out Enterprise Global and will look like an empty plan.
5. Go to View > Table > More Tables…
6. On the More Tables dialog box, you will copy an existing table and make edits to it. Here, click the table you want to copy and choose Copy…, then fill in a new table name.
7. In the Table section where the rows are listed, you can cut and copy rows to move them around and insert or delete rows. This is where we can add any ECFs that have been created by selecting the field name dropdown.
8. To add an ECF, click the dropdown arrow of a new or existing field and select the ECF. In this example, several default fields have been removed and there are three ECFs all beginning with “EPM” that I can add. Your environment will have more ECFs that can be used here in this list.
9. Once selected, you can alter how the data in the field is aligned, the width, title, title alignment, and header wrapper. The Field Name will be used as the title unless you specify a value in the Title field. As a best practice, the ECF field name should be descriptive and short while satisfying the Title field without being altered. This will prevent confusion when a user asks about a column in Project Professional that has a different name in the ECF table the admininstrator sees.
10. If you want the new table to be listed in the View > Table menu, check the Show in menu box.
11. Click OK to save your changes to the new table.
12. Next, we’ll create the new view and add the new table we just created.
13. Go to Views > More Views… and choose to copy an existing view. For this demonstration, we’ll use the Gantt Chart view.
14. Rename the view in the Name field, then click the dropdown for Table and select the table we created earlier. You can set up grouping and a filter, if you like. If you are going to the trouble of creating a custom view for the Enterprise Global Template, you will like want to check the Show in menu box. Then, click OK.
15. Your new view will now be listed in Views > More views and on the main Views list.
16. Choose File > Close and choose to save and check-in the Enterprise Global Template.
17. Close Project Pro.
18. Because we created the new table and view in the Enterprise Global Template, it will now be available to any project manager who closes and reopens Project Pro after the Enterprise Global Template is checked back in. This will pull the Enterprise Global Template changes to the client application.
1. As a project manager, you will still able to create your own views that are specific to a plan and move them from your open plan to the global template (different from the Enterprise Global Template) on your local machine so it becomes available to all of your other plans. Other project managers who can edit your plan will be able to see the custom view.
2. The process for creating new tables and views is identical the description above, except the project manager will not have access to edit the Enterprise Global Template. The project manager will simply open a new plan and start creating a new table or new view immediately.
3. Once your view has been created, go to Tools > Organizer and select the Views tab.
4. Select the view you just created and choose <<Copy to copy it to the global template.
5. Close your plan and open a new plan.
6. Go to Tools > Organizer and select the Views tab.
7. You can copy the Demonstration II view from the global template to your project file to make that view available there.
1. The steps are identical to creating custom views in Project 2007.
2. To create new tables, go to the View tab, Data group, and choose Tables > More tables.
3. To create a new view, go to the View tab, Task Views group, and choose Gantt Chart > More views.
I just read on Brian Smith's Blog that the webcast for the December 2011 CU has been scheduled. Mark your calendars for the webcast on the December 2011 CU scheduled for 1/10/2012.
A customer told me that "the calendars don't work right" in Project Professional 2007, so I created a demo of what to expect using screenshots and a simple plan where you apply a calendar with no days off except weekends and the single day of December 9, 2011. It turns out, the customer's problem was that resources in the country had one set of days off and resources outside the country had another, BUT all days off had been applied to one calendar and that calendar was being used as the project calendar. This had the impact of extending the project finish date by a month beyond what was expected because, according to calendar, it was expected that everyone would have all of those days off.
Generally speaking, a project will have a calendar that reflects the works schedule of most of its resources. Any other resources with common days off should have a separate calendar created and applied to the user accounts. The Project Server admin will know how to create a new calendar. Assigning a calendar to a resource involves using Resource Center to select resources and then opening them in Project Pro (with the appropriate permissions, of course). You can set the calendar for multiple resources here and then save your changes, closing the resources when you are done so they get checked back in.
Here’s a demo of how a calendar with a single day off of 12/9 (and weekends) affects projects, tasks and resources when you apply the calendar to the different entities.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Project calendars are created by an administrator using PWA > Server Settings > Enterprise Calendars. Project managers can assign them to their projects using Project > Project Information in 2007 and using the Project tab of the ribbon > Properties > Project Information in 2010.
Project Calendar = 12/9 is a day off.
Resource Calendar = Standard. Note that "Adam Hughes" is still working on 12/9, despite the 9th being grayed out. This may be an example of an outside the country calendar being applied to the project while an in country calendar is applied to the resource.
Task Calendar = None.
Project Calendar = Standard.
Resource calendar = 12/9 day off calendar. Resource’s work covers 6 business days in the Gantt Chart, but the Duration is still 5 days because 12/9 is not a working day for that resource.
Resource = Standard.
Task Calendar = 12/9 day off calendar. The project says that day is a working day, as does the resource calendar, but there is no work scheduled for that task on that day.
Here is a screenshot showing the effect of the resource having the 12/9 calendar assigned and the task covering that day in the Gantt Chart. Note that the Resource Usage view shows no assigned work on 12/9/11.
Resource calendar = 12/9 day off calendar.
SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack and Cumulative Update Testing Process
Contents
Disclaimer 3
1. Software Updates Overview.. 4
2. Documentation and Testing Schedule. 5
2.1 This Document 5
2.2 Document the Environment 5
2.3 Validated Current/Future Service Packs and Cumulative Updates Doc. 6
2.4 Schedule of Testing and Maintenance Windows. 6
3. Installation Procedures - SharePoint 2010 Service Packs and Cumulative Updates. 7
3.1 Pre-installation Steps. 7
3.2 SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack Installation. 8
3.3 SharePoint Server Cumulative Update Installation. 8
4. Verify Installation. 9
5. Testing Project Server 2010. 10
6. Cumulative Updates Links. 10
This Instruction Set is provided for the purpose of illustration only and is not intended to be used in a production environment. THIS INSTRUCTION SET AND ANY RELATED INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. We grant You a nonexclusive, royalty-free right to use and modify the Instruction Set and to reproduce and distribute the Instruction Set, provided that You agree: (i) to not use Our name, logo, or trademarks to market Your software product in which the Instruction Set is embedded; (ii) to include a valid copyright notice on Your software product in which the Instruction Set is embedded; and (iii) to indemnify, hold harmless, and defend Us and Our suppliers from and against any claims or lawsuits, including attorneys’ fees, that arise or result from the use or distribution of the Instruction Set.
Microsoft periodically releases software updates for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. It is important to understand what these updates are and how to deploy them to servers or server farms. It is recommended that you use the update cycle that is shown in the following illustration as a guide to deploy software updates.
You should update this document as you see fit to customize it for your organization. Additionally, every new update will require you to change the expected version numbers. Use this document over and over to ensure you perform the same steps in TEST, DEV, and PROD. You should add your own notes about what to expect in the install steps.
Document all the server names, IP addresses, and logon information for each environment, such as Test, Development, and Production, where updates will be installed. The purpose of documenting the environment is to determine what is unique in your farm and make accessing those servers easier for the people testing the updates. Include whether servers are virtual Machines or physical servers so that they can be located easily.
Environment : <>
Server Name
Role
IP Address
Logon information
Virtual / Physical
Document the location of the “Current and Future Service Packs and Cumulative Updates Tested” document here. This document should include all service packs and cumulative updates (and may include Windows Updates), when they were installed in the development, test, and production environments and the version number of the patch, along with whatever other information is valuable to you. You may consider storing testing validation results in this “updates tested” document or linking to a separate testing validation results document or folder.
Update testing should occur at least three weeks prior to the regularly scheduled maintenance window of the month. The tester will note the test environment patches to be installed in the current and future patches tested spreadsheet and install the patches in the DEV environment. At the appropriate interval, the updates should then be installed in TEST and eventually in PROD.
Two weeks prior to a regularly scheduled maintenance window, a change request should be created which includes the list of patches to be installed on each server in production. At this point, patch testing is frozen to ensure the test systems do not develop any problems and to limit the number of patches being applied to only those that have been tested and allowed to run for more than one week.
It is best practice to test Windows Updates separately from SharePoint and Project Server updates to better pinpoint the change that may have caused a new problem.
Note: As a best practice, you should test restoring production tape backups to a test server and provisioning PWA to the databases to ensure that you actually can restore backups from tape and successfully configure Project Server on a different system – once per quarter is probably sufficient to ensure you have good backups, but this decision is ultimately up the customer.
If you experience any error, go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\14\LOGS and check the upgrade.log for errors.
Perform initial testing using the “Initial use setup”. Consider using an automated testing tool if human resources are hard to come by to reduce the validation testing window. After you complete the above checks, proceed to the following series of tests. Document the results.
Full Validation Testing Links
Update Center for Office Servers, Office Products
Updates for SharePoint Server 2010
Updates for Project Server 2010
Project Server blogs:
Project Admin Blog
Brian Smith’s Blog
SharePoint Updates:
Todd Carters SharePoint Site : Includes Release, Version, KB Article Number and a download link.
There is no longer an option in the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page to "quiesce farm" as there was in SharePoint 2007.
Stsadm commands article
To quiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o quiescefarm -maxduration n
To unquiesce SharePoint 2010, run this stsadm command: stsadm -o unquiescefarm