I just wanted to quickly call out a recent post from Jan Kalis on the Project Programmability blog about our EPM training offerings at EPMU.

The post is located here: http://blogs.msdn.com/project_programmability/archive/2009/03/27/do-you-epmu.aspx

The article Manage Active Directory synchronization in Project Server 2007 will contain the following updated information when it appears in the Project Server 2007 TechCenter next week.

User Synchronization Issues

Caution:

Under certain circumstances, synchronizing Project Server users and workspaces with Active Directory can cause a “deadlock” situation in which all users are locked out of a PWA site or the respective workspaces. This causes user synchronization jobs to fail and site permissions to synchronize partially or not at all. Users may not be able to log on to PWA or their workspaces.
A deadlock can occur if the user synchronization process is taking too long to complete. This is due to the synchronization job iterating through many users and workspaces, for example, when large membership changes are being made. A synchronization job remaining in the queue a long time increases the possibility of other jobs starting inadvertently, which can also cause a deadlock.

To reduce the chance of a deadlock, you can do the following:

• Before making large group membership changes, verify that there are no jobs named “User Synchronization for Project Web Access App Root Site and Project WSS Workspaces” currently processing or waiting to be processed in the queue.
• Run the Project Server Workspace Sync tool on the CodePlex site at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147394. The tool controls what is to be synchronized when the job starts —PWA and workspaces, workspaces only, PWA only, or no synchronization for either PWA or workspaces — and allows the administrator to perform the user synchronization during non-working or off-peak hours when server overhead is lower.
  Note that the Project Server Workspace Sync tool does not speed up the synchronization process beyond normal. However, being able to synchronize users when server overhead is lower reduces the possibility of synchronization failures.

The Challenges of Selecting Enterprise Software is the latest article from Chris Vandersluis, who writes " From the Trenches: Deploying the EPM Solution in the Real World," an ongoing feature on the Project Server 2007 TechCenter on Microsoft TechNet.  This article describes some flaws in the typical way that most companies select enterprise software, and it provides some insight on other methods and considerations. 

For those who are new to the "From the Trenches" column, Chris writes articles pulling from his more than two decades of experience in the field working with companies trying to improve how they manage projects and implementing systems that do this.  He has an excellent writing style, and has written articles for many different publications.  Check out Chris's other articles in the series, including:

• Resource Management
• GPS Assistance in Roadmapping an EPM Deployment
• A Phased Approach to Deploying Enterprise Project Management
• Being a Solutions Buyer

Here is some additional information about Chris:

Chris Vandersluis is the president and founder of Montreal, Canada–based HMS Software, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. He has an economics degree from McGill University and over 24 years experience in the automation of project control systems. He is a long-standing member of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and helped found the Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec chapters of the Microsoft Project Association (MPA) users group. Publications for which Chris has written include Fortune, Heavy Construction News, Computing Canada magazine, and PMI’s PMNetwork, and he is a regular columnist for Project Times. He teaches Advanced Project Management at McGill University and often speaks at project management association functions across North America and around the world. HMS Software is the publisher of the TimeControl project-oriented timekeeping system and has been a Microsoft Project Solution Partner since 1995. Chris Vandersluis can be contacted by e-mail at: chrisv@hmssoftware.ca