Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Content Publishing News : Project Client

Project in the Cloud

robert.m.hoover — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Here is some information courtesy of Tony Sisk in the Project IW writing team:

Yes, there is a place in the clouds for Project information.. If you have a number of documents, spreadsheets, notes, proposals, and project files you want to share quickly, Microsoft Office Live Workspace gives you some interesting options.

Microsoft Office Live Workspace enables you to store and share Microsoft Office Project 2007 .mpp files as well as other Microsoft Office program files quickly and easily. All you need is a Windows Live ID and a computer with a connection to the Web.

With Office Live Workspace, you no longer have to worry about exceeding your team members' e-mail storage space or transporting documents using your flash drive. You also don't have to worry about complicated infrastructures to install or maintain. And all your documents are password-protected. When you're on the go toward you vacation destination, you'll always have your project documents close by.

Note You can sign up for Office Live Workspace from the Office Live Workspace sign-up page. To sign in to Office Live Workspace, you must use a Windows Live ID. This e-mail and password combination allows you to sign in to many different Web sites using just one identity.

Step 1: Upload a Project file to Office Live Workspace

1. In Office Live Workspace, on the left navigation bar under My Workspaces, click Documents.

2. On the actions bar, click Add Document.

3. In the drop-down menu, click Single Document or Multiple Documents.

Note The first time that you upload multiple documents to Office Live Workspace, a yellow notification bar appears at the top of your browser asking you to install ActiveX. Click the yellow bar, and in the drop-down menu, click Install ActiveX. In the security warning dialog box, click Install.

4. In the Choose file dialog box, select the file you want to upload, and then click Open.

Note Office Live Workspace does not provide a viewer for Project files. In order to view a Project .mpp file, you need to save the file on your computer and then open it within Project.

Step two: Create a workspace on Office Live Workspace for a Project file

Workspaces behave like folders; they allow you to organize files, lists, and notes. You can either start with a blank workspace that you customize to meet your needs, or you can choose a workspace that already contains helpful documents, notes, lists, and spreadsheets that are all geared for a specific purpose.

1. In Office Live Workspace, on the left navigation bar under My Workspaces, click New Workspace.

2. In the Create a new workspace dialog box, choose Project Workspace.

You can also select other workspaces in which to organize your files, including a blank workspace.

To learn how to make changes to your workspace and arrange documents to meet your needs, see Organize your documents and workspaces.

When you are satisfied with your workspace, you can share it with the people who will find it most valuable. To learn more about sharing workspaces, see Share workspaces and documents using Office Live Workspace.

New Project Professional Video

robert.m.hoover — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:13:00 GMT

This just came in from Toney Sisk, a writer in the Project IW team:

If you are a project manager who wants to create a project using Project Server 2007, you have two ways of connecting to it. You can connect directly using a Web browser and a URL given to you by an administrator, or you can connect through Project Professional 2007 on your desktop, which is explained explain in this video.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102910371033.aspx?pid=CH100948801033

Newly Published Project Professional Content for September

robert.m.hoover — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:05:00 GMT

Create a custom field

Use this article to learn how to create, import, insert, and rename a custom field.

Watch this: Create a custom field

This video walks you through the process of creating a custom field that is associated with a list, and that uses graphical indicators.

Work with the Gantt Chart view

This article provides information on how to use each part of the Gantt Chart view.

Project Server Quick Reference Guide for project managers

This quick reference guide displays all the tasks a project manager is likely to do with Project Server. A team member version is due out soon.

Podcast: Britney Spears, the ultimate project manager

This is a link to an external podcast about Britney Spears as the ultimate project manager. It is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but makes good points about project management skills in general.

What’s all this talk about Web 2.0

This Office Hours article discusses Web 2.0 and software plus services model.

Newly Published Project Professional Content - Early August

robert.m.hoover — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:51:00 GMT

Watch this: Use lag and lead time

This demo shows how to use lag and lead time to create gaps and overlaps between tasks in a project.

Watch this: Show the critical path

This demo shows you several ways to display a project’s critical tasks. It also shows how to display multiple critical paths in a single project.

Create work breakdown structure (WBS) codes

This topic has been updated with more information about basic view usage.

Set lead or lag time (float) between tasks

This topic has had a number of terms added to make it more searchable from the perspective of the PMBOK.

Use templates in Project 2007

More information on templates.

Newly Published Project Professional Content - July 2008

robert.m.hoover — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:34:00 GMT

Connect with other Project users

Connecting with the community of Project users has now gotten more interesting with the addition of more community resources.

Project functions for custom fields

Examples have been added to this popular article to you customize Project functions and fields.

Use Project 2007 on Office Live

You can now use Office Live to share Project files.

Watch this: Create an inter-project dependency

Watch the video on creating relationships between groups in your organization through Project dependencies.

Watch This: Split a view

Work like the pros. Learn now to split a few for easy task and resource manipulation.

Newly Published Content - Project Server Post SP1 Infrastructure Update

robert.m.hoover — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:03:00 GMT

The Infrastructure Update for Project Server 2007 (and Project Professional 2007) has been released and is now available for download. For a thorough explanation of the Project Infrastructure Update including download information, installation instructions, FAQ's, and links to knowledge base articles, I suggest reading Christophe Fiessinger's Blog or the Office Project Blog.

Published the week of July 14, 2008

Project Server 2007 Infrastructure Update Release

This white paper covers the new features and changes associated with the Project Client and Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project 2007.

Deploy the Infrastructure Update for Office Project Server 2007

This article describes how to install the Infrastructure Update for Microsoft Office Project Server 2007.

Report Data Service optimizations for custom fields

This article provides some tips and examples that can help optimize custom reporting solutions built for the Reporting Database (RDB) of Office Project Server 2007. If you are interested in building custom views or applying custom indexes on any views in the RDB, read this article for some helper stored procedures that can be used in conjunction with your solutions.

Updated the week of July 14, 2008

Back up and restore your farm (Project Server 2007)

With the new Infrastructure Update, the globally unique identifier (GUID) and change log of each content database are retained when you restore or re-attach the database. Therefore, if you are reattaching a recent database version, Search does not need to perform a full crawl to integrate the reattached content database. This is a substantial improvement over the RTM release of the product.

Newly Published Project Client Content

robert.m.hoover — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 01:41:00 GMT

Demo Videos

Watch this: Use lag and lead time

This demo shows how to use lag and lead time to create gaps and overlaps between tasks in a project.

Watch this: Create a project

This demo shows how to create a project, set project properties, and set file properties.

Watch this: Set up a recurring task

This demo shows how to create a task that repeats on a set schedule throughout a project.

Watch this: Split a task

This demo shows how to interrupt a task, creating a gap between two portions of the task. It also shows how to move the entire split task, adjust the length of the gap created by the split, and rejoin the split portions of the task to remove the gap.

Watch this: Insert a task

This demo shows how to insert a new task between two existing tasks in a project.

Watch this: Group tasks or resources

This demo shows how to group tasks, remove the grouping, and create a new resource group using multiple criteria.

Watch this: Create a cross-project link

This demo shows how to create task dependencies across separate Project 2007 files.

Watch this: Link tasks in your project

This demo shows how to create task dependencies within a single project, and how to adjust the link type for the dependency.