The Amazing Adventures of Geek Girl

Enhance SharePoint and Project Server with Unified Communications – training courses available now!

SharePoint and Project Server are great collaboration platforms, but they can be greatly enhanced by adding Unified Communication capabilities.

 

Adding UC allows you to include presence information for users, so when you spot someone’s name on a SharePoint site, you can see if they’re available, busy, in a meeting, away or offline. This allows you to make an informed decision about how best to contact them.

 

There are various upcoming partner training events for UC (comprising Exchange and Office Communications Server technologies), listed in the table below.

 

We are offering a series of courses to help partners develop their UC proposition; sales readiness and technical capabilities.

The following courses are all face to face followed by a list of online materials available for sales and technical.

Exchange 2010     ->   OCS (unified messaging; IM; Conferencing)   - >   OCS (voice ignite)

When you access the PLC links …  Please use the REGISTER   key to see and select dates.

Technology	Date	Length	Type	Cost £	Location	Partner Learning Centre (PLC) Link
Exchange 2010	Nov 30th	5 day	Tech	550	London	Link to follow
	Feb 8th	5 day	Tech	550	Wokingham
OCS R2 Upgrade	Oct 19th	3 day	Tech	300	London	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?ActivityId=550785&UserMode=0&FromCECCSummary=false&CECCSummaryURL=
	Dec 7th	3 day	Tech	350	Wokingham	As above
	Mar 22nd	3 day	Tech	350	London	As above
OCS R2 Full course	Nov 9th	5 day	Tech	850	Wokingham	Link to follow
	Feb 15th	5 day	Tech	850	London
Voice Ignite	Oct 26th	5 day	Tech	950	Wokingham	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?ActivityId=553144&UserMode=0&FromCECCSummary=false&CECCSummaryURL=
	Jan 11th	5 day	Tech	950	Wokingham	As above
	Mar 8th	5 day	Tech	950	Wokingham	As above
Develop your Exchange & UC practice	tbd tbd	1 day	Sales Managers	0	TVP TVP	Link to follow

 

 

Course Type/Level	Course Title	Short Description	Modality (PLC)	Duration	Link to Content or Status
Sales and Marketing	Enhanced Communication and Collaboration Campaign in-a-box	Microsoft has prepared sales cards, telesales scripts, pre-packaged but customizable presentations, web site banners, customer e-mail elements, all designed to help you drive your business and accelerate your sales cycle.	Online Tutorial		https://www.partnermarketingcenter.com/ww-en/CampaignFinder/CampaignPage.aspx?MarketingCampaignID=121
Sales and Marketing	UC Cost Saving campaign BOM	The Cost Savings with Unified Communications FY10 customer campaign goal is to drive lead generation to help achieve and exceed the UC FY10 scorecard metrics.	Online Tutorial		https://www.partnermarketingcenter.com/ww-en/CampaignFinder/CampaignPage.aspx?MarketingCampaignID=145
Sales and Marketing	Exchange 2010 Upgrade Campaign BOM	Includes: Exchange 2010 Upgrade Discussion Guide for partners, Customer-ready Datasheet, and Creative Files for partners.	Online Tutorial		https://www.partnermarketingcenter.com/ww-en/CampaignFinder/CampaignPage.aspx?MarketingCampaignID=144
Sales and Marketing	Exchange 2010 Demo Showcase	Create sales opportunities, improve your effectiveness, and increase revenue with Demo Showcase. This scenario-based demonstration environment helps you show customers the real-world benefits of end-to-end, integrated solutions of Exchange 2010.	Online Tutorial		http://www.demoshowcasesuite.com/public/SimDetails.aspx?D=7e069baa-d452-446c-8aa7-d1139fc0ca4a
Sales and Marketing	E2010 Deployment and Migration	Covers the migration planning and deployment path to move an organization from Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or 2007 to Exchange Server 2010.	Web Seminar (On Demand)		https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 100-200	Exchange 2010 Ignite Workshop (HOLOs) (Beta)	The Exchange Server 2010 Ignite workshop covers a wide variety of topics and hands-on labs online ranging from architecture, setup, deployment, tools, migration, security, transport, unified messaging, governance, archiving, storage to high availability.	Online Tutorial		https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=500842
Technical 100-200	Mobility in Exchange 2010	This webcast will help you understand the Exchange ActiveSync value proposition and capabilities, as well as new features.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 100-200	Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access	See product demonstrations of the latest capabilities and understand how browser-based communication and collaboration gets better than ever in Exchange 2010.	Web Seminar (On Demand)	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 100-200	Exchange 2010 Overview	This webcast will introduce you to Exchange Server 2010, reviewing the major areas of investment for this release and highlighting marquee features.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 100-200	Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access	Exchange 2010 brings new features and functionality to Outlook Web Access. See product demonstrations of the latest capabilities and understand how browser-based communication and collaboration gets better than ever in Exchange 2010.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 100-200	Exchange 2010 Demos	A list of general product demos on TechNet Edge.	Online Tutorial		http://edge.technet.com/unifiedcommunications/
Technical 100-200	Transitioning from Exchange Server 2007 to Exchange Server 2010	Move mailboxes from Exchange Server 2007 to Exchange Server 2010 (Beta), remove the Exchange Server.	Online Tutorial		http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032419271&EventCategory=3&culture=en
Technical 100-200	Exchange Server 2010 (Beta) HA and Storage Scenarios Virtual Lab	After completing the exercises you will be able t install the Mailbox Server Role, create a New Database Availability Group (DAG), manage the DAG and Perform a Database Switch-over, and simulate a Disk Failure and Test Fail-over.	Online Tutorial		http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032419270&EventCategory=3&culture=en
Technical 100-200	Configuring Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging Virtual Lab	After completing the exercises you will be able to configure Exchange Server 2010 (Beta) Unified Messaging and experience the features of Unified Messaging.	Online Tutorial		http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032419269&EventCategory=3&culture=en
Technical 100-200	Exchange Server 2010 (Beta) Setup and Deployment Virtual Lab	In this lab, you will install your first Exchange Server 2010 server.	Online Tutorial		http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/globalsites.aspx?culture=en-US
Technical 100-200	E2010 Learning Snack (Beta)	10-15 min video for Exchange 2010 intro	Online Tutorial	15 Minutes	http://www.microsoft.com/learning/_silverlight/learningsnacks/exchange/snack01/Default.html
Technical 100-200	Collection 6899: Exploring Features of Exchange Server 2010	This two-hour collection provides you with an overview of the new features in Exchange Server 2010. It also describes the enhancements made over Exchange Server 2007.	Online Tutorial	2 Hours	https://www.microsoftelearning.com/eLearning/offerDetail.aspx?offerPriceId=249671&theme=technet
Technical 300-400	Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by UM	Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging is Microsoft's second generation unified messaging and voice mail solution. In this webcast, learn about the features, benefits, and architecture of  Unified Messaging in Exchange 2010.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 300-400	Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention	This webcast will introduce new ways to address archiving and retention with Exchange Server 2010.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 300-400	Exchange 2010 High Availability	The changes and improvements to the built-in high availability platform in Exchange Server 2010. Includes a unified framework for high availability and disaster recovery that is quick to deploy and easy to manage.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 300-400	Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control	This webcast will introduce you to new ways to address information protection and control with Exchange Server 2010.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687
Technical 300-400	Exchange 2010 Management Tools	Learn how we’ve made the Exchange Management Console more powerful, extended the reach of PowerShell, and made it easier to delegate management tasks.	Online Tutorial	1 Hour	https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=547687

Project and Portfolio Management Readiness Sessions for Microsoft Partners

 

The Microsoft UK Project and Portfolio Management team have worked tirelessly to organise various readiness sessions, aimed at Microsoft partners. These sessions include sales readiness training, tailored for sales and pre-sales employees, describing the common pain points customers experience and explaining how a project management can help, along with a sales overview of the Microsoft project management solution. There will also be a technical day in early 2010, aimed at developers and architects, which will cover various aspects of the Microsoft project management solution to a very deep technical level.

 

The first of these readiness sessions will be a series of sales readiness Live Meetings (part of the overall partner readiness Live Series), starting Tuesday 8th September at 4pm. Registration links for all of these Live Meetings are listed below. Register for the first one now- there’s not much time to spare!

 

Details of all the project management readiness training for partners is listed below. If you have any questions, or would like a pdf copy of this information, please contact me directly.

 

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Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management solution
(Enterprise Project Management)

Upcoming Sales and Technical Readiness Events

Sales Readiness Live Meetings Tara Hellier

8th September 2009 4pm-5.30pm Project and Portfolio Management Sales Refresher

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=550183

A 1.5 hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the business benefits of EPM, what customer pain points EPM can solve, how to identify EPM opportunities, gain an overview of the EPM architecture and how it fits in the Microsoft stack, and see an EPM product demonstration.

15th September 2009 4pm-5pm Project Server Overview

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=550203

A one hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, enabling them to better sell the EPM solution to their customers.

29th September 2009 4pm-5pm Portfolio Server Overview

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=549471

A one hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, enabling them to better sell the EPM solution to their customers.

6th October 2009 4pm-5pm Demo Tips and Hot Topics

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=549720

A one hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals who need to demonstrate the Microsoft EPM solution as part of their role. We will discuss best practices for demoing the EPM solution, how to set up demo environments and the primary topics customers are usually interested in.

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Project Management / EPM Recruitment Day Kevin Lief

20^th October 2009

Microsoft UK, Thames Valley Park

Details to be announced closer to event

 

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Project Server Exam Preparation Course Ben Howard, MVP

2^nd – 4^th November

QA office, London

A three day course specifically designed to help the delegates to pass Exam number 70-633 ‘Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects’.

 

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Project Server Exam Cram Day Ben Howard, MVP

27^th November 2009

Microsoft UK, Thames Valley Park

A 1-day ‘exam cram’ Project Server 2007 Certification preparation  to help you get your technical consultants ‘across the line’ and passing the EPM exam number 70-633, i.e. ‘Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects’

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Partner Sales Readiness Day Tara Hellier

26^th November 2009

Microsoft UK, Thames Valley Park

A one day training session, covering some aspects of the Microsoft EPM solution to a lower level, including project selection, project initiation, resource management, time and task progress tracking and collaboration, giving sales and pre-sales professionals more detailed product knowledge, allowing them to match EPM capabilities to customers’ needs.

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Sales Readiness Live Meetings Tara Hellier

11th November 2009 (TBC) 4pm-5.30pm Project and Portfolio Management Sales Refresher

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=550183

A 1.5 hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the business benefits of EPM, what customer pain points EPM can solve, how to identify EPM opportunities, gain an overview of the EPM architecture and how it fits in the Microsoft stack, and see an EPM product demonstration.

 

24th November 2009 4pm-5pm Project Server Overview

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=550203

A one hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, enabling them to better sell the EPM solution to their customers.

1st December 2009 4pm-5pm Portfolio Server Overview

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=549471

A one hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals to help them understand the capabilities of Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007, enabling them to better sell the EPM solution to their customers.

8th December 2009 4pm-5pm Demo Tips and Hot Topics

https://training.partner.microsoft.com/learning/app/management/LMS_ActDetails.aspx?UserMode=0&ActivityId=549720

A 1 hour Live Meeting aimed at sales and pre-sales professionals who need to demonstrate the Microsoft EPM solution as part of their role. We will discuss best practices for demoing the EPM solution, how to set up demo environments and the primary topics customers are usually interested in.

 

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Annual Partner Technical Day Bob Walker/Tara Hellier

January / February 2010

Microsoft UK, Thames Valley Park

Details to be announced closer to event

SharePoint Licensing Training Available for Partners

Licensing for Microsoft products can be a complicated beast! To aid your understanding of SharePoint licensing, three licensing training sessions are now available – essential viewing for any SharePoint partner!

 

Selling’s Cool– Selling Microsoft Office SharePoint Server Solutions

 

Selling’s Cool – Advanced – Selling Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Solutions

 

Selling’s Cool – Licensing Microsoft SharePoint Technologies

Upcoming SharePoint Partner Readiness Live Meetings – Register NOW!

The UK SharePoint partner team have worked long and hard to come up with a series of partner readiness sessions focused around SharePoint. Part of this is a series of sales readiness Live Meetings, known as the Live Series. Each meeting will be one hour long, and will focus on how to effectively sell a particular area of the SharePoint platform. Partners can register for these events now, using the links below.

 

Live Series – Portals and Collaboration

Live Series – Document Management and Records Management in SharePoint Server 2007

Live Series – E-forms in SharePoint

Live Series – Search in SharePoint Server 2007

Live Series – SharePoint Workflows

Natal on display at European Games Convention!

Massively off topic for this blog, but I just couldn’t resist posting about the first public display of Natal at the European Games Convention in Germany. I can’t wait until this technology is available for everyone to use!

 

For those that aren’t familiar with Natal, it’s a revolutionary way of interacting with video games. Natal uses infrared sensors to plot points on a virtual avatar corresponding to points on the user’s body (such as hands, elbows, knees etc), allowing the user to control video game characters simply by moving around and speaking. More information, plus a fantastic demo video, is available on the Natal site.

Project Server Report Pack 2 – Webcast today at 4pm

Slightly short notice, but there will be a webcast today (4pm – 5pm BST) around the EPM 2007 Report Pack- well worth watching, particularly if you or your customers are interested in EPM reporting.

Register for the webcast here.

Event Overview

The Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) 2007 Report Pack provides rich reports for common information needs. The EPM 2007 Report Pack is a collection of 12 Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports designed for various user groups of the EPM solution. In this webcast, we provide an overview and demonstration of the EPM 2007 Report Pack. We discuss the different usage scenarios the reports are tailored to fit and review the components used to move, store, and render the reports. With this information, you should have a better understanding of how to use the EPM 2007 Report Pack to provide business value for your organization.

Project Conference is getting closer – have you registered?

The Microsoft Project Team is pleased to announce exciting updates for the 5th Project Conference in Phoenix, Arizona from September 14-17, 2009.

Offering 75+ sessions for Project Conference 2009 – view all session details including speakers, titles and abstracts here. Stay tuned for more details on instructor led and hands on labs, “ask the experts” and additional networking opportunities. No other conference will come close to delivering the quantity and quality of content and experiences found at Project Conference 2009, nor the number of value added benefits and offers that will resonate throughout the year. We’re delighted to announce: · Receive a free licensed copy of Project Professional 2010! The offer is extended to all registered attendees by PMPI, a Microsoft Certified Partner in the EPM Specialization. Stay tuned for more details. · Receive free Project Professional 2007 e-learning! The offer is extended to all registered attendees by PMPI, a Microsoft Certified Partner in the EPM Specialization. Stay tuned for more details. · Free certification testing! Take the Project 2007 Technical Specialist exam 70-632 and/or 70-633 for free at Project Conference 2009. · PMI Credential Holders: earn up to 32.25 PDUs with Project Conference 2009 registration! · Save over 15%. We’ve extended our lowest registration offer to make it more affordable to attend! Project Conference 2009 is the one conference your company should attend this year!  Demonstrate the value of Project Conference 2009 to your company by downloading this letter and be empowered to attend. LEARN what can be achieved today and what’s coming tomorrow with the next release. CONNECT with your peers, industry practitioners, certified partners and the Microsoft Project team to share experiences. GROW your skills and investments to realize remarkable cost reductions, enhance efficiencies and move your business forward. For more information, please visit the Project Conference Website at http://www.msprojectconference.com. Don’t miss your chance to attend Project Conference 2009!  See you in September!

EPM VPC v4 available now! Upgrade today!

The last PPM/EPM 2007 VPC v4 based on Project 2007 is out! The current v3 will expire mid-August, so you want to get v4 as soon as possible!

 

Project and Portfolio Management (PPM/EPM) VPC v4

VPC version: 4.0

Expiration date: 11/1/2010

Size: 18GB / 10GB (compressed)

Products version: 2007

SP/CU version: SP2, April CU

Highlights:

• New SSRS reports to showcase the upcoming report pack (will be announced later in August)
• SP2 and April Cumulative Update for Project, Project Server, WSS, and SharePoint Server
• Usage must adhere to EULA terms: “…You may use the software in the virtual hard disk image only to demonstrate and internally evaluate it.  You may not use the software in a live operating environment…”
• Recommended HW configuration is 2 GB RAM (available for the VPC) and performance Hard Drive

Hosted Version

VPC and script are accessible as hosted TechNet Virtual Lab

• http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9665059

Image download

You can download EPM VPC v4 from the partner network.

• http://partner.microsoft.com/productdemos

Q&A:

Q: Where is the demo script?

A: It’s part of the compressed archive. Alternatively you can use the original v2 demo script.

Q: Is the SP2 for Project Portfolio Server 2007 installed in this VPC final?

A: Project Portfolio Server (PPS) SP2 installed in this VPC v4 is not the version of officially released SP2 for PPS, but on parity feature-wise.

Q: Why is the http://epm2007demo URL not in the IE’s Trusted sites anymore?

A: Feel free to add the server URL into the IE Trusted sites list, especially if you are demoing the “out-of-the-box” reporting capabilities of Project Server that are using the Office Web Components. Else we discourage you to  do so as you might get prompted for credentials on every time you try to access any sub-site in the http://epm2007demo location.

Q: Where can I learn more about Project 2010?

A: http://www.msprojectconference.com

Project Conference 2009 marketing materials now available for partners

 

Are you going to Project Conference 2009? If not, why not? You’ll miss out on the first 2010 announcements, including Project Ignite, which will help you prepare for deployment, operation and customisation of Project Server 2010!

If you are going to Project Conference 2009, chances are you’ll want to tell everyone about it! Project Conference 2009 marketing material is now available on the new and improved Partner Network for you to use, including web banners and PowerPoint materials.

Become a Demo Master!

2010 isn’t too far away, and EPM partners need to act now to make sure they’re fully equipped to provide amazing product demos. Watch this video, produced by certain famous faces in the EPM product team over in Redmond, to find out the recommended hardware and software setup for demoing 2010.

 

Are you using the UK SI Partner Toolkit?

 

If not, why not?!

 

At the beginning of 2009, your intrepid team of Partner Technology Advisors worked night and day to create and collate all of the best resources for SharePoint, Enterprise Project Management, Unified Communications, Business Intelligence, Security and Management and Virtualisation.

We’ve included product positioning presentations, software demos, PowerPoint sales presentations, case studies, competitive insights, training and readiness, solutions and add-ons and much more into one rich media, interactive application.

 

Partners can use the SI Toolkit to aid in presales and consultative engagement. It’s available now for partners to download here.

Due to the sensitive nature of some of the content, a password is required to enable access and download the toolkit which can be requested via the download site.

 

We’re very interested to hear what you think of the SI Toolkit – do you find it useful? What should be changed/ improved? Send your feedback to uksipma@microsoft.com or directly to me.

PTS becomes PTA

On July 1st, Partner Technology Specialists (PTS) officially became known as Partner Technology Advisors (PTA). But don’t panic, other than the job title change, not too much has changed – we’re still committed to exciting and enabling partners to use and deploy Microsoft software to its full potential.

Just another new Microsoft acronym for you to be aware of! :)

Upcoming Project developer-related Webcasts and available On-Demand training

 

Attention all EPM partners! There are some great developer-targeted webcasts coming soon. We also have some fantastic on-demand content, including a recording of the EPM University training. Details below.

 

Upcoming Project Webcasts

Reporting (BI and Data Analysis)

Date	Name	Description	Presenters	Registration
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 8:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada)	Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) 2007 Report Pack II - The top reports	The “Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) 2007 Report Pack II -  The top reports” provides rich reports for common information needs. The EPM 2007 Report Pack II is a collection of 12 Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports designed for various user groups of the EPM solution. In this webcast, we provide an overview and demonstration of the EPM 2007 Report Pack. We discuss the different usage scenarios the reports are tailored to fit and review the components used to move, store, and render the reports. With this information, you should have a better understanding of how to use the EPM 2007 Report Pack II to provide business value for your organization.	Bulent Guzel  and T.R. Sloan -  Microsoft Corporation	link

 

Real World Solutions

This upcoming Webcast series is unique – it just does not talk about particular feature for the sake of describing it, but it introduces a particular customer scenario and discusses a way to address customer need by extending Project Server by development project... Every Webcast will be accompanied by an extensive MSDN article with code samples! Very exciting! Delivered and presented by Microsoft Project MVP - Stephen C. Sanderlin from MSProjectExperts!

 

Month	Name	Scenario	Description	Presenter
September 2009	Importing Workspace Data into Project Server Custom Fields	A client has requested a Project Centre view that displays the number of active issues for each project. This is not possible out of the box.	Discusses a method of importing data from Project Workspaces (PWS) into a Project-level custom field	Stephen C. Sanderlin, MSProjectExperts
November 2009	Leveraging Project Server Security within SQL Reporting Services Reports	A client has requested a SQL Reporting Services report that displays sensitive financial data. However, they only want executors of the report to see information on projects to which they have access.	Discusses a method of leveraging Project Server security in SRS Reports	Stephen C. Sanderlin, MSProjectExperts
February 2010	Filter Resource and Project data based on Custom Fields	You are creating a custom Windows application for a client that extracts and displays Project and Resource information. Because the PSI provides no way to filter these entities prior to retrieval from the PSI, you must retrieve all of the projects or resources in order to filter them by Custom Field value. Because this  client has some international users on slow WAN links, you must minimize the payload sent to the user by the PSI call.	Discusses a method of extending the PSI to enable the filtering of Resources or Projects by Custom Field values	Stephen C. Sanderlin, MSProjectExperts
April 2010	Exporting Project Server Data to CSV	A client would like to export data from Project Server into a legacy Line of Business system. This system only accepts data in a CSV format.	Discusses a method of exporting Project Server data into CSV files	Stephen C. Sanderlin, MSProjectExperts

 

*Registration URLs will be announced on the Project Developer Portal and the Project_programmability blog.

 

 

On Demand EPM University Training       

Remember the EPM University and the wonderful Developer course? It’s available as an on demand recording free of charge right here!

Other Resources

· Project Developer Portal on MSDN

· Project_programmability blog

· Upcoming Project Conference http://www.msprojectconference.com/

· Questions or feedback on Project Developer-related content? mailto:epmdev@microsoft.com

Microsoft Office Project Portfolio Server 2007 SP2 is finally here!

Taken from Christophe Fiessinger’s blog:

 

We are happy to announce the release Project Portfolio Server 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2)!

Before you install this service pack it is essential that you read the following two knowledge base articles, and thoroughly read the guidance and test out the patch in a separate environment prior to a production rollout.

 

Project Portfolio Server Service Pack 2 (SP2) Links
Description of Project Portfolio Server 2007 Service Pack 2		http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971205
Issues that are fixed in Project Portfolio Server 2007 Service Pack 2		http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971363
How to deploy Project Portfolio Server 2007 SP2		http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8977C122-A64F-4C4E-A78B-0EA8E150FE3A
Project Portfolio Server 2007 Service Pack 2 download page		http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3adc87b0-d060-405e-b967-22676bca71f1&displaylang=en

Highlight of Portfolio Server 2007 SP2:

· contains significant security improvements, stability improvements, and performance improvements

· support for SQL Server 2008 32-bit (please note SQL 2008 64-bit is NOT supported)

· support for Portfolio Server on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

· contains all previously released fixes into one update

Enterprise Search from Microsoft - Comparison

Microsoft has three main offerings in the enterprise search space, from small scale search to solutions that are scalable to support extremely demanding search challenges. The table below, taken from the Microsoft Enterprise Search website, gives an overview of the three solutions.

 

Best-in-class enterprise search
for the most demanding applications

Learn more

• The ability to enhance your content at the time of indexing—through content processing capabilities such as format conversion, language detection, and entity extraction—significantly increases the information's value to your users.

• You need extreme scale—sub-second response time with the ability to handle millions to billions of documents.

• Your user experience is critical to your business performance.

• You need advanced linguistics support, such as support for Asian languages.

• You want to integrate high-end enterprise search with Office SharePoint Server 2007 (optional).

 

 

Enterprise search tightly integrated
with a business productivity infrastructure

Learn more

• You want an out-of-the-box solution that delivers the most frequently demanded search features.

• Streamlined integration with your business productivity infrastructure is critical to your strategy and your return on investment (ROI).

• You need the ability to handle millions of documents with quick response times for the average user.

 

 

Enterprise search available as a free download

Learn more

• You need a quick and easy enterprise search solution that can be set up in minutes.

• Speed and ease of implementation are more important than scale and sophistication of the solution.

• You want a risk-free opportunity to experiment with enterprise search on a limited scale.