Ben Howard, Applepark - Project Server Consultant

Automatically approve task status updates

Ben Howard — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:53:37 +0000

Project Server 2010 allows for the option of auto-approving task status updates, and since SP1, this has become even more useful as the option to publish the update has been added (see here).

However, due to the complexity of setting up the rules and lack of documentation regarding them, PMs have either tended to not use them, or to go for one of the easiest options of trusting all the updates from a select few employees (they either sit in the “Trust no-one camp” or “I trust a few people, but not everyone camp”).

I’ve found this slightly limiting, and I’ve recently been setting up a system for a client who wishes to manage these updates by exception only, rather than a blanket approval rule for a discrete set of employees. This client manages their plans by monitoring the completion dates of tasks (as oppose to the amount of work performed on a task).

To set up this scenario we first need to open up PWA and navigate to the Approval Center, and click on the Manage Rules button on the Ribbon

The Manage Rules page appears, and in the Ribbon click on the New icon to create a new rule.

Give your rule an appropriate name and description – note for best practise I will ALWAYS add the rule I’m testing for in the name, and then the full description in the Description section. When you have a lot of rules, it becomes much easier to decide which one to edit when they are named and described such.

Decide then whether to select the check boxes for Automatically Running the rule and Automatically Publish the updates – note for best practise I will turn these OFF (ie not selected) until I have verified that the rule does exactly what I want, and of course you will want to test these rules on a test project or even better, a test system before moving them to production.

Select the request type. For this we need to check Task Updates, and then the radio button “Where updated field matches a field in the published project”

The trick now is to select the updated fields to test against. For our scenario we want to perform the following test.

Assignment Finish <= Assignment Finish – note that we are testing the updated field against the published field.

Once this is completed, it is possible to restrict both the projects and resources that this rule is run for. In our instance it is left for all projects and all resources.

click on Save

The rule now appears within the Manage Rules screen, and it can easily be seen what the rule does due to sensible naming and the description. Note that there is no button on the Ribbon to go back to the Approval Center, so select the Approval Center from the links menu on the Left Hand Side.

Test the rule, by publishing a test project with several tasks and updating tasks via My Tasks. In order to get the Assignment Finish date to change beyond the Published Finish Date, you’ll need to update the work values so that they extend beyond the planned work values. You can either do this be changing the start date to to one after the planned start date, or if you are typing in Timephased values (either by tracking time per day or using Single Entry Mode), you will need to enter less work on the planned start date, or any of the planned work dates. This should cause the scheduling engine to move the Assignment Finish Date out into the future, and hence the rule won’t trigger. You will also want to test for tasks that are on-track (just update the % complete) and tasks that are early, so that the rule will trigger.

Once the updates have been sent to the Status Manager, open up the Approval Center, navigate to the Manage Rules section, and click on the Run All button. The rule should run automatically and can be checked via the History button. When the rule is firing correctly, you can change the rule to Run Automatically.

Rules needs to be set up for each PM individually, and alas, there is no way to combine tests across rules. Ideally I’d like to have some logical operators (AND, OR) in order to approve an update e.g., IF (condition X AND condition Y) OR condition Z) is met then approve the update….

However, it is what it is, and used sensibly can save time for a PM, allowing them to concentrate on the exceptions, which should be fewer in number, though not in complexity.

Enjoy, Ben.

Exporting tasks from Project into your Outlook calendar

Ben Howard — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 22:16:52 +0000

This is something that in the past I have done manually, but due to a discussion on a Web2.0 application somewhere I had the idea that it would be possible to semi automate this.

I guess the 1st thing to ascertain is why we might want to do this – for me it is basically the requirement to view both my programmed work from multiple projects (held in single MPP plans) and Outlook, (where I plan other things such as personal commitments which in turn often determine which location I need to be in (eg I need to be home for certain social commitments)). As a consultant, it’s important to be able to tell a client whether I can be onsite and away from home during a certain period, and if I’m working for multiple clients, then I need to consolidate several schedules. Within each schedule I might be known as Ben, Ben Howard, Consultant or any other such name, and so there would be little consistency for putting them in a Master Plan. Of course, it’s much easier if I’m driving the schedule, but sometimes I’m just the hired hand – when I’m driving all of my schedules, I just stick them in Project Server!

So, that’s my excuse for this foray into Project, Excel and Outlook, what’s yours?

Note that I’m using Project 2010, Excel 2010 and Outlook 2010, but this should work in all formats commonly used.

Here is the overall process.

PROJECT 2010

So the first thing I need to do is to save the file in Excel 2003 format. We need to save it to 2003 format because for some reason Outlook doesn’t have an option to import items from 2010 versions of Excel!

Due to the usual security concerns, we specifically need to change the settings to allow saving in an older format.

Open up Project, go to the Backstage | Options | Trust Center | Trust Center Settings | Prompt when loading files with non-default file format.

The file I’ve chosen to use for this blog is the "Wine tasting fundraiser” template from Office.com.

Click on File | Save As and choose Excel 97-2003 format. Saving this to Excel 97-2003 format gives the following warning.

Next you are taken through the Export Wizard. The goal of this wizard is to choose the data to export from Project. We simply need the resource, task name start and finish dates. You can optionally put the work in.

I’ll list all the screen shots so you can follow it completely

Now we can begin to select the data. We need assignment data, and we will include the headers (titles or column names) in our output.

Next, select the fields you want to export from Project. For me they are Resource Name, Task Name, Work, Start & Finish. Suggested names will be created in the Excel field – you can rename these as required.

Once this is completed, you have the opportunity to save the map you have created – this is a sensible idea if you are going to do this more than once! You can see that I called mine “Export for Outlook Calendar import”

So, onto the next stage

Excel 2010.

I now have an Excel 97-2003 Worksheet, with a single workbook called Assignment_Table1. Opening it up gives the following

I now need some VBA to do the following

1. Remove all the rows (assignments) that are not mine.

2. Add the number of hours work to the task name. This is because Outlook calendars don’t have a work value field, and so I’m going to add them to the task name so I can have an idea of how much work I have to do. Note that this value is the assignment work so if I have multiple assignments to a task the work value is correct.

3. Split the Start and Finish time values from the start and finish dates so that the appointment is entered correctly into my calendar (08:00, 13:00 etc).

The following VBA performs the above actions – note that is comes with no warranties etc; and the columns and resource names are hard coded. You will need to modify this to work for your exact map of exported items from MSProject.

Sub Format_Dates()
‘ Ben Howard – www.applepark.co.uk October 2011
‘ Excel VBA to modify our

Dim TimePart As String
Dim n As Integer
Dim rowNum As Integer
Dim colNum As Integer

‘ Insert a new column to hold the start time

Columns("E:E").Select
Selection.Insert Shift:=xlToRight, CopyOrigin:=xlFormatFromLeftOrAbove

‘Removes rows with the name not equalling Chairperson in column A

Set myRng = Range("A1").CurrentRegion
FirstRow = myRng.Row
Lastrow = FirstRow + myRng.Rows.Count – 1
For rw = Lastrow To FirstRow Step -1
If Cells(rw, "A") <> "Chairperson" Then Rows(rw).Delete
Next

rowNum = 1
colNum = 2

While Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value <> ""
    ‘contactenate the Name and work value
    colNum = 2
    Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value = Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value & " – " & Cells(rowNum, colNum + 1).Value
    ‘split the start and finish time.
    colNum = 4
    n = InStr(1, Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value, " ")
    TimePart = Right(Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value, Len(Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value) – n)
    Cells(rowNum, colNum + 1).Value = TimePart
    colNum = 6
    n = InStr(1, Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value, " ")
    TimePart = Right(Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value, Len(Cells(rowNum, colNum).Value) – n)
    Cells(rowNum, colNum + 1).Value = TimePart
    rowNum = rowNum + 1
Wend

End Sub

(thanks to http://excel.bigresource.com/track/excel-lplxvLaM/ and some others for publishing their code which I have shamelessly copied and modified)

Once you have run the VBA, your Excel file should now look like the following…

The Outlook import needs to find a named range, so highlight the rows and columns to be imported, go to the Name Range cell, and type OutlookImport and hit return.

Save and close Excel – note for some reason Excel chose to default to 5.0/95 format whilst saving, so you might have to Save As a 97-2003 format.

Outlook 2010

Open Outlook2010, and if the Import & Export command isn’t available, then add it either the the Quick Access Toolbar, or put it on the ribbon.

Once it’s on the ribbon, select the Import & Export icon. It’s an easy wizard so I’ve just included most of the screen shots for you to follow.

Choose the file to import, and select your relevant options.

Choose the calendar to import the file into. I always set up a new calendar for each project I’m working on.

Select the appropriate named range to import

Map the fields from the Excel chart to Outlook. You do this by dragging and dropping items from the left to the right. There is no need to map the hours or name.

The items are imported to the calendar with the correct start and finish times and the correct subject. Using Outlook’s Calendar Overlay feature, I can see my normal calendar alongside the project one. I can do this for multiple calendars – it really is a great feature.

Enjoy, Ben.

Deploying Project Server in a global environment

Ben Howard — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:46:45 +0000

I’m starting to see this small issue more and more, as Project Server deployments become global in nature. The issue is around the display of dates, specifically (for my customers at least) the difference between US and European dates when displayed in the short date format. A date displayed as 12/01/11 is the 12th Jan in Europe, but is December the 1st in the US.

With global deployments based in these two countries (and I’m currently working on 3 of these for PS2010 at the moment) this is an issue that needs resolving.

By default, when you install Project Server (at least all of the ones I’ve installed), the Site Regional Settings for the PWA Site are set to US, so one of my 1st tasks for a European installation (and pls note that all my European installations over the last 10 years have been done in English, without exception) is to change the regional settings. In SharePoint 2010 this is done at the Site Level; select Site Actions and choose Site Settings.

Within the Site Settings, choose Regional Settings within the Site Administration grouping

Within the Regional Settings, choose the locale of the main set of users. The locale sets the format for the way that the PWA site displays numbers, date and time.

In this instance I’m going to choose English (United Kingdom) as the locale. When I do this then the dates in PWA are displayed in dd/mm/yy format.

So far so good, but what about my American based users. They are used to seeing the date displayed in mm/dd/yy format.

Fortunately each user can also set their own preference for their locale (user regional settings), so this becomes a training issue to allow users to set this up.

The user needs to click on My Settings

And then click on My Regional Settings.

The same page layout is presented as before, but this time I’m going to change the locale for Ben Howard to be US

In order to do this I need to uncheck the Always follow web settings checkbox, and then I can set the locale to English (United States), and I’d set the time zone correctly as well.

Now my individual PWA is set to display the date in mm/dd/yy as shown below.

Technorati Tags: Regional Settings,PWA,locale

If you need shortcuts, then you can get directly to the regional settings by the following URL;

How to automatically change the colour of a task name

Ben Howard — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 09:57:05 +0000

This requirement came from a customer more as a general query rather than a full demand, but I thought it should be an interesting enough problem to invest some time in.

Changing the font, colour, or any of the other options available under Format | Text Styles can only be done automatically for a certain set of (Microsoft determined) pre-defined tasks. The only option left for the PM is either to use the “Marked” column, or to resort to code/VBA.

Customer request

So, the original request was to change the colour of the text based on the % complete. This is relatively simple, we can accomplish this using the following statement.

Loop through all the tasks, and for each task that is not a summary or blank task, do the following….

If Tsk.PercentComplete = 100 Then
SelectRow Tsk.ID, RowRelative:=False
SelectTaskField Row:=Tsk.ID, RowRelative:=False, Column:=”Name”
Font Color:=pjGray
Else
SelectRow Tsk.ID, RowRelative:=False
SelectTaskField Row:=Tsk.ID, RowRelative:=False, Column:=”Name”
Font Color:=pjBlack
End If

So far so good, but you’ll notice that if you run this then two things happen. Firstly, the screen flickers during the update. This can be switched on/off by using the following statement at the beginning of the code

Application.ScreenUpdating = False

and then

Application.ScreenUpdating = Ture

at the end of the code.

The second issue is that the cursor moves as it loops through the tasks, so it is worth saving the original location of the cursor, and then resetting that when the code as run.

Dim OriginalTsk as Task

Set OriginalTsk = ActiveCell.Task

and then at the end of the code…

EditGoTo ID:=OriginalTsk.ID

I’m no coder, but the above works, and it wouldn’t have worked without the input of both Nico (via the forums whose published code I borrowed) and Catalin Olteanu and Rod Gill who answered specific queries – thank you all.

Enjoy, Ben.

Project Server Security explained

Ben Howard — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:44:23 +0000

I seem to spend quite a bit of time, during training courses, explaining (in some depth) how Project Server security works. People generally understand Groups pretty easily, and then global permissions, but really struggle with the concept of categories, their relationship to groups and category permissions, and what happens is a user is a member of more than one group (and via the groups is associated to the same category twice, but with different permissions). I’m going to use this post to try and demystify Groups, Categories, Views, Global and Category Permissions, and anything else that crops up using a set of worked examples, and I’ll try and add a few best practices.

Let’s start off with some definitions.

Groups

A group defines a role within an organisation, and the people within that role (who are members of the group) ultimately have similar or the same functionality needs. Group names should be descriptive, eg Project Managers, Resource Managers, Administrators.

Permissions

Permissions define the functionality that a user is allowed to use in Project Server and define what the user can do to certain projects and resources. Permissions are split into two distinct groups, the 1st group is called Global Permissions, and the 2nd group is called Category Permissions. I’ll talk about where these permissions are applied later.

User

A user is a representation of a person who logs onto the system and utilises Project Server. Note that users are not necessarily resources, nor vice-versa. Users should belong to a Group (or a number of Groups).

1. Setting the default functionality for Project Server

The 1st place to start with Project Server is to set the PWA Permissions within Server Settings, Manage Project Web App Permissions. You can use this page to deny access to a particular feature or function for all Project Server users, thereby defining the totality of the functionality for the implementation. By default all permissions are enabled, so it’s a question of disabling the relevant permissions/functionality that you do not require for the particular implementation. Note all permissions are listed within this screen, they are grouped by “type”, and that Global Permissions are mixed with Category Permissions.

In the above screen shot I have disabled the Status Report Responses and Requests.

2. Setting Global Permissions.

Global Permissions can be associated with a user or a group. Best practice is to associate Global Permissions with Groups only (associating Global Permissions with a user will lead to an overhead in administration). To set the Global Permissions for a group, navigate to Server Settings, Groups. I’m going to review the permissions for the Project Managers’ Group. Click on the Resource Managers Group, and scroll down to the section called Global Permissions. Review these permissions, in a default server instance they will look as follows… (note however that it’s not practical to show all permissions here, and that the two by the Status Reports indicate that these permissions have been disabled with the PWA Permissions section)

For the sake of this blog, I’m going to concentrate on a two global permissions and two category permissions in order to explain how everything works; the permissions I’ve chosen are;

Global Permissions

New Project

New Resource

Category Permissions

Delete Project

Edit Enterprise Resource Data

Each permission can either be set to Allow; Deny; Soft Deny (neither Allow or Deny is set). There is an order of precedence with the permissions, where a Deny will override an Allow, and an Allow overrides a Soft Deny (Deny > Allow > Soft Deny). Note that this precedence is only relevant where a user is a member of more than one group, or a group is associated with more than one category so we can park this idea for now and we’ll return to it later.

Let’s deal with the global permissions.

For the New Project permission, the Allow check box is selected. Assuming that the user is only a member of the Project Managers Group, then the user CAN create a new project. This is sensible, Project Managers should be able to create projects.

For the New Resource permission, neither the Allow nor the Deny check box is selected for this permission with the Project Managers Group, so the actual permission is a soft deny. Assuming that the user is only a member of the Project Managers Group, then the user CANNOT create a new resource. So by default, Project Managers cannot create new users – this is sensible, only Resource Managers should be able to do that (and administrators of course, but then they can do everything).

The following graphic illustrates the relationship between a user and the group.

3. Categories

As previously stated, a category is a subset of Projects, Resources and Views within the Project Server database. There are 5 default categories

My Tasks	Primarily used by project resources who have assigned tasks.
My Projects	Provides access to all projects that a user owns.
My Resources	Intended for resource managers and is useful only after the Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) is defined.
My Direct Reports	Intended for users who need to be able to approve timesheets.
My Organisation	Used to grant access to all information in the organization. This category is intended for members of a Project Management Office (PMO), executives in an organization, and other key users who require the ability to view projects and resources across the entire organization.

It is worth getting to know the categories, and the data that exists therein. For this blog, we’re going to concentrate on the My Projects category.

My Projects contains the following Projects and Resources

Projects

Where the user is the Project Owner or Status Manager

Where the user is on the Project Team

Where the resource is a descendent of the user is on the Project Team

Resources

Where the user is the resource

Where the resource is on a project owned by the user

Note that the category My Projects is dynamic; and projects and resources will move in and out of the category based on the 3 project and 2 resource conditions set. Also, each user on the system could have (and is likely to have) a different set of data within My Projects.

The following graphic illustrates the category as is relates to a single user. Out of all the projects in the database, 7 are part of My Projects.

Note that we have yet to define the permissions (or rights) to the 7 projects defined in the category, just the fact that there are 7!

4 Categories and their relationship to Groups

Categories are associated with groups.

The following table details the default associations

Category	Group
My Tasks	Team Members
My Projects	Project Managers Resource Managers Team Leads
My Resources	Resource Managers
My Direct Reports	Resource Managers
My Organisation	Executives Portfolio Managers Project Managers Resource Managers Administrators

The following graphic illustrates the association between the Project Managers’ Group and the My Projects Category

Hence a user gets access to a set of global permissions by belonging to a group, and they are then associated with a category (set of projects, resources and views) because the group is associated with the category.

5 Category Permissions and their association with a Group

Now comes the crux of permissions. Each association between a category and a group also brings with it the ability to define any of 22 category permissions to the resources or projects in the category, for that group only.

The two category Permissions that we will concentrate on are;

Category Permissions

Delete Project

Edit Enterprise Resource Data

For the Delete Project category permission, the Allow check box is selected (this is the default setting for the Project Managers’ Group and the My Projects category). Assuming that the user is only a member of the Project Managers’ Group, then the user CAN delete any projects within the user’s My Projects category. Depending on your process, this might be sensible.

For the Edit Enterprise Resource Data category permission, a soft deny condition is set. Assuming that the user is only a member of the Project Managers’ Group, then the user CANNOT edit any of the enterprise resources within the the user’s My Projects category.

The following graphic illustrates the association between the Project Managers’ Group, the My Projects Category and the Category Permissions applied to the My Projects category when associated with the Project Managers’ Group.

So far so good, given the permissions we’ve looked at, our user can create projects but not resources, and within the projects he has access to (My Projects), he can delete those projects, but he cannot edit any resource data.

6. Let’s begin to get complex

Remember, there are 21 category permissions and 60+ global permissions in total. Each resource can belong to more than one group, each group can be associated with more than one category, each category can be associated with more than one group, and each category can have a different set of permissions when associated with each group. So that means the My Projects category, which is associated with the Project Managers, Resource Managers and Team Leads groups, can have different category permissions for each group. Let’s take our simple example above, dealing with 2 category and 2 global permissions, and associate another category to the group.

The projects within each category will have a different set of permissions (as shown by the blue/red colour outlining the categories above). Any Project which is a member of both categories will inherit the permissions from both categories, where a Deny will override an Allow, and an Allow overrides a Soft Deny (Deny > Allow > Soft Deny). Note that this precedence is now relevant for the projects which are a member of both categories.

We can build on this complexity further because each user can also belong to multiple groups, each group can have different global and category permissions, and each group can be associated with multiple categories (as previously stated).

7. Views

Each view can be associated with a category, so now that you understand categories contain a set of data, the view allows you to see the data the as per the defined view. For example, I might have a category called Finance, associated with all projects (My Organisation), which I have associated the Cost views only. I would then create a Finance group, associated with the Finance category, and then only members of the Finance group would be able to use the Cost views.

8. Best Practices.

It’s easy to get confused with tracking Project Permissions. Here are some tips to keep it easy

1. If possible, utilise the standard permissions built in the box.

2. Modify the standard permissions, and then document it! I have a nicely formatted and colour coded spreadsheet that tells me exactly what I’ve changed.

3. Do not apply permissions or associate categories directly with resources.

Enjoy, Ben.

Project Server 2010 Administrator’s guide

Ben Howard — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:07:11 +0000

I rarely re-blog existing blogs, but I thought this one was worth it. MS have just released the grandly named Microsoft Project Server 2010 Administrator’s Guide. It’s a weighty tomb of 302 pages, but it does a good job of filling part of the documentation requirements for Project Server. Anyway, make your own mind up, it can be found here… http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=212383

Enjoy…

Displaying the Day count for a task

Ben Howard — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:58:26 +0000

A customer on a recent training course asked if how he could create a view that didn’t display dates, but rather showed the day number from the project start date, that each task started on. This literally took me 30 seconds to do, but I figured it was worth a blog post.

Obviously, there are two separate sections to this

1. Create the formula

2. Create the view within MSProject for printing.

The formula basically needs to determine the difference in number of days from the project start date to the task start date for each task. The following formula does that quite nicely.

ProjDateDiff([Project Start],[Start])/[Minutes Per Day]

In order to set this up, open up MSProject. I’ve used one of the standard templates for this demo.

Edit one of the number fields to contain the above formula and place the field next to the Task name.

Also, you’ll need to change the timescale to remove the dates, and just show the day numbers instead. Project has a built in Label field for this…

So, putting this together produces the following. Note that I’ve expanded the timescale within the Gantt so that you can see the day numbers correctly, ideally you would adjust it to get the whole Gantt on a single page before you print it off.

And of course, if you print this off it looks like the following… It’s an easy way to communicate a plan before you commit to dates (ie you are selling something!). And here’s a tip, if you can’t work out the paper sizes, just print it to A0 to an Adobe printer, and then print it physically onto A3/A4 – you’ll get everything on one page.

Enjoy, Ben.

Understanding Departments in Project Server 2010 (part 2)

Ben Howard — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:27:10 +0000

Resource Departments

In my last blog I introduced the concept of departments. Let’s now look at how departments can be used with resources. When project server is installed an Enterprise Custom Field is created called Resource Department, and this is associated with a lookup table called Department. This can be a multi level lookup table, so its now really feasible to set up a single project server instance to service multiple business units, each with discrete business processes; this type of configuration is popular in Shared Service environments where a single instance of Project Server is serving multi business units.

Associating a department with an Enterprise Custom Field

Perhaps the 1st place most administrators will come across the Departments field (once they are set up of course) will be when an Enterprise Custom Field (ECF) is set up. Remember, there are two types of ECFs that can be associated with Departments (resource and project). In the screen shot below I’ve created an ECF called Access Level, which I’m going to use to hold the employee access level for resources within the HR department. This access level is just a pure text field in this instance, but could be a number, date or one of the other available types within the Entity Type.

Associating a resource with a department

So looking at resources, a resource can be assigned to zero or one department (note that the MS documentation says that a resource can be assigned to zero or more Departments, which is true, if more = 1!).

The 1st place of impact when we associate a resource with a department is when we create a resource, either within PWA or within Project Professional. The screen shot below shows the (Resource) Departments field set to blank. Note below it the only resource custom field available is the Resource Role (another inbuilt field).

As soon as a Resource Departments field is selected, then the Resource custom fields change to now include the ones that have been associated with the selected department (HR) , i.e., the Access Level Resource ECF.

That’s the crux for resource custom fields – they allow additional resource information to be associated and captured for different business units (okay, lets call them departments). So, within HR, for each resource I might have a business requirement to capture Access Level and Resource Role, whereas within Engineering I might want to capture Health and Safety compliance, and within Marketing I don’t want to capture anything (so I don’t associate Marketing people with any Resource departments).

Why bother with different fields – simple, it’s so that we can use them later for reporting, filter and grouping.

More later, but hope you enjoyed this for now.

Enjoy – Ben.

Understanding Departments in Project Server 2010 (part 1)

Ben Howard — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:04:08 +0000

Introduction

This is an introduction to Departments, where they are used and how they are set up. I intend to follow up this post with a drill down into the specific use areas of departments over the next few posts.

Departments are a really useful new feature in Project Server 2010, and they (alas) add another level to your planning. So before you ask “what exactly is a department”, let’s see what the MS documentation has to say

“Departmental custom fields, or departments, enable you to define, at a resource, task, or project level, which fields are required or not required. This helps to filter information displayed throughout Project Web App, so that information is focused on what is applicable to each department. While this is not a security feature, it can help to simplify the interface for Project Web App users.”

I’d go a stage further and say that departments are also used to segregate data during Business Analysis, and the reporting of data within the OLAP cubes.

So the 1st question you need to ask yourself is “Do I need to implement departments”. Whilst this isn’t cut and dried, if you have different business processes and reporting structures within the scope of your EPM solution, then you’ll need to utilise departments. If you just have lots of the same thing, even on a large scale, within the scope of your EPM solution, then you can leave them well alone. The good new is of course, that you can change your mind later on, but as most of us know, that’s costly in terms of re-training, re-writing process documentation etc.

Just to be clear, as stated by MS above, departments are NOT a security feature, they hide data (security by obscurity), so you still need to understand the concept of groups and categories.

The table below details where departments have an influence within Project Server 2010.

Setting up Departments

For anyone used to Project Server, this is really easy. Departments are implemented as Enterprise Custom fields, and the following are already setup when you create your Project Web App instance.

1. A lookup Table with the name Department. By default this is blank.

2. An Enterprise Custom Field called Project Departments, which uses the lookup table called Departments. Note that by default we are not allowed to multi select this field

3. An Enterprise Custom Field called Resource Departments, which uses the lookup table called Departments. Note that by default we are not allowed to multi select this field. This contradicts the comment above about resources belonging to zero or more departments.

To update the Departments lookup table, within Server Settings select Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables, click on the Department lookup table and complete it to represent your departments. Note that I have filled it in using rather unimaginative names here, but your departments really should be boundaries of process or information type. I’m assuming here that within HR, IT, Legal etc they all use their own processes, and the scope of those processes are defined within the department.

Once that is set up then we can begin using the departments to segregate our data and processes, which we’ll begin in the next blog.

Enjoy, Ben.

Optimistic and Pessimistic views on a single gantt

Ben Howard — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:11:35 +0000

This is a nice little trick, that I’ve used several times at client site to slow both optimistic and/or pessimistic durations on a single gantt chart. This really is a great view to help senior management understand what might happen on a project, and we can show the cumulative effect of both bringing tasks in early and/or late. It’s a great view to get resources

The end result looks something like the gantt chart below, where the green duration shows displays an optimistic duration, the blue the expected, and the red the pessimistic duration. It’s also possible for tasks to have one, both or none of the optimistic or pessimistic durations (as tasks 4 and 5 display below, with one each, and tasks 6 and 7 having neither).

Note that this technique relies on PERT analysis, which has been removed from Project 2010. You can still set this up manually in Project 2010 (see screen shot below), and if you want to implement PERT then check out this blog – http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectified/archive/2009/11/24/3296207.aspx

Step 1 – Add the PERT Analysis toolbar to Project

Within Project 2007, right click on the toolbar and select PERT Analysis.

Once this is done, you’ll notice another toolbar - this is the PERT toolbar. Hover over each of the icons in turn to display the actions.

Step 2 – Set the PERT weights

Before we set anything, be aware that PERT is traditionally used to calculate and display an optimistic, expected and pessimistic duration. We are going to change the weights to leave the expected duration alone.

Click on the balance icon to set the PERT weights. The Optimistic and Pessimistic must be set to Zero, and the Expected to 6. This is a per project setting and therefore must be completed for EACH project.

Step 3 – Use the PERT Entry Sheet to set the Optimistic, Expected and Pessimistic durations

The PERT Entry Sheet is used to enter the Optimistic, Expected and Pessimistic durations. Note that if you have already set the durations for the tasks, then you need to make sure that the expected duration is equal to the duration you have previously set.

Step 4 – Use the calculate button set the start and finish dates for the tasks

The calculate button needs to be used in order to set the start and finish dates for the optimistic and pessimistic durations. When you click the button, the following message appears.

Step 5 – Display the Optimistic and Pessimistic durations

Now that the relevant start/finish and durations are calculated, it’s time to start displaying these on the Gantt chart.

Within project, select the Gantt chart view and then Format | Bar Styles.

There are several things you need to change within the Bar Styles window.

1. Set up a new row, called Optimistic, with a bar colour of green, showing for Normal tasks, row 1, from Start1 to Finish1.

2. Set up a new row, called Pessimistic, with a bar colour of red, showing for Normal tasks, row 3, from Start3 to Finish3.

3. Find the row named Task, (this is the display for “normal, standard” tasks, and change the row value from 1 to 2.

4. If you have any rows that are set to display critical tasks with a (default) red bar, then these should be deleted as red is being used to show the pessimistic durations.

The view will now display the optimistic, pessimistic and expected durations on the Gantt chart on the rows specified within the bar styles above (this time in Project 2007).

enjoy – Ben.