1,300 plus attendees at the Microsoft Project 2009 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, were treated to a preview of the next release of Microsoft Project.  Chris Capossela, senior VP with the Microsoft Business Division, presented Wednesday morning’s keynote on Microsoft Project 2010 followed by an overview demonstration of the product line by Keshav Puttaswany, Group Program Manager of the Microsoft Project Business Unit.

Capossela discussed the four pillars of the new product line as:

• Simpler and intuitive user experience.
• Enhanced collaboration and reporting.
• Scalable and connected platform.
• Providing unified project and portfolio management.

Puttaswany’s demonstration was often greeted with applause as various features were showcased.  A number of breakout sessions through the remainder of the conference highlighted many of the specific aspects of both MS Project Professional and MS Project Server 2010. 

This release was by far the most significant upgrade to MS Project since its debut in 1987.  Microsoft has consolidated Project Server and Portfolio Server into one application and  has removed the word “Office” from the product line.  The three applications under the 2010 product line will be:

• Microsoft Project Standard 2010
• Microsoft Project Professional 2010
• Microsoft Project Server 2010

The Beta version of the product will be available later this year and general release will occur in the first half of 2010.

In future posts, I will discuss some of the new features including:

• The “Ribbon” user interface.
• The “Team Planner”.
• The “Time Line” view.
• SharePoint “Sync”.
• And other improvements over existing features.

A popular topic during our project management seminars is the development of a project dashboard using Microsoft Project.  A project dashboard is often an executive view of the status of a project using colored indicators.  Common indicators are the schedule status and the budget status using green, yellow, and red traffic lights.  The example below is a typical dashboard. 

A green light means that the project is on track with regard to the schedule. Yellow shows that the project is at risk and red states that the project has exceeded some predefined organizational standard project threshold.  A white indicator is used when the project leader has yet to set a baseline, typically for a project that has not yet started.

PMO’s often create a Project Portfolio Dashboard.  This can give an executive an overview of all the organization’s projects and is helpful to identify projects at risk.

Here are the steps to create a simple project dashboard using Microsoft Project.  This dashboard will use the following thresholds:

• Green light - project is on track
• Yellow light - project is less than 15% over schedule.
• Red light - project is 15% over schedule or budget.
• White light - project baseline has not be established.

1. On the Main Menu bar, select Tools / Customize / Fields.
2. Change the field Type to: Number
3. Select the field named Number 1.
4. Click the Rename button and rename the field Number 1 to Schedule Dashboard.
5. Click the Formula button.
6. Insert the following items into the formula:
   • Field /Date / Finish Variance
   • “/” (the division sign)
   • Field / Duration / Baseline Duration / Baseline Duration
   • “*” (the multiplication sign)
   • 100
7. The formula should appear as: [Finish Variance] / [Baseline Duration] * 100
8. Click OK
9. Reply to the subsequent message by clicking OK, which will return you to the Customize Fields dialogue box.
10. Under the option of Calculation for task and group summary rows, selection the option Use formula
11. Click the Graphical Indicators button
12. Create the indicators to match the figure below:
13. Select OK and close the Customize Fields dialogue box.
14. Within the Tracking Table, insert the Schedule Dashboard field to the right of the Task Name column:
    Insert / Column / Schedule Dashboard / OK.
15. Display the Schedule Dashboard indicator for the entire project:
    • Tools / Options / select the View tab
    • Check the option Show Project Summary Task
    • OK

The addition of the Budget status uses the following calculation:

[VAC] / [Baseline Cost] * 100

As you experiment with the formulas and graphical indicators, your organization can create a sophisticated project dashboard.

Learn more about Glen Knight’s project management seminars.

One of my favorite features in Microsoft Project is the stop light indicator because it can quickly highlight areas in the project plan that are falling behind. The tool is very easy to set up. The following is a step-by-step guide so you can start utilizing this feature.

• First, open Microsoft Project from the Tools menu, select Customize –>Fields
• From the Outline Codes page, enable the tasks button from the “type” drop down box by selecting “Number”.
• With the “Number 1″ field highlighted, click “Rename”, let’s call it “Dashboard Calculation”
• Under Custom Attributes, select “Formula”, then click on the “Formula” button.  Insert the following expression:
  IIf([Baseline Duration]=0,99999,[Finish Variance]/[Baseline Duration]*100)
• Click OK, then in the “Calculations for task and group summary rows” section, select “Use formula”.
• In the field section, highlight “Number 2″ click “Rename”, let’s call it “Dashboard Null Test”
• Under Custom Attributes section, select “Formula” then click the “Formula” button.  Inset the following expression. IsNull([Baseline Duration]).  Click OK.
• From the “Type” drop down menu select “Text”
• With the “Text 1″ field highlighted click “Rename”, title “Dashboard Schedule”
• Under Custom Attributes select “Formula” then click on the “Formula” button.  Inset the following expression.
  Switch([Number1]=99999,”No Baseline”,[Number1]<5,”On Schedule: <5%”,[Number1]<15,”Late: 5-15%”,[Number1]=15,”Late: 5-15%”,[Number1]>15,”Behind Schedule: >15%”). Then click OK.
• In the “Calculations for task and group summary rows” section, select “Use formula”.
• In the values to display section, select “Graphical Indicators” then click the “Graphical Indicators” button. Click on Nonsummary rows, then insert the data like the screen below and click ok.

Now add the field as a column in your favorite view. I like the Tracking Gantt.

• From the insert menu select “Column”
• From the “Field Name” drop down box select “Text 1 (Dashboard Schedule)”
• Click OK, then save this as a template for future projects.

The result is an indicator that is white if no baseline is set, green if the task is <5% behind, yellow for 5-15% behind and red if the task is >15% behind schedule. 

Troy Wheeler, Vice President of Technology, EPM2e, can be reached at 800-878-0385.

One of the most common areas of confusion in Microsoft Enterprise Project Management Solution (MSEPM) is security. EPM has a very granular security model and a fair amount of complexity.

Within EPM, the first set of security objects defines group and individual access to the application. You can manage access to application features and functions through the use of Users and Groups and Security Templates, found under the Administration screen in Project Web Access (PWA).

• Users - Any individuals who access Project Web Access.
• Groups - Collections of individual users with the same permission requirements.
• Security Templates - Rules applied to groups to simplify the administration of permissions.

The second set of security objects provides ways to access, or limit access, to data including projects, resources and views. Categories are the collection of projects, resources, assignments, views and models to which users and groups are granted access.

A defined Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) is a major tool used by categories in defining how they grant access.  Project Web Access includes the following default Categories:

• My Tasks - Intended for individual team members who are assigned to tasks in one or more enterprise projects.
• My Projects - Intended for project managers, grants read and write access to projects created by project managers.
• My Resources - Intended for resource managers and uses a security rule based on RBS.  It is useful only when RBS is defined.
• My Direct Reports - Intended for resource managers who need to approve timesheets.
• My Organization - This category is used to grant access to all information in the organization. It is intended for members of a Project Management Office, or Executives in an organization, and other key users who require the ability to view projects and resources across the entire organization.

Security Rules are used to query the Project Server database to determine the list of projects, resources and models a particular user can access. Examples are:

• Information for all resources that a resource manager manages.
• A project manager’s or resource manager’s own models.
• Models created by resources that a resource manager manages.

So to summarize, Security Templates and Groups are just convenient ways for system administrators to assign rights to a large number of users. Categories and Security Rules define and automate the granting of access to data relating to projects, resources and models in the project server database.

Troy Wheeler, Vice President of Technology, EPM2e, can be reached at 800-878-0385.

During the MS Project Conference, January 17-19, in Seattle, Washington, conference attendees were privy to the new features and functions that will be included in the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution 2007 release.

Excitement bounded through the general session and the detail demonstrations in the individual breakout sessions. This release is not just an upgrade but a significant development of enhanced functionality and additional features in both Project desktop and Project Server. The list of changes is too numerous to detail in this article, but here are a few of the things to expect in Project desktop (Project Professional / Standard)

• Multi-Level Undo - Microsoft has removed the single undo constraint in Project to be consistent with other Microsoft applications.
• Change Highlighting - any change made to a task will highlight the downstream tasks that are changed or impacted by the upstream task. This will help beginners understand MS Project by revealing the impact of the scheduling engine. Also will highlight all changes from macros and extensions.
• Cell Background Formatting - Project will now allow the user to control the background formatting of cells. This will help users identify tasks of interest. Cell background formatting works in all tables and can be controlled manually, with filters, and via macros.
• Enhanced Reporting - includes custom reporting via Excel and Visio, view enhancements, budget tracking, and visual reports.
• Budgeting - MS Project will have the capability to now have separate budgets for human resources (work), materials, and costs.
• Deliverables - MS Project allows a project manager to define the deliverables for any given task.

Other enhancements include improved performance, unlimited custom fields, and a preview feature prior to accepting task updates.