PM Road

Microsoft Project 2010 Server: Save file for Share

2011-10-06T10:55:00.001+03:00

Trying to test publishing to blogspot account

Departmental Custom Fields

2011-05-18T10:41:00.001+03:00

Most of the customer that I faced had asked for customized fields that other departments don’t need, imagine that you have 10’s of custom fields that you in a specific department don’t know what the logic behind them.

I Project Server 2010 this issue has been solved by introducing departmental custom fields.

Now I am in the way to upgrade from 2007 to 2010 and I will make sure to re-organize the customization that had been done to start using this great feature.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS TechEd Dubai 2011

2011-03-16T14:16:00.001+03:00

TechEd took place and it was amazing, at least a good chance for meeting experts around the world. for me it was a surprise to have NO session about Project Server. Even for MOSS, the sessions did not address this perfect vertical application.

I start thinking of arranging with Microsoft to have one sessions that address this topic, I am sure that a lot of admins around our area have a great interest on this topic.

Cheer with me to have this done next TechEd, see you there

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Live Online SharePoint Community

2010-03-14T20:58:00.001+03:00

Dear All,
I'm really glad to announce that Registration is now open for participation in Live Online SharePoint Saturday Arabia. By registering for this event, you are confirming you would like to view the live presentations, presented from 7:00am to 4:00pm (GMT+0), on March 27, 2010.
http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/arabia
In order to hear the presenters, you will need headphones or computer speakers. There will be no conference call dial-in phone numbers.
The live blogging platform will allow for real time questions to be passed to the presenters. There will be two sessions running simultaneously so that we can present to a diversified audience in both Arabic and English languages.
As you register, we would very much appreciate it if you would spread the word to your SharePoint colleagues. I have attached here the event poster, please feel free to use it.
Thank you for joining us. With your participation, we hope to make this an exceptional event.

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الأعضاء الكرام تحية طيبة و بعد,
يسعدنا و يشرفنا أن نعلن أن باب التسجيل و المشاركة في Live Online SharePoint Saturday Arabia قد تم فتحه, بالتسجيل في هذا المؤتمر الافتراضي يمكنك مشاهدة المحاضرات و الشروحات أون لاين, المحاضرات ستعرض في تاريخ 27 مارس 2010 من الساعة 7:00 صباحاٌ حتى الساعة 4:00 مساءاٌ بتوقيت جرينتش.
هذا المؤتمر الافتراضي يعتبر الأول من نوعه حيث أنه ُيقدم شرح واف باللغة العربية و الانجليزية لشيربوينت 2007 و شيربوينت 2010 . لمشاهدة هذا المؤتمر لن تضطر للذهاب لأي مكان أو حتى دفع أي مبالغ مالية حيث أنه حدث مجاني و أون لاين, كل ما تحتاجه هو جهاز الكمبيوترو الدخول على شبكة الأنترنت.
نظام التدوين الحي يتيح لك طرح الأستفسارات والأسئلة على المتحدث في التو و اللحظة , و سيكون هناك محاضرتين في نفس الوقت حتى نتمكن من عرض المحاضرة على العديد من الجمهور باللغة العربية و الأنجليزية.
نشكرك جزيل الشكر للتسجيل, و الرجاء أن تبلغ أي شخص مهتم بتكنولوجيا الشيربوينت عن هذا الحدث, لقد أرفقنا الملصق الإعلاني للحدث, أستعمله كيفما تشاء.
نشكرك جزيل الشكر للأنضمام ألينا, و نتمنى أن يكون الحدث ممتاز و ممتع.
مع الشكر و الأحترام

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Outlook Project Add-In Crashed!!

2010-02-09T07:13:00.001+03:00

I had this problem that I personally faced and it took me some good time till I found a solution. The problem was in simple words “Project Add-In for Outlook” was not showing despite the so many time I tried to reinstall, repair and install without any success!.

I think this started when I installed the Technical Preview (TP) edition of MS Office 2010 on my primary laptop. Yes, it is my mistake but this is what happened. Removing Office 2010 TP edition did not solve the problem that was originated by installing it.

After some search here and ther I found this answer in one forum (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrclients/thread/e62b889e-0b7d-4dd9-86c7-7b32d76c124c) and I am just re-writing the answer provided by “Imran Admin” after applying my own way of blogging.

here are the steps

Uninstall the Project Add-in for Outlook in Add/Remove Programs
Open outlook, go to >Tools>Options. From the Options Menu, select the >Other>tab. On the >Other>tab under the>General> sub-header, click >Advanced options> From within>Advance Options> click >Custom Forms> this will open-up an additional >Options> menu. Click >Manage Forms>On the right-hand side, remove all references to Project Web Access. Apply changes and close sub-menus.
In outlook, go to tasks. Remove all tasks (Active and Closed) that were downloaded from the Project Web server. Close Outlook.
Go to >Start>, >Run>Type in >regedit>, click OK. Open >HKEY_Current_User>Software>Microsoft>Office>, >Outlook>Addins>. Delete the ProjectServer.12> folder under >Addins>Close the Registry Editor.
Reboot the machine Once the system is back-up reinstall the Project Add-in for Outlook; once it is installed reboot the machine again (even though you will not be prompted to do so). On the system is up again, will need to re-configure the Project web add-in. You should now be able to import your tasks.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Excel Service and WSS 3.0

2010-01-31T22:04:00.001+03:00

I have worked with Excel Services for MOSS 2007 and have done with some useful parts. For those who love Excel they can find it great to see excel as a part of a “Web Page”.

You might know that in SharePoint you can simply deploy and use Excel Service to add rich reporting features to your SharePoint sites. that is pretty cool.

To come direct to the point, the question is

Well, can i use Excel Service with WSS 3.0, the answer is “NO”. Not knowing this before had put me in an embarrassed situation where I have implement MS EPM 2007 over WSS 3.0 in a Single Server mode, after a while I realized that WSS 3.0 that got installed when running on Single Server topology does not support Excel Service.

My customer needs Excel Service to be able to utilize the power of Excel charting in a consolidated dashboard. Off course my plan B (actually there is no other choice) was to ask the customer to go for MOSS 2007, and of course increase his budget to cover the license cost.

Free WSS is not good always and you need to be careful when suggesting that for your customers :) unless you clarify the difference between WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 for your customer

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

She passed a way..

2010-01-29T01:26:00.001+03:00

She suffered a lot on her last years..

She stood as the oak tree against the hurricane..

She never waved the white flag..

She gave me the hope to continue..

She gave me the courage to keep standing…

She passed a way after 3 years fighting the ugly disease..

May GOD give her what she kept asking for, the “Janna” ..

I miss you Iman, I miss you a lot..

Your husband bilal, just one week after you left this life..

Visit me on another time!

2009-12-27T15:48:00.001+03:00

hi all,

I am sorry for not blogging for the last couple of months but it is just a personal issue I am facing and stopping me from doing all of my activities that I used to do.

It is just a matter of time and I will be back. Wait for me and remember to keep visiting me from time to time

Best regards

Bilal Okour

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management

2009-11-03T19:03:00.001+03:00

Its really interesting to know how much MS solution for ECM (ECM in MOSS 2007) achieved while trying to position itself as one of the major vendor for ECM.

As per the article published on GARTNER website you can see the MS ECM is among the best

for more details please check out this

http://www.gartner.com/technology/media-products/reprints/microsoft/vol10/article3/article3.html

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

The missed link between PMI/Prince2 and MS EPM

2009-10-20T01:18:00.001+03:00

My clients for MS EPM keeps asking for a real and challengeable features. They are mature enough in the scenes of Project Management to the level that they keep asking me to implement there (PMI or Prince2) methodologies using the existing features of MS EPM. In both models, there are some workflows that connect between different phases. In workflows, the data are simply gathered during the workflows steps and pushed accordingly.

Saying so, we are talking about data being gathered in MS EPM itself and another Methodologies data being gathered through the WSS workflows being developed and deployed over there. I assume that you reached to that point where you have started using workflows features that comes along with WSS 3.0. I expect you now to reply here and say:

Hey man, what about Project Workspace, it gives you what you need, it is the link between MS Project Server and WSS.

I will say immediately: It is not a link because the WSS lists that I am talking about are not hosted in any of the provisioned MS Project Workspaces. Those lists are hosted directly on the PWA.

If you got my point so far then it will be easy to say that you must have faced the situation where there is no link between MS EPM PWA data and WSS lists data, and I can feel your disappointment when get the truth that there is a missed link over there.

The good news here: I will be working in developing some solution to open the bridge in two ways between PWA and WSS. I will keep you updated about that.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Just for you to remember the history, Visual Studio Documentary

2009-10-09T10:00:00.001+03:00

I found this page while browsing, I liked it alot because it brought me back to those days when I was doing only coding. It is the history of Visual Studio, the magic tool from MS. Dot want to be boring, here is the link, enjoy :)

http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/VisualStudioDocumentary/The-Visual-Studio-Documentary-Part-One/

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Do Blogging and Twittering at the same time

2009-10-09T09:51:00.001+03:00

A nice plug-in for Live Writer will allow you to send your blog post direct to your twitter account. here we go

http://gallery.live.com/results.aspx?c=0&bt=9&pl=8&st=5

Enjoy,

Bilal Okour

Code 7 Competition: It’s your turn to win

2009-08-30T10:48:00.001+03:00

It’s your turn to win
We know you’ve got stellar skills – it’s about time everybody else knew it too.
Code7 is where your ingenious application meets the opportunity to get millions of eyes on your work, plus a trip to PDC09 and some serious cash and much more.

Crank it up
Show the world what you’re working with and take things up a notch when you code to the power of Windows® 7.
Take three minutes to video yourself talking about your application idea for Windows 7 and you could win big.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Upcoming PMP & MS Project 2007 Training from LIFELONG Kuwait

2009-07-29T10:09:00.001+03:00

PMI Certification Preparation Preparation for PMP Certification Saturday, July 18, 2009 (Download Outline)	PMIS Training MS Project Professional 2007 Sunday, July 19, 2009 (Download Outline) - Advanced levels are also available on request
Preparation for PgMP Certification Saturday, August 01, 2009 (Download Outline)	Preparation for PMI-SP Certification Saturday, July 25, 2009 (Download Outline)

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

What is the different between Physical % Complete & % Complete

2009-07-27T23:01:00.001+03:00

Suddenly i have been asked this question! Although it seems that is something that I should know as a daily user of MS Project Pro. But guess what, I said I don’t know.

The first moment after that I opened MS Project Help and I found that it is little bit tricky. The physical % complete is a field that can be used to calculate the Earned Value, now the question is How!

I will use the same example found with the help page, assume that one task in your project is to build a stone wall, the wall is a 5 rows one, each has 10 stones.

The first row takes 20 minutes

The second takes 25 minutes because it is little bit harder.

The third takes 30, the forth 35 and the fifth will take 40 minutes

After completing three row then we can report the % Complete and % Physical Complete as per the figure below

I hope that illustrate the difference for you, for me it really did

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Blogging while in vacation

2009-06-27T18:35:00.001+03:00

Well, it is strange that someone keep the same mode before and during the vacation time. In fact, I am not from that type, I used to switch myself into Vacation Mode in the first minute of my vacation time. Refreshment is mandatory for continuity. In other simple words, i am relaxing now and one of my relaxing activities is reading and accordingly BLOGGING:) . Do you agree with me that Blogging is another cool thing you can do it while relaxing??

Anyway, for the sake of not being boring I just wanted to share with you one important article i read it from Office Online Help site

here we go

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102130271033.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour, Jordan, Irbid

Microsoft Project 2007 Courses in Kuwait

2009-05-27T14:21:00.001+03:00

Hi All,

It will be my pleasure to announce the lunch of our specialized training courses in MS Project Professional 2007. Those courses are new as i have introduced three level of the courses, they are short terms courses that fit the busy users and of course all are most cost effective.

Three levels (Beginner, intermediate and advance) are designed to facilitate the flexibility by providing different options according to each interest needs.

Later on I will be announcing the MS EPM 2007 courses very soon, be tuned

For more information please feel free to download the course broacher here

Very useful web site: Microsoft Canada Enterprise Project Management

2009-05-25T11:22:00.001+03:00

Check this link and enjoy the great links collection all about MS Project 2007. The site owners put great efforts in this post

http://mscanadaepminfo.com/EPM2007.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal okour

Project 2007 Service Pack 2 recorded webcast and deck are now available on EPMConnect

2009-05-19T21:38:00.001+03:00

as per Christophe Fiessinger’s latest post in his blog, the MS EPM SP2 webcast recording is now available in EPMConnect site

I am twittering now! follow me or I will follow you

2009-05-18T20:35:00.000+03:00

I have started getting more and more involved in updating my twitter page with my latest or MS EPM latest. Twitter is somehow a “light blogging + RSS subscribers”. the beauty of twitter is that it is easy to write, easy to read and easy to share. The challenge now is how to find a time to keep up with Facebook, my blog, my twitter, my linkedin, and my old hotmail account. Getting connected to the people around the world is something pretty good and it enrich my knowledge dramatically.

For those who would like to follow me on twitter please follow http://twitter.com/ebilal

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Microsoft Project SP2 is announced by Microsoft

2009-05-07T11:30:00.001+03:00

Hi folks,

Microsoft has announced the release of MS project 2007 (Server,Professional and WSS 3.0) Service Pack 2. To read more information please visit this post from the official blog of Microsoft Project Team

http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2009/04/28/announcing-service-pack-2-sp2-for-microsoft-project-2007-and-microsoft-project-server-2007.aspx

Here are the download links (As per the official blog of Microsoft Project Team)

Service Pack 2 (SP2) Download Center Page

Office Project 2007 (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7DF323E-73B8-4344-826A-A01E6F920B1B

Office Project Language Pack
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7DF323E-73B8-4344-826A-A01E6F920B1B

WSS (both x86 and x64)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=79BADA82-C13F-44C1-BDC1-D0447337051B&displaylang=en

WSS Language Pack (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=085E5AC8-58F6-4CF9-8012-33B95EE36C0F&displaylang=en

WSS Language Pack (x64)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2C2B6CAF-B46D-45EB-AC4D-DEAAA48C3A2C&displaylang=en

Office Servers (x86 and x64) (contains Project Server SP2)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7816D90-5FC6-4347-89B0-A80DEB27A082&displaylang=en

Office Servers Language Pack (x86)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=01C6A3E8-E110-4956-903A-AD16284BF223&displaylang=en

Office Servers Language Pack (x64)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=66C5026F-9F47-4642-8378-2526918009FA&displaylang=en

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

I want this report, right now!

2009-04-21T14:12:00.001+03:00

Yes, most probably you had faced this situation while showing to your boss one of the great view that comes with Microsoft Project Professional 2007 or the views that you have customized. If you did a great job in showing or customizing such a view then you will expect your boss to ask you to print it as report and send it to him/her, right now!

So the idea that I will illustrate in this post is summarized as the following

Customize your own table with the specific fields that your boss is looking for
Customize your own report to show this view/table as report
Make this report available for all projects

Step 1 : Customize your table

Click on View => Table: => and select More Tables
In the dialog below click on New
Enter the table information as per the image below
Click Ok to save your table, remember the table name “Track Summary Report”
Click Apply to see your table

Step 2: Create Your Own Report

On the menu bar, click on Report => Reports then click on Custom
The dialog will list all the available reports, we will not use any of them, we will create our own, right? So click on New
Select Task, remember that we will design a report that will show the Tasks’ Tracking Information
Fill in the information for your report as per the dialog photo below
Click Ok after finish and click in Page Setup, usually you need to select the Landscape layout to be able to print as much information as you can in a single page. Don’t forget to set the paper size to A4
Click in Header and Footer tap and feel free to edit the look and feel of your report header and footer
Click OK, then “Preview” to preview your report
You are done, click Ok several time to go back to MS Project Pro 2007 main menu

Step Three: Make this report available to all projects

On the main menu Click on Tools => Organizer
Select Report tab, select the “Tracking Summary Report” and then click << Copy to copy it to the Global template. So it will be available for the other projects
Done

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 Top Shortcuts

2009-04-08T09:45:00.001+03:00

Hi,

Here are some basic shortcuts for MS Project 2007 that can speed up your daily experience with MS Project 2007

Action	Keyboard Shortcut
Indent a task	ALT + SHIFT + RIGHT ARROW
Outdent a task	ALT + SHIFT + LEFT ARROW
Link tasks	CTRL + F2
Unlink tasks	CTRL + SHIFT + F2
Scroll to Task on Gantt Chart	CTRL + SHIFT + F5
Scroll the timescale left	ALT + LEFT ARROW
Scroll the timescale right	ALT + RIGHT ARROW
Insert Row	Insert

The complete list of the shortcuts can be found here

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HP101550121033.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS SharePoint Designer 2007 For Free!

2009-04-04T17:42:00.001+03:00

Microsoft announced recently that MS SharePoint Designer 2007 is available for FREE. As per the official web site of Microsoft (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/FX100487631033.aspx )

For EPM 2007 customers and administrators they can change the look and feel of the projects workspaces to reflect their organization image layout.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Info Edu Day, It was really GREAT

2009-03-30T06:28:00.001+03:00

I think that the third show of the InfoCenter yearly event have been done this year with a lot success indicators.

It introduce wide range of sessions with different topics (51 sessions as I remember)
New speakers shown up
New attractive topics. There was one about Leadership and another one was about Internet Marketing
Catering Service was good in general :)

Audience low size was the only bad side of this event and I believe it was because people in Kuwait love to do anything in Non-working day, yes any thing except attending events! Next time I would like to suggest the organizer to consider working days for such big event.

Any way, as an overall evaluation, it was a BIG success. See you next year inshalla and don’t forget to register in my session at that time :)

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Where are going tonight??

2009-03-29T07:07:00.000+03:00

Microsoft Dev Nights, Kuwait, 1st of April

Best Regards
Bilal Okour

I Can't see PERT Analysis in the Toolbar??

2009-03-27T07:05:00.000+03:00

This is what happened with me while demonstrating MS Project 2007 features, OOPS!. I went home back and start googling for some good time. I found the solution and it was really interesting for me to share it with.

Please go through the following link and follow the steps

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA101636871033.aspx

Watch This! And Keep Watching!

2009-03-25T07:04:00.000+03:00

Hi, I found this list of a very fantastic videos with each of 3-5 minutes duration. I am sure that you will start watching one and continue till you watch all.

Now I will leave you with this collection

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/CH100740881033.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

I will be speaking in Info-Edu Day March 28, 2009

2009-03-16T06:58:00.000+03:00

Dear All,

I would like to take this opportunity to invite you and your teams to register and attend the FREE deep dive workshops that took place on a yearly basis at InfoCenter.

Also feel free to register in my session “ Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (MS EPM)” using the below link

http://www.infocenter.com.kw/InfoEDUDAY2009/infoEducation%20Day/ProjectManagement.htm

For more details please read below ..

50 FREE Deep Dive Workshops @

Info Edu Day 2009

Saturday March 28, 2009

Kuwait City, Duwalia Building, 5^th Floor

Infocenter Institute

Seats Are Limited, Register Now!

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Nice Post I read

2009-03-01T07:00:00.000+03:00

A nice article that list a lot of links for useful Support & Reference links

http://projectserver201.blogspot.com/2007/08/microsoft-epm-enterprise-project.html

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Watch these 8 videos to start using MS Project 2007

2008-11-15T06:56:00.000+03:00

A series of 8 video (shot ones) that covers the project management life cycle using MS Project.

it covers the basics of Project Management and will illustrate the Project 2007 interface. It also explain how to start new project, how to define tasks, how to assign resources to tasks, how to estimate the cost and how to report the project progress

here is the link

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102820011033.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

25 Microsoft Project Tips and Tricks

2008-11-02T06:55:00.000+03:00

A good tips collection from CriticalTools

http://www.criticaltools.com/Tips.htm

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

10 Signs You Don't Really Know Microsoft Project

2008-11-02T06:52:00.000+03:00

This is one of the best articles that I ever read, it is highlighting the most BIG MISTAKES that might result in bad outcome of using MS Project

http://www.pmconnection.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=32

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Microsoft's Theory of I.T.Evolution Event

2008-10-29T06:51:00.000+03:00

At IT Evolution 08, get a front row seat as we unveil technologies like Hyper-V, App-V and Virtual Machine Manager that will help you ride the hottest trend in IT today -Virtualization.
Come and attend this big show as per your country schedule below

Timephased view, It is not there anymore

2008-09-01T06:50:00.000+03:00

I have installed the latest infrastructure update for both SharePoint WSS 30.0 and Project Server 2007. I was really impressed with the GREAT enhancement that has been done through.

The most feature I liked was the Timephased view. But I faced one problem where suddenly this view was not showing and i was back to the normal view before applying the infrastructure.

Needless to mention what I did to fix this out but finally I figured it out. So the reason behind not showing the Timephased view (Calendar view) was because I have modified the My Assignment view and have removed the "Progress [Assignment]" field in the related view.!

This field should be there to get the Timephased view showing correctly, for me I was trying to make this screen simple for my customer and % Work Complete was the main field. That is why I removed the rest.

As a conclusion, don't change the default selected fields for this view in order to get the My Tasks page shows the views as expected.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Articles that I read and would like you to read

2008-08-10T06:48:00.000+03:00

A cool article that brings you back to basics, but still it is very important to understand

Subject: Back to Basics: Understanding task dependencies

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

EPM Quick Reference Guide for Project Managers & Team Members

2008-08-10T06:46:00.000+03:00

Microsoft published new Quick reference guide for Project Managers and another one for Team members. These are really great where I have been asked by a lot from my customer to provide with such a quick references

Here are the links

For Project Managers: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102865051033.aspx

For Team Members: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC102880551033.aspx?pid=CT101441451033

now they are free and in Word format

Best Regards

4 in 1

2008-08-03T06:39:00.000+03:00

Did you get the chance to explore the Project server Database, if yes then I am sure that you wonder why there are 4 databases created for each instance of the PWA. I will not answer why but I will till you in brief what is the purpose of each

The Draft database contains tables for saving unpublished projects from Project Professional and other applications. Project Web Access does not show project data in the Draft database.
The Published database contains all of the published projects as well as enterprise resources, the enterprise global template, and other project templates. Published projects are visible in Project Web Access. The Published database also contains tables that are specific to Project Web Access (timesheets, models, views, and so on), and global data tables (outline codes, security, and metadata).
The Archive database saves backup and older versions of projects and other data.
The Reporting database is the staging area for generating reports and OLAP cubes. Data in the Reporting database is comprehensive and is updated nearly in real time. The Reporting tables are optimized for read-only report generation.

For more details please read this article

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms513875.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Announcing the Infrastructure Update for Office Servers

2008-07-20T06:30:00.000+03:00

Microsoft announced the latest Infra Structure update and it contains a fixes to the claimed bugs.

For more details please visit MSDN Official blog for Project 2007

To download this infrastructure you can follow this link . Install Infrastructure update for Project Professional

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Forms Authentication it is amazing but?!!

2008-07-13T22:12:00.001+03:00

I have some implementations of the EPM where I used the Forms authentication to authenticate the EPM users. I have wrote my notes and would like to share it with you regarding this

Why to go for Forms Authentication

Some of the EPM users are not part of the organization domain
There is no Active Directory
The user can not access the organization domain

Why NOT to go for that?

Well, do you want me to speak technically or from implementation prospective?

I guess you said both?

Technically
1. leakage of information for MS Sharepoint Forms Authentication as it is not embedded by default
2. Poor user control functionality.
3. No out of the box tool for editing users online
Implementation
1. Poor approach to design the security Rules for passwords
2. Most of the customer forgot their Forms Passwords but they don't do the same with AD passwords
3. Accordingly getting the users accounts locked, this is not the issue, the issue is the poor approach to get them back.
4. Integration with Outlook is another bad thing, once you open the outlook and entered your AD password you will get asked to enter your forms credential. Most of my users consider it as a double job that they don't like

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project Server 2007 :: Backup/Restore your server now!

2008-05-27T19:49:00.000+03:00

Another good article about Backup/Restore your EPM Server

http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2006/12/08/backup-and-restore-project-server-2007.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

The Outlook Add-in for Project Server 2007 no longer loads when you uninstall and then reinstall the add-in

2008-05-23T13:50:00.000+03:00

This link is interesting

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;951648&sd=rss&spid=11388

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Microsoft Innovation Center (Kuwait) :: Enterprise Project Management Deep Dive Workshop

2008-04-22T13:20:00.000+03:00

Yes, MS EPM is now hitting hard in Kuwait and a lot wanted to start utilizing the power of it. As a series of increasing the awareness and importance of this solution I have conducted a lot of sessions in different large events in Kuwait

The MS EPM flight is landing in MIC (Microsoft Innovation Center, Kuwait) now and the seats are so limited :)

You can download the invitation letter from my blog (please follow this link to download), fill it and email it back to the email address mentioned in the invitation document itself.

The Workshop title will be :: Your Road Map to Project Management using MS EPM Solution and the workshop will cover the following topics (spanned into 5 days, 3 hours a day, 6-9 PM)

Day 1

Getting Started with Office Project Server 2007

Initiating Projects

Planning Projects—Context and Framework

Day 2

Planning Projects—Scope and Schedule Management

Planning Projects—Staffing Management Plan

Planning Projects—Resource Assignments

Day 3

Planning Projects—Cost, Risk and Other Management Plans

Executing Projects—Processes, Resources, and Deliverables

Executing Projects—Manage Timesheets and Personal Settings

Day 4

Monitoring and Controlling Projects—Context and Framework

Monitoring and Controlling Projects—Tracking Task and Project Progress

Day 5

Monitoring and Controlling Projects—Measuring Performance and Reporting Progress

Closing Projects

Complete Life Cycle case

For more information you can

Call me at +965 7205246

Email me: bilal@arabilla.net

Or post a comment here

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project Server 2007 Best Practice :: Forms vs Windows Authentication

2008-04-20T10:32:00.000+03:00

I guess so many people are happy with the windows authentication features that comes with MS Project Server and found it very easy to setup and to use. But did they know that there is another way of authenticating users, i am sure that they knew but they never think when and how to use it

First let me focus on facts about each and when each one is recommended to be used?

Windows Authentication

It is authenticate users against the AD that the Project Server is joint to. So, it can use only one AD. So if all of your users are belongs to one domain then this will be your right choice.
Roles and groups (or any AD classification) are not used in EPM, remember that the title is all about Authentication, not authorization. Authorization is run through the security model embedded with the Project server itself.
Project Server users list and the AD users list is not an linked. You need to schedule synch job from within Project Server itself from time to time, this means if user has became inactive then this will not be reflected into the Project Server. (needless to say that if the user became inactive or blocked in AD then he/she will not get authenticated to AD but he can be still used as a resource in Project Server)

Forms Authentication

Conceptually, it is very similar to the AD authentication, except that Membership Provider will be used instead of AD
More flexible to contain users regardless of the AD they belongs and even if they don't belong to any AD
Difficult (or not straight forward to setup) to setup and maintain the users credentials.
No synch tool is available out of the box except for the "PjFormsAuthUpgrade" tool that comes with Project server

I will be posting more articles about Forms authentication, be tuned

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project Server 2007 Best Practice :: submit, approve, apply and publish

2008-04-06T21:12:00.001+03:00

The confusion of how to use the EPM in the right way is common everywhere. The main two player in this environment (Project Managers & Team Members) find sometimes difficult to understand why the EPM is not reflecting the progress information for any published project. To understand this you can take it simply like this

PM :: Publish the project to PWA (Using Project Pro)
Team Resource :: Submit the progress update to his PM (using PWA)
PM :: Approve the updates received by his resources (using Project Pro)
PM :: Apply the approved updates to be reflected into the plan (Using Project Pro)
PM :: Adjust (if required) and then Publish the project plan again to PWA (using Project Pro)

The picture below can tell this in a better way

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Microsoft Technology Day, Don't miss it next year

2008-04-01T23:12:00.000+03:00

Yes, I mean it, 45 sessions that touched the latest related to Microsoft were shown at the biggest event in Kuwait. I hope you did attend your favorites topics and get the maximum benefits.

Now back to my sessions, the two rooms allocated for my sessions were full. I was expecting that due to the extensive registrations on my sessions during the registration time. At a moment I said, thanks God, I did good preparation for such an audience. It would have been a big loss if I did not do so.

The first session were about administrative part of EPM, the 2nd and 3rd were about the best practice for Project Managers and the other main players in EPM environment.

Last one, it was supposed to be about Monitoring and Controlling, but I was able to cover part of it only, the rest inshalla will be conducted in the future in a separate session

I have announced www.pmroad.com as the first community for Project Managers in Kuwait. also I announced the start publishing of a series about the best practice in EPM on my blog

So, my recommendation for you "From now and over, don's miss any event related to the main communities in kuwait (dotNetboom, ProRangers and msexperts) and expect it to be always BIG by default"

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

I am leaving the building

2008-03-04T23:20:00.000+03:00

Only today I have took the sharp decision to move to new company, big, challenged and in a role of MIS Manager.

In my new position I will be responsible for designing and implementing Management Information systems based on Microsoft Technologies. I am still new to the new company so I can not till more about it except that I am very optimistic for this movement I made.

For my x-company, I had to admit that I got impressed of the company style and reputation. I met hundreds of professional people there and made good connections. So I would like to say that I feel proud that I worked in Agility.

Note: Needless to mention that the photo in this post is NEITHER my new office NOR my old one, it is just a one I took from the web. enjoy !

Best Regards

Bilal Okour, Kuwait, 4th March 2008

MS Project 2007 ::What are the available reports

2008-03-02T10:51:00.000+03:00

Task Usage category

Name

Type

Description

Cash Flow Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with cost and cumulative cost amounts illustrated over time.

Earned Value Over Time Report

Excel

Use this report to view a chart that plots AC (actual cost of work performed), planned value (budgeted cost of work scheduled), and earned value (budgeted cost of work performed) over time.

Resource Usage category

Name

Type

Description

Cash Flow Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram that shows planned and actual costs for your project over time. Costs are broken down by resource type (work, material, and cost). An indicator shows if planned costs exceed baseline costs.

Resource Availability Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram that shows the work and remaining availability for your project's resources, broken down by resource type (work, material, and cost). A red flag is displayed next to each resource that is over allocated.

Resource Cost Summary Report

Excel

Use this report to view a pie chart that illustrates the division of resource cost between the three resource types: cost, material, and work.

Resource Work Availability Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with total capacity, work, and remaining availability for work resources illustrated over time.

Resource Work Summary Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with total resource capacity, work, remaining availability, and actual work illustrated in work units.

Assignment Usage category

Name

Type

Description

Baseline Cost Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with baseline cost, planned cost, and actual cost for your project illustrated across tasks.

Baseline Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram of your project broken down by quarter, then by task. This report compares planned work and cost to baseline work and cost. Indicators are used to show when planned work exceeds baseline work, and when planned cost exceeds baseline cost.

Baseline Work Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with baseline work, planned work, and actual work for your project illustrated across tasks.

Budget Cost Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with budget cost, baseline cost, planned cost, and actual cost illustrated over time.

Budget Work Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with budget work, baseline work, planned work, and actual work illustrated over time.

Task, Resource, and Assignment Summary categories

Category

Name

Type

Description

Task Summary

Critical Tasks Status Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram showing the work and remaining work for both critical and non-critical tasks. The data bar indicates the percent of work complete.

Task Summary

Task Status Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram of the work and percent of work complete for tasks in your project, with symbols indicating when baseline work exceeds work, when baseline work equals work, and when work exceeds baseline work. The data bar indicates the percent of work complete.

Resource Summary

Resource Remaining Work Report

Excel

Use this report to view a bar graph with remaining work and actual work for each work resource, illustrated in work units.

Assignment Summary

Resource Status Report

Visio

Use this report to view a diagram of the work and cost values for each of your project's resources. The percent of work complete is indicated by the shading in each of the boxes on the diagram. The shading gets darker as the resource nears completion of the assigned work.

MS Project 2007 :: Timesheet status

2008-03-01T15:13:00.000+03:00

The following Status Definitions are available:

In Progress. The Timesheet is built by the team member. Data may be saved. Nothing is submitted.
Rejected. The Timesheet is rejected by a Timesheet Manager.
Submitted. The Timesheet is sent to the first-level Timesheet Manager for review.
Acceptable. The Timesheet is accepted by a Timesheet Manager and is sent to the next approver.
Approved. The Timesheet is approved by a Timesheet Manager at any level.
Error. An error occurred when the Timesheet was processed.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 :: installing SP1 result in Stopping Microsoft Office Project Server Events Service

2008-02-21T16:57:00.000+03:00

Yes, this true because it happened with me, after installing WSS 3.0 SP1 I started installing Ms Project Server 2007 SP1, exactly in step 5 it stop and throw an exception tilling that the Microsoft Office Project Server Events Service was not able to get started !!??

After searching completely the "Whole Internet" I found one post talking about this issue

and what I came to know that this service trying to access the Internet address

http://crl.microsoft.com/pki/crl/products/CodeSignPCA.crl

but the network setup did not allow this (this is true and expected for the ideal and secure network). I was sure that this is my issue that stopped me from completing my work in the last 2 days.

So, the only solution suggested by my colleagues in Networks and Systems department is to allow Internet Access in complete during the installation of SP1 then remove it

It work, yes, but for me I consider this a stupid bug regardless of the person who wrote the code unless it is a policy to catch the people who are using the unlicensed copies

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project Server 2007 :: How to install it in a single mode

2008-02-21T10:00:00.000+03:00

Hi folks

I found this article good for the people who are going to deploy Project Server 2007 in a stand alone computer

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/c9531164-2705-4233-84d1-78bd728dd7611033.mspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 :: Corrupted Tasks

2008-02-19T07:16:00.000+03:00

How do you know if your Project has a corrupted tasks, simply the following indicators will till you if so

One ore more of your resource report that his "My Taks" is showing sharepoint error message
If you know how to query your database (Published DB of your server) and get unfortunately one row at lease

SELECT MSP_PROJECTS.PROJ_NAME, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_NAME,
MSP_RESOURCES.RES_NAME, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.ASSN_UID,
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.PROJ_UID,
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_UID, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.RES_UID
FROM MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED INNER JOIN
MSP_PROJECTS ON MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.PROJ_UID =
MSP_PROJECTS.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN
MSP_RESOURCES ON MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.RES_UID =
MSP_RESOURCES.RES_UID
WHERE (NOT EXISTS
(SELECT TASK_UID
FROM MSP_TASKS_SAVED
WHERE (TASK_UID =
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_UID)))

Then to resolve this issue do the following

Open Gantt View, Insert "Publish" column, and select No for the task that you got from the above query
Publish your project
Again Gantt View, For the "Publish" column, and select "Yes" for the task that you got from the above query
Publish you project

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project :: You need to know these terms

2008-02-19T07:15:00.000+03:00

Here are some useful interpretation

Duration = Actual Duration + Remaining Duration
Percent (%) Complete = Actual Duration / Duration
Work = Actual Work + Remaining Work
Percent (%) of Work Complete = Actual Work / Work
Start: At the beginning it is the baselined start, later one it will be replaced by the actual start
Finish: At the beginning it is the baselined finish, later one it will be replaced by the actual finish

Note: Remember to baseline your plan to save the original values

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project :: You need to know these terms

2008-02-15T01:53:00.000+03:00

Here are some useful interpretation

Duration = Actual Duration + Remaining Duration
Percent (%) Complete = Actual Duration / Duration
Work = Actual Work + Remaining Work
Percent (%) of Work Complete = Actual Work / Work

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

I will be speaking in 2 big events in Kuwait

2008-02-02T11:50:00.001+03:00

Dear All,

for all who are interesting in understanding Microsoft EPM solution then they can attend my sessions at the following two major events

Community Open Day, executed by DotNetBoom and ProRangers communities and sponsored by Microsoft. Here I will conduct 2 sessions which will cover how Microsoft EPM can be best implemented to Manage the IT projects during all phases in the IT Development Life Cycle.
MVPs Open Day, the first event in Kuwait where different MVPs from Middle East, Africa and Europe will be gathering together to unleash the latest technology experience they have. I am sure that you will never feel that you lost one minute of your time. Waiting to see you there

More details will come soon and I will make sure to keep you updated

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Examples about Tasks Types

2008-02-01T23:38:00.000+03:00

A lot of project mangers using EPM solution are keeping asking me about giving examples to illustrate the different types of MS Project 2007 Tasks Types

Here I am trying to give some examples

Fixed Duration

The football match will take 90 minutes to finish
Flying from Kuwait to Amman will take 1:30 hour to complete regardless of the number of the passengers inside and regardless of the number of aircrafts flying at the same time
The woman will take 9 months to deliver, you cannot divide this work for two resources (she and her girl friend)

Fixed Work

You are required to enter 2000 records into an application, each record will take 5 minutes and you will pay (or get paid) per record.
You are required to floor 100 square meters of one building, each square meter will take 30 minutes.
You want to install Windows XP on 100 boxes, each box will take 1 hour and you need to pay (or get paid) per each installation.

Fixed Unit

You want 1 developer to work 8 hours (100% or full day only) to develop a program
You need 5 developers and each to work 20% of their capacities to complete the program
You need 5 developers to work 8 hours a day (100% each) to complete the program
You need 1 developer to work 4 hours a day (50% or half timer) to complete the program

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

A MS Project 2007 Crazy Error: My Tasks is now not working???

2008-02-01T23:29:00.000+03:00

I have completed one installation and implementation for PS2k7 at one organization, it worked fine for around 2 months, suddenly the My task did not work for some users but it is working for the others

I knew that there is a corrupted assignment and the only solution for me was to roll out the project from the last copy just before the issue starts

I found this post in the Internet that approach this issue in a very logical way, the suggested solution can figure out the corrupted task and gives a walk around solution for this, and it was posted by: Rod Gill, Microsoft MVP for Project

for more details about Rod please check the button of this post

Now I will let you with the post

if you add a new resource that already has % complete>0 then
there is still a bug (after SP1) that causes a corrupt assignment. The
symptoms are that the resource cannot access My Tasks.
The following SQL will highlight which assignment is corrupted:

SELECT MSP_PROJECTS.PROJ_NAME, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_NAME,
MSP_RESOURCES.RES_NAME, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.ASSN_UID,
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.PROJ_UID,
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_UID, MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.RES_UID
FROM MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED INNER JOIN
MSP_PROJECTS ON MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.PROJ_UID =
MSP_PROJECTS.PROJ_UID INNER JOIN
MSP_RESOURCES ON MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.RES_UID =
MSP_RESOURCES.RES_UID
WHERE (NOT EXISTS
(SELECT TASK_UID
FROM MSP_TASKS_SAVED
WHERE (TASK_UID =
MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SAVED.TASK_UID)))
--Run against Published Database
As far as I'm aware the only work around is not to add a new assignment to a
partially completed task. Instead create a copy of the task and assign the
new resource to it. A pain I know!

Rod Gill,

Microsoft MVP for Project

Author of the only book on Microsoft Project VBA. For details visit:
http://www.projectvbabook.com

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Using Project Server 2007’s Reporting Database and SQL Server Reporting Services 2005

2008-01-31T22:09:00.001+03:00

Hi folks

I really love gong back to programming if I could manage to get the chance to do so

Today I was completely impressed by this article I read from Project Programmability blog

if you have time you can read it

http://blogs.msdn.com/project_programmability/archive/2008/01/03/implementing-my-tasks-read-only-custom-fields.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Why and How to split a Task

2008-01-30T12:07:00.000+03:00

let me answer the first question: why to split a Task, the answer for this is

Either you want to interrupt some work with an other (By You)
Or by leveling the resource to maintain the work balance (By the system)

For the second question How??

To split a Task do the following

Open the project using Project Professional 2007 (you need to give the user the following permission "Log on to Project Server from Project Professional" from the Global Permission )
Open Gantt view, click on Split Task
On the bar, click on the place where you want the split to be applied
Drag and drop the second portion of the bar to the new location in the chart (new date)

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 :: The first 4 Steps to start using Cubes

2008-01-23T14:19:00.001+03:00

In this post I will explain the steps required to make your Database Server (I am talking about SQL 2000) ready for MS Project 2007 Cube Building

1) Verifying and Installing Analysis Services SP4

From Control Panel ==> Add Remove Programs ==> Microsoft Sql 2000 Analysis Services ==> Click here for support information, make sure that the SP version is 8.00.2039
If the SP4 is not installed proceed with next step, otherwise you can leave now :)
Go to the Microsoft (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=86989).
Download the Analysis Services Components (download file: SQL2000.AS-KB884525-SP4-x86.EXE).
When you run the download, you are prompted to select a location for saving the file. After specifying the location, click Next. The files will be extracted to this location.
Click Finished.
Browse to the location you specified on the server and run \msolap\install\Setup.exe.
Follow the directions that appear to complete the installation of the service pack.

2) Adding the Queue service account to the OLAP Administrators group

From the Start menu, click Programs, click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
In Computer Management, expand Local Users and Groups and then click the Groups folder.
Double-click the OLAP Administrators group to open the properties page.
In the properties page, click Add.
On the Select Users, Computers, or Groups page, in the Enter Object Names to select box, enter the Windows user account under which the Queue Service is running. Click OK.
In the OLAP Administrators property page, click OK

3) Granting the OLAP Administrators group permissions to the SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services components

Using windows Explorer, browse to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Analysis Services\Bin" or what is ever you installation folder for Microsoft Analysis Services
Right click on bin folder
Select "Properties"
Select Security tap
Click on Add to add the OLAP Administrators and give this group a Full Control permissions
Click on Apply, then Ok

4) Grant permissions to the SQL Server Analysis Services service account to access the Project Server Reporting database

From the Start menu, select Programs, select Microsoft SQL Server, and then click Enterprise Manager.
In Enterprise Manager, expand Microsoft SQL Servers, SQL Server group, and the server.
Expand the Security folder, right-click Logins, and then click New Login.
On the properties page, in the General tab, enter the Windows Authenticated account for the user running the SQL Server Analysis Services service.
Click the Database Access tab.
Enable Permit for the Project Server Reporting database(s).
In the Permit in Database Role section, enable db_datareader permissions for the Project Server Reporting database(s).
Click OK

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

New SQL 2005 Reporting Service Report Pack for Project Server 2007

2008-01-16T13:43:00.001+03:00

New SQL 2005 Reporting Service Report Pack for Project Server 2007 has been released

Follow this link to download

http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2007/01/30/sql-server-reporting-services-report-pack-for-project-server-2007.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Editions Comparison

2008-01-16T07:44:00.001+03:00

If you are asking about the differences between different editions of MS Projects 2007 then I can till you that there are three different editions

Microsoft Project 2007 Standard
Microsoft Project 2007 Professional (connected to Microsoft Project 2007)
Microsoft Project Web Access 2007 (PWA)

If you are interest in knowing the different features each is providing then I recommend you to read this article from Microsoft

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/FX101757931033.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

For Project Managers: 2007 Link Mish Mash

2008-01-15T10:10:00.001+03:00

Another great post for leaders and managers

http://ravenyoung.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!17376F4C11A91E0E!4030.entry

Enjoy!!

Bilal Okour

ProjectSteps: Leading Geeks

2008-01-15T09:57:00.000+03:00

ProjectSteps: Leading Geeks

MS Project 2007: Group By, It's Great!

2008-01-14T06:22:00.001+03:00

I read this from Microsoft Project 2007 Team blog and would like to share it with you as I found it very useful

here we go

Group By, It's Great! (http://blogs.msdn.com/project/archive/2007/11/30/group-by-it-s-great.aspx)

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Effort Driven Task

2008-01-09T11:22:00.001+03:00

Hi again

As you might noticed that MS Project assumed (by defaulting) all tasks are efforts driven, what does this mean?

It means when MS Project do scheduling then it will maintain the Work value the same. Now you remember my equations in one post, if not I will put them again

For Fixed Unit: U = W/D. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Duration and visa verse
For Fixed Duration: D = W/U. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Unit and visa verse
For Fixed Work: W = D * U. In this case increasing the Duration will result in decreasing the Unit and visa verse

Black color indication that MS Project will maintain the value of that field fixed when rescheduling

As per the options 1 and 2 you noticed that we fix either Unit or Duration.

By selecting the Effort Driven option the following should be considered

If the assigned task type is Fixed Units, assigning additional resources shortens the duration of the task.
If the assigned task type is Fixed Duration, assigning additional resources decreases the individual unit values for resources.
If the assigned task type is Fixed Work, assigning additional resources shortens the duration of the task.
Effort-driven scheduling only takes effect when resources are added to or removed from a task. Effort-driven calculation rules are not applied when you change work, duration, and unit values for resources already assigned to a task.
The effort-driven calculations apply only after the first resources are initially assigned to the task. After the first resources are assigned, the work value doesn't change as new resources are assigned to or removed from the same task.

I hope this will help you

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

New Initiative from Arabilla.Net, “Featured Arabic Site, FAS”

2008-01-07T04:37:00.001+03:00

Dear visitor

As per Arabilla.Net objective, to facilitate the awareness of the latest technology, we will start a new type of news letter called “Featured Arabic Site, FAS”, in each newsletter of this type we will highlight the service that site, blog, or community is providing.

If you are the owner, participant in one of these sites please let us know about your site and accordingly let the others know about your work.

We think we can encourage Arabic initiatives in this field which will lead to effective participation in making and using of the technology around the world.

We will either select those sites by ourselves or you can email us on bilal@arabilla.net tilling us about your contribution

The good candidates’ contributions should follow the following rules

The Site, blog, community can be either group work or individual. But it should be focusing on technology not self or personal activities
It can be in any technology field
It can be in either Arabic or English, the priority will be for Arabic sites
It should not include anything other than technology related topics

If you would like to participate please send us the following

Your contribution URL (site, blog or community)
Your contribution description

We hope that this will bring new benefits to Arabilla.Net subscribers

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Work & Material Resources

2008-01-06T17:33:00.001+03:00

Till me, what do you call a Camcorder, a material or work resources , ok

another question, what do you call the Video Tapes being used in this Camcorder? a material or work resources?

Regardless of what was your answer here is the correct ones

Camcorder is a work resource, are you using this resource for one time only, then it is not a material resource

Video Tape is a material resource, because it will be consumed

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Resource Pool

2008-01-02T10:36:00.001+03:00

If you are working in multi-projects organization and want to share some resources among projects then the only way to do so is to use Resource Pool.

you can use resources from different projects without using the resource pool but the resource availability can not be controlled for both projects as there is no common information about the resource is shared between them

So, adding the resource to the resource pool will help you in

Assignment information, as well as cost rates and availability for all resources, reside in one central location
It is also easier to see resource overallocations (overallocation: The result of assigning more tasks to a resource than the resource can accomplish in the working time available.) caused by conflicting assignments across more than one project

MS Project provide Enterprise Resource Pool as a solution for this issue, to access the ERP you can open MS Project professional 2007 and go to Tools ==> Enterprise Options ==> Open Enterprise Resource Pool

if you want to add more resources to your ERP then go to Toos ==> Enterprise Options ==> Import Resources to Enterprise

Some notes about ERP

Using MS Project 2007 professional connected to the server will allow you to see only Enterprise Resource Pool
If you want to see or use local resources using MS Project 2007 professional then don't connect to the server and just open local project files, but again if you want to save and publish this local project to the server you need to import your local resource into the ERP using the mapping resource tool that will raised up once you start saving the project to the server, you have either to map your local resources to the ERP resources or just import them as new providing that there is no duplication

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Difference between Assignment & Resource

2008-01-02T10:03:00.001+03:00

Simply

Resources: The people, equipment, and material that are used to complete tasks in a project.

Assignment: When you assign this specific resource to a task then it become an Assignment

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Are you sure that people read your blog????

2007-12-31T11:38:00.001+03:00

Opps, have you ever asked your self this question, are you writing something that no body reads??

Don't get upset for a while, you have to spend more efforts in catching the eyes to your blog, here are some advises for you, feel free to re-distribute it

Include your blog link in your signatures everywhere, emails, posts, answers, even Marriage invitation cards :)
Link to others, ask the others to link to you
Include taglines instead of submitting your blog URL to search engines, let them do it in their own way,use this tool that might help you selecting the right key words
you can visit this site http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Don't write long articles, short and attractive post are more than enough
Use Attractive titles, "Man bite a dog" is more attractive than "Dog bite a man". ask a journalist about this :)
Focus on one technology field, but you can post some "Breaking News" to have some little change, also you can put some personal materials (basically the idea of the blogs is personal activity to share knowledge and experience)
Rank of your blog is proportional to the content you write, not to the time, the more you write the more growth you will get, so be patient
What is ever you know in the related blog field is a good material for blogging
Use a name for your blog which is related to the main topic your blog is talking about (This advice I got it from an expert in this field and it is really working, don't miss it)
Use snapshots when illustrating post of the type How To, this will make the post preferred to read by your visitors
Use Simple English, remember that your visitors are not always native English speakers
Try to use simple layout, messy layout will encourage your visitors to run away ASAP
Use standard fonts for titles, post bodies, links. Standards always make it fast and easy to read the content
Don't submit your blog to search engines, yes, this is true, but don't ask me why, ok, you already asked!!, the answer is "This is the search engines policy to reduce the spam traffic"
Refer to my blog :) http://ebilal.spaces.live.com ; you can ignore it if you did not like my blog

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Resource Booking Type? Committed or Proposed

2007-12-30T22:28:00.001+03:00

When selecting a resource to your project then you need to specify the booking type of this resource and only you have 2 options

Committed: means that this resource will be actually booked for current project(s)
Proposed: it is usually used when preparing a proposals to get the estimate cost of the proposed project, Proposal resource means that it can be used if the company did not get the project

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Resource Booking Type? Committed or Proposed

2007-12-30T15:22:00.001+03:00

When selecting a resource to your project then you need to specify the booking type of this resource and only you have 2 options

Committed: means that this resource will be actually booked for current project(s)
Proposed: it is usually used when preparing a proposals to get the estimate cost of the proposed project, Proposal resource means that it can be used if the company did not get the project

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007, Task Types

2007-12-26T11:28:00.001+03:00

MS Project is using 3 type of tasks

Fixed Unit
Fixed Duration
Fixed Work (I call it efforts)

Now, for me I like to use equation to illustrate these three type simple

D=W/U (D: Duration, W: Work, U stands for Units)

Now if we played with this equation it can be show in different ways

For Fixed Unit: U = W/D. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Duration and visa verse
For Fixed Duration: D = W/U. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Unit and visa verse
For Fixed Work: W = D * U. In this case increasing the Duration will result in decreasing the Unit and visa verse

This is very important when planning for your project tasks

Note: For Units,I mentioned in case 2 & 3 that you can increase or decrease the Units, what I meant by increasing or decreasing it is either increase and decrease the Units for the resource or adding more resource, in both ways you are changing the Units

and remember that using PMIS incorrectly will lead to fatal failures

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007, does it manage projects??

2007-12-26T11:15:00.001+03:00

The question is : Does MS Project 2007 or any other project management application really manage your project??

for my opinion, the answer is NO. MS Project does not manage the projects, but it SUPPORT you in doing this. Managing project is a job that you as PM need to do but you need badly a PMIS solution to support you when in come to take decisions. This what MS EPM solution is all about.

Now we come to the point. Use MS Project correctly so it will help you taking the right decision at the right time, otherwise you will get nothing out of it, so be carefully

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: Calendars for project, resource and tasks

2007-12-23T16:55:00.001+03:00

Project 2007 binds calendar through different approaches

Project scale: by default MS Project schedules tasks according to Project default calendar
Resource scale: if a specific resource working time is different than the project one then a special calendar can be created for him
Task scale: sometimes calendars are applied to Tasks, Ex. night backup, which means it runs in its own calendar

Now which one dominate the others??

let say simply it is like the following

Rule 1: Task Calendar will overwrite the Resource Calendar

Rule 2: Resource Calendar will overwrite Project Calendar

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

I love movies editing

2007-12-19T20:59:00.000+03:00

Dear all

Now let me do something i always love to do, Editing Videos

Please watch the following movie I had composited it from the best snapshot taken by Kuwait MVPs during the MVP Global Summit 2007, thanx Bashar lulu,Mustafa Arafa and loay olabi for providing these great snapshots

Please select your connection speed below.

MS Project 2007: Resource availability

2007-12-18T13:05:00.001+03:00

This is a very important note where every PM should be aware of, please read it carefully

Resource availability does not prevent you from assigning a resource to work beyond a period of availability or assigning more work than resource time available. Instead, Microsoft Office Project 2007 uses these availability values to calculate when resources are overallocated and flags the resource accordingly. A resource is considered overallocated when the sum of all assignment units for a given period exceeds the resource's maximum units.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007: More talks about resources

2007-12-18T12:59:00.001+03:00

When adding a resource to your project or to the enterprise you should understand the following so that you can deal easily with Add Resource dialog box

General

Resource name Shows the name of the selected resource.

Initials Shows the resource's initials or other abbreviation that identifies the resource.

Email Specifies the resource's e-mail address.

Group (Important for later on) Specifies the group to which the resource belongs. If you enter a group name, you can sort resources by group or apply a filter to show information about specific groups.

Code Specifies a code for the resource, such as a cost center code.

Booking type

Proposed Specifies that the addition of this resource is considered tentative.

Committed Specifies that the addition of this resource is considered definite. This is the default booking type.

Type

Work Select this resource type for people, equipment, or facilities that are assigned to a task and are not consumed during the task. This is the default.

Material Select this resource type to track consumable resources, such as steel, that are to be used in the fulfillment of the project.

Cost Select this resource type to track budgetary items, such as travel costs, that are not dependent on the amount of work or the duration of a task.

Material label If this is a material resource, this box becomes available. Enter the unit label for the material resource. For example, for lumber, you can enter Linear Feet, to track linear feet of lumber for the project.

checkbox (you can say they are attributes)

Generic Specifies that the resource is an account of skills required for a task, rather than an actual resource.

Budget Specifies that the resource is a budget item.

Inactive Indicates whether the resource has been deleted or otherwise removed from the resource pool (resource pool:

Availability

Available From Enter the resource's start date for the current level of maximum unit availability. If NA is entered in the Available From field, this means that the resource's starting availability is the same as the project start date.

Available To Enter the resource's finish date for the current level of maximum unit availability. If NA is entered in the Available To field, this means that the resource's ending availability is the same as the project finish date.

Units Type the number of maximum units available for this resource during the period of time specified in the Available From and Available To fields.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 References

2007-12-17T15:34:00.000+03:00

Out-of-memory errors may occur before you reach the listed limits.

Attribute	Maximum
Resources per project	700,000
Resource units per assignment	60,000,000 units or 6,000,000,000%
Resource availability dates	100
Tasks per project	400,000
Task dependencies per project	No limit
Predecessors per task	50,000
Successors per task	50,000
Outline levels per project	65,535
Consolidated projects	998
Open project files per consolidated project	998
Sharer files connected to a single resource pool	997 (That is, the maximum number of open project files, minus 1 for the resource pool itself.)
Open windows	50
Base calendars	Tested to 30,000+
Calendar exceptions per calendar	Testing was able to add more than 15,000 exceptions to a base calendar.
Rate tables to support varying pay scales and rates	5 per resource
Variable rates per rate table to support rate increases and decreases	25
Cost value in a currency field	999,999,999,999.99
Work value	1,666,666,666 hours
Assignment work values for work assignments	999,999,999 hours
Assignment work values for variable material assignments	999,999,999 units
Assignment work values for fixed material assignments	60,000,000 units
Custom cell formats	64,000
Print scaling adjustment range percentage	10%-500%
Page header text	5 lines
Page footer text	3 lines
Page legend text	3 lines
Page legend text box width	5 inches (12.7 centimeters)
Filter tests per filter	40
Filter tests per AutoFilter	2 per column
Earliest date allowed for calculation	January 1, 1984
Latest date allowed for calculation	December 31, 2049
Discontinuous selections in a sheet view	10
Baselines	11
Characters in a text field	255
Characters in an outline code field	255
Values and characters in an Enterprise Resource Multi-Value (ERMV) field	255 values, each of 255 characters
Value in a number field	9,999,999,999,999.99

Bill Gates to visit UAE

2007-12-15T16:19:00.001+03:00

Dear All
I just want to re-broadcast this news item as I read it from AME site (http://www.ameinfo.com/141793.html)
and here is the content:
"Bill Gates will be the keynote speaker at the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum Arabia 2008, to be held 27-28 January 2008, at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, marking the first visit of the Microsoft chairman to the UAE. The theme for this year's forum is 'Accelerating Arab Competitiveness.' During the course of his visit to the UAE, Gates will travel to Dubai for a series of high-level discussions."

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Microsoft Live Translator

2007-12-15T12:06:00.001+03:00

It is still in beta time, but it really worth a try

check

http://translator.live.com/

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

Manage your projects with Project 2007

2007-12-10T10:53:00.001+03:00

"The best project management tool in the world can never replace your good judgment.

However, the right tool can and should help you accomplish the following:

Track all of the information you gather about the work, duration, and resource requirements for your project.
Visualize your project plan in standard, well-defined formats.
Schedule tasks and resources consistently and effectively.
Exchange project information with stakeholders over networks and the Internet using standard file formats.
Communicate with resources and other stakeholders while leaving ultimate control in the hands of the project manager.

Armed with the information about project management contained in this article and the rich functionality of Project 2007 discussed in our book, you are off to a great start with Project 2007."

I read this from one article and i have quoted it for you

if you want to refer to the original article please refer to

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102354821033.aspx#Managing

best regards

MS Project Earned Value Calculation

2007-12-10T09:56:00.001+03:00

I have read this article, it is really cool

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA101567921033.aspx

but be aware that the name of the ER terms have been changed in the last PMBOK 3 edition as the following

Old Term

Old abbr.

New Term

New Abbr.

Budgeted cost of work scheduled

BCWS

Planned value

budgeted cost of work performed

BCWP

Earned Value

actual cost of work performed

ACWP

Actual Cost

Best regards

MS Project Resource Types Again

2007-12-10T09:21:00.001+03:00

Traditional resource types are

people
equipment
materials (used to complete tasks that make a project)

In Enterprise environment we have two domains

Global: Means related to the whole organization
Locale: related to the current project

So accordingly the resources can be classified as the following

Enterprise resources Each of these resources can be shared across multiple projects. Typically, the list of enterprise resources is managed by an administrator , and each project manager adds these resources to their projects as needed.
Non-enterprise resources A non-enterprise resource, or local resource, is not a part of the list of resources for the whole organization. No other project manager can use your non-enterprise resources in their projects.

Now the resource also can be classify according to the certainty

Specific Resource: By name, for example Ali, Omar, khalil. this means that you already have this employee among your team
Generic resources Generic resources are used to specify the staffing requirements for a project, such as carpenters and developers, or a team of resources.

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project, WBS, Resources and some comments

2007-12-09T10:21:00.001+03:00

For whom who are using MS Project to develop the the project's tasks schedule they used to do the following

First they start with the high level deliverables
Then decompressing till the WP level
Then create tasks under each WP
Then estimate the duration
Then assign the resources
then ..
...

ok, let us go back to the bold step "Then assign the resources", well, but according to PMI methodology there is a missed step which is

Then determined the skills required for each task

For example: the task "Installing MS Sql 2005" required the following skills

Systems administration
DB Administration

So, i can imagine that when assigning resource for "Installing MS Sql 2005" then system should not show me the name of our chairman for example as one of the available resources !

It should list only

Resources who are available
Resource who is not occupied or busy with other tasks at that time
Resource who owned the required skills

Right!

otherwise you will find yourself building non realistic plans for your project

best regards

bilal okour

Halo Effect

2007-12-02T11:55:00.001+03:00

Have you heard about it but I am sure that you face it and may be get affected by it some how

Ok, let me put it in different way
imagine you are the owner of some business and have some talented people working with you
Now you are getting a lot of projects and you are looking for qualified people to run them
Well, i guess you will not go for other than the options listed below

You know that "Kamal" is a perfect network engineer and showed excellent technical skills
He did a lot for the company and he deserve to get promoted. Kamal is promoted to be PM
Or, you will put an ad and ask for qualified project manager with 10+ years of experience as PM and you will find "Tareq" is the best of them so you hired Tareq as PM
Or you will look for person among your team "Ali" who showed excellent communication & organizing skills, he is not the best technically but he can control and communicate to all of the stakeholders in your projects.
Or you will go back to "Kamal" option but first you will give him a training on PM. In other words, you invested on him

So, which choice you find your self welling to pick up, but please don't go to option 1, it is the halo effect, promoting the most experienced guy technically to PM will lead to

loose valuable resource in the technical domain
might get poor project manger will result in unexpected bad results!!

you are thinking of hiring person from outside, ok, well, assume that you have a qualified person in your team who feel that you should have selected him, you will lose him too

So, for me I would like to go for option 3 or 4 and i liked 4 (my name is not Kamal and i am not any business owner :) )

So what do you think

Windows Live Writer

2007-11-19T21:07:00.001+03:00

As usual, when i am free i have one thing that can turn me busy again, browsing the net, and guess what I found
Something called "Microsoft Live Photo Gallery", this sounds cool for me as a person who is Photos editing fan :)
So, within a second I started downloading that thing, and within couple of minutes the installation start and I found myself setup another thing called "Microsoft Live Installer" which include in turn another couple of cool staff like

Live writer: cool, you can use it to purplish posts to your blog, and guess what, it can connect to any web bloger that have web blog web service running. Actually i tried it only to connect to my Windows live space blog
Live photo gallery: I did not use it it, i am still do the setup while writing this post
Live Mail: You can access all of your email accounts from one place, also i am still downloading it :)
other interesting service that you have to give a try

To start download please click here

http://get.live.com/photogallery/fromspaces_overview

best regards

Kuwait:::The TechNet and MSDN Roadshow

2007-11-08T10:55:00.000+03:00

The TechNet and MSDN Roadshow proudly presents the "Gaining Insight Tour 2007".
This tour, coming to the city nearest you, is packed with live demonstrations and technical content on the upcoming and much anticipated solutions from Microsoft.
Get a sneak peek into technologies that include Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, .Net, Silverlight, Virtualization and more. You will also be among the first to see us unveil the new Unified Communications technologies from Microsoft – a solution that will revolutionize the way people communicate and collaborate in the workplace.
If you're an IT Professional or a Developer looking to gain insight and an edge over others, then you've got no excuse to miss out on this event! You may even walk away as the lucky winner of the new X-box 360 Elite!

Click Here To Register

Is A Must To Read Article

2007-05-07T21:48:00.000+04:00

You will lose definitely if you did not go through this

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/HA102143771033.aspx

Enjoy your time

I have finished the PMP training course

2007-04-29T22:54:00.000+04:00

After a very exciting 40 hours spanned over 2 months today only we completed the PMP preparation course

The first thing I would like to mention here is the very professional PMP trainer who conducted the session

Mohamad khalifa from TDI Kuwait run a very helpful a rich training course, the amazing thing about him that he love to give trainings in PMP, he really made the training course unusual, needless to say that he had both practical experience and theoretical knowledge.

Over the 40 hours we covered the complete set of the PMI processes and in details

I would like any person who live in Kuwait to attend this course even if he had 20 years of PM
it Worth it
if any person is welling to register for this training please call me on 6160085

best regards

Bilal Okour, Kuwait

MS Project 2007 Server Lane: Resources' Max Unit

2007-04-29T08:27:00.000+04:00

Max. Units, the maximum units value specifies how much of this resource is available for this project — for example, part-time or multiples.

Saying this resource is available 100% means he is a full time resource, less than that means he is a part time resource.

For example, if you have a resource who is available 3 days a week then the Max Units for him/her is 60%. If he/she is available for the whole week then Max Units is 100%

You can enter maximum units as a percentage (50%, 100%, 300%), or as a decimal (0.5, 1, 3).

MS Project 2007 Server Lane: Eps 2 : Resources Types

2007-04-29T08:05:00.000+04:00

First of all and before diving into this topic let us defined these terms

Enterprise domain: Means the domain for all projects belongs to the organization, the enterprise might contain one or more projects
Project domain: means the domain for this specific project

Resources in MS Project Server are divided into three categories

Enterprise resources: means the resources belongs to the enterprise, this is a difficult choice as it need to make sure that this resource is not fully allocated for different projects. Resources of this type can be shared among the projects.
Local or project resources: resources dedicated only for this specific project

So, me personally I can build my team from the enterprise resources but I don’t like the idea of having shared resources as a lot of conflicts will take place accordingly

MS Project 2007 Server Lane: Eps 1 : Quick installation tips

2007-04-26T01:06:00.000+04:00

first, to install MS Project 2007 Server I with the following environment

Windows 2003 (with the latest SP)
IIS 6 or above
DotNet 1.1 (for some features you need to have 2.0 also installed)
MS Sql 2000 or 2005 with the latest SP
Don't forget MS Project Server 2007
I also installed MS sql 2005 to be used with MS Project Portfolio Server 2007 (not yet installed)

The installation went smooth and it is a matter of wizards which you just need to keep the defaults as is and go ahead

I have done and I noticed that the installation of Project Server 2007 installed also the WSS to be used to create the Projects' sites

Note: As usual WSS when installed occupied the port 80, so make sure that you are not running any web application on this port, if you have the only solution is to move them to new port

The server that I selected to be used as Project Server 2007 had a production web site, (I knew about it but that was the only server that I had). I created another virtual directory under the Share Point Site and selected "Redirect to URL" as the location of the directory

So, now I have everything is running and ready for the next step

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

MS Project 2007 Server Lane: Intorduction

2007-04-26T00:59:00.000+04:00

Dear PMPs

As I have been asked to search & research for the best PM solution that provide us with our complex and unique requirement
Our project is a country level one and it needs a strong PM solution that can span over all the PM processes and knowledge areas.

I have selected MS Project 2007 and to frankly speaking I found it at the beginning a complex thing that I need to spend too much time drive it to our organization. Once I started with it I found it very easy and very huge at the same time.

For those who know the concept of PM will know how good this software is

In the next series I will record my daily experience day by day
Best regards

Welcome to my PM Road

2007-04-23T20:12:00.000+04:00

Dear All,
Welcome to my blog, the one that I would like to make it a daily register of my growing experience in this field.

As I called it "PM Road", this blog will guide as a road for whom who will start their new stage in the career life as me.

This road has multiple lanes, at the beginning I will consider two lanes,

PM theory as stated by PMI
MS Project as a great IT tool to implement the Management Information System

So, for each post, i will be market to which lanes the post belong, PM theory or MS Project

So, let me start the first step in the 1000 mile road

I hope this will help the others who selected to come to this road

Bilal Okour