Microsoft Project SP2 is announced by Microsoft

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 Can't see PERT Analysis in the Toolbar??

 

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!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Timephased view, It is not there anymore

 

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

 

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

 

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

Announcing the Infrastructure Update for Office Servers

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

For Project Managers: 2007 Link Mish Mash

Another great post for leaders and managers

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

 

Enjoy!!

Bilal Okour

Manage your projects with Project 2007

"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

 

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	PV
budgeted cost of work performed	BCWP	Earned Value	EV
actual cost of work performed	ACWP	Actual Cost	AC

 

Best regards

MS Project Resource Types Again

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