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

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

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

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

1. One ore more of your resource report that his "My Taks" is showing sharepoint error message
   
2. 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

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

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

Dear All,

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

1. 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.
2. 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

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???

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

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

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

1. 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 )
2. Open Gantt view, click on Split Task
3. On the bar, click on the place where you want the split to be applied
4. 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

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

Hi

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

 

Hi

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

1. Microsoft Project 2007 Standard
2. Microsoft Project 2007 Professional (connected to Microsoft Project 2007)
3. 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

Another great post for leaders and managers

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

 

Enjoy!!

Bilal Okour

ProjectSteps: Leading Geeks

ProjectSteps: Leading Geeks

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

 

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

 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

 

1. For Fixed Unit: U = W/D. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Duration and visa verse
2. For Fixed Duration: D = W/U. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Unit and visa verse
3. 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”

 

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

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

If you would like to participate please send us the following

1. Your contribution URL (site, blog or community)
2. 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

 

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

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

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????

 

 

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

 

1. Include your blog link in your signatures  everywhere, emails, posts, answers, even Marriage invitation cards :)
2. Link to others, ask the others to link to you
3. 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/
4. Don't write long articles, short and attractive post are more than enough
5. Use Attractive titles, "Man bite a dog"  is more attractive than "Dog bite a man". ask a journalist about this :)
6. 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)
7. 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
8. What is ever you know in the related blog field is a good material for blogging
9. 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)
10. Use snapshots when illustrating post of the type How To, this will make the post preferred to read by your visitors
11. Use Simple English, remember that your visitors are not always native English speakers
12. Try to use simple layout, messy layout will encourage your visitors to run away ASAP
13. Use standard fonts for titles, post bodies, links. Standards always make it fast and easy to read the content
14. 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"
15. 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

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

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

MS Project is using 3 type of tasks

1. Fixed Unit
2. Fixed  Duration
3. 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

1. For Fixed Unit: U = W/D. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Duration and visa verse
2. For Fixed Duration: D = W/U. In this case increasing the Work will result in increasing the Unit and visa verse
3. 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??

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

 

Project 2007 binds calendar through different approaches

1. Project scale: by default MS Project schedules tasks according to Project default calendar
2. Resource scale: if a specific resource working time is different than the project one then a special calendar can be created for him
3. 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

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

"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

MS Project, WBS, Resources and some comments

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

1. Systems administration
2. 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

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

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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

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

1. 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
2. Live photo gallery: I did not use it it, i am still do the setup while writing this post 
3. Live Mail: You can access all of your email accounts from one place, also i am still downloading it :)
4. 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

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