Microsoft Project 2010 Server: Save file for Share

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Departmental Custom Fields

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

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

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!!

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

1. Uninstall the Project Add-in for Outlook in Add/Remove Programs
2. 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.
   
3. In outlook, go to tasks. Remove all tasks (Active and Closed) that were downloaded from the Project Web server. Close Outlook.
   
    
   
4. 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.
   
   
   
5. 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

 

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..

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!

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

read more in Christophe blog at

http://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie/archive/2009/05/14/project-2007-service-pack-2-recorded-webcast-and-deck-are-now-available-on-epmconnect.aspx

Best Regards

Bilal Okour

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

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