So it was Day 2 at Project Ignite and we were told this was a day not to miss. I agree – it was a very productive day focusing on Demand Management, Portfolio Strategy, Timesheet and Statusing, and Reporting.
The day was comprehensive. Christophe and Jan – great job.
These are the highlights from Day 2 that I found helpful. Hope you enjoy.
-Jacques
- Demand Management
- Create Enterprise Project Types
- PDP (Project Detail Pages) – a canvas to house web parts
- EPT (Enterprise Project Types) – is the work capturing functionality and can be associated to a workflow. It is the first step for configuring Workflows. Recommendation: Remove Sample Proposal EPT when going live to avoid confusing the users
- Project Fields web part allows view/edits of project fields (new feature) This is a great enhancement.
- Portfolio Strategy
- Leverages scalable Queue architecture
- No Gateway is required
- PSI can be used for both Project and Portfolio coding
- Drivers are stored in the Published DB
- Drivers can be associated to specific Department or can be associated to the entire organization
- Consistency Ratio in 2010 has a nicer UI
- Driver Prioritization can be manual set as well as using the pair-wise matrix
- Three data points that feed into the portfolio analysis
- Cost
- Proposal/project impact on business drivers
- Time-phased resource requirements
- Project Prioritization has algorithm can be manual set as well as using the pair-wise matrix.
- Project dependency relationship will be respected during portfolio selection scenario calculations
- In Portfolio Analyses
- you can filter the UI by department
- you can set the Primary Cost Constraint – identifies the project's budgetary constraint
- Visibility – you can use the Hide Metrics button and hide the Quick Launch (left-side) Bar
- Analyze Cost (Optimizer): Efficient Frontier and Strategic Alignment graphs are displayed in the Metrics section (This is very nice – we do not need to open up another window or go to a different screen. The Moved in/out column is very helpful.
- Analyze Resources (Planner):
- Hire Resource feature – If you propose a scenario to hire new employees – the system will show you which additional projects can be completed and what the two new hire roles for which project and when.
- Resource Constraint Reports – are very nice
- Timesheet and Statusing
- Single Entry Mode Option
- Two views of Actual Work
- Status Manager can approve timesheet lines as well as task updates – very nice new feature
- In Project Server 2010 admin time is fully integrated into the Timesheet and Single Entry Mode user interfaces—no need to “Plan Admin Time” as in the previous release
- Time Sheet:
- Status Bar – New feature – very helpful
- Send Status feature – allows users to send status without sending/submitting the entire Send Timesheet.
- Send Timesheet – Sends status and timesheet data
- Select Period – allows you to change/select the period (in the past or in the future)
- Billing Category
- End user can hide/update fields (columns) in the Timesheet
- Define Near Future Planning Window
This setting determines the size of the Near Future group in the Planning Window grouping within My Tasks. By default, this value is set to 2, as research indicates that most people seemed to plan up to two time reporting periods in advance. However, it can be increased or decreased based on organizational need.
- UI is much slicker
- Timesheet custom fields will be sent to the Reporting database as part of the RTM release
- Outlook integration (only percent complete or total/remaining work)
- JSGrid replaces ActiveX – thank you MSFT this is a HUGE improvement
- MSFT supports extending the JSGrid – this is new. MSFT did not support ActiveX customizations.
- Reporting
- Besides OLAP cubes all other reporting is new in 2010
- SharePoint Server 2010 Platform
- BI Center (Business Intelligence) – workspace dedicated to Business Intelligence
- Excel Services, Visio Services, Performance Point Services and more
- No Office Web Components (OWC)
- Project Server Database Architecture
