The Bamboo Team Blog : PM Central

FOSE 2013: Risk Management with Julie Auletta and PM Central

Julie Morris — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:00:00 GMT

Hello again, all! Let me begin with a slight confession... I'm no longer at the Washington Convention Center. For such a beautiful day, I decided instead to take it outside and enjoy some sunshine while reporting live from FOSE (that, and I have free Wi-Fi from where I am).

So today was an exciting day to say the least, but perhaps the best part was having the opportunity to see my fellow Julie, Julie Auletta, Director of the Solutions Center at Bamboo, present at the conference. Though her presentation, titled "The Importance of Managing Risk in any Project Plan," may seem reminiscent to a webinar featured earlier this year, having the opportunity to see the presentation live in-person definitely added a lively dimension to the presentation's content.

To begin the presentation, Julie addressed the topic of "What is a risk?" and why is it important for us to be cognizant of risks when managing our projects. Julie noted that, whether or not we like it, risks are indeed all around us and it's up to us to recognize this fact and learn how to manage our risks in order to ensure project success. One of the best ways to manage risks, she noted, is to measure and plot risks in order to identify their potential impact on a given project. From there, we can start to develop contingency plans - essentially how to react in the event that a risk does present itself.

From there, Julie moved on to the "why" of risks - Why should we manage risks after all? There are plenty of reasons why risk management is something we simply, as project managers and project teams, cannot ignore. First and foremost is the health of the project; we all want our projects to be closed out on-time and in-budget after all. Additionally, effectively managing risks can help to minimize crises, therein preventing problems and surprises during the project's life cycle. Lastly, and perhaps most important to stakeholders, proper risk management helps to increase a project's profitability, as risk mitigation can become quite costly.

To conclude the presentation, Julie looked to technology and queried as to how technology can assist us in managing and negating risks. Specifically, she cited Bamboo's Project Management Central (PM Central) application. Composed of a number of invaluable components that assist with risk management, as well as resource, cost, schedule, and portfolio management, PM Central can help you manage schedules, produce risk summary charts, provide notification emails (for when task deadlines are coming up), and more. Likewise, with PM Central, all of the above can be achieved from a single, centralized workplace all on Microsoft SharePoint.

How to Import Microsoft Project Tasks into a SharePoint Tasks List Using the Microsoft Project Add-In for PM Central

Thy.Quach — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:30:00 GMT

If you want to install the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in for Microsoft Project 2010, you can use the PM Central Setup program. In this article, we will walk you through how to install the Add-in from the Setup program as well as how to subsequently import tasks into a SharePoint Tasks list.

Please note: To install the Microsoft Project Add-in for PM Central, you must possess a copy of PM Central. If you do not currently own PM Central, you can either click here to purchase a copy from our storefront or contact us to request a free, 30-day trial version.

Installing the Add-in Using the Setup Program

If you want to install the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in for Microsoft Project 2010, you can use the PM Central Setup program. To install the Add-in from the Setup program:

Copy the product .exe file to the desktop machine where you want to install the Add-in. Double-click the file to extract its contents.
Double-click Setup.bat to launch the PM Central Setup program.
Click the correct version of the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in component in the left menu and click Install.
- If you have the 32-bit version of Microsoft Project 2010, click Microsoft Project Add-in (x32).
- If you have the 64-bit version of Microsoft Project 2010, click Microsoft Project Add-in (x64).
To find out which version you have, open Microsoft Project. Under File > Help, the version is listed in the About Microsoft Project section.
After clicking Install, follow the prompts in the setup wizard. When the installation is complete, click Close.
In the Control Panel, go to Programs and Features. Verify that the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in is displayed in the list of programs.

Installing the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in Using the Setup.msi

All current versions of the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in are included in the msi folder of the PM Central installation package.

To install the Add-in using the Setup.msi:

Run the product .exe file to extract its contents. Browse to the msi subfolder.
Copy the appropriate Setup.msi to the desktop machine where you want to install the Add-in.
- If you have the 32-bit version of Microsoft Project 2010, copy Bamboo.MSProjectAddInSetup.x32.msi.
- If you have the 64-bit version of Microsoft Project 2010, copy Bamboo.MSProjectAddInSetup.x64.msi.
To find out which version you have, open Microsoft Project. Under File > Help, the version is listed in the About Microsoft Project section.
After you copy the file, double-click it to launch the setup wizard.
Follow the prompts in the wizard to install the Add-in. Click Close after the installation is complete.
In the Control Panel, go to Programs and Features. Verify that the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in is displayed in the list of programs.

Allowing Other Users to Use the Add-in

Note: Users must have at least the SharePoint Design permission level in order to import data from Microsoft Project.

When the Add-in is installed, it will only be available in Microsoft Project for the user who performed the installation. To allow other users on the same computer to use the Add-in:

Log in using a different user account than the one used to install the Add-in. Open any Microsoft application, such as Microsoft Excel. A pop-up is displayed:
Click Install.

The other user accounts are now able to use the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in without having to perform the full installation.

In R4.0, you can also log in using a form-based authentication account.

Importing Tasks from Microsoft Project into a SharePoint Tasks List

Note: Users must have at least the SharePoint Design permission level in order to import data from Microsoft Project.

Before you import task items into a PM Central Tasks list, make sure that the Task Master Web Part and your Microsoft Project file (mpp) have similar working hours and workdays, such as Monday-Friday, 8 AM-5 PM, lunch break 12 PM - 1PM. Remember that the Task Master Web Part R3.5 does exclude lunch hours.

To set working hours in the Task Master Web Part, navigate to your project site and select the Tasks tab. For the All Tasks, Overdue Tasks and My Tasks tabs, click the arrow on the right to edit the Web Part and open the configuration tool pane. Scroll down to Working Hours Settings and verify that your Workdays and Working Hours match your Microsoft Project workdays and working hours. If you are including holidays in Microsoft Project, you can do the same in the Task Master Web Part. Add your holidays to a SharePoint Calendar list and specify that list in the Holiday List Settings. When you have made all required changes to the Task Master Web Part settings, click Apply and then OK.

For more information about changing Task Master Working Hours Settings and Holiday List Settings, see Configuring SharePoint Task Master in the Task Master online documentation. For more information about changing Microsoft Project working hours, see Set working times, vacations, and holidays for your project on Microsoft.com.

To import tasks into a SharePoint Tasks list:

In Microsoft Project, open the .mpp file that contains the list of tasks you want to import into SharePoint. In the PM Central Add-In tab in the Ribbon, click the Import to SharePoint Tasks List button.
Enter the URL of the SharePoint site where the destination Task list is located and enter the login information for a SharePoint account with the Design permission level on the site. Click Connect.
In the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in screen, select Actions > Import Wizard.
In the Mapping Fields window, select a mapping option:
- Automatic Map With PM Central Tasks List will map fields from the PM Central Tasks list to Microsoft Project as shown in the table in step 5. This is the recommended option.
- Manual Map lets you select the fields to map. If you choose this option, select the Tasks list in the Map Source Fields to SharePoint List Columns drop-down menu.
- Create New List and Automatic Map creates a new Tasks list using the field map shown in the table in step 5. This option is not recommended for importing tasks to PM Central.

If you elected to map fields manually, use the table below to map SharePoint fields to the Microsoft Project source field. Only the fields in the table can be mapped to import data. Click Next.

SharePoint Field	MS Project Source Field
Title	Name
Priority	Priority
Status	Status
% Complete	PercentComplete
Assigned To	ResourceNames
Resource	ResourceNames
Assignment Units	Assigments
Start Date	Start
Due Date	Finish
Constraint Type	ConstraintType
Constraint Date	ConstraintDate
Work	Work
Actual Work	ActualWork
Remaining Work	RemainingWork
Parent Task	OutlineParent
Predecessor Task	Predecessor Tasks
Milestone	Milestone
Cost (Enter)	Cost
Actual Cost (Enter)	ActualCost
Remaining Cost (Enter)	RemainingCost
Duration	Duration
Project Name	Project
WBS	WBS

Notes:

Make sure to map the SharePoint Parent Task and Predecessor Task fields to the MS Project OutlineParent and PredecessorTask fields, as show in the table above. These fields define the task outline.
Tasks with multiple predecessors can be imported, if your SharePoint task list is configured to support them. For more information about configuring your PM Central Tasks list to support multiple predecessors, see Configuring Multiple Predecessors in the SharePoint Task Master online documentation.
You can map the Resource Names to Assigned To or Resource Names to Resource. If you are using the Resource Pool, map Resource Names from Microsoft Project to PM Central Tasks List. Make sure the resources from the Enterprise Resource Pool (ERP) from the portfolio is added to the Contacts list at the project first prior to import.
You can also map Assignments from Microsoft Project to Assignment Units.
The Task Master Web Part does not support lag time. If you import a Microsoft Project task with a constraint that includes lag time (such as "+3days"), the lag time will be ignored.
The PM Central Tasks list columns Cost, Actual Cost and Remaining Cost are Calculated columns. Therefore, map the Microsoft Project columns with these names to the Tasks list columns Cost (Enter), Actual Cost (Enter) and Remaining Cost (Enter), which are Currency columns. After the import, the calculated columns will be updated to reflect the imported cost data.

Choose a method for publishing tasks: Assignment Based or Task Based. In R4.0 for SharePoint 2010, multiple resources can be assigned to the same task. Choose Task Based.
- Assignment Based should be used when you want to see one assignment per task. This is recommended as the chosen method with PM Central. When importing, the Bamboo MS Project Add-in creates multiple tasks based on how many resources you assign to a particular task. For example, for Task 123 you have Resource A, Resource B and Resource C assigned. The Bamboo MS Project Add-in creates Task 123 with the same title three times and assigns each resource to each task as follows:
  
  In MS Office Project:
  Task 123 < > Resource A, Resource B, Resource C
  
  In SharePoint List:
  Task 123 < > Resource A
  Task 123 < > Resource B
  Task 123 < > Resource C
  
  Note: Unlike MS Project, the Start Date, Due Date and Duration are exactly the same for all three tasks.
- Task Based is now support with PM Central. When importing, the Bamboo MS Project Add-in creates one task only and assigns multiple resources to that task. For example, for Task 123 you have Resource A, Resource B and Resource C assigned. The Bamboo MS Project Add-in creates Task 123 and assigns Resource A, Resource B, Resource C
  
  In SharePoint List:
  Task 123 < > Resource A, Resource B, Resource C
If you're doing an automatic mapping, you will see this pop up window. You can choose to map Resource Names to Assigned To:

or, you can choose to map Resource Names to Resource:

Map resources from Microsoft Project to SharePoint users. Select the resource from the Microsoft Project Resources list to map to the SharePoint Users & Groups list and select Add Mapping. Note that this is a one-to-one mapping only. Click Next.

If you're doing a manual mapping and map Resource Names to Assigned To, you will see this pop up window:

If you doing a manual mapping and map Resource Names to Resource, you will see this pop up window:

If you are mapping Resource Names to Assigned To and you forget to add the assignees to the project's Contacts list, you can still continue. But you will see this pop up window:

If you are mapping Resource Names to Resource and you forget to add the resources to the project's Contacts list, you cannot continue. You will see this pop up window:
In the Import Data window, click Import. If you want to skip importing items if they already exist in the target SharePoint Tasks list, check the option Don't create duplicate items if existing. An item exists if its Title is the same as the Name in Microsoft Project.

If the import is successful, you see the following results screen.

Below is an example of a results screen where duplicate items were skipped. A duplicate item is one where the ID and Title field match an ID and Title in the SharePoint Tasks list.

If the import is not successful, the Results window will display an error. Click Back to go back and review the mapping fields. Go through the import steps again. Your mapped fields will be available for re-use for future imports.

In Case you Missed It: The Importance of Resource Management for Any Successful Project Plan

Julie Morris — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:10:00 GMT

Yesterday, Bamboo presented the second webinar in its Best Practices series which focuses on SharePoint-based project management and how technology can be leveraged to effectively automate and administer key project management functions. The webinar, led by Julie Auletta, Director of Bamboo's Solutions Center, and Rob Manfredi, Business Analyst and Partner at SharePointXperts, centered on the topic of resource management, and included a discussion of what is resource management, the different types of resource management, and how to level resources.

After an examination of human resource deployment and how to successfully manage resource allocation, the webinar launched into a discussion of resource leveling and common processes and techniques that can be used to successfully manage your resource allocations. Specifically, Julie provided a demonstration of Bamboo's popular Project Management Central (PM Central) application, and the various resource management features that it offers. As a comprehensive, turnkey solution for collaborative project management on Microsoft SharePoint, PM Central centralizes several of the key functions of project management to increase efficiency and productivity. In regards to resource management, PM Central features several tools to help provide insight into resource allocation and capacity for your projects, as well as the ability to find available resources based on name, department, or role of the resource.

For those who were unable to attend The Importance of Resource Management for Any Successful Project Plan, don't fret! The presentation was recorded and can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here. In addition, you can download a copy of the presentation deck used in yesterday's webinar right here.

After watching the webinar and checking out the presentation, you may wish to try PM Central out yourself. At Bamboo, we offer a number of different trial methods based on your needs and requirements. Bamboo offers a commitment-free 30-day trial with PM Central–as well as our full catalog of products–allowing you to deploy and evaluate our technology in your own SharePoint environment. We also offer an installation-free option to evaluate our products in a private or public hosted sandbox environment which is available 24x7 and provides instant access to PM Central, and includes a fully-functional PM Central site you can use to input, modify, and save data to freely.

In Case You Missed It: The Importance of Managing Risk & Communication in Any Successful Project Plan

Julie Morris — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:03:00 GMT

Yesterday, Bamboo kicked off a brand new webinar series focused on SharePoint-based project management and how technology can be leveraged to effectively automate and administer key project management functions. The first webinar in the series, led by Julie Auletta, Director of Bamboo's Solutions Center, and Rob Manfredi, Business Analyst and Partner at SharePointXperts, centered on the topic of risk management and included a discussion of what is risk, where can risk be found, and how to quantify risk.

After an examination of risk and how failure to identify and evaluate risks and formulate effective response strategies can have serious negative effects on the health and success of the project, the webinar launched into a discussion of the different technologies that can be leveraged to effectively communicate strategy and mitigate a risk's impact. Specifically, Julie provided a demonstration of Bamboo's popular Project Management Central (PM Central) application, and the various risk management features that it offers. As a comprehensive, turnkey solution for collaborative project management on Microsoft SharePoint, PM Central centralizes several of the key functions of project management to increase efficiency and productivity. In regards to risk management, PM Central features several tools to help manage risk and improve communication, such as the ability to set mitigation and contingency plans, as well as robust reporting and alerting capabilities.

For those who were unable to attend The Importance of Managing Risk and Communication in any Successful Project Plan, don't fret! The presentation was recorded and can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here. In addition, you can download a copy of the presentation deck used in yesterday's webinar right here.

After watching the webinar and checking out the presentation, are you ready to try PM Central out yourself? At Bamboo, we offer a number of different trial methods based on your needs and requirements. Bamboo offers a commitment-free 30-day trial with PM Central as well as our full catalog of products, allowing you to deploy and evaluate our technology in your own SharePoint environment. We also offer an installation-free option to evaluate our products in a private or public hosted sandbox environment which is available 24x7 and provides instant access to PM Central, and includes a fully-functional PM Central site you can use to input, modify, and save data to freely.

This Week in Bamboo (January 20th, 2013 - January 26th, 2013)

Myuyen Phan — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:39:00 GMT

This week in Bamboo, a major release of Task Master Release 3.5 for SharePoint 2010 was released to the storefront with new improvements, great new features and many resolved bugs. Please see the release announcement blogs from our Product Manager for details: Announcing the Release of Task Master R3.5 for SharePoint 2010. For a complete list of bug fixes, great new features, limitations and known issues about the new release, please see below.

HW45 Task Master for SharePoint 2010 Release 3.5

New features:

• Provides the option to assign multiple resources to a task.
• Provides the option to exclude lunch time in the project schedule.
• Integrates with List Rollup Web Part R6.0: Consume data where the data source is from List Rollup and display aggregated task items from multiple sites.
• Includes additional conditions for Adjusting Task Schedule: Change task’s duration, total work or due date when resource assignments are changed based on task conditions (e.g. keep duration constant, keep total work constant, but increase or decrease the hours that resources work per day).
• Improves the tool pane interface.
• Provides a Search option.
• Allows users to delete task items from the interface.
• Allows users to view Project Schedule Configuration Settings from the interface.
• Allows users to disable the Recalculate button and add additional rules where if the Recalculate button is disabled, Task Master will not apply any business rules or changes and will allow users to keep the data as is.

Bugs Fixes for Current Limitations and Known Issues in R3.0:

• When adding a lookup column that is a site column to Task Master display, the page may display an error with the message, "Bad document format (no tag <Grid>-->Error::GanttLayout Message: List does not exist."
• Milestone displays American data/time instead of Australian.
• In the Gantt view, in the Go To Date when select today's date Task Master does not change to display the Gantt based on the date selection.
• Add a Data Viewer Web Part to the page where Task Master is and Task Master will display no data.
• When select users or groups in the Assigned To column, sort in ascending/descending order.
• If a Project Management Central tasks list contains more than 2000 items, click the Recalculate button will cause a timeout error.
• If the Bamboo List Search Web Part is added to the same page as a Task Master Web Part, attempting to edit the List Search Web Part properties results in an Internet Explorer error message: "Internet Explorer has stopped working."
• If the Gantt chart color coding is assigned based on the Schedule Status column and your inline-edit of a task results in a change to the value of that column, you must refresh the browser to see the new color in the Gantt chart. This is work as designed.
• Saving or recalculating a task list with more than 1000 items may cause a timeout error in the client. The update process will continue on the server. To view the results of the Save or Recalculate, refresh the browser using Control + F5.
• The % Complete for summary tasks is not updated in the Gantt chart the first time you click Recalculate. To see the correct value, refresh the browser using Control + F5 or click Recalculate again.

Current Limitations:

• Task cannot save and show error message when assigned to 11 users.
• Task Master shows incorrect Predecessor Tasks when tasks are imported using Microsoft Add-in import where the title contains special characters such as | / *.
• If Task Master is configured to exclude certain days, such as weekends, and the task Start Date and Due Date fall on an excluded date, Task Master will compute that task as a milestone.
• To use the same color for all milestone tasks, you must first select a Choice column and then select the same color for all choices.
• Users cannot add the Web Part into a rich content zone on team sites.
• When printing data from Task Master, the printed version does not use the same colors as the Web Part.
• When the data set in the task list spans several years, the Print option will not display all items in the Gantt view. Limit the dates displayed in the Gantt chart using the Gantt View Display Settings in the tool pane, or zoom out until all items in the Gantt chart can be viewed without scroll bars before printing.
• If you make several view changes quickly and then edit a task using the Edit Item form, Task Master may not accurately set the focus back to the item you were editing when you save it and return to the Task Master Web Part.
• When using the Print feature, clicking Cancel in the Print Settings dialog box also cancels the Print Preview.
• Drag-and-drop functionality in the Gantt chart is limited to dragging a task item to change its schedule and duration.

Current Known Issues:

• When a milestone is changed to a task with the mode using Start Date and Duration with the condition "Increase or decrease duration so the task ends sooner or later but requires the same total work", if additional resources are added in the Edit Form then the total work is changed. The issue does not occur when using inline editing.
• When a new site collection is created and in the Web Part Settings, a Tasks list is selected instead of the default Bamboo Project Task list. When click "Upgrade Task List", the error "List 'Tasks' is not exist on site". The needed fields still being added to the list and the Web Part still works.
• The pop-up form for the Assigned To and Assignment Units moves outside of the display when scroll the browser window using the scroll bar.
• Show JavaScript error when editing resource in inline editing. After changing the Assignment Units (such as from 100 to 90), users are required to click Enter before clicking OK.
• In the inline editing, if the pop-up form for the Assigned To and Assignment Units is display pass the right of the Task Master display then the percent value for the Assignment Units column cannot be filled.
• The Web Part sometimes displays the SharePoint error message "An unexpected error has occurred." Refresh the page using Control + F5 to clear it.
• If the summary task has a predecessor, the start date of a child task will not change based on the due date of the parent task predecessor if the child task has a constraint.
• Gantt bars are not displayed in the Print Preview. The Gantt bars print correctly.
• When Task Master is configured to automatically save changes made to the task list, the Gantt chart may display the wrong % Complete for a task the first time you click Recalculate. Click Recalculate again to see the correct value.
• If a selected summary task is collapsed when you click Show Items, child tasks are not displayed in the filtered view.
• When a task spans multiple days and includes time outside working hours, the task duration bar in the Gantt chart is longer than a task with the same duration that does not include time outside working hours.

Bamboo Applications & Accelerators' 2012 Year in Review with 'Bamboo PM Girl'

Bamboo PM Girl — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 15:15:00 GMT

Editor's note: As has become our annual tradition, before we bid adieu to 2012, we'd like to take a few moments to reflect on some significant events from the past "Year in Bamboo" ... and to offer a glimpse into what the future may hold for our customers. We get the series underway with the perspectives our three product managers, with each of them offering considered thoughts on the products they oversee, and we'll wrap up with the view from Bamboo's Solutions Center.

Most of the products that you oversee saw new releases in 2012. Which new features or enhancements were received most enthusiastically by users?

The integration between PM Central and Time Tracking and Management has been best received since now Project Managers and their teams can measure the completion and budget of their projects based on the time submitted against the tasks and projects, instead of just based on the percent that's been completed.

The ability to exclude holidays and weekends from the project schedule with Task Master was a must, and the introduction of that feature earned high marks from our customers.

The newly introduced capabilities in Chart Plus this year --such as preview, dynamic charting, and dynamic filtering-- have make it an even more powerful tool.

Finally, everyone --including me-- loves the sticky thread option in Discussion Board Plus. When you have a great many threads, it's critical to be able to raise the important topics to the top and keep them there.

PM Central is your signature application, and we're on the verge of the landmark 4.0 release for SharePoint 2010. What can you tell us about the upcoming new major version?

As PM Central has matured, its component parts have become more integrated. Therefore, it takes us at least six months to incorporate the enhancements that our customers need to have as well as the new features which I think would make PM Central even more useful and flexible. We were hoping to release version 4.0 in December, but are anticipating release early next year. Some highlights of the upcoming release include the ability to:

Assign multiple resources to the same task. I think this feature will please everyone since customers ask us for this all the time.
Select "lite" templates for the portfolio and project site instead of the standard "full" templates. This feature is useful if an organization is loosely structured or that otherwise doesn't have the need to track or manage some areas that other PM specialists need to manage, such as resource management, time management, and budget and cost management.
Exclude lunch hours.
Map resources from Microsoft Project to either the Assigned To field or the Resource field.
Find available resources based on name, department, or role (The role could be an architect, project manager, etc.).
Display columns in the grid view using another alias. For example, Finish instead of Due Date, or in another language such as Project List - Neuer Inhalt instead of Project List - New Item.
Show or hide columns from the tasks list and project health list in forms (new, edit, view) and List Settings.
Display an aggregated tasks lists from List Rollup in one view of Task Master.
Leverage additional reports such as Assignments by Department and Resource Allocation by Department.
Bulk copy the resources from the Enterprise Resource Pool to the Resource Pool at the project site.

PM Central 4.0 will also offer additional features to help administrators govern and control the PM Central sites in their environment, such as only make the portfolio templates and custom columns available in the specific site collections, and much more.

Attendees of SPC 2012 in Las Vegas last month were given a sneak peek at PM Central running on SharePoint 2013 at the Bamboo booth. What was the response from attendees who requested a demo?

Roughly half of the visitors to our booth at SPC won't be ready to move to SharePoint 2013 in the next year. Those who are ready for the move were glad to see that PM Central for SharePoint 2013 will be available soon. They think that the resource management and task dependencies which PM Central offers are still important and relevant, even with SharePoint 2013 coming out with its own tasking features. Some booth visitors asked when PM Central will be available in the cloud as part of SharePoint Online. And in terms of enterprise social networking, we heard clearly that customers would like to see activity streams for their teams, such as John Smith created a new task and closed out a risk.

When is PM Central for SharePoint 2013 expected to be made available for purchase?

We are aiming for release late in Q1 or early in Q2.

A survey on mobile usage was recently sent to Bamboo's PM Central customers. Have the early survey responses affected your plans to offer mobile support for PM Central? Any surprising results in the survey responses so far?

It's still too early to gauge the results definitively, but what surprised me is that people are using PM Central most frequently to update and view tasks. And yet for mobile, they want PM Central to offer the mobile app for activity streams and change management/workflow processes more. The activity streams and enterprise social aspect seem to coincide with what some of the visitors were asking for at SPC 2012 in Las Vegas. Most of the survey respondents so far are hesitant to go mobile due to security concerns. Therefore, the mobile apps we build will need to meet the security requirements for most companies and need to have a way for the administrators to govern as far as access and distribution.

Another of the applications you own is Community Central. What's going on with that community management application?

Discussion Board Plus is the key component in our Community Central offering. With SharePoint 2013 coming out, and providing a lot of new features for the out-of-the-box discussion board, there are admittedly some overlaps with our own offering. We're investing time in understanding what the Enterprise Business Social Networking needs are, and focusing on which of those needs are being underserved by SharePoint 2013. I can't give out the secret of what those are though!

Has there been any single breakout product from your stable this year that's really struck a chord with customers?

PM Central is always well received by its users since project management is core for most organizations. Discussion Board Plus has become a top performer. We use it for our internal PM Central sites. In our project for the PM Central product we have so many threads that it's helpful for us to keep the important topics sticky at the top, as well as seeing the number of views and mark a particular thread as the answer. The ability to include and play videos in topics and posts via the Insert Video option in the menu is another cool feature.

What can users look forward to in terms of new releases of your products in the year ahead?

For the coming year, we're focusing on improving the existing products and integrating the enterprise features that are available in SharePoint into our products, as well as integrating our own Bamboo components and applicatons more.

Bamboo Solutions Extends the Capabilities of Microsoft Project with Best-Selling Project Management Application for Microsoft SharePoint

Lily — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:30:00 GMT

Project Management Central integrates with Microsoft Project to allow organizations of every size to maximize their investments in Microsoft Project and SharePoint

Bamboo Solutions, the leading provider of technologies that enhance Microsoft® SharePoint®, has released the latest version of SharePoint Project Management Central (PM Central^TM). Since its initial release in 2009, PM Central has consistently enhanced the rich native collaborative capabilities of the Microsoft SharePoint platform, and with its latest 3.0 release, those enhancements include critical integration points with Microsoft Project, one of the cornerstones of the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) product.

Since many project managers working in a SharePoint environment create their project schedules in Microsoft Project, the latest release of PM Central, allows users to easily import their Microsoft Project schedule into SharePoint via a PM Central tasks list. Once imported to SharePoint, project managers are able to sync changes between their PM Central tasks list and the Microsoft Project plan, offering an ongoing interrelationship between SharePoint lists and Microsoft Project. PM Central will also automatically validate data imported from Microsoft Project to a SharePoint tasks list, ensuring that imported data will not represent duplicate content.

PM Central is not designed exclusively for project managers, but for all members of the project team from developers to executive management. This "user first" philosophy allows project managers to efficiently create a standard schedule for multiple projects, while also making it easy for team members to update as needed, and for executive management to check the status of the project at a glance. With additional built-in integration with Bamboo's Workflow Conductor^TM, the latest PM Central release also includes out-of-the-box support for change management including approval workflows for project site creation and change requests.

"PM Central's integration with Microsoft Project provides experienced project managers with the ability to utilize Microsoft Project's rich scheduling features as well as reuse their standard template during the project planning phase," said Dux Raymond Sy, Microsoft SharePoint MVP and author of SharePoint for Project Management. "Once a project is underway, the integration allows all project participants to enjoy the collaborative benefits of PM Central. Task changes made through PM Central can always be updated back to Microsoft Project later, and this can be a significant time saver for project managers by freeing them from the challenges associated with keeping their 'living' project schedule in sync with the original project schedule."

Hundreds of organizations have deployed PM Central since its 2009 debut, because of its cost savings, user-friendly interface, resource management and improved collaborative ability to view work and schedule from all projects. Building on the native capabilities of the SharePoint platform, PM Central provides data aggregation, enhanced tracking and scheduling, robust document management and collaboration, and sophisticated communication tools. As a standardized Project Management Information System (PMIS), PM Central excels at project portfolio management, task and schedule management, team communication, document management and collaboration, and issue, cost, risk and resource management. Now integrating with Microsoft Project, the new features in the latest release dramatically improve users' ability to perform and manage their daily work and projects by combining the power of Microsoft Project with the ease of use of SharePoint Project Management Central.

PM Central 3.0 for SharePoint 2010 and 2007 is available for immediate download via Bamboo's online store. PM Central includes pre-built site definitions and Bamboo's most popular Web Parts, which can be immediately utilized and further customized across the SharePoint deployment. Licensing is per server, supporting an unlimited number of users. For more information, visit http://store.bamboosolutions.com/pmcentral.aspx.

For More Information:

Create your own fully provisioned PM Central sandbox in minutes: http://store.bamboosolutions.com/BambooMainWeb/pmc-tryit.aspx
Download a free 30-day trial of PM Central at: http://store.bamboosolutions.com/bamboomainweb/requestatrial.aspx
Free PM Central webinars are offered twice a month. Details and upcoming webinar dates are available at: http://store.bamboosolutions.com/BambooMainWeb/bamboo-sharepoint-project-management-central-webinar.aspx
For more details on PM Central and all other Bamboo Solutions products, please visit Bamboo Nation: http://community.bamboosolutions.com
Become a fan of Bamboo Solutions on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bamboosolutions
Follow @bamboonation on Twitter and join the conversation
Contact a Bamboo Account Specialist at 1.877.226.2662 (toll free), +1.703.964.2002

Bamboo Applications & Accelerators' 2011 Year in Review with 'Bamboo PM Girl'

Bamboo PM Girl — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:30:00 GMT

Editor's note: 2011 was another incredibly productive year at Bamboo, seeing growth in every measurable category, not least of which was the size of our product line. As we wrap up the first week of the new year, let's take a few moments today to look back on the past year's accomplishments (and also sneak a few peeks into what's in store for the year ahead) with each of our product management team leads...

You took on ownership of several new products this year, including some existing offerings as well as a handful of brand new products. Which existing products did you assume responsibility for?

Joining Product Management Central (PM Central) were: Chart Plus Web Part, Site Creation Plus, Task Master, Navigators, Knowledge Base Solution Accelerator, Project Portfolio Dashboard, and Grant Management Solution Accelerator.

What prompted your assuming ownership of those existing components and solution accelerators? Were those products simply so closely aligned with your flagship product, PM Central, that it just made logistical sense to bring them under your umbrella?

Yes, the majority of the components and solution accelerators are core players on "team PM Central." Being the product manager for those components and accelerators is important since they play major roles in reporting, dashboarding, task scheduling, charting, navigation, and site creation for PM Central. I want to be able to add important enhancements not only to PM Central as a whole, but also add enhancements that make sense for the individual component products which are included in the larger application.

In the particular case of Knowledge Base Solution Accelerator, it's important to add enhancements in order to improve user experience, as well as to add reporting and search capabilities. At the same time, I need to be focused on PM Central and its core components, therefore for the upcoming year, I will transfer the responsibility for Knowledge Base Solution Accelerator over to Jeff Kozloff.

In addition to taking on ownership of those existing products, your team also brought several key new releases to market as well, including Bamboo's latest application, Community Central. That product premiered at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Anaheim to an overwhelmingly positive response. What's in store for Community Central in the year ahead?

The strongest function of Community Central at present are its forum feature (where users can lock a topic, add ratings, verify answers, etc.) and its search capability. However, there are many other important features that we want to bring to Community Central, and in the upcoming year, we plan to provide features such as microblogging, social bookmarking, track back, additional analytics and reporting, additional features for the discussion boards/forums, activity streams, custom alerts and workflows, as well as making Community Central available on other devices such as mobile handsets and tablets.

Additionally, in order to ensure that Project Management Central is the best collaboration platform in SharePoint that it can be, we plan to integrate it with Community Central.

In the months ahead, we're excited to migrate Bamboo Nation to SharePoint, and will be using Community Central to add the key features and functionality necessary to maintain the community site's current environment ... and take it places it hasn't been able to go in the past.

Packed with new features and Microsoft Project Professional integration points, version 3.0 of PM Central was recently released for both SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2007. Of the new features and functionality available in the latest release, if you had to identify the top three, which would you choose to spotlight?

We appreciate that PM Central has been recognized as a great platform for project management and collaboration in SharePoint. However, we also recognize that many project managers prefer to create their project schedules in Microsoft Project Pro. Therefore, in the latest release, we made it easier for project managers to import their project schedule from Microsoft Project into a PM Central tasks list, and be able to sync the changes between their PM Central tasks list and the Microsoft Project .mpp.
Since most people don't work on the weekends, in order to calculate accurate schedules, we added the ability to allow users to exclude weekends and holidays when estimating schedules and timelines.
Several important features were added to improve user experience, such as synching the resource information with their user profile when adding resources so they do not have to retype all the information.

Realizing that the version 3.0 release cycle was only just recently completed, it may be too soon to ask, but could you share some of the new features that are on the drawing board for upcoming releases of PM Central in the year ahead?

There are a lot of features we will be adding during the coming year. Here are some of the highlights:

While adding more features to PM Central is certainly beneficial for most customers, doing so might be too much for others who don't need to do complex things like resource management. We will add a "PMC Light" option for customers who just want to manage simple projects, and users who are in the early stages of project management maturity will be able to select this option to track only tasks and schedules without having to deal with resource management, cost management, etc.
Some organizations might have more than three tiers (portfolio, department, and project). We will be adding functionality to allow users to create multiple tiers.
Customers want to be able to assign multiple resource to the same task. This will be available in one of the releases in the upcoming year.
Customers want to be able to show tasks from multiple projects in a central place via Task Master. This will be available in one of the releases in the upcoming year.
Integration with Community Central so users can see their team members' activity stream as well as be able to view all the Discussion Boards in one central location.
This year we released Time Tracking and Management for managing timesheets and an organization's workforce. This product integrates with Project Management Central. In the next release, we will add additional features to get the actual time that the users enter back to PMC to calculate the actual work.

How about new, standalone components from your team in the year ahead? Anything you're able to provide a sneak peek into at this early date?

Besides the currently planned enhancements for the previously existing products and new products that were released this year (such as Time Tracking and Management, Community Central, and Discussion Board Plus), we're currently considering adding one new product, "Requirements Management." Requirements Management would be integrated with Project Management Central, and would be important to customers who are doing product and project management, since it's necessary to not only track the requirements but be able to do the traceability throughout all phases.

Read the Year in Review from all three Bamboo Product Team Leads:

This Week in Bamboo (December 18th, 2011 - December 31st, 2011)

Myuyen Phan — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:58:00 GMT

For this week in Bamboo, we released SharePoint Project Management Central Release 3.0 for SharePoint 2007 to the storefront with many new improved features along with many resolved bugs. Please see the release announcement blog post by our Product Managers for more details. Patches for the following products were also released at the same time: SharePoint Task Master, Poll Web Part, List Search Simple, Password Reset Web Part and World Clock and Weather Web Part. Please see more details on all of the changes can be found below, along with new features, bug fixes and known issues related to additional products.

SA12 Project Management Central for SharePoint 2007 Release 3.0

New features:

Task and Schedule Management:

• Assign multiple predecessors to a task to more accurately define task dependencies.
• Exclude weekends and holidays from task schedules.
• Highlight the critical path for project tasks and display Total Slack, Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start and Late Finish.
• Insert new tasks directly in the task grid.
• Now supports the Microsoft Project Add-in for Microsoft Project Professional 2010 with the following functions:

o Export tasks as an MPP file from the PM Central Tasks list using Connect to Microsoft Project.
o Synchronize task updates from Microsoft Project to the PM Central Tasks list.
o Import tasks from Microsoft Project into the Tasks list with validation to avoid task duplication.

• Create new project items (tasks, issues, risks, change requests) from the Central Actions menu in the project site.
• Create multiple baselines for tasks, project schedule, and project cost for improved schedule management.
• Display project schedules and milestones in a convenient Timeline Gantt.

Resource Management:

• Import resources from the SharePoint User Profile database (MOSS 2007) or User Information List (WSS) to the portfolio site Enterprise Resource Pool (ERP) or project site Contacts list.

Usability Improvements:

• A new Quick Launch menu provides easy access to site lists and libraries. Note: When upgrading from certain versions of existing PM Central sites, this feature must be enabled using SharePoint Designer.
• Portfolio site charts are no longer displayed with scroll bars.
• Visual Studio Tools for Office no longer required for the Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in with Microsoft Project Professional 2010.
• Inline editing now available for tasks, risks and issues in the project site My Summary and Overview pages.
• Select resources from the ERP by typing the first few letters of the resource name.

Customization:

• PM Central now supports translation to other languages using resource files.
• Easily apply new site skins for portfolio and project sites from the Settings page.

Process Management:

• Project Status and Task Status reports allow project managers and team members to provide regular status updates for projects and tasks.
• Project managers and team members can submit project Change Requests, with an optional approval process using Workflow Conductor (sold separately).

Reporting:

• Improved performance for reports.
• New reports added for the portfolio site:

o Budget Cost report that shows Budget Cost vs. Project Cost vs. Project Actual Cost.
o Budget Work report that shows Budget Work vs. Project Work vs. Project Actual Work.
o Resource Work by Department report that shows resource allocation by project department.
o Resource Work by Manager report that shows resource allocation by manager

Includes all the new features of the following updated Web Parts:

• HW27 Bamboo Chart Plus R3.0.43 (File Version 3.0.43)
• HW45 Bamboo Task Master R3.0.23 (File Version 3.0.23)

Also updated to include the latest version of the following Web Parts:

• HW03 Tree View Web Part R1.7.42 (File Version 1.7.42)
• HW05 Alert Plus R3.2 (File Version 3.2.52)
• HW11A List Search Simple Web Part R2.1.61 (File Version 2.1.61)
• HW11B List Search Advanced Search R1.8.83 (File Version 1.8.83)
• HW14 Group Email Web Part R1.7.22 (File Version 1.7.22)
• HW20 Calendar Plus Web Part R4.1.76 (File Version 4.1.76)
• HW24 List Rollup Web Part R5.0.161 (File Version 5.0.146)
• HW28 Site Creation Plus R1.4.50 (File Version 1.4.50)
• HW37 Data-Viewer Web Part R3.3.51 (File Version 3.3.51)
• HW41D Bamboo Visual Indicator R1.3.32 (File Version 1.3.32)
• HW41J Bamboo KPI Column R1.3.57 (File Version 1.3.57)
• HW50 List Print R1.4.9.1 (File Version 1.4.9.1)
• HW55 SharePoint Navigators R1.3.26 (File Version 1.3.26)
• SA35 SharePoint Project Portfolio Dashboard R1.8.38 (File Version 1.8.38)

Bug Fixes:

• A user with the correct permissions cannot create project sites. The following error is displayed: "You do not have permission to create a site."
• The SharePoint Project Portfolio Dashboard does not update the Portfolio Dashboard List when a project is deleted if that project name contains a space, such as "Alpha Project".
• The Tasks and Project Health lists are not upgraded successfully using the "Repair Existing/Install New" option in the Setup program, even when the upgrade is successful.
• The portfolio and project sites are not upgraded successfully using the "Repair Existing/Install New" option in the Setup program.
• Users with the Design permission level incorrectly see the “Add New Project” option in the Central Actions menu, though they cannot create a project.
• The Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in does not update the “% Complete” column when publishing the value from Microsoft Project.
• If you click the Last Page link on the Reporting tab of the portfolio site, the page number changes to 0.

Current Limitations:

• If the option "Get Data from Timer Job" is selected in the Reporting Web Part settings, the following message may be displayed even after the timer job runs successfully: "Your request has been submitted. Please check back in a few minutes."
• If you export a report from the Reporting tab to Microsoft Excel and then export a second report without closing the first Excel workbook, the second workbook may display the wrong chart.
• The “Connect to Microsoft Project" option does not work on Windows Vista.
• If data displayed using the Data-Viewer Web Part is grouped and a group of data spans multiple pages, all data for the same group may not be displayed continuously on the next page. For example, page 2 may start with a different data group instead of continuing the list of items from page 1.
• When browsing a PM Central site in HTTPS, chart images exported from the Reporting Web Part to Microsoft Excel are displayed as a red "X" in the Excel workbook.
• When exporting milestones or tasks that are 0% complete with an empty "Due Date" field from a PM Central Tasks list to Microsoft Project using the "Connect to Microsoft Project" feature, the "% Complete" value will be incorrectly updated to 99% and the tasks will be converted to milestones in Microsoft Project.
• After exporting a PM Central Tasks list using the "Connect to Microsoft Project" feature, new tasks created in Microsoft Project with a blank Start Date and Due Date will be incorrectly updated when the task is synchronized to PM Central with the "Synchronize" feature. The Start Date will be set to the Project Start Date from Microsoft Project, and the Due Date will be the next day.
• When Microsoft Project synchronizes task updates to a connected PM Central Tasks lists, the "Assigned To" field value is not copied if it was updated in Microsoft Project to a resource name that does not exist in Active Directory.
• If a Calculated column type is displayed in SharePoint Task Master, the calculated value is not updated when the user clicks Recalculate. To view the updated values for Calculated columns, refresh the browser using Control + F5.
• Users cannot delete resources from the Enterprise Resource Pool in the department site if the department site is the site collection. Users must go to the portfolio site to delete resources if needed.
• Adding a new resource from a task item will wipe out any information that you enter in the fields, such as Title, Status...etc..
• Anonymous users cannot see the Tasks or Issues lists in the project site.
• “Update Data” does not load the “Load run time” value.
• When users create a new Web Part page in the portfolio site and try to make this page the default page by updating the URL in /_Layouts/AreaWelcomePage.aspx, they will receive the following error: "The site is not valid. The 'Pages' document library is missing." This is a SharePoint limitation.
• The Bamboo Microsoft Project Add-in cannot map and import resources by mapping the Resource (custom field) to Microsoft Project ResourceNames.
• In the “Tasks” tab of the project site under Tracking View, the headers for “Cost”, “Actual Cost” and “% Complete” are not aligned to the left like in other fields.

Current Known Issues:

• When Microsoft Project synchronizes task updates to a connected PM Central Tasks list, "Constraint Date" values of "NA" in Microsoft Project--which indicates a constraint type of "As Soon as Possible"--may be set to today's date when synchronized to the PM Central Tasks list. This should not impact the project schedule.
• When upgrading PM Central, you must restart the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service before upgrading PM Central sites in Central Administration.
• The User Profile Import Utility in the Resources tab cannot import users from SQL or Active Directory membership providers.
• A JavaScript error is displayed when anonymous users edit items in the Schedule tab on the portfolio site using the inline edit function.
• Project Schedule and Scheduled Tasks baselines cannot be created if the project or tasks span three years or more.
• The "Quick Launch" feature is not visible when upgrading sites that were created in PM Central R1.8. Sites upgraded from R2.0 or higher correctly display the Quick Launch menu.
• If a project site has unique permissions and its users do not have access to the portfolio site, data from the Enterprise Resource Pool in the portfolio site is still visible in the project site Contacts list.
• In the Gantt View of Active Projects on the portfolio site Schedules tab, special characters in the Project Manager field are expanded to their corresponding numeric value. For example, "D'Angelo" will be displayed as "D&#39Angelo".
• Anonymous users are prompted for a user name and password to access some PM Central pages.
• Site Path values are not exported when exporting data using the Master Grid Excel Export feature.

HW45 SharePoint Task Master for SharePoint 2010 (3.0.77)

New:

• The Working Hours Settings in the Task Master Web Part now include all days as workdays by default (including Saturday and Sunday). To exclude weekends, deselect days that are non-workdays and click Recalculate to update task schedules.

Bugs Fixes: For Current Limitations and Known Issues in R3.0

• If Task Master is configured to use a holiday Calendar list that includes events with a custom recurrence pattern, the Web Part cannot be rendered. All events in the list must use a standard recurrence pattern.

Current Limitations:

• If the Bamboo List Search Web Part is added to the same page as a Task Master Web Part, attempting to edit the List Search Web Part properties results in an Internet Explorer error message: "Internet Explorer has stopped working."
• If the "Maximum Unit" field is displayed in the Web Part and you add a task using the Insert Task feature, the value of the field will be set to 0% instead of 100% (100% is the default when you add a task using the New Item form). When you assign a resource to the task using the Resource field, the Maximum Unit value will be updated correctly.
• If Task Master is configured to exclude certain days, such as weekends, and the task Start Date and Due Date fall on an excluded date, Task Master will compute that task as a milestone.
• If the Gantt chart color coding is assigned based on the "Schedule Status" column and your inline-edit of a task results in a change to the value of that column, you must refresh the browser to see the new color in the Gantt chart.
• To use the same color for all milestone tasks, you must first select a Choice column and then select the same color for all choices.
• Users cannot add the Web Part into a rich content zone on team sites.
• When printing data from Task Master, the printed version does not use the same colors as the Web Part.
• When the data set in the task list spans several years, the Print option will not display all items in the Gantt view. Limit the dates displayed in the Gantt chart using the Gantt View Display Settings in the tool pane, or zoom out until all items in the Gantt chart can be viewed without scroll bars before printing.
• If you make several view changes quickly and then edit a task using the Edit Item form, Task Master may not accurately set the focus back to the item you were editing when you save it and return to the Task Master Web Part.
• When using the Print feature, clicking Cancel in the Print Settings dialog box also cancels the Print Preview.
• Drag-and-drop functionality in the Gantt chart is limited to dragging a task item to change its schedule and duration.

Current Known Issues:

• If a PM Central (SA12) task list contains more than 2000 items, clicking Recalculate (if Task Master is configured to automatically save changes) or Save (if not) will cause a timeout error.
• The Web Part sometimes displays the SharePoint error message "An unexpected error has occurred." Refresh the page using Control + F5 to clear it.
• If the summary task has a predecessor, the start date of a child task will not change based on the due date of the parent task predecessor if the child task has a constraint.
• Gantt bars are not displayed in the Print Preview. The Gantt bars print correctly.
• Saving or recalculating a task list with more than 1000 items may cause a timeout error in the client. The update process will continue on the server. To view the results of the Save or Recalculate, refresh the browser using Control + F5.
• The % Complete for summary tasks is not updated in the Gantt chart the first time you click Recalculate. To see the correct value, refresh the browser using Control + F5 or click Recalculate again.
• When Task Master is configured to automatically save changes made to the task list, the Gantt chart may display the wrong % Complete for a task the first time you click Recalculate. Click Recalculate again to see the correct value.
• If a selected summary task is collapsed when you click Show Items, child tasks are not displayed in the filtered view.
• When a task spans multiple days and includes time outside working hours, the task duration bar in the Gantt chart is longer than a task with the same duration that does not include time outside working hours.

HW38 Poll Web Part for SharePoint 2010 (1.4.43)

New:

Poll Web Part now uses Web License Manager Version 2.0.10.0.

Bug Fixes:

• Pie charts are displayed with minor cosmetic errors.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

HW11A List Search Simple for SharePoint 2010 (2.1.78)

Bug Fixes:

• When executing a search, users receive the error message "System.Format.Exception: Input string was not in correct format".
• Changes to the names of drop-down list values in the Web Part are not applied after editing the 1036.French.xml file.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

HW10 Password Reset Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (2.4.22) and SharePoint 2010 (2.4.45)

Bug Fixes:

• The Administrative account uses the wrong domain name to reset the passwords of users in a sub-domain.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

HW17 World Clock and Weather Web Part for SharePoint 2007 (2.3.35) and SharePoint 2010 (2.3.32)

New:

• The Web Part displays a more user-friendly error message when MSN weather service connectivity is unavailable.
• Several cosmetic errors have been removed from the weather images.
• The Web Part title now displays as Bamboo World Clock and Weather Web Part.
• In the Tooltip forecast, temperature High and Low now contain a space between "High" and "Low" and the temperature. Example: High 32, Low 24, Mostly Cloudy instead of High32, Low24, Mostly Cloudy.

No new Known Issues or Limitations

This Week in Bamboo (December 11th, 2011 - December 17th, 2011)

Myuyen Phan — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:03:00 GMT

At Bamboo Solutions this week, SharePoint Task Master Release 3.0 for SharePoint 2007 was released to the storefront. We also fixed some bugs and released the patch for SharePoint 2010 version of Workflow Conductor Release 2.1.2. For more information about this week’s release, please see below.

HW45 SharePoint Task Master for SharePoint 2007 Release 3.0

New Features:

• Exclude weekends and holidays from task schedules.
• Track % Work Complete.
• Highlight the critical path for project tasks and display Total Slack, Early Start, Early Finish, Late Start and Late Finish.
• Assign multiple predecessors to a task to more accurately define task dependencies.
• Configure Task Master to use a task list in any site or site collection.
• Insert new tasks directly in the Web Part.
• Color code milestones in the Gantt chart based on a Choice column in the task list.
• Visually display task status with a customizable indicator using the new Schedule Status custom column.
• Turn Web Part features on or off:

o Show or hide the task grid, Gantt chart, or legend.
o Enable or disable quick access to the SharePoint list view of the task list.
o Enable or disable the ability to show the critical path or insert tasks.

• Now supports the Bamboo Custom Identifier Column (sold separately).

Resolved Customer-Reported Bugs and Known Issues/Limitations:

• After upgrading a PM Central (SA12) site that uses a template with seed data from R2.1 to R2.2, Task Master Day view may only display two days of data with no scroll bar.
• When loading a task list that contains more than 1500 items, the page may display a pop-up box with the message, "Stop running this script...."
• If a task list in PM Central R2.1 (SA12) contains more than 1000 items, clicking Recalculate will cause a timeout error until upgrading to a newer version of Visual Indicator Column (HW41D).
• Users cannot assign Gantt chart colors based on the results of a formula in a Calculated column.

Limitations:

• Clicking Go to Date displays a JavaScript error in Internet Explorer 8.
• Clicking one of the Gantt date range views, such as Month or Quarter, displays a JavaScript error.
• If the "Maximum Unit" field is displayed in the Web Part and you add a task using the Insert Task feature, the value of the field will be set to 0% instead of 100% (100% is the default when you add a task using the New Item form). When you assign a resource to the task using the Resource field, the Maximum Unit value will be updated correctly.
• If Task Master is configured to exclude certain days, such as weekends, and the task Start Date and Due Date fall on an excluded date, Task Master will compute that task as a milestone.
• If the Gantt chart color coding is assigned based on the "Schedule Status" column and your inline-edit of a task results in a change to the value of that column, you must refresh the browser to see the new color in the Gantt chart.
• To use the same color for all milestone tasks, you must first select a Choice column and then select the same color for all choices.
• When printing data from Task Master, the printed version does not use the same colors as the Web Part.
• When the data set in the task list spans several years, the Print option will not display all items in the Gantt view. Limit the dates displayed in the Gantt chart using the Gantt View Display Settings in the tool pane, or zoom out until all items in the Gantt chart can be viewed without scroll bars before printing.
• If you make several view changes quickly and then edit a task using the Edit Item form, Task Master may not accurately set the focus back to the item you were editing when you save it and return to the Task Master Web Part.
• When using the Print feature, clicking Cancel in the Print Settings dialog box also cancels the Print Preview.
• Drag-and-drop functionality in the Gantt chart is limited to dragging a task item to change its schedule and duration.

Known Issues:

• If a PM Central (SA12) task list contains more than 2000 items, clicking Recalculate (if Task Master is configured to automatically save changes) or Save (if not) will cause a timeout error.
• The date and time format for Start Date and Due Date columns displayed in the Task Master Web Part is not updated if you change your Regional Settings to the 24-hour time format.
• The Web Part sometimes displays the SharePoint error message "An unexpected error has occurred." Refresh the page using Control + F5 to clear it.
• If the summary task has a predecessor, the start date of a child task will not change based on the due date of the parent task predecessor if the child task has a constraint.
• Gantt bars are not displayed in the Print Preview. The Gantt bars print correctly.
• The % Complete for summary tasks is not updated in the Gantt chart the first time you click Recalculate. To see the correct value, refresh the browser using Control + F5 or click Recalculate again.
• If a selected summary task is collapsed when you click Show Items, child tasks are not displayed in the filtered view.
• When a task spans multiple days and includes time outside working hours, the task duration bar in the Gantt chart is longer than a task with the same duration that does not include time outside working hours.

SA08 Workflow Conductor for SharePoint 2010 (2.1.2)

Resolved Customer-Reported Bugs and Known Issues/Limitations:

• Widgets configured with lookups to SharePoint Date and Time columns will fail if the regional settings on the site where the workflow runs are different than the regional settings on the server. Affected widgets include Delay Until, Request Approval, Request Feedback, Collect Data From User, and Create Task.
• A JavaScript error is displayed when configuring a Create Item widget for a Survey list that includes a question with multiple lines of text.
• A JavaScript error is displayed when configuring Set Item Permissions and Update Item widgets with an External List lookup to a Survey list where the selected filter field is a question with multiple lines of text.

No new Known Issues or Limitations.

Bamboo Services Spotlight: PM Central Installation, Configuration, and Training Services

DaisyAnand — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Editor's note: I recently sat down with Daisy Anand, leader of the Bamboo Services team, to talk about the work her team is doing. Following the initial Overview of Bamboo Services, in this, the second of a three-part series, here's what she had to say...

The first offering from the Bamboo Services group was structured around PM Central, Bamboo's turnkey application for project management in SharePoint. How did you identify the need for such an offering?

PM Central usually sits at the core of a highly visible, even mission-critical, realm of collaborative activities for our customers. The application, though simple to install, comes with a wide array of features that need to be optimized and configured to match the unique business requirements and existing PM processes of each customer. Our first offering for PM Central was rolled out as "Guide Services," in which customers were led through the application's features and best practices via interactive sessions which included demonstrations and a hands-on transfer of knowledge. As the application matured over subsequent releases, however, the need to break up the services into distinct components became increasingly apparent. The realization that customers would be best served by an approach in which each deployment activity was treated as a distinct implementation stage (due to the different audiences for each activity, and customer demand for same) led to the decision to provide a complete set of services offerings for PM Central.

What's the duration and course breakdown of a typical PM Central Services engagement?

The duration is largely dependent on the customer's rollout plans, but engagements frequently include three core components: Application Administrative training, Design & Configuration, and End User Training

Can you speak to each of those three core components as they apply to a PM Central engagement?

Naturally, Deployment Planning would be the starting point of any deployment. We have partnered with Innovative-e, a leading consulting firm in project management with SharePoint, to guide you through the steps your organization needs to effectively utilize PM Central and mature your company's project management processes. Using an organizational PM maturity self-assessment, we evaluate the customer's current system against the knowledge areas of the PMBOK Guide and deliver a deployment plan that outlines how to improve the SharePoint project management efforts in their company.

Installation Support is an assisted install process where we assign one of Bamboo's expert technical consultants to conduct an assisted install of PM Central, and set up basic configuration in one environment (test, staging, or production).

Once the application has been installed, we recommend Application Administrative Training which is targeted at administrators who are responsible for PM Central's deployment. In addition to a deep dive into the capabilities of PM Central, the training provides administrators with configuration best practices, and instructions on how to maintain the application.

With PM Central successfully installed, our Design & Configuration services kick in. In this phase of an engagement, a Bamboo PM Central consultant leads the customer through the configuration and customization of the tool. Referencing the customers' existing project management process, the consultant will map it to PM Central's capabilities and create two distinct project site templates.

Lastly, End User Training allows our customers to get their Project Managers and Team Members started off on the right foot with dedicated training to teach the basics, and help users avoid rookie mistakes.

Are PM Central Services engagements typically delivered online or on-site?

All of our engagements are typically delivered online using desktop sharing tools. At present, though we are able to accommodate requests for on-site service in special cases where customers are unable to avail themselves of the online method, the online mode is our preferred method of delivery as it is not only highly effective and efficient, but it also eliminates additional travel costs and related expenses.

Who delivers Bamboo Services for PM Central?

Installations are delivered via Technical Consultants who are well versed in various server configurations, and Training and Configuration services are led by Angela Dillon, MCSE, MCTS, MCT. Angela has been delivering education and design services for PM Central since its first release, and with PM Central now in its third major release, she brings her years of experience with the application --and a wealth of real-world experience from the field-- to new engagements.

Given that every SharePoint deployment is different, how much configuration is involved in the delivery of a "typical" PM Central Services engagement?

Due to the breadth of features in PM Central, configuration plays an extremely important role. The applications need to be designed so that they utilize only those features that are part of the customer's PM process, while creating a logical structure for the reporting and rollup of data. Since this process is unique to all of our customers, the amount of configuration varies widely based on both a customer's SharePoint environment and their existing PM process.

What are some of the most common questions or requests that you field during a Services engagement around PM Central?

A sampling of some of the most common questions from the field include:

What items should I configure when creating my project template?
How can I create alerts to let PMs know of changes in Task status?
Should our implementation of PM Central have one Portfolio site or multiple Portfolio sites? What are the implications?
What changes can I make to the look and feel of the templates?
How do I create a Department site when projects roll up to more than one department?

Have questions or comments from customers during a Services engagement influenced the PM Central product plan?

Yes, this happens regularly. Feedback from customers, especially regarding requests for new features and enhancements, becomes more contextual and immediate when our consultants are engaged in a PM Central deployment. Customer feedback has, in turn, helped the Product Management team prioritize the addition of features for future releases.

What's the toughest question that's come up during a PM Central Services engagement to date?

A customer once requested a solution that amounted to a reversal of PM Central's core value preposition. PM Central is designed to be the project hub with the flow of data being rolled up (for dashboards) and out (for alerts and reporting). In this scenario, our customer had complex workflows for reporting and project initiation, and wanted PM Central to act as a secondary repository with a dual flow of data. We worked with the customer to fully understand the business requirements and were successful in designing a hybrid model where PM Central was still used as a primary project management tool, but their existing workflows were tied in to update and extract data as needed.

How would a prospective customer for Bamboo Services around PM Central inquire regarding further details?

Engaging us is as easy as contacting me directly, and you can reach me to discuss a Bamboo Services engagement by phone at 703-964-2009, or by sending an email.

Get the complete story behind the Bamboo Services offerings:

Performing an In-Place Upgrade for SharePoint Project Management Central

Katie Packard — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:30:00 GMT

The latest release of SharePoint Project Management Central (PM Central) R2.1 has been announced. One of the great new features in this release is the ability to perform an in-place upgrade of PM Central using Microsoft's database attach and upgrade method and Bamboo's in-place upgrade tool. Follow the steps below to perform an in-place upgrade of PM Central.

Before you get started, read the following articles from Microsoft on upgrading/migrating to SharePoint 2010 and performing the database attach and upgrade method:

To perform an in-place upgrade of PM Central:

1) In your SharePoint 2007 environment, upgrade your existing PM Central sites to R2.1 for SharePoint 2007. See KB.12563: How to Upgrade to PM Central R2.0 Or Newer.

2) Back up your content database for the port that contains the PM Central sites, for example port 80. See this Microsoft article on backing up databases for more information.

3) In your SharePoint 2010 environment, create a new Web application using a new port, for example 81. See this Microsoft article on creating a new Web application for more information.

Note: If you are creating new sites in your SharePoint 2010 environment, you can use port 80. If you have existing sites in port 80, you must use a different port and create new sites for PM Central. This is because when you dismount or delete the content database for the new port (such as 81) and then override the new database (for port 81) with the old content database (for port 80), the data in the database for port 81 will be lost.

4) Deploy PM Central R2.1 for SharePoint 2010 to this Web application. See PM Central's online documentation for more information about deploying PM Central to new Web applications.

5) Dismount or delete the content database for the new port, for example port 81. (Bamboo recommends dismounting the database.) See these Microsoft articles for more information on dismounting or deleting content databases.

6) Restore the content database from your SharePoint 2007 environment to your SharePoint 2010 environment by overriding the existing database for the new port, for example port 81, in SQL Server. The account restoring the database must have permissions to the database. See this Microsoft article on restoring content databases for more information.

7) Add the content database. See this Microsoft article for more information on adding databases. In SharePoint Central Administration > Manage Web Applications > Manage Content Databases, the Database Status for the content database should be Upgrading.

8) Restart Internet Information Services (IIS) by navigating to Start > Run. Enter iisreset and press Enter.

9) When you are ready to perform the in-place upgrade, run the In-Place Upgrade component:

Stop the World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC) by navigating to Start > Administrative Tools > Services. Right-click on World Wide Web Publishing Service and select Stop.
On the SharePoint server where the PM Central product extraction folder resides, run the Setup program by double-clicking the Setup.bat file. From the Setup program under Optional Items, select In-Place Upgrade for SharePoint 2010, then click Install.

Click Next and wait while the system checks are completed, then click Next.

Select the Remove All option and click Next.

Wait while the component is uninstalled, then click Next. Review the summary log to make sure that the removal was successful. Click Close.

Return to the Setup program and select the In-Place Upgrade component again.
Click Next and wait while the system checks are completed, then click Next.
Accept the end-user license agreement and click Next. Choose your Web application(s) and click Next.

Wait while the component is installed. Review the summary screen to make sure that the installation was successful, then click Close.

Restart the SharePoint 2010 Timer service by navigating to Start > Administrative Tools > Services. Select SharePoint 2010 Timer Service. Right-click to select Restart.

10) Verify that the in-place upgrade was successful by navigating to Central Administration > Bamboo Project Management Central > Project Central Upgrade Monitoring Page.

The status for each PM Central site should be, "In-place upgrade to v2.1 [or newer] completed on [Date and Time]." (The text in blue is autogenerated.) If the status remains In Progress, restart the SharePoint 2010 Timer service by navigating to Start > Administrative Tools > Services. Right-click on SharePoint 2010 Timer and select Restart. If the status continues to remain In Progress after restarting the SharePoint 2010 Timer service and after a long wait, restart the server.

11) Activate the license key for PM Central for SharePoint 2010. See the following KB articles for more information about licensing:

12) PM Central has successfully been migrated from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010.

For information about known issues and limitations, see the release notes. For a free 30-day trial of PM Central, request a trial.

BPC 2011: Why Projects Fail - How to Leverage SharePoint and Bamboo PM Central for Project Management

Bamboo PM Girl — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 15:30:00 GMT

Thanks to the Best Practices Conference organizers, we were able to present some best practices with project management today right after the awesome Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras lunch. The main discussions were centered around: Why projects are challenged or doomed to fail? What are the five common causes of project failure? What SharePoint tool you can use to help your organization and project move from a state of failure to success?

Definitions:

“Failed” – The project was either given up or cancelled.

“Challenged” - The project was over budget, or it took longer than expected, or the scope, goals, and objectives were somehow compromised.

“Success” - The project was finished on time, within the budget, and met all the specified feature requirements.

Source: http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/6840_f03_papers/frese/

Five common causes:

Lack of buy-in and engagement from the executives and team members
Inefficient communication
Objectives and deliverables are not defined
Inadequate planning or no planning
Don’t have effective resources

What can we do about it?

Adequate communication channels
Cooperate and collaborate as a team
Obtain executive review and support
Utilize effective resource management
Enforce control mechanisms
Seek regular updates and feedback
Use a tool that can help you with the above challenges

What is the worst practice?
For the project managers to update the status on their project with tasks, risks, issues …etc. by using a shared spreadsheet. I’ve done that in the past. It’s a lesson learned for me.

We presented how users can leverage SharePoint and PM Central for project management.

Angela did a fabulous job of showing how the tool can help users in many processes. There were several great questions and discussions from our audience, including:

1. From the view of the tasks from multiple projects, can we group them by Priority, Assigned To….etc.?
Yes, we use Data-Viewer Web Part for this and users can create either dynamic view or static view based on specific column.

2. Can Calendar Plus, which is used at the project site, consume more than 10 Lists?
Yes, you can use List Rollup Web Part with Calendar Plus to display items from many lists.

3. We like your demo on Alert Plus and Task Master. Can we buy just those Web Parts?
Yes, with PM Central the business process is already built in. However, you can purchase the individual Web Parts as well.

4. Can the resource information in the Enterprise Resource Pool (ERP) sync with the user profile in AD?
Not at this time, but we are working on this feature.

5. Did you travel all the way from Vietnam to be here as a speaker?
No, I have lived in the US for over 30 years. But many of our engineers are living in Vietnam.

We will be here at the Best Practices Conference for another day. If you would like to see a demo of PM Central or one of our Web Parts, please stop by our booth.

Read our complete coverage of the SharePoint Best Practices Conference 2011:

BPC 2011: To Social or Not to Social

Bamboo PM Girl — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 20:00:00 GMT

Social Computing and Social Features seem to be the big topics here at the Best Practices conference. Yesterday, I attended the session “Let’s Get Social: Effective Strategies for Leveraging the Social Computing Features of SharePoint 2010” by Susan Hanley. Since we are working on a community application which will be available later on this year, I’m curious to hear more about Social Computing from the experts.

What I learned from Susan’s session is that if social computing can achieve the following, companies (Business, IT, and executives) will adapt and support:

Identify the Business Problem:
- How do you benefit from Social Media and how do you measure success?
Be prepared to respond to barriers and understand concerns
Governance Planning and Best Practices
- Example: Coca-Cola has several great Online Social Media Principles
Decide which features make sense for your organization
Define a do-able Pilot Project first

If you ask my co-workers, I'm not a social person. I can sit in the same chair all day without stepping out of my office. But I love to be able to ask questions and get answers from my colleagues and the experts on the Web, so I think that our community application will be useful to a lot of people. Our new application will also have tight integration with PM Central and Workflow Conductor. This community application will help companies who already have SharePoint, have employees not physically co-located, but who are instead working together across an Internet connection. It is for companies who want to retain valuable intellectual property but also want to encourage employees to collaborate, share knowledge and ease the locating of information and subject matter experts. As we get closer to a release date, I will blog again to provide more information about this new community application and its availability.

Read our complete coverage of the SharePoint Best Practices Conference 2011:

Bamboo to Present Project Management Tools for SharePoint at the Best Practices SharePoint Conference

Bamboo PM Girl — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:41:00 GMT

It has been a long time since I've visited San Diego. I am thrilled to be joining my colleague Angela in speaking at the Best Practices SharePoint Conference in La Jolla, CA, taking place March 7-9, 2011. What's the topic of our presentation? Why do Projects Fail? And How to Leverage SharePoint and Bamboo PM Central for Project Management.

The session will be on Tuesday, March 8th at 12:45pm. Please be sure to join us, as it's going to be a session with tons of helpful information on how to prevent your projects from failing as well as how to implement a project management process in your organization.

In this session, we'll discuss:

Why Projects Fail or are Challenged
What can we do about it?
SharePoint as PMIS
How to leverage PM Central
High level overview of PM Central

If you don't have time to attend the session, please stop by our booth and talk to us!