EPMSource

Last week I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Dux Raymond Sy about my upcoming session at the Microsoft Project Conference which I will be presenting with Mark McDermott of Nintex. Mark and I have been busy putting the final touches to the presentation and demonstrations and have a really great session planned.

Our session is on Thursday 22nd March at 10:30am in room North 222 C. If can’t make it, or even if you can, make sure you follow the twitter hash tags #pc332 and #mspc12 to keep up with the action.

It’s time for the last MPUG Melbourne of 2011, being held at Microsoft Melbourne on Tuesday 6th December. In a change from previous events, this session is being held at 12:00pm, instead of the usual 5:30pm start, based on feedback from attendees.

The topic for December is The low-down on Project 2010 and Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1

We will provide an overview of the recently released Microsoft Project & Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1. Demonstrating the improvements that have been made that were highly requested by EPM users, including multiple-browser support, synchronisation to Microsoft SharePoint task list updates, manual scheduling extensions, and schedule web part improvements. We will also provide guidance on how to successfully deploy this Service Pack within your organisation.

If you’re running Project Server 2010 and haven’t installed SP1, then this is a must attend event. Registration is free, but please RSVP via EventBright so we know numbers.

Date:  Tuesday 6^th December 2011

Time: 12pm to 1:30pm

Location: Microsoft Melbourne, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank VIC 3006

SharePoint Saturday Melbourne is coming up again, being held on the 22nd October in Melbourne’s CBD. For those of you that don’t know , or haven’t heard about SharePoint Saturday here is a definition from the SharePointSatuday.org site:

Join SharePoint architects, developers, business users and other professionals that work with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for a ‘SharePoint Saturday’ event. SharePoint Saturday is an educational, informative & lively day filled with sessions from respected SharePoint professionals & MVPs, covering a wide variety of SharePoint-orientated topics. SharePoint Saturday is FREE, open to the public and is your local chance to immerse yourself in SharePoint!

The speaker line up is top notch, with at least two SharePoint 2010 MCM’s, several MVP’s and a number of Microsoft speakers all chomping at the bit to spread the SharePoint word

This year I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to spread the Project Server Love once again, presenting a session entitled ‘Leveraging Project Server 2010 for SharePoint Governance and Lifecycle Management’. The session will showcase the SharePoint Lifecycle Management solution recently released by Microsoft and provide a glimpse of how this can be leveraged to improve governance and lifecycle management in your organisation.

Tickets for SharePoint Saturday Melbourne are available from http://spsmel11.eventbrite.com/

Last week I was lucky enough to present at Tech Ed Australia twice, once on an Ask the Experts panel for AvePoint and again presenting a full on breakout session along with Brian Farnhill called The SharePoint Developers Guide to Project Server 2010.

The official slide deck for the breakout session, and video / screencast will be available to view at (once processed): http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/Australia/Tech-Ed-Australia-2011/OFS310.

I have also uploaded the original slide deck, to SlideShare which is embedded below, which includes all the notes and can be downloaded to make the most of those all important resource slide links.

In the session there was a number of code examples, the source code for each is available from the links below:

• Demand management workflow – example of the workflow and associated Playbooks file for Project Server demand management set up
• PSI – Example web parts to read project data and create project tasks via the PSI
• Project template – Project web template and codified content type overrides.

I will be taking some of Brian’s code and adding it to some bits I have been tinkering with in the coming weeks for a series of blog posts. Speaking at TechEd was both daunting and exhilarating, requiring a significant amount of preparation. Now that it’s over, normal blog post and newsgroup transmission should resume

It’s less than two weeks until TechEd Australia, and I have been hard at work with Brian Farnhill  putting the finishing touches to the presentation and demonstrations.

For those of you coming along, I will be taking part in two sessions:

OFS310 The SharePoint Developers Guide to Project Server 2010

Friday 2nd September – 9:45am – 11:00am

It’s just meant to be – Project Server and SharePoint server are better together, and this is the session that will show you why. Come and join us as we take you on a tour showing how the two products work together, and how you can deliver better solutions by integrating the two. Get to know how developers can leverage both of these great tools together and how you can deliver more value, what the features of the tools can offer and what you need to know as a developer to start solving real world business problems.

AIT001 | Ask a SharePoint Expert: Q&A Panel (End / Business Users)

Tuesday 30th August – 6:30pm – 7:00pm

Join the SharePoint End / Business user ‘experts Alexander Burton. Dan Holme, Ben Walters & Bhavik Merchant for a open forum Q&A panel in the SharePoint Interactive Theatre in the Expo hall, sponsored by AvePoint.

Finally, it would be a crime to miss out on fellow Project MVP, Marc Soester’s session. Marc is a fantastic speaker and his sessions always entertaining and informative.

OFS311 BI and Reporting using Project Server and SharePoint

Thursday 1st September – 3:30pm – 4:45pm

One of the main challenges organisations face is giving users the flexibility to report against Project, Resource and Portfolio information. This session will give you the insight on how you can take advantage of the great reporting features in Microsoft Project Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. By utilising Microsoft Project Servers build in Data Warehouse in combination with the SharePoint Business Intelligence tools, Project Server delivers what your Project team and your Executives require.

Learn how users are able to generate their own ad hoc reports minimising the overall cost and effort to produce meaningful reports. This session will give you a deep dive on how to manage projects, Resource and portfolio dashboards by creating Key Performance Indicator (KPI) reports using PerformancePoint Services, Excel Services and Power Pivot utilising Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Analysis Services 2008 R2.

I will be at TechEd Australia all week, so if you have any questions, or would like to catch up to see some more of Project Server, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I am pleased to announce that I will be spreading the Project Server Love at the forthcoming SharePoint Saturday Sydney with a session entitled ‘Leveraging Project Server 2010 for SharePoint Governance and Lifecycle Management’. The session will showcase the new SharePoint Lifecycle Management solution recently released by Microsoft and provide a glimpse of how this can be leveraged to improve governance and lifecycle management in your organisation.

As like all SharePoint Saturday’s attendance is free and the content top notch. You can register for SharePoint Saturday Sydney at http://spssyd11.eventbrite.com/.

I am absolutely thrilled to announce I will be presenting alongside SharePoint MVP Brian Farnhill at Tech.Ed Australia 2011 a session entitled:

‘A SharePoint Developers Guide to Project Server 2010’

It’s just meant to be – Project Server and SharePoint server are better together, and this is the session that will show you why. Come and join us as we take you on a tour showing how the two products work together, and how you can deliver better solutions by integrating the two. Get to know how developers can leverage both of these great tools together and how you can deliver more value, what the features of the tools can offer and what you need to know as a developer to start solving real world business problems.

We are hard at work on some cool demo’s to show and it is shaping up to be an excellent session.

Tech.Ed Australia 2011 is on the Gold Coast between the 30th August and the 2nd September, registrations are now open. Find out more at http://australia.msteched.com/

It’s that time again, after a break over the summer, I am pleased to announce that the next Microsoft Project User Group (MPUG) Melbourne chapter meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 24th May 2011 at Microsoft Melbourne.

The topic of this meeting is demand management, covering the theory behind it, how it can benefit your organisation and Project Server 2010’s approach to implementing this exciting new capability.

This is a free event, so save the date and make sure you register via EventBrite now!  

Earlier today I was lucky enough to present at Melbourne’s 2nd SharePoint Saturday event, with a session entitled ‘Ten reasons why your organisation should consider Project Server 2010’. The audience was a good mix of seasoned Project Server users and people just interested in the general capabilities.

In a attempt to leverage some of the excellent social media tools out there, the presentation was linked to Twitter with automatic tweets of further information being sent out at the same time on my twitter account with the #spsmelbourne-proj hash tag. As promised for those of you that don’t have access to twitter, the links are outlined below….

#1. Unified Project and Portfolio Management – http://bit.ly/aCCTw9

#2. Improved project client productivity – http://bit.ly/czKD7X

#3. Gain insights into your projects with reporting http://bit.ly/9cTCxM & http://bit.ly/bf2WT3

#4. Select the right projects with Portfolio Analysis – http://bit.ly/aEpn73

#5. Streamlined task and time recording – http://bit.ly/c4eQ7m

#6. Support your mobile workforce with web based editing http://bit.ly/bjK2GT

#7. Project Lifecycle Management – http://bit.ly/9g56Bw

#8. Project 2010 and SharePoint 2010 – Better together – http://bit.ly/9ZZsKJ

#9. Easy to upgrade – Project Server Upgrade Overviews http://bit.ly/dboX2x

#10. Project Server help & support – http://bit.ly/dws2xn & http://bit.ly/9wKa6N

Also, we had a competition to win a copy of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN for the first person to tell me the download size of  Project Server 2010. Congratulations to Chander Ramanathan who was first to put his hand up and answer the question correctly.

For those of you who haven’t been to a SharePoint Saturday, I would heartily recommend it, the quality of the presentations and depth of knowledge is on par for conferences you usually have to pay hundreds of dollars to attend. SharePoint Saturdays are held all over the world, check out http://www.sharepointsaturday.org to see if there is one near you, or sign up to run your own.

Melbourne’s second SharePoint Saturday is coming up on the 30th October and looks to be the best one yet. As well as a stack of great content on SharePoint from Australian presenters such as Chris O’Connor, Mark Rhodes and Nalaka Withanage.

I will be presenting a fantastic session on Project Server entitled  ‘Ten reasons why you should consider Project Server 2010 for your organisation’

Project Server 2010 is a landmark release, providing a wealth of functionality that can be leveraged to execute projects more effectively. Come along to learn the top ten reasons why your organisation should consider moving to Project Server 2010 and the benefits it could provide.

Tickets are going fast, you can grab one of the last few or register for the wait list here.