Project Server 2010 - One or multiple PWA instances?

In our Project Server 2010 practice we work with various customers and see their deployment strategies, problems and great things. Today, I wanted to cover one of the major issues that big companies without centralized PMO are facing.

The problem (challenge) is - Should organizations create one PWA for entire organization or several PWA per business unit or department?

Our recommendation is ONE PWA.

One of our customers had 2 departments that started implementing project server about the same time but independently. Now - the challenge is to merge the data. 150 projects total, project sites, duplicated custom fields and names, different document library structure. It is a significant effort that is way more complex now than to have several joint meetings to discuss the approach, attributes and structure.

If fact, this was driven by requirements to isolate data between departments and this is a task for Project Server 2010 consultant / consulting company or qualified Project Server 2010 Administrator to configure security in a way that it will isolate data.

Analysis of pros and const for one PWA:

Pros:

• Executives can see all the information in one place.
• In future, departments that will start using PS (for example HR) will re-use existing approaches, practices. This significantly reduce time and investments required to start using Project Server
• Ability to overview entire resource pool in the organization and do cross-departmental resource planning
• Ability to do the cross-departmental dependencies in projects.

Cons:

• Slightly more complicated security configuration
• Anything else?

I would recommend using additional PWA for test / staging environments if there is no additional hardware available (recommendation is still to have staging / development environments as separate farms).

Feel free to comment or ask questions - I will be happy to answer.

Related blog posts:

Distribute templates to multiple PWA: http://www.projectserverblog.com/2012/02/distributing-project-templates-in.html

Merge PWAs with help of FluentBooks: http://www.projectserverblog.com/2011/12/merge-2-project-server-2010-pwa-with.html

PowerShell and Project Server 2010

FluentPro released PowerShell snap-in for FluentPS library that allows you to manage and perform actions with most of the objects in Project Server 2010 with the Powershell. Project, Tasks, Resources, Workflows, Security - just write code in PowerShell and you can automate project server activities.

You can see sample code on http://www.projectserver2010blog.com/2011/08/projectserver-2010-psi-from-powershell.html and download it from http://fluentps.codeplex.com/releases

SSRS Reports Client Side printing

From time to time we are facing customers who cannot print SSRS reports on their PCs from SharePoint or Project Server.

Solution: Install the RSClientPrint.cab file.

You can find detailed description at http://www.kodyaz.com/articles/client-side-printing-silent-deployment-of-rsclientPrint.aspx

Project Server 2010 Quick Launch shows project sites

Some of our customers complain that they can see list of all Project Sites that is added below the Libraries / Shared Documents on the left navigation in PWA.

To disable this please go to Server Settings -> Look and Feel section  (on the right) -> Quick Launch -> and uncheck the "Show menu items from MicrosoftSharePoint Foundation" checkbox.

This should solve the problem

BeMo Lite for iPhone V1.1 just released

Yesterday we released small update for BeMo Lite for iPhone – Every BeMo Lite for iPhone users will be get their application updated via App Store with this latest fix (v1.1)

Please continue to send us your feedback we are starting to be working on some new requested features for next release

Blank Installation of Project Server 2010 with SP1 - Excel Services not working

Today faced problem described in several other blogs about problem with Excel Services not working when you upgrade Project Server 2010 to SP1 (exisiting or new).

The reason for the error is if there is no root site collection in "yourdomain/" (that was my case, I created just PWA) Excel services in not working and giving the JavaScript error starting with  "http://<your_domain>/_layouts/EwaStringsHandler.ashx/en-US?......."

To resolve - go to Central Administration and create blank site collection at the root of your SharePoint Server and refresh the excel report - it will start working immediately.

BeMo Project Intelligence and FluentPro launch the world’s “first-ever” iPhone App - client for Microsoft Project Server 2010

FluentPro (www.FluentPro.com) and BeMo (www.bemopro.com) are proud to announce the launch of the world’s “first-ever” iPhone App for Microsoft Project Server 2010 – bringing the power of the world’s most versatile Enterprise Project Management platform to the palm of your hand, now available on Apple’s iPhone and iTouch.

FluentPro, together with our partner, BeMo, leading Microsoft Project Server 2010 hosting provider, have taken EPM to a new level of personalization by expanding from web-based to wireless.

Now project managers and project team members can connect to their Microsoft Project Server 2010 instance without the need of a browser.

In addition to the new iPhone application, FluentPro and BeMo are also working on similar apps for iPad, Android and Window’s 7 mobile platforms, making wireless access available to a wider range of EPM professionals.

App can be purchased from App Store for $9.99 only.

Project Server 2010 SP1 is available for download.

Microsoft just released Project Server 2010 SP1.

MS also recommends to install the June CU after SP1 since it has number of fixes.

Please read carefully all instructions and test your applications in test environment before installing it to production servers. 

SP1: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/project/archive/2011/06/28/announcing-the-release-of-service-pack-1-sp1-for-microsoft-project-and-project-server-2010.aspx

SP1:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2460047

SP1:http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2011/06/28/announcing-office-2010-and-sharepoint-2010-service-pack-1-availability.aspx

June CU: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2536586

FluentPro.com is live

After almost 3 month working on design, contentent and structure, we are happy to announce that our webisite www.fluentpro.com is live.

We've changed a focus of out company more to product development and hope that tools and products that we have will be a great addition to market.

We announce availability of number of products and we will cover it later in separate blog posts.

I hope you will enjoy FluentPro's products for Project Server 2010!

Few advises to customers installing Project Server 2010 in-house with internal IT

Quite often we handle situations when customer's IT department is installing Project Server 2010 internally using their general IT specialists. From time to time this leads to errors that hardly discovered but easy to fix.

One organization simply deleted farm admin from local admins group on servers in farm - it is unsecure from their point of view (disregarding that MS clearly states that this has to be done). As you can imagine you cannot make any change since you get access denied and other errors.

Another organization is not caring about configuring administrative backup daily schedule and resulting in loosing data because of change.

other organizations install Reporting services in DB server and insist that this is the way it has to be and it is our problem how to configure this.

Customers - if you install project server - PLEASE follow the guide from Microsoft and please do not change any configuration / setting after that. IF you have a chance - order an audit / assessment of configuration by one of the partners and follow their recommendations.