Every now and again whilst using the Project Server Demo and Evaluation pack, I run into an ‘File Not Found ‘ error when clicking on a risk or issue in a project workspace. On investigation in the ULS logs, the actual error is: The important part of the error message that gives away what the problem is is the ‘http://moss.contoso.com/pwa’, which is not the site we are using, but it is the site the workspace is looking at to get the risk or issue form.

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.

I recently had a customer ask me how to use the Skip to Stage functionality of Nintex Workflow for Project Server. Now I know I have done a few Nintex posts recently, but I promised them I would post this for the greater good of the EPM community (and will lay off Nintex for the next few months). In case your not aware, the Skip to Stage capability of Project Server allows an administrator to skip a workflow to a particular stage, usually as a result of modifying the existing workflow, or swapping to a different workflow and needing to skip over some of the business logic or steps.

Disclaimer: This post isn’t going to be up to the level of one of Brian Smith’s technical posts and is based on my own experiences and testing. You’re mileage my vary and I encourage you to vigorously test anything detailed in this post before attempting yourself, I accept no liability should you run into issues etc etc. Recently there have been a number of posts in the project forums from users that have been running into issues when they have deleted a PWA instance incorrectly.

Recently I have been looking into how far you can integrate a Nintex Workflow for Project Server workflow into the day to day management of a project. One particular area I have been concentrating on is encoded logic within the workflow to check the status of tasks within the schedule. Imagine the scenario, a project can only move into the close phase if all the deliverables or milestones in the project have been met, or you may want the phase of the project to change following the completion of a specific task.

It’s always puzzled me why Microsoft never did show the ID of a SharePoint based list entry in the edit or display form. What do I mean by that? Well, out of the box, when you create a list in SharePoint, each item has an ID associated. This ID is then used to identify the individual records in the list. Once you have created an item in the list you can see the ID in the view

Out of the box, Project Server 2010 is arguably the most business intelligence heavy application that Microsoft build on the SharePoint platform. It’s a bold statement, but when you think about it, a default installation of Project Server will implement a dedicated relational reporting database and provides the capability for numerous analysis services instances, each containing up to 14 OLAP cubes, all configurable from within the tool. With the reliance on SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, a number of new and improved capabilities are made available, including PerformancePoint Services & Visio Services which provide new and improved ways of visualising project data to quickly expose trends and possible issues so they can be corrected.

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!

Recently on the Project forums, a user asked if it was possible to add a target attribute to a menu item in the quick links of Project Server, i.e. the target=”_blank” to force the link to open in a new window. This capability can be pretty useful, especially when you want to provide links to non project server content that supports the use of the tool such as a PMO help site, or perhaps even your favourite EPM blog Unfortunately the Project Server quick link functionality doesn’t give you an option to set a target and no way to decorate a html anchor statement to insert one.

This morning I was once again lucky enough to receive confirmation that I had been re-awarded as an MVP for Project. I am still humbled by the whole experience and would like to continue to thank the readers of this blog, the community and Microsoft for your support and recognition.