Project 2010 introduces a new visual indicator that shows when a resource is over-allocated within the Gantt chart view. This is a great feature that ensures resource over-allocations are front and centre when people view the schedule, instead of being buried away on a resource tab. However there are times when you may want to suppress these indicators without hiding the whole indicators column, which may contain other important information.

How many people actually read the help files that come with software? I know I tend not to until I get totally stuck. However, today whilst installing Project Server 2010 I decided to go and have a look around the Office 2010 help site at http://office2010.microsoft.com. The site provides a wealth of helpful information around Project and Project Server, but what really stood out was the video content giving overviews of the a number of key features in Project Server, including the new web app, Portfolio management and workflows, each of which are linked to below:

Following on from some of the posts I have been doing about Project 2010, I noticed this spreadsheet from Microsoft this morning that provides a mapping between Project 2007 menu items and where they are in the new Project 2010 fluent interface. Whilst the new 2010 interface makes it easier to find stuff IMHO, for people that have been using Project 2007 heavily, it may take some getting used to and this spreadsheet will help.

A couple of people have asked me in the last few days about where the ‘Copy Picture’ icon that used to be front and centre in the Project 2007 had gone in 2010? I know it’s been posted before on other sites and in the newsgroups, but I thought I would repost it again. To find it, choose the Task tab and then click on the downward arrow next to Copy.

With the Project 2010 client nearing launch, I thought it would be timely to remind everyone who is going to use this fantastic new release that the file format has changed. As such, schedules you create in Project 2010 need to be saved in a previous file version to share with people using Project 2007 and 2003. Luckily Project 2010 makes it really easy to save your schedules in a previous file format.

Just a reminder, it’s not too late to register.. The Melbourne chapter of MPUG will be holding it’s next bi-monthly session on the 27th April 2010 at the Microsoft offices in Freshwater Place. This month there will be two presentations: Martin Vaughan, a Director and Senior PMO Consultant with Core Consulting Group will present the first half of this session covering Project, Program and Portfolio resource management. Starting with the basics of the schedule model, this presentation will consider potential and practical tips relating to modelling resource needs on individual projects through to full EPM environments.

In the previous two posts, we covered off how to extract the workflow data from the Project Server Reporting database, and the basics of how to extend the Backstage view. In this post I will cover off how to merge the two together, and to discuss some of the limitations and problems I ran into. For the proof of concept I wanted the backstage view to render dynamic information about the project workflow in the backstage, checking out MSDN and Technet I found some fantastic resources to assist, including Customizing the Office 2010 Backstage View for Developers and it’s associated code .

In this second post covering my proof of concept to expose workflow status information in the Project backstage I will cover off some of the basics on how to extend the backstage. Like all of the Office 2010 clients, Project’s backstage can be customised by defining the various interface elements and their associated behaviours using an XML schema that has been published by Microsoft and is available for download here.

In the first of three posts covering my proof of concept to show the workflow status in the Project backstage, I will be covering off how to access the workflow data itself from within the Project Server. Now as this was a proof of concept, I decided to go with the simple approach of getting the information directly from the Reporting database instead of calling the Project Server PSI. There were a couple of reasons for this, firstly simplicity, accessing the data in the Reporting database via SQL and VBA is much simpler in my opinion than calling the PSI.

One of the significant changes in the Office 2010 client was the introduction of the backstage view. The way it has brought common commands front and centre and combined relevant supporting information has quickly become one of those features I can’t live without and certainly something I notice immediately when I use any 2007 Office client. In Project 2010, this is particularly noticeable, with a number of the Enterprise features that were previously buried away in the jungle of menu’s prominent on the backstage, including items such as Project Publish, Organising the Enterprise Global and accepting Status updates from your team, which is a massive improvement in usability and functionality.