Project Online | Paul's Project Server and Project Online Blog

#ProjectOnline Snapshot / data to #SharePoint list using #MSFLow #MicrosoftFlow #PPM #PMOT #Office365 #PowerPlatform

December 14, 2018 at 10:00 pm | Posted in Add-on, Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Reporting, Workflow | Leave a comment
Tags: Flow, Odata, Office365, Power Platform, PPM, Project Online, Project Online Desktop Client, REST, SharePoint Online

Next in my series of posts on using Microsoft Flow with Project Online is capturing Project Online data into a SharePoint list, this is a useful scenario for simple snapshot requirements. For example, if you want to snapshot some key project level data, the easiest place to store this data is in a SharePoint list. I have blogged simple code examples before that do this: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/projectonline-data-capture-snapshot-capability-with-powershell-sharepoint-office365-ppm-bi/ & https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/01/27/projectonline-project-level-html-fields-to-a-sharepoint-list-powershell-ppm-office365/ Whilst these approaches work, the PowerShell does need to be run from somewhere, a server / Azure Function etc. This post provides the same end result with Project Online data in a SharePoint list but all from a Microsoft Flow. The Flow can be seen below:

This simple example makes use of the recurrence trigger to schedule the process, the “Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint” action to get the project data from Project Online and a SharePoint create item action inside an Apply to each loop. We will walkthrough the actions later in the post.

Firstly, the SharePoint list was created:

This was created in my Project Online Project Web App site collection. I created SharePoint columns on this list for each of the fields I wanted to capture from my Project Online dataset. As this is just an example, the number of fields and data is quite limited. Now back to the Flow. We will skip over the recurrence trigger to the first action that gets the Project Online data, this just uses the “Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint” action to call the Project Online OData REST API so that we can easily get all of the Project Online data. In this example we are accessing the Projects endpoint in this API and selecting a few example project level fields including an example custom field:

This action will get all of the data based on the Odata query used in the Uri input. We wont cover all of the settings here in this post as I covered this in the last post found here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/12/12/projectonline-publish-all-projects-using-msflow-microsoftflow-ppm-pmot-office365-powerplatform-part-2/

Next we need to loop through all of the projects in the results array to create a SharePoint list item for each project. To do this we need to use an “Apply to each” action:

In the output from the previous step we use body(‘ReadallProjects’)[‘value’] to use the data from the previous step which is all of our Project Online projects with some data minus the timesheet project in this example. Then for each project in the array we create a list item on our target SharePoint list using the create item action. In the create item action we just map the data from the array to the correct list column. The Project Online fields are accessed using an expression, for example for ProjectCost in this example Flow the expression is items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectCost’] where apply to each is the name of the action and ProjectCost is the field / property in the results from the Odata query.

Once this Flow runs a few times you can then easily create snapshot / trend reports or even extend the SharePoint view to show what you need:

As you can see in this example, I’ve updated the SharePoint view to show the RAG icon in the Overall RAG column rather than the text value. This is very simple with the column formatting options available with the SharePoint modern UI using JSON.

Another example of extending Project Online with low / no code solutions in Office 365.

There will be further example solutions built for Project Online using Microsoft Flow in later posts.

#ProjectOnline Publish all projects using #MSFLow #MicrosoftFlow #PPM #PMOT #Office365 #PowerPlatform part 2

December 12, 2018 at 9:00 pm | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Workflow | 1 Comment
Tags: Flow, Odata, Office365, Power Platform, PPM, Project Online, Project Online Desktop Client, REST

Following on from my first blog post on Publishing all projects in Project Online using Microsoft Flow, here is the 2nd post. For those that missed the 1st part, it can be found here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/projectonline-publish-all-projects-using-msflow-microsoftflow-ppm-pmot-office365-powerplatform-part-1/

In this post we will look at achieving the same publish all functionality but using different actions than we used in the last example. Previously we used the actions available with the Project Online connector, in this example we do not use the Project Online connector when accessing Project Online. The Project Online connector actions used previously to get the projects, check the projects out and then publish and check in the projects have been replaced with a SharePoint action where we can call the Project Online REST APIs. This is to show another example of working with Project Online using Flow. This approach does require an understanding of the Project Online REST APIs but this approach offers so much more capability for Project Online when using Microsoft Flow. The Flow can be seen below:

The difference between this Publish all flow and the example from part 1 is that we have replaced all of the Project Online connector native actions with the SharePoint “Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint” action and removed the Filter action as that is not required now. The “Send an HTTP Request to SharePoint” action can be used to work with the Project Online REST CSOM API and the Odata Reporting API directly from Microsoft Flow – this opens up so many more options for working with Project Online using Flow! This Flow assumes you have set up the connection for SharePoint Online using an account that has publish access to all projects and access to the Odata Reporting API in Project Online. This example is still triggered using the schedule action so I wont cover that part. Once triggered, the first action is to get all of the Project Online projects:

Enter the Project Online PWA site URL in the Site Address, select the HTTP Method – GET in this case. Then add the Uri, in this case we are using the Odata API to return all project Id’s and filter out the timesheet project but this could be updated to select only projects based on your logic such as projects with a certain custom field value or projects not published in a certain number of days / weeks etc. Then add the HTTP headers as seen. This action will get all of the projects based on the Odata query. Next we need to loop through all of the projects in the array to check them out, publish them then check them back in. To do this we need to use an “Apply to each” action:

In the output from the previous step we use body(‘Send_an_HTTP_request_to_SharePoint_-_get_projects’)[‘value’] to use the data from the previous step which is all of our Project Online projects minus the timesheet project in this example. Then for each project in the array we check out the project using another “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” action:

This time the HTTP Method is a POST and the Uri is set to use the REST CSOM API to check out the project. We pass in the ProjectId from the current item in the array using items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’]

The final action is to publish the project and check it in, this is done using another “Send an HTTP request to SharePoint” action:

The HTTP Method is a POST and the Uri is set to use the REST CSOM API to publish the project and check it in – the check in is performed using the true parameter. We pass in the ProjectId from the current item in the array using items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘ProjectId’]

The final variation of this publish all example is only very slightly different, the only difference is that it is manually triggered rather than on a schedule. We have removed the schedule action and replaced it with a SharePoint trigger to trigger when an item is created on a list:

I have a list on my PWA site that only PWA admins can access, here an admin user creates a new item, this then triggers the publish all flow:

We then have a history of who triggered the publish all jobs and when.

This post will hopefully give you some ideas on how Microsoft Flow can now really compliment Project Online and offer some scenarios for low / no code customisations.

In the next post we will look at more examples for building low / no code solutions for Project Online using Microsoft Flow.

#ProjectOnline Publish all projects using #MSFLow #MicrosoftFlow #PPM #PMOT #Office365 #PowerPlatform part 1

December 6, 2018 at 12:00 am | Posted in Add-on, Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Performance, Reporting, Workflow | 1 Comment
Tags: Flow, Office365, Power Platform, PPM, Project Online, Project Online Desktop Client

I recently had the opportunity to present at a Microsoft Tech Sync session where I presented a session on Project Online and Flow. During this session gave examples of how Microsoft Flow compliments Project Online by enabling no / low code solutions to extend the Project Online features. I plan to do several blog posts over the next month or so where I will share some of these Microsoft Flows. Hopefully this will give you some ideas of how Microsoft Flow can be used to simplify some of those customisations for Project Online.

The first Flow example I want to share with you is a publish all projects flow. I have published examples before for Project Server and Project Online as found here:

These all required a basic understanding of the Project Server / Project Online APIs and somewhere to run the code from – I thought this would be a good example to move over to a Microsoft Flow. In this blog post I will walkthrough the first example I have for publishing all projects as seen here:

This is built using only actions from the Project Online connector in Flow – so there is no need to understand the Project Online APIs! This Flow assumes you have setup the connection to Project Online using an account that has publish access to all projects. This Flow is triggered using a schedule as seen here:

When this Flow is triggered, the first action is to get all the Project Online projects using the List Projects action:

All you need to do is provide the PWA site URL. This List Projects action also includes project templates so these need to be filtered out, to do this we filter the results returned from the List Projects action using a Filter Array action:

In the From field we enter body(‘List_projects’)[‘value’] to get the data from the previous action, which in this case is the List projects action. In the filter we use item()[‘ProjectType’] is not equal to 1, Project Type 1 being the Project Templates. In advanced edit mode it looks like this:

Next we need to loop through all of the projects in the array to check them out, publish them then check them back in. To do this we need to use an Apply to each action:

In the output from the previous step we use body(‘Filter_array’) to use the data from the previous step which is all of our Project Online projects minus the project templates. Then for each project in the array we check out the project using the default Checkout project action:

Enter the Project Online PWA URL then in the Project Id property pass in the Project ID from the current item in the array using items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘Id’]

The final action is to publish the project and check it in, this is done using the default Checkin and publish project action:

Enter the Project Online PWA URL then in the Project Id property pass in the Project ID from the current item in the array using items(‘Apply_to_each’)[‘Id’]

That is it, when this flow executes it will publish all of your Project Online projects. A simple no code serverless solution!

In part 2 we will look at two other variations for publishing all projects in Office 365 Project Online using Microsoft Flow.

#ProjectOnline #PPM #PowerBI Project Compliance Report Pack #BI #Reporting #PowerQuery #DAX #Office365

October 22, 2018 at 9:29 pm | Posted in Add-on, Administration, Functionality, Information, Reporting | 3 Comments
Tags: DAX, Office365, Power Query, PowerBI, PPM, Project Online

This is a supporting blog post for a new Project Online Power BI Report Pack that I have published. This report pack provides examples for a project compliance / audit type check to ensure your projects follow certain planning standards. This follows on from the previous report packs that I published: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/projectonline-ppm-powerbi-report-pack-v2-bi-reporting-powerquery-dax-office365/ This new report pack follows the same theme / styling. The compliance report pack can be downloaded from the Microsoft Gallery, the link to download the report is here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Online-Power-BI-Compliance-b45b657c

The report pack consists of two reports, a summary report for project level checks and a detailed report for tasks, risks and issues checks. These can be seen below:

Summary Page:

Project Details (Select a Project from the filter):

Same report but with a different project selected:

These reports only use default intrinsic fields so it should work for all Project Online deployments.

Once downloaded, the report pack data sources will need to be updated to point to your target Project Online PWA instance. To do this you will need the Power BI desktop tool installed. This can be downloaded here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/desktop

Open the downloaded PWMatherProjectOnlinePowerBIAuditComplianceReportPack.pbit template file in Power BI Desktop and follow the steps below to point the data sources to your Project Online PWA instance:

In the parameter window that opens, enter the full Project Online PWA URL without the /default.asp – such as https://tenant.sharepoint.com/sites/pwa
Click Load
The data will now start to load and you will be prompted to connect
On the OData feed window, click Organizational account and click Sign in and enter credentials as required
Click Connect
On the Privacy levels window set the privacy as required
Click Save
The data will load – this may take a few minutes depending on the dataset size in Project Online
Access the Project Details page and select a project from the project filter
Save the report

Please note, some of the steps above might not be seen if you have connected to the Project Online instance from Power BI Desktop previously. This file can either be emailed around to colleagues with details on how to update the credentials to their own or what would be better is to create a Power BI app workspace and give users access: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-create-workspaces

The checks in this pack are just examples and might not be applicable to your organisation but it will give you a good starting point it you do not have any compliance / assurance type reports today.

I will plan to update this in the future, so feel free to add comments for any suggested project compliance checks, provided they are generic enough and possible using only intrinsic fields, I will look to add these in a later release.

I hope you like it Smile

#ProjectOnline reporting on task Predecessors and Successors #O365 #MSProject #PPM #PMOT # Excel #PowerBI #OData

October 13, 2018 at 9:23 am | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Fixes, Functionality, Information, Reporting | 3 Comments
Tags: PPM, Project Online, Project Online Desktop Client, Project Server 2013, Project Server 2016

A few times I have heard this topic come up so I thought it was worth a quick blog post to give two examples for getting access to this detail. Firstly a quick look at my sample project to see the data and task links:

As we can see, all tasks are linked. The predecessor and successor details are not available in the OData reporting API by default: ({PWASiteURL}/_api/ProjectData).

The first option we will explore is using the REST CSOM API ({PWAURL}/_api/ProjectServer). To access this is not a simple read from one endpoint like it would be in the OData reporting API if the data was there. When using the CSOM REST API you have to first get the project then from there you can get the task details and task link details. Below we walkthrough this process and view the results. I am just using the browser to return the data for ease. Let’s have a look at this Project data using: {PWASiteURL}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’) where the GUID is the project GUID for the project seen above. This returns:

Here you can see all of the related endpoints and then the project properties below. I have outlined in red the two related endpoints that are useful to us, the TaskLinks and Tasks.

Lets have a look at the TaskLinks first – we have 4 links in the simple plan displayed above, this matches what we see in the TaskLinks endpoint:

{PWASiteUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/TaskLinks

For each link we can then access two other endpoints /End and /Start and see two properties for the link, Id and DependencyType. Id is the TaskLink Id and DependencyType is the internal dependency type value, the enumerations for the dependency type can be found here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.projectserver.client.dependencytype_di_pj14mref.aspx. Looking at the data returned, I have 3 links with a dependency type of 1 (Finish to Start) and 1 link with a dependency type of 3 (Start to Start). Now for one of those TaskLinks, we will look at what the /End and /Start endpoints provide. I will use the TaskLink with a Start to Start dependency type for this. Firstly the /Start endpoint:

{PWASiteUL}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/TaskLinks(‘0d7da2b3-2dcb-e811-9328-1002b5489337’)/Start – where the 2nd GUID is the TaskLink GUID

This returns all of the data for the starting task, in this example it is task T2 (I’ve updated the REST call to just return the task name:

Task T2 is the task starting the link as seen in the project plan:

The /End endpoint, as you can guess will return the same details but for the task ending the link:

{PWASiteUL}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/TaskLinks(‘0d7da2b3-2dcb-e811-9328-1002b5489337’)/End – where the 2nd GUID is the TaskLink GUID – I’ve update the REST call to just return the task name:

This returns T3 from the example project:

As you can see, using the TaskLinks endpoint once we have the project, we can then navigate to find the task details for the linked tasks.

Now lets look at what the /Tasks endpoint can do for us to find the linked tasks. Accessing the {PWASiteUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/Tasks endpoint will return all of the tasks in the project (based on the project GUID used in the REST call):

For each task in the project we can see the task properties but also navigate to another endpoint to view more related data for that one task. For example, we can then navigate and view the /Predecessors and /Successors. I will use task T3 for this walkthrough by passing in the Task GUID for T3. Accessing the predecessors data for task T3:

{PWASiteUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/Tasks(‘b3433ba7-2dcb-e811-9328-1002b5489337’)/Predecessors – where I have passed in the task GUID for T3:

This returns the TaskLink details for the predecessor task – from that point we can then use the /End and /Start related queries to get the linked task details. The same goes for the /Successors endpoint for the example task T3:

{PWASiteUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/Projects(‘a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/Tasks(‘b3433ba7-2dcb-e811-9328-1002b5489337’)/Successors – where I have passed in the task GUID for T3:

This returns the TaskLink details for the successor task – from that point we can then use the /End and /Start related queries to get the linked task details.

As you can see, trying the get that data for all linked tasks in a report using Power Query wouldn’t be a simple query to one endpoint but it is possible to follow it through to get the data needed.

The next option to look at is creating two task level calculated fields so that you can get the predecessor and successor details in the /Tasks endpoint in the OData reporting API ({PWASiteURL}/_api/ProjectData/Tasks). Whilst this is simplifies the reporting experience there is a performance cost to this – certainly for large projects with many tasks. Also this will use 2 of the recommended maximum 5 task level calculated fields! In PWA Settings > Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables, create two new Task level text fields that use formulas, one field will be for predecessors and one for successors. In the predecessors field formula use [Predecessors] and in the successors field formula use [Successors]. The predecessors custom field can be seen below:

The next time you publish your project/s you will then see the data available in the OData Reporting API:

{PWASiteUrl}/_api/ProjectData/Projects(guid’a28bf087-2acb-e811-afb0-00155d143a0e’)/Tasks?$Select=TaskName,TaskPredecessors,TaskSuccessors

Hope that helps!

#ProjectOnline Supporting Projects and Programs Part 3 #PPM #MSProject #Office365 #PMOT #PMO #SharePoint #PowerBI

October 1, 2018 at 6:27 pm | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Reporting | Leave a comment
Tags: e365, PPM, Project 2016, Project 2019, Project Online, Project Server 2013, Project Server 2016, Project Server 2019

In part 3 of this mini series of blog posts we will look at a basic report example to support projects and programs making use of the configuration changes in part 1 and 2. For those of you that missed part 1, see the post here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/projectonline-supporting-projects-and-programs-part-1-ppm-msproject-office365-pmot-pmo/ and part 2 here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/projectonline-supporting-projects-and-programs-part-2-ppm-msproject-office365-pmot-pmo-sharepoint/

Now that we have done some very simple configuration changes in PWA and the Project Sites and then populated some example test data in the PWA instance we can look at example reports. We won’t cover creating these reports from start to end as this isn’t the purpose of the post, it is purely to highlight how to make use of the configuration changes to give to the program level reporting. These reports are also not engaging or showing casing Power BI, so you will want to create much better looking reports as these are just used to show examples of the data!

Firstly, lets look at the Project Center so you get an idea of the Project data I have in this test instance:

Notice I have two projects tagged and 1_Program projects but one in each program. These are the projects that will provide the data in the first page of my Program report:

The slicer is using the Program custom field:

To limit the data on this page, I have added page filter using the Project Plan Type field and filtered to “1_Program” projects:

So this page shows data for the project tagged with “1_Program” in the Project Plan Type field and in this case, the project tagged with “IT Transformation” which in my data set is the “IT Change Program” project. I don’t have much data on this page but this is just to show the data is for the program level project.

The next two pages show similar details for the program, one shows the details and the other shows some charts (just to add some colour!) but they both work the same way in filtering data that is only relevant at the program level:

On these pages there are no page level filters set, the tasks, risks and issues visualisations all have a filter applied to only display tasks, risks or issues that are requiring attention at the program level. On the tasks visuals we are using the task level “Escalation Level” field and filtering to only include tasks tagged with “1_Program”:

On the risks and issues visuals, we do the the same but use the “Category” field and filter to only include risks or issues tagged with “1_Program”:

This provides quick access to data relevant to the program. As we can see, these are very simple examples but the concept can be applied to larger datasets with more fields and data but the first page / report example will only work providing you one have 1 project plan per “program” value tagged with “1_Program” in the “Project Plan Type” Project level field.

That’s it for this short series – I hope that you found it useful!

#Microsoft #Project Roadmap product at a glance #PPM #Office365 #Flow #PowerPlatform #Dynamics365 #Azure #AzureBoards

September 26, 2018 at 4:40 pm | Posted in Functionality, Information | 1 Comment
Tags: Azure Boards, Planner, PPM, Project Home, Project Online, Roadmap, VSTS

Following on from the announcements on Monday at Ignite from the Project product group, there was a session today on the Project Home and Roadmap products. For those that missed the post on the announcements, here is a link to the blog post that has some notes around this: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/microsoft-project-the-future-ignite-ppm-pmot-workmanagement-projectonline-projectmanagement/

In this blog post I will include some screen shots taken from Chris’ session today at Ignite and mention some of the features that Roadmap has. I wont talk about Project Home here as I already blogged about that previously: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/new-projectonline-project-home-office365-ppm-ui-ux-msproject-fabricui/

So Roadmap is the new product that is planned to be available early 2019. Roadmap is a product that enables organisations to visualise projects from various different tools in one timeline type view. On the first release it will support Project Online projects as well as Azure Board projects (formerly known as VSTS) with a view to supporting other types of projects in later releases such as Planner projects, new Project Service projects etc. To give you some context before we move on, here is a screenshot of a Roadmap from Chris’ slide deck today:

As you can see from the screen show about, each project is a row, each row has a name (free text – not the actual linked project name) and an owner (free select people picker from the the tenant users – not the actual linked project owner). Then in the details you can add tasks from the linked projects. On the timeline you can add key dates. You have full control over the order of the rows, move these up and down as you like using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

Roadmaps will be created and accessed in the Project Home product, the Create New button in Project Home will contain the Roadmap option once released. This will load a blank canvas pretty much instantly. The roadmaps can be renamed at any time by clicking the name in the top left corner, that loads a Roadmap panel, here you also set the Roadmap owner:

To add a new project,firstly you would use the Add row button, type the name of the row and set the owner for the row. You can then connect the row to a Project Online project or an Azure Boards projects in the first release (more project type support to come later). When connecting a row to a project, firstly select whether it is a Project Online or Azure Boards project, then put the correct URL in for that service. Once connected to that service, you can start typing the name of the project you want to connect to then the list of projects will start to appear for you to select. You then connect to that project (using a Microsoft Flow in the background). You can then use the Add Row Item button with that row selected, that will open the add row items panel. Here you can start typing the names of the tasks you want to add then the list of tasks will appear for you to select. Once you have selected all of the tasks (you see a preview table of selected tasks with start and end dates in the row items panel) you then add those to that row. These will be linked to the source project, so as the data changes in the source project, Microsoft Flow will pick up the changes and update the synced data the Roadmap project row is using in the Roadmap common data service (CDS) database. Part of the Flow seen below:

Tasks in the roadmap can be given a status of either Unset Status, On Track, Potential Problems, At Risk or Done using the task card:

Setting the status will update the task bar on the Roadmap.

Key dates are added to the Roadmap using the Add key date button, this loads a pop to create the key date and set the status (same status options as tasks):

For Roadmaps with large numbers of projects added, you can filter by the row / project owner:

You also have a zoom control to change the zoom of the timeline.

Access to the Roadmap is controlled via the Office 365 Groups via the Roadmap interface, to add users click the Members button and type the users names:

So each Roadmap will get to make use of all the features Office 365 Groups enables such a SharePoint site, SharePoint document library, Shared Inbox, Calendars etc. Using Office 365 Groups means Roadmaps can either be private or public.

That’s is for now, but I’m looking forward to getting access to this!

Before I finish, another interesting slide Chris shared was the Platform one to give an idea of how things are architected (high level):

There are lots of exciting changes happening in Project!

#Microsoft #Project – the future #Ignite #PPM #PMOT #Workmanagement #ProjectOnline #ProjectManagement

September 24, 2018 at 9:18 pm | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Functionality, Information | 3 Comments
Tags: Ignite, Microsoft, PPM, Project Online, Work Management

From the session today for Project Online, 3 key points:

All project work management experiences from the Project Home that was recently released – this is now live: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/new-projectonline-project-home-office365-ppm-ui-ux-msproject-fabricui/

From the Project Home you will be able to create different project artefacts, such as a Roadmap (see below) or a new project.

New feature for Project is the Roadmap product – first release early 2019 calendar year, a visual tool that lets you visualise projects on a timeline view with a row per project. On each row you can display tasks from each project added to the Roadmap. This will allow you to see projects from Project Online, Azure Boards, Planner, the new Project Service (see below) etc. Security backed by modern Office 365 groups. Connections to these projects are based on Microsoft Flow, data synchronised using Microsoft Flow. Some screenshots below:

Another new feature is the new Project Service – first release during 2019, this is not Project Online but a new Project product written from the group up. This has a lot of focus on being a modern UI with a great user experience, being simple to use yet powerful. Under the covers all of the great scheduling features are there, it’s a revamped scheduling engine that is used today in Project Online – but re-engineered to be scalable and optimised. Lots of changes such as no need to build team anymore, you can just type user names from the organisation into a people picker, these are added into the resource pool.

Screenshot of resourcing:

Co-authoring possible in the new project and no check in check or save / publishing actions required.

The new Project Service will make use of the Universal Resource Scheduling service to enable better resourcing across the organisation, here is a Dynamics 365 link to this service: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/crm/2018/05/07/whats-new-in-universal-resource-scheduling-for-dynamics-365-may-2018-update/

Project Desktop is still a first class citizen in the new Project if project managers wanted to continue using the Project Desktop tool.

New Project feature is built on the Power Platform backed by the CDS which means making use of Microsoft Flow and Power Apps very simple! Power Apps for Project Online is something I spoke about at the Project Virtual Conference: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/06/14/getting-starting-with-projectonline-and-powerapps-pvc18-presentation-links-ppm-pmot-apps-office365-msproject/ – this becomes very simple and a lot more powerful in the new Project service! The same goes for Microsoft Flow: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/tag/flow/ – the potential and power to build awesome apps for Project will be very simple!

All new services for Project (Roadmap, new Project Service etc.) are built on the Common Data Service for apps. Details on the CDS can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/data-platform-intro

Modern Work management eco system:

Microsoft’s Work Management vision:

Project Online will continue to get security and performance improvements.

Organisations will be able to run both Project Online and the new Project Service side by side and pull data in to a Roadmap from both. There will be some form of migration from Project Online to the new Project Service but details are still to be confirmed.

Exciting times ahead for the Microsoft Project space!

#ProjectOnline Supporting Projects and Programs Part 2 #PPM #MSProject #Office365 #PMOT #PMO #SharePoint

September 21, 2018 at 9:00 pm | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Reporting | 1 Comment
Tags: Office365, PPM, Project 2016, Project 2019, Project Online, Project Server 2013, Project Server 2016, Project Server 2019

In part 2 of this mini series of blog posts we will look at the configuration on the Project Sites to support projects and programs. For those of you that missed part 1, see the post here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/projectonline-supporting-projects-and-programs-part-1-ppm-msproject-office365-pmot-pmo/

As the Project Site are SharePoint sites, this also has many configuration options but this needs to be considered careful based on your reporting requirements. Whilst all of the data in SharePoint is accessible for reporting not all data on the Issues and Risks lists is available in the Project Online OData Reporting API. Only the data from default list columns Microsoft include on the Issues and Risks are included in the Project Online OData Reporting API. Other data from custom columns on the lists is accessible but only via the SharePoint list REST APIs but this can be tricky to report on for a cross project report. Here is an example for accessing this data in Power BI reports: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/want-to-query-cross-project-site-sharepoint-lists-in-projectonline-projectserver-powerbi-powerquery-bi-office365-excel-ppm/ As we want to keep this as simple as possible, we will ensure the data we need in synchronised to the Project Online OData API. The Category column on the Issues and Risks lists is the ideal default column to use for our requirements. By default this contains the following values:

(1) Category1
(2) Category2
(3) Category3

We will update these values for the Category columns to match the lookup table values we created for the Project Plan Type and Escalation Level PWA custom fields:

1_Program
2_Project

This is done on each list, for example access the Risks list, click the List tab then List Settings. Scroll down the page to the columns and click the Category column and update the values. Repeat for the Issues list then repeat for the other project sites. You need to be careful updating some of the default Issues and Risks columns as you can break the synchronisation processes to the Project Online reporting schema which the OData Reporting API uses. If you do break this sync, you will see queue errors in the PWA Manage Queue page. Changing just the choice values as I have will be fine and not cause sync issues but fully test changes to ensure the data syncs as expected with no queue errors. As the Issues and Risks use a list content type, these change need to be made in the site template so new project sites get new values and manually or via code in the existing project sites but that is beyond the scope of this post but here is a post that might help get you started: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/access-projectonline-project-sites-using-powershell-and-sharepoint-csom-office365/ or https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/projectonline-projectserver-project-site-provisioning-using-office365-pnp-remote-provisioning-sharepoint-powershell/ When updating existing project site lists, you will need to consider existing data on those lists as they might be using values you are wanting to remove.

Now our project sites have the correct Category values for Issues and Risks, we can tagged the items as needed as seen below on an example project:

Issues:

Risks:

You could also update the Risks and Issues view to and views that filter to just Program or Project or group by Category etc. Now the project sites are updated, when Issues and Risks are created these can be tagged with the correct category to make these visible in Program level reports.

In the final part of this blog post series we will look at using this data in example Power BI reports.

#ProjectOnline Supporting Projects and Programs Part 1 #PPM #MSProject #Office365 #PMOT #PMO

September 19, 2018 at 7:57 pm | Posted in Administration, Configuration, Customisation, Functionality, Information, Reporting | 2 Comments
Tags: Office365, PPM, Project 2016, Project 2019, Project Online, Project Server 2013, Project Server 2016, Project Server 2019

Microsoft’s Office 365 PPM tool, known as Project Online is a very flexible tool in that it is fully configurable to support your organisations PPM requirements. An intro to some of the configuration options can be found in my getting started guide I wrote a few years back: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/getting-started-with-projectonline-round-up-ps2013-office365-project-ppm-sharepointonline-pm-sp2013/

In this mini series of blog posts we will look at an option for supporting a simple project hierarchy of projects and programmes – known as programs across the pond. Due to the flexibility Project Online offers, there are several ways this can be done – there is no right or wrong way. The right way is the way that works for your organisation. In this example we will use custom fields to support projects and programmes, these will be at the project level, task level and also the issues and risks lists. But you could do this with Enterprise Project Types (EPTs) with different project site templates and custom fields but for the purpose of this blog post we will just use the fields and all projects are under that same EPT. In this series of posts we will look at the minimum required PWA configuration, the SharePoint configuration and then finish off with some simple example reports making use of the configuration changes we implement.

Firstly we will look at the PWA custom fields then the Project Site columns. In PWA navigate to PWA Settings > Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables. I created a new lookup table to hold the following values to determine the level, I called this Project Plan Type:

I created another lookup table called Program to list the programs used in the organisation:

As you can see, I just created two test / example program values just for the purpose of this blog post. Next I created two project level custom fields, one call Program linking to the Program lookup table and one called Project Plan Type linking to the Project Plan Type lookup table:

These are used to tag the projects with the correct project type and associate the projects to the correct program.

I also created a task level field called Escalation Level and linked that to the Project Plan Type lookup table:

This task level field is used to escalate / highlight tasks or milestones from the project plans up to the program level if needed.

These are the only fields I need to add to support my simple project / program scenario.

Next up I will configure a Project Center view to support my projects and programs, in PWA Settings navigate to Manage Views and create the new view/s as required. In this example, I copied the default Summary view, called it Programs. I then edited this new Programs view to include the two new project level fields – Program and Project Plan Type. I then added a grouping to group by Program then by Project Plan Type and sort by Project Plan Type:

Which results in – these are just test projects for the purpose of this blog post:

This view enables us to easily see the project and program data as well as aggregate the data to the summary grouping rows where applicable.

I then updated the Task Summary Project view to include the new Escalation Level field so that this new field can be used in PWA. It could also be added to an Enterprise Global view so that it was available by default in a Project Desktop client view/s. The updated view can be seen here:

Next, ensure the two new Project level fields are present on a Project Detail Page (PDP) so that users can set the values as needed.

We are now able to capture the schedule data required to support this simple scenario for projects and programs. The details for each project are managed as normal in the “2_Project” type projects, any tasks or milestones that need escalating to the program would be tagged correctly and viewed in reports. Program level activities are managed in the “1_Program” type project, all of the program level summary details such a Status Summary as seen on the PDP image above are added to the program project. In the next post we will look at how we can support this on the Issues and Risks lists on the Project Sites.

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