SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

I am a Project Server and SharePoint consultant but my main focus currently is around Project Server. I have been working with Project Server for nearly five years since 2007 for a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the UK, I have also been awared with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award 2011. I am also a certified Prince2 Practitioner. This article has been cross posted from pwmather.wordpress.com (original article)

From the session today for Project Online, 3 keep 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!