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)

My first post for 2018, Happy New Year to all! This post is the first of 2 or 3 posts covering HTML formatting in your Power BI reports from Project Online multiline project level custom fields as seen below – screenshot from mock up / demo data:

For those of you that are familiar with the Project Online Reporting API, Microsoft made a change back in May 2016 to remove the HTML from the OData API ({PWAURL}/_api/ProjectData): http://bit.ly/24hh9nb. This was due to requests from customers so that Excel / Power BI reports could contain cleansed data without having to remove the HTML from the strings yourself. As mentioned in the blog post above, the HTML strings for multiline project custom fields are still available from the REST API ({PWAURL}/_api/ProjectServer).

Back in November 2017 a new custom Power BI visual was released to render HTML: http://bit.ly/2CskInt, this now means that you can include the nicely formatted text from Project Online multiline project level custom fields in your Power BI reports. A couple of screen shots below show what your project custom field multiline data probably looks like today in your reports and what it could look like. Ignore the very basic dull looking report, this is purely just to demo the HTML rendering.

Without the HTML formatting from the OData API – it is just a block of text:

With the HTML formatting – it is nicely formatted and readable:

This matches the text on the Project Detail Page (PDP) in the Project Web App for that example demo project:

To be able to include the HTML formatting there are two parts:

• Get the data that includes the HTML
• Add the HTML Viewer custom visual to your Power BI Desktop client

The latter being very simple from the Power BI Desktop client by either clicking the ellipsis in the Visualizations pane:

Or using the button on the Home ribbon:

Then search for the HTML viewer and add it:

In the next 1 or 2 posts I will cover some different options for getting access to the data that includes the HTML.

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)

Recently it was announced that it would be possible to rollup some of the data in the time phased feeds for Project Online, the support documentation can be found here: http://bit.ly/2yQUZQp

Currently today in Project Online, the time phased data is stored in the Reporting schema at the day level. For some organisations, this is too granular and they end up having to aggregate the data for reports to weekly / monthly etc. For those customers, having the data at the day level isn’t convenient as storage / performance improvements can be gained from having the data stored at source pre-aggregated. With this change, that will now be possible.

I believe this feature will start rolling out in the next week or two but let’s have a quick look at the options. From the PWA Settings menu you will see a new option under Enterprise Data for Reporting as seen below:

This shows the following page:

As this new feature has been rolled out to an existing PWA site, this defaults to Daily but new PWA sites created once this feature is rolled out to the tenant will have this setting set to Never.

Let’s look at the impact on the data using my simple project plan that has a task with a duration of 5 days:

Using the TaskTimephasedDataSet you can see the data below for Task 2:

As expected, there are 5 days displaying work. I will now change the setting to Weekly:

For this change to take effect I will need to publish all of my projects but for the purpose of this blog post I will just publish my test project. Refreshing my Excel data, you can see I have two rows as the task spans two weeks:

The hours are aggregated on the first day of the week as defined by the PWA site regional settings:

Now I will increase the task duration to 50 days to span a few months and set the reporting to monthly then publish my test project. Updated project:

Updated to Monthly:

Updated Excel report:

As you can see the hours are now aggregated on the first day of the month. You can also base this on the fiscal periods defined in PWA.

The feeds that are impacted by this change are:

• AssignmentBaselineTimephasedDataSet
• AssignmentTimephasedDataSet
• TaskBaselineTimephasedDataSet
• TaskTimephasedDataSet

Once available in your tenant, set the time phased data reporting setting as defined by your reporting requirements and publish all of the projects. I would recommend you did this on a non-production PWA instance first as you might need to update you reports, apps etc. that consume date from those four feeds. Also remember to set this up for new PWA instances created once this feature is live as they will be set to Never.

Keep an eye out for this feature reaching your tenant soon.

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)

The Office 2016 November 2017 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2mwJoEv

Project 2016 November 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2z84ZZP

SharePoint Server 2016 / Project Server 2016 November 2017 update: 
http://bit.ly/2mwJps3 & http://bit.ly/2z6B8RP

The Office 2013 November 2017 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2mwJoEv

Project Server 2013 November 2017 CU Server Roll up package:
http://bit.ly/2mwJpZ5

Project Server 2013 November 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2z8527X

Project 2013 November 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2mvIlox

Also worth noting, if you haven’t done so already, install Service Pack 1 http://bit.ly/1uorn2C first if installing the November 2017 CU for 2013.

As always, fully test these updates on a replica test environment before deploying to production.

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)

Back in January this year I published my first Power BI report pack for Project Online, the post can be found here: http://bit.ly/2ivjxct I have now published the second version of my report pack for Project Online. This version can be download from the link below:

http://bit.ly/2iiH1zX

This report pack consists of 8 reports for Project Online, these reports can be seen below:

Portfolio Report page:

Issues Report page:

Risks Report page:

Project Report page:

Resource Demand Report page:

Resource Report page:

Timesheet Summary Report page:

Timesheet Detail Report page:

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 which is a free download here: http://bit.ly/2gRjCoQ

Open the downloaded PWMatherProjectOnlinePowerBIReportPackv2.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
• 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 Report page and select a project from the project filter
• Save the report

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 publish the report to your Power BI workspace can create an organisational content pack that others can add to their Power BI workspace. If the Power BI organisational content pack is the chosen option, you might want to create a Dashboard first. See a previous blog post on this: http://bit.ly/2l2u5kS

Enjoy, I hope you like it

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)

Agile is now available in Microsoft Project! This is available on the following build version or later: 8625.2055 Click-to-Run. This build version is available on the Insider – formerly Insider Fast or Monthly Channel (Targeted) – formerly Insider Slow. This post is an intro to the new features. On the New menu you will see three new projects as highlighted below:

The three new project types are:

• Scrum Project
• Kanban Project
• Waterfall Project

Firstly, “Waterfall Project” is the traditional type of project that is the same as using “Blank Project”. When creating either of these you will notice some new views in Project:

These views are available regardless of the project type selected. I can insert the new Board Status and Sprint fields in to the default Gantt Chart view:

Switching views, I can then see these test tasks on the associated board views:

Both of these provide the ability to add new tasks as well as drag and drop capabilities to move tasks to different columns / statuses. On the board view you can add / update the columns / buckets, once updated here the Board Status column in the table views will have the updated values. Regardless of the view, you can use the Format tab option on the Task Boards Tools ribbon to change the columns:

More on these in when we look at the new project types.

Creating a Scrum Project or a Kanban Project gives you some other functionality. Starting with a Scrum Project (purely because it is first in the list) we can see the new project below:

The Scrum Project defaults to open with the Sprint Planning Board as the active view. On the ribbon you will also notice there is an Agile Tools Scrum tab as well as the previously seen Task Board Tools Format tab.

The Planning button enables you to switch between the two Sprint Planning views:

The Sprint button enables you to switch between the two Current Sprint views:

The All button enables you to switch to the Agile Tasks view which is a filtered tabular view that only shows tasks that are tagged as Agile = Yes.

Adjust allows you to manage the sprints. This creates three automatically for you:

By default the sprints are generated using the project finish date but you can change to manage this via a custom date if needed:

The Agile button enables you to change your project to a different Agile methodology:

Switching between Scrum / Kanban / None just changes the options you have on the ribbon. Changing to None will remove all the Agile options ribbon but you can use the Project tab to change your project back to an Agile methodology:

Tasks can be moved to different sprints or status using the board view with drag and drop or just the familiar drop down menus on the table views.

Switching to Kanban, the options change to enable you to switch backlog views:

When creating a new Kanban project, the default view is the Backlog Board.

The All button enables you to switch to the Agile Tasks view which is a filtered tabular view that only shows tasks that are tagged as Agile = Yes. Then you have the same Agile button too.

There are also new default Agile reports:

Here is the Agile – Task Status report as an example:

This new feature is a client side feature only, this capability is not available in PWA. All of the new fields in Project such as Agile, Sprint and Board Status are in Project only.

If you are looking to use an Agile methodology to manage your projects in Microsoft Project, take a look at this new feature as it allows you to manage a single project using a combination of methodologies if you wish.

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)

The Office 2016 October 2017 updates and cumulative updates are now available – post a bit later than normal, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2zmnsO4

Project 2016 October 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2zAllXK

SharePoint Server 2016 / Project Server 2016 October 2017 update: 
http://bit.ly/2zkZmmW & http://bit.ly/2zAlmeg

The Office 2013 October 2017 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2zmnsO4

Project Server 2013 October 2017 CU Server Roll up package:
http://bit.ly/2zlsREV

Project Server 2013 October 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2zBlQRE

Project 2013 October 2017 update:
http://bit.ly/2zmnupa

Also worth noting, if you haven’t done so already, install Service Pack 1 http://bit.ly/1uorn2C first if installing the October 2017 CU for 2013.

As always, fully test these updates on a replica test environment before deploying to production.

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)

Following on from my previous blog post regarding the updated Project Online Power BI content pack from Microsoft -  see below if you missed it:

http://bit.ly/2fpUUvh

That was shortly removed from the Power BI service and hasn’t been updated there yet but the template file has since been made available to download from GitHub:

http://bit.ly/2ilT3w5

You can now have the default reports provided here and extend to your own requirements for example a quick change would be to change the currency symbol used if you are not using US dollars:

Make the changes as required then publish to your own organisation.

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)

******************** This is a guest blog post by Lee Mather ********************

Day Two

After recharging the batteries, we had another early start for day and had as many sessions packed in as possible. I will try to provide a summary of key takeaways for each session. Please let me know if you would like any further detail as I’m happy to discuss.

Session 1: Overview: Modern Windows 10 and Office ProPlus management with Enterprise Mobility + Security

This session focused on moving to a modern management for Windows and went into more detail than the session I attended on day 1. The main highlights were:

· Simplify deployment and device management with Intune and Windows Autopilot. Microsoft’s vision is for laptops and PCs to be as easy to setup as mobile phones. Microsoft 365 powered devices will benefit from the following

o Intelligent Security

o Easy deployment

o Always up to date

o Proactive insights with Windows Analytics

· A couple of slides which highlight the difference between traditional IT and modern IT

· There are a few paths to transition to modern management which has been expanded by the introduction of co-management. Co-management should be released by the end of the 2017 calendar year

Session 2: Simplify hybrid cloud protection with Microsoft Azure Security Centre

The second session of the day focused on hybrid cloud protection with Microsoft Azure Security Centre. As I mentioned this in the summary of day one, I will only highlight the features.

· Hybrid Cloud Support – This allows a unified security centre for Azure workloads as well as workloads running on-premises and in other clouds. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fT0ie3

· Just In Time Access – This allows administrators to lock down ports such as RDP and to allow access when required. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2WgWH

· Adaptive Application Controls – This allows you to define a set of applications which can run on your VMs which helps in the fight against malware. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fVIjnb

· Azure Security Centre will soon include Windows Defender ATP detections. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fT0ie3

· An interactive threat intelligence map has been added to the Azure Security Centre for visualisations. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2DU8g

· An investigation dashboard is currently in preview which will correlate all relevant data with any involved entities. You will be able to navigate between entities by clicking through the graph and providing information. Additional information is available here http://bit.ly/2fUzmdS

Session 3: What’s new with Microsoft Exchange Online Public Folders

This was a 30-minute session to highlight some of the new features in Exchange Online Public folders. The main takeaway for me was the migration of public folders to Office 365 Groups. This migration approach is supported for Exchange 2010, 2013, 2016 and Exchange Online. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2wbqJ

Session 4: Office 365 Security and Compliance Overview

The session focused on the following key areas of Office 365 security:

· Threat Protection

· Information Protection

· Security Management

· Compliance Management

The main takeaways and areas of interest for this session were:

· ATP has expanded to SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams

· Safe Links will now show the original URL when a user hovers over the link

· Safe Links will now apply to internal and external email

· Safe Attachments now have a preview feature enabled to allow a user to view a document online whilst it’s being scanned. Scanning time has also been greatly reduced over the last year

· SharePoint malware will be reported in the Threat Management portal

· New updates being rolled out to Office 365 Threat Intelligence

o Threat Tracker

o Threat Explorer

o Remediation capabilities

o Attack Simulator – Admins will have the ability to simulate different threat scenarios to gain an understanding of how users behave in the event of a real attack

· Single interface for creating protection labels is on the way

· New reporting capabilities being rolled out to the Office 365 Security and Compliance Centre

· New Compliance Manager should be in Public preview later this year. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fVIm2l

Additional information can be found here: http://bit.ly/2y2AimT

Session 5: Learn about the Microsoft global network and best practices for optimizing Office 365 connectivity

This was a great session that looked at the Microsoft network and as the title suggests, provided best practise tips. The main takeaways for the sessions were as follows:

· Avoid proxy servers when connecting to Office 365

· Review Office 365 IPs regularly and update firewalls if required

· Ensure your traffic is routing to the Microsoft network in as few hops as possible

· Network performance requirements for Skype for Business and how to test your network using the Skype for Business tool – http://bit.ly/2fVPzj0

· Skype for Business is the most sensitive to network performance and requires additional ports for best user experience

· Some interesting facts regarding the Microsoft network

Session 6: Yammer’s roadmap for enhanced integration, security and compliance

This was a breakout session that only last 45 minutes. The main takeaways were:

· Local data residency preview Q4 2017

o Existing customer H2 2018

· GDPR compliance by Q1 2018

· Yammer will soon be added to eDiscovery in the Office 365 Security and Compliance Centre

· DLP policy tips will be rolling out to Yammer in 2018

· SharePoint Group integration

That concluded another busy day at Ignite!

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)

******************** This is a guest blog post by Lee Mather ********************

So, after an eventful week in Orlando at Microsoft Ignite I thought I would share with you a summary of my first day! With over 26,000 attendees it was always going to be a busy event with lots going on, we would need a team here to take in all of the information being presented to us. I am hoping to have a chance to share the other days ASAP.

Day One

During the first day I attended several sessions and would like to share the following takeaways.

Keynote

The mission statement from Microsoft is to “Empower every person and every organisation to achieve more”

The keynote focused on digital transformation which is aligned to the four key areas below:

· Modern Workplace

· Business Applications

· Application & Infrastructure

· Data & AI

Following on from the keynote session, I had a day packed of sessions mainly focusing on creating a modern workplace.

Session 1: Create a modern workplace with Microsoft 365

The session focused on the following key areas:

· Flexibility to work on any device, anywhere

· Improvements to Office application including PowerPoint Designer using AI.

· Teamwork

o Microsoft Teams will be the hub for teamwork including chat, calls and meetings.

o Microsoft Teams will replace the Skype for Business client over the next year

Other worthwhile mentions from the session included Cortana Calendars. Cortana Calendars is a new feature that is currently in “Exclusive” preview but essentially this service will help intelligently schedule meetings on your behalf, simply by adding Cortana in the CC field. The service will support Office 365, Outlook.com or Google calendar. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fVrysp

“With the speed of artificial intelligence and the personal touch of a human assistant, Calendar.help takes care of business.”

The session also focused on the modern device management and deployment. Windows Autopilot will allow new device deployment in a few simple steps, straight from the vendor to your desk without involving IT. Working with Windows Autopilot and a device management solution such as Intune, the device will be deployed, Azure AD joined or Offline domain join to Active Directory, configured with all policies defined by IT and app deployment. More on this over the coming days.

Device Co-Management was also announced as a new feature, this is the “Hybrid” device management that will support a transition from System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM) to Intune. Co-Management will allow a device to be managed by both SCCM and Intune allowing a gradual migration to modern management whilst supporting legacy devices and applications.

Finally, a couple of new offerings from Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Education and Microsoft 365 F1. Additional details can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2QWTh and http://bit.ly/2fUOZSz

Session 2: Use MDM migration tools to accelerate move from GPO to MDM

This session focused on accelerating a move to MDM and moving away from GPO to MDM policies. GPO has been around for years with many legacy policies in the workplace that may or may not be required today. Microsoft are continually releasing new device configuration policies to Intune. To support the migration away from GPO to MDM, the following PowerShell script can be executed that will output a report. http://bit.ly/2y2nYTy

The tool is being regularly updated to align with new features available in Intune.

Session 3: Cloud infrastructure: Enabling new possibilities together

The Cloud Infrastructure session focused on using Azure for all workloads, big and small.

The session explained how you can setup a SAP HANA platform in minutes using Azure instead of weeks using on-premises hardware. Microsoft are continually providing more options for scaling in Azure, currently offering up to 20TB RAM for large SAP HANA deployments.

It was also recommended to use the DevTest labs to reduce costs for non-production workloads. For more information on DevTest lab please take a look here http://bit.ly/2fUG4kb

The Azure Security Centre is now Hybrid too, allowing for non-Azure machines to be onboarded to take full advantage of the security monitoring and recommendations built into Azure.

This is a great additional to Azure Security Centre for a single unified view of your servers, either on-premises or running in Azure.

Currently Azure have 42 regions with 100’s of data centres, 4500+ peering locations and 130+ edge sites making the Azure network one of the largest in the world.

Microsoft, in conjunction with Facebook, also completed the first transatlantic cable which is approx. 4000 miles long and can support 160TB/sec of data.

Other worthy mentions would include:

· Additional Express Route partners

· Azure Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) Protection has just been released to preview. Additional information on the DDos service from Microsoft can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2waDb

· Azure Data Box has been released in preview and would be used to support customer with large data imports to Azure. The device supports 100 TB and a customer can have multiple devices. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2fUrrxq

· Azure File Sync is another new preview release that allows Azure File Share to sync with on-premises file servers. Cloud tiering is implemented that allows storing a certain amount of data locally and store a larger amount of data in the cloud. Azure File Sync is also integrated into Azure Backup. Additional information can be found here http://bit.ly/2y2UgxX

I could go on all day about updates from Ignite so will provide links to everything else announced during the session!

· Azure Policy – http://bit.ly/2fUrt8w

· Azure Migrate – http://bit.ly/2y2UgOt

· FastTrack for Azure – http://bit.ly/2fUrtp2

· Cloudyn – (Cost Management for Azure) http://bit.ly/2y2Uh4Z

Session 4: What’s new and upcoming in AD FS to securely sign-in your users to Office 365 and other applications

The ADFS session focused on what’s new and what’s coming in the future for ADFS for Office 365. As this was a shorter session I would highlight the key takeaways only.

· Passwords could soon be a thing of the past. Password less options for ADFS 2016

· How to get to password less authentication

· Extranet lockout for ADFS with known locations is coming soon. This feature will help user accounts from being locked out from failed external logon attempts.

· Resolve ADFS authentication issues faster using the help site – http://bit.ly/2fUrvNG

· ADFS Rapid Restore tool – http://bit.ly/2y3nQDn

That was enough for one day and it was time to leave the convention centre and head back to the hotel.

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)

This is a supporting blog post for an example PowerShell script I quickly wrote for Microsoft’s Office 365 SharePoint Online. It was created after a query was posted on the Project Online TechNet forums asking how to easily check what sub sites were being used in PWA.

The code sample can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/2wltpK7

To get the script to work, there will need to be some environment variables set and a DLL available, these are detailed below.

Update the environment details:

Add the SharePoint Online / PWA URL, username and password for an account that is a site collection admin on the target site collection.

To get the script to work you will need to reference the DLL as seen in the image below:

This can be installed from the SharePoint Online Client components / management shell. I used the dll from the SharePoint Online Management Shell in this example.

Below you can see the output from the PowerShell ISE when running against my test SharePoint / Project Online site collection:

There are probably easier ways to view this information but I thought I would just try with a simple PowerShell script.