Navigation between PWA and Project Site in Project Online / Project Server 2013

I wanted to review navigation between PWA and project details for sharepoint task list projects in Project Online.




When originally user clicks on Project in Project Center, user get to project details.

 


There is no link to Projects (Project Center) but there are 2 possible ways how to get there:
1. Click "back" in browser (if you just landed on it)
2. Click on Project Detail (highlighted on screenshot):


That will refresh screen and navigation and you will see the link to "Projects" available (highlighted).

For Enterprise Projects everything works just fine:





If you know faster way - please let me know. Thanks!

Project Online and OData

Our organization is implementing a pilot environment of Project Online for one organization that is looking to move their in-house 2010 to the cloud, and right now I'm researching the Project Online for how we can use reporting capabilities.

It looks really only option that is "out-of-the-box" is OData.

There is a post on TechNet - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff603998(v=office.15)

Accordingly to the document - only Adminstrator, Portfolio Manager and Portfolio Viewer can access OData feed. Project Managers cannot access data.

This slightly limits use of reporting on PWA for single project - Project Manager will have to use reporting capabilities in Project Professional 2013. 

This is a huge. People need to be able to create and view report on their data from PWA.

Excel Services - Project Online / Project Server 2013

We were playing with Excel Services to see how we can build reports and publish them to the web - same way as we did in 2010. Unfortunately it looks it is not possible now - and it seems this is a limitation of Project Online Preview.

So.
1. There is a step-by-step instruction how to do that - http://officepreview.microsoft.com/en-us/project-server-help/use-excel-2013-to-create-a-new-project-web-app-report-HA102923779.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA102923896

2. When report is created and saved, you can open it in PWA. It opens absolutely fine - but it displays information that WAS already in Excel. 

It is kind of STATIC and in fact it will be outdated. When you try to get data connections refreshed - you get error that external data connection cannot be refreshed:

3. To refresh data, you need to edit it again in Excel 2013 by clicking on Edit Workbook and selecting Edit in Excel - go to DATA Tab and click on Refresh All.

Data will be refreshed, you can save it back to PWA.
I hope that at time of RTM, excel services reports in Project Online will be able to update data dynamically.

Small update:
There is article on TechNet about reporting: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff603998(v=office.15)


"In Project Online, Project Web App data for reporting is only available through the OData feed. The OData feed must be accessed through Excel 2013 Preview. OData reports can be published to the Business Intelligence Center and displayed using Excel Services, but the data cannot be refreshed using Excel Services"


Enjoy!

Accessing Project Sites in Project Online / Project Server 2013

There are few changes that are related how users access Project Sites in Project 2013 compared to Project Server 2010.

Before, in Project Center on a ribbon there was a button - Project Site. User was able by selecting a line in a list of project click on it and you will get the new window with project site open.

In Project Online this button is gone from ribbon from Project Center.

But - you still can access the Project Sites - and I would say that this was made even easier.

When you click on Project name, you get to the screen with all project related information and there are 2 ways to access the associated Project Site:

First one is button on Ribbon and second one is link  "Project Site" on the left side of navigation menu.

Enjoy!

Swtching Security Mode in Project Server 2013 Preview (On-premise)

As you know, by default Project Server 2013 has the SharePoint permission mode which is simplified if we compare it with Project Server mode. Some users, might benefit from it, some more advanced users might want to switch back to Project Server mode.

There is an article on TechNet how to change http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219486(v=office.15).aspx

So, quick summary: You have to run a powershell command - Set-SPProjectPermissionMode

Switching from SharePoint to Project Server mode:
Set-SPPRojectPermissionMode –Url http://projectserver2013/pwa -AdministratorAccount fluentpro\sp-farmadmin -Mode ProjectServer

Switching from Project Server to SharePoint mode:
Set-SPPRojectPermissionMode –Url http://projectserver2013/pwa -AdministratorAccount fluentpro\sp-farmadmin -Mode ProjectServer

Replace http://projectserver2013/pwa with you PWA URL and fluentpro\sp-farmadmin with your domain name \ user name.

Why there is no switch in UI like in Project Online? I have no idea - but this would be a good suggestion to Microsoft to add this into Central Administration in PWA settings.

Enjoy!

Project Online Preview - Project Server 2013 - Changing permission mode from SharePoint to Project Server

As you might know, by default Project Online has the SharePoint mode which is simplified if we compare it with Project Server mode. Some users, might benefit from it, some more advanced users might want to switch to Project Server mode.

There is a document on MSDN that compares two modes: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161361(v=office.15)

So, how do you switch from SharePoint security mode to Project Server security mode?

When you created online tenant, you will have several sites available for you and one is SharePoint Administration Center. URL should look like following: https://<tenantname>-admin.sharepoint.com

You have 2 ways getting there:

• Enter the URL
• Click on the Admin link and selecting Project from your PWA Screen (visible If you are the Administrator)

Screen should look like following one:

To change the mode:

1. Select project (checkbox) 
2. Click on Project Web App button on ribbon and select Settings. 

On the screen please select the "Classic Permission Management" radio button which is Project Server Permission mode and click OK:

Important: Please note that changing modes clears all previous settings.

You can read more about SharePoint permission mode here: Plan SharePoint groups in Project Server 2013.

You can read more about Project Server permission mode here: Plan groups, categories, and RBS in Project Server 2013 Preview.

Enjoy!

Best way to evaluate Project Server 2013 / Project Online? Move you configuration and data from Project Server 2010!

This week Microsoft released the Project Online - a cloud edition of Microsoft Project Server 2013. This means, that companies can start evaluating online edition that offers ways for easy scaling and start saving on investments into hardware and software. You can start paying monthly for resource that you use only, no maintenance, no hardware, no software licenses, no electricity bills.

Companies who currently using Project Server 2010 and considering the Project Online as potential destination should evaluate the the Project Online from different angles:

• User Interface
• Usability
• Scaleability
• Performance
• Support of existing configuration
• Load testing

Some of this can be addressed with just out-of-the box functionality, but companies will face a reasonable issue  - How do we test Project Online with our configuration settings and with our data (projects, resources) from existing Project Server 2010 or Project Server 2010 instance?

FluentPro Software has a solution for this - FluentPro Cloud Migrator that allows migration of configuration and data from Project Server 2010 to Project Online.

There are 2 editions available - Free and Pro; Free Edition migrates everything except project sites content and security, Pro Edition can migrate all settings and data and you can use it after Preview.

You can download FuentPro Cloud Migrator from our website - www.projectmigrator.com.

Development of SharePoint Apps for Project Online / Project Server 2013

Over last several month our company was involved in development of SharePoint App for Project Online for  one of the partners. Development is completed and shortly application will be published - but it was a tough journey.

If you are interested in development of SharePoint App for Project Server  2013 / Project Online - please feel free to contact us, we believe that we can help you - we've completed all steps, we know problems, constraints and can make this development successful.

Project Server 2013 and Project Online are available

Great news - Microsoft released preview versions of Microsoft Project Server 2013 and Project Online - Cloud-bases edition of Microsoft Project Server 2013.

FluentPro is focused on developing tools and products for Project Server family and we announce several utilities:

1. FluentPro Cloud Migrator Free Edition - software that allows migrate your existing 2010 PWA with data to the Project Online Preview so you can evaluate it with real data. Read more: www.projectmigrator.com  
2. FluentPro Cloud Migrator Pro Edition -  paid version of software that allows migrate your existing 2010 PWA with data to the Project Online Preview and supports migration of project sites and security. Purchase of this version will provide free upgrade to versions available at time when Project Server gets RTM version. Read more: www.projectmigrator.com   


We working hard on moving rest of our products to Project Server 2013 platform and developing several new exciting applications for Project Server 2010 and Project Server 2013 / Online.


Stay tuned!