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Last month, the Project team hosted Project Momentum 2010 EMEA in Barcelona, Spain – a 2-day event focused on our Europe, Middle East and Africa customers and partners. It was a great opportunity for us to learn from the Project community as well as an opportunity for the community to share best practices with each other. Thank you to everyone who participated and made this event a tremendous success! With over 240+ partners and customers from 28+ different countries, we had a very diverse audience! While it’s just a small part of our worldwide 20 million user Project community, it provides a unique and intimate environment for learning. I personally had the opportunity to connect with many different people through sessions, networking events and side-meetings. Truth be told, it’s what I learn from our customers and partners that makes these events so special. It was especially nice hearing about how customers & partners are deploying Project 2010 in their organizations and gaining business value today and not waiting for SP1. It’s great to hear since the team put in a lot of effort to make sure Project 2010 is a high quality release. Some examples of customers who talked about their Project 2010 experiences at Momentum include Volvo ( session , written case study ), NATO ( session ) and Kudelski ( session ). For those of you who weren’t able to make it to the conference or for those of you looking to share content with your teams, I recommend taking a look at some of the conference content here . I recommend starting with the keynote below (from the 5:05 mark after the conference welcome) that I had the honor to kick-off followed by Ludovic Hauduc, General Manager of the Project engineering team, who did a great job providing his personal insight into the Project 2010 release. I especially recommend watching the keynote demos at around the 43:10 mark. Eric Zenz, a Senior Program Manager Lead on Ludo’s team, does three great live demos: Office 365 and Project Professional 2010 demo that highlights SharePoint Online tasks sync with Project Professional 2010

It’s Technical Tuesday and we are featuring a technical look at how to use MX records to enable inbound messaging. MX stands for Mail Exchange, and a single domain can have multiple MX records. MX records are entries in DNS that specify the mail server addresses that you want email messages sent to your domain to be delivered to. The video below explains more about MS records and how configuration works with your domain. MX records are important when in a coexistence like Microsoft Online Services.

Ready to roll out Windows 7 in your organization? Here are some essential tools and resources to help you plan, customize, and streamline Windows 7 deployments . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we welcome 120,000 users to the cloud and find out how Office Web Apps is expanding. USDA Moves 120,000 Users to Microsoft’s Cloud The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is moving 120,000 users to Microsoft’s cloud in one of the largest deployments ever. The Microsoft News Center focuses on the USDA’s migration in this week’s featured story . The USDA plans on moving users within the next month. There are some great quotes from Chris Smith, CIO for the USDA and pictured top right, that pinpoint the business and costs advantages for moving to Microsoft’s cloud. “This is really about increasing collaboration and communications across the breadth of 120,000 users in 5,000 offices across the country and 100 countries around the globe to better deliver on the USDA’s mission,” he said. “For us a move to the cloud was a question of performance, service, and cost, and this solution will help us streamline our efforts and use taxpayer dollars efficiently.” The USDA will use the breadth of Microsoft online cloud tools that include Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting, to increase collaboration between its many employees. The article also touches on how the USDA will use a security optimized version of the cloud that meets the needs and compliance regulations for U.S. Federal Government agencies. Curt Kolcun, VP of U.S. public sector at Microsoft and pictured below right, is excited about the USDA joining Microsoft in the cloud and believes more government institutions will follow. “Nearly every federal agency trusts their productivity needs to Microsoft Office, Exchange, and SharePoint today,” he said. “From a momentum perspective, I think this announcement is going to be a phenomenal catalyst to drive more interest from the federal CIO community to think about moving their full messaging suite applications to the cloud with Microsoft.” Read the complete story about the USDA’s deployment to Microsoft’s cloud here . What are your thoughts? How does this change the landscape of the cloud? Leave your comments below. Office Web Apps Released in 15 More Countries Office Web Apps is the online suite of Microsoft Office tools that allow you to share and collaborate online in the cloud. With the recent cloud announcement of Office 365, Office Web Apps has also announced that it is now available in the following 15 additional countries : China Japan Italy New Zealand Finland Hong Kong Denmark Netherlands Norway Portugal Turkey South Korea Spain Sweden Taiwan That brings the total number of countries that have access to Web Apps to 26. Office Web Apps is free and more than 20 million people use it. Have you tried Office Web Apps? What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below. What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

In Windows Server 2008 R2, you no longer use the Add/Remove Windows Components option to add features. Here’s a look at the new way to add features in Windows Server 2008 R2 . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

In Windows Server 2008 R2, you no longer use the Add/Remove Windows Components option to add features. Here’s a look at the new way to add features in Windows Server 2008 R2 . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

We have published preliminary version of the Scrum Solution Starter for Project 2010 on MSDN Code gallery https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/P2010Scrum please participate actively in the Discussion to notify us about any issue you may encounter or post any feedback! This solution starter focuses on the Project 2010 desktop client, and on the individual Scrum team experience. Scrum is an iterative, incremental methodology for project management often seen in agile software development. Although Scrum was intended for management of software development projects, it can be used to run software maintenance teams, or as a general project/program management approach. There are 3 main items in Scrum: Product backlog: A product backlog is dynamic—Items may be deleted or added at any time during the project. It is prioritized—Items with the highest priority are completed first. It is progressively refined—Lower priority items are intentionally course-grained. Sprint backlog: A sprint backlog is a negotiated set of items from the product backlog that a team commits to complete during the time box of a sprint. Items in the sprint backlog are broken into detailed tasks for the team members to complete. The team works collaboratively to complete the items in the sprint backlog, meeting each day (during a daily scrum) to share struggles and progress and update the sprint backlog and burn down chart accordingly. Burn down: The sprint burn down chart is a publicly displayed chart showing remaining work in the sprint backlog. Updated every day, it gives a simple view of the sprint progress. It also provides quick visualizations for reference Supported Scenarios: A Scrum Master wants to use Project for the basics of running a sprint, including: Collecting and tracking status Managing the product backlog Managing the sprint backlog (and initial iteration planning) Viewing a burn down chart Easily exporting Scrum data to email/other apps Enjoy!

The Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) group has released a beta version of the Feature Pack for integration of TFS 2010 with Project Server. The beta version is a “go live” release. If the user agrees to the pre-release license agreement, the Feature Pack can be installed and will be supported in a production environment. However, it is not the final release, and is still subject to change, so you should first test it in a non-production environment. Note

Very excited to announce this key milestone today on the main Project blog today: Announcing Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack Beta . Following all the interest and excitement heard as recently as last month in Europe at Tech.Ed and at Project Momentum, its great to have bits out that you can now use to test this out. As usual this is journey and expect more announcements on the topic of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Microsoft Project 2010 and Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010, Better Together in the coming months. In the meantime start your download and happy testing!

We are excited to announce the release of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack Beta to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers. Integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a huge leap forward for organizations that want to bridge the gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams using Team Foundation Server. The feature pack further strengthens Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management Solution by enabling these teams to work together more effectively while not getting distracted or overwhelmed by each other’s’ detail. It enables teams to work together more effectively by: Providing executives with insight into portfolio execution, alignment with strategic objectives, and resource utilization of their software development projects by leveraging the quantitative data stored in different systems. Bridging the impedance mismatch between the Project Management Office and Application Development by facilitating better coordination between teams using disparate methodologies , like waterfall and agile, via common information and agreed upon metrics. Enabling development and project management teams to use familiar tools to collaborate and communicate project timeline and progress such as Microsoft Project, Project Server, SharePoint and Visual Studio. Please check out Brian Harry’s post: Portfolio Management: TFS Project Server Integration in Beta for more details on this exciting new solution and try it yourselves ! Key resources Product documentation Recent demo at Tech.Ed Europe last November: Application Lifecycle Management – Microsoft Project 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010, Better Together Ask a question: Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration Forum Questions and Answers Q. How does this Feature Pack differ from the out-of-the-box Team Foundation Server and Microsoft Project add-in? A. The Microsoft Project add-in allows project managers to use Microsoft Project to connect to Team Foundation Server to collaborate and participate in the planning and execution of software development projects. The Feature Pack enables integration between Team Foundation Server and Project Server and allows planning and status information to be synchronized between the two systems. Q. Are there any prerequisites or dependencies for this Feature Pack? A. Dependencies are: Team Foundation Server 2010 + SP1 beta Visual Studio 2010 + SP1 beta Project Server 2010 or 2007 For a detailed description of dependencies and prerequisites go to MSDN: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=207133 Q. Do customers need to apply this Feature Pack to Team Foundation Server or Project Server? A. The Feature Pack must be applied to Project Server (2010 or 2007). The Team Foundation Server 2010 SP1 beta must be applied to Team Foundation Server 2010. Check out the documentation for more details. Q. What MSDN Subscription level is required to download the beta? A. This Feature Pack will only be available to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers (go to your MSDN download center , you should find the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack as an available download). An organization must own at least one license of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. With that one license, the software can be downloaded and installed and then all users with access to either the Project Server or the Team Foundation Server products that are integrated can benefit. Q. Can I use this release in production? A. The beta comes with a “go-live” agreement. If the user agrees to the terms in the pre-release license agreement then they are eligible to use the environment in production. As usual we recommend testing out this beta release in a test/staging environment prior to any product rollout. Q. When will the final version be ready? A. Pending your validation, it will ship sometime in the first half of next year (2011). Christophe Fiessinger Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Project https://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie