Blog

Thanks to Paul Andrew for his permission to re-post this issue for the Project Server audience.  Probably not everyone has Visual Studio on their Project Server 2010 system – but I know I do, and get this error regularly (every 24 hours as Paul mentions  – and have heard of this issue from others too.  It will also pop up when you run the configuration wizard too, so with SP1 and the June CU out I thought it worth bringing this to your attention.  Here is the reason and some potential workarounds.  Thanks again Paul! Have you seen this popup exception message from the Visual Studio Just-In-Time (JIT) Debugger? Here’s the resulting event log error: An unhandled exception occurred and the process was terminated. Application ID: DefaultDomain Process ID: 6148 Exception: System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException Message: Keyset does not exist StackTrace: at System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException.ThrowCryptogaphicException(Int32 hr) at System.Security.Cryptography.SafeProvHandle._FreeCSP(IntPtr pProvCtx) at System.Security.Cryptography.SafeProvHandle.ReleaseHandle() at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.InternalFinalize() at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.Dispose(Boolean disposing) at System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle.Finalize() If you see this error message from SharePoint 2010 you can relax, nothing bad is happening. When SharePoint 2010 and Visual Studio 2010 are both installed on the same machine you may see this error every 24 hours. This occurs when the OWSTimer service has a regular process recycle and in the shutdown of the old process an exception is raised. The exception doesn’t interfere with the normal process shutdown and recycle and is only ever seen if you have a JIT debugger installed on the machine. You should never see this error on a production SharePoint 2010 server, because you should not be installing Visual Studio 2010 on those servers. You can safely ignore these exceptions and close the window, or leave it there. You actually cannot debug the process, because it will already have been closed by the time you click the button and start your debugger. You can avoid the popup exception message entirely by disabling JIT debugging on your machine. Bear in mind this will disable JIT debugging for all applications on the machine. To configure the server to no longer show a dialog when an unhandled exception occurs, use the registry editor to delete the following registry keys: · HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionAeDebugDebugger · HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoft.NETFrameworkDbgManagedDebugger On a 64-bit operating system also delete the following registry keys: · HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionAeDebugDebugger · HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoft.NETFrameworkDbgManagedDebugger More details on JIT Debugging are at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5hs4b7a6(VS.80).aspx

I came upon this bug while working on my earlier posting regarding Reporting Database Refresh https://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2011/07/14/project-server-2010-reporting-database-refresh-failing-with-large-resource-pools.aspx – and specifically trying to bulk edit lots of resources at once in the Resource Center.  It appears we throw a very complex and large query over to SQL and it has some issues parsing it.  The failure is pretty silent for the user – who just gets the Resource Center page back and might assume everything worked ok.  However there will be no jobs in the queue, the change will not have been made – and the resources will all be left check-out (as you will find out if you try the process again!).  The answer is to check all the resources back in again (or at least the ones you checked out – someone else may be doing work with other resources) and then reduce the number you have selected and try again.  The size and complexity of the query depends mainly on the number of resources, but also will be affected by the number of custom fields at the resource level – but my finding were that you could edit around 400 resources at once with bulk edit if you had around 24 resource custom fields.  Your mileage may vary! The errors that are seen are interesting – in that it appeared to depend on the severity of the issue.  With just over the triggering number of resources the failure was pretty silent in the USL logs and SQL Server – exceeding by a few more (20+) then gave errors in SQL Server of Error: 208, Severity: 16, State: 0 (which tends to mean object not found, and I’m guessing it was not finding the temporary table it wanted to use in part of the query) – but still nothing much in the ULS logs – and it was only when increasing the number of resources close to 500 did I see the following in SQL Server Exception – Error: 191, Severity: 15, State: 1 User Error Message – Some part of your SQL statement is nested too deeply. Rewrite the query or break it up into smaller queries. and then the ULS logs gave me an exception too: 07/15/2011 15:49:02.07 w3wp.exe (0x19B8) 0x220C Project Server General 0000 Exception Exception occurred in method Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Resource.ReadResources Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.DataAccessLayer.FilterDal+FilterException: Error during filter query execution. Query: declare @ResUid UniqueIdentifier; set @ResUid = eb736432-cd8d-4db2-8d9b-ad57bb3f0085; declare @EntUids NVarChar; set @EntUids = e162554e-45f0-496a-a86e-0010ef91ae13,bb57a927-1b4b-42e9-b29b-001c63e0b53c,… followed by hundreds more GUIDs I’ll be logging this bug internally too so we can consider a fix for it – or at least a limit on the resource selection so you don’t run in to this one.

Some of you may have noticed that my blog now prompts if you want to pin it to your Task Bar and then it will also give you some Jump List items to go to the recent posts directly, or over to the Project Administration blog.  I hope you find this useful.  If you haven’t seen these features or the prompt then perhaps you are not running IE 9?  Or have IE 9 running in compatibility mode?  Now is the time to take a look! You can either use the prompt in the floating bar or just drag the tab down to your task bar in Windows 7 (Server 2008 R2 with the Desktop Experience feature – as I am using in the first screen shot) and it will look something like this: and if you ‘right-click’ then the jump list looks like this (this time from Windows 7) Let me know if you think there are other useful Tasks to add to the jump list.  If you want more details on IE 9 then the Beauty of the Web site is a good starting place – and if you want to do something similar then take a look at https://www.pinmywebsite.com/ .  Thanks also to Stephanus Schulte who shared some of the details on doing this for our MSDN/TechNet blogs – as he has done at https://blogs.technet.com/b/sieben/ Enjoy!

If you have a large(ish) resource pool, with over about 1500 resources then you may run in to an issue with the Reporting Database Refresh not completing correctly – with the initial symptom that many of the Reporting (Resource Sync) and all of the Reporting (Project Sync) jobs may just say Cancelled and if you click through to the errors from the queue you will see: Reporting message processor failed: ReportingResourceChangeMessageFailed (24008) – A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.. Details: id=’24008′ name=’ReportingResourceChangeMessageFailed’ uid=’e3caf6d3-cc85-4078-90d3-1ce1ad929776′ QueueMessageBody=’Resource UID: ‘7d536aef-9be1-46c7-971a-286e384918c8′. ChangeType=’Add’. ResourceChangeType=’All” Error=’A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.’. Or Reporting message processor failed: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) – A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.. Details: id=’24006′ name=’ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed’ uid=’bfd6372f-b545-4368-8b8e-00807de566f0′ QueueMessageBody=’Project UID=’65cae55a-48e3-44fe-826e-f4f7fa478cc8′. PublishType=’All” Error=’A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.’. and if you look in the ULS logs then you will see something like: 07/14/2011 12:19:04.56    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x2084)    0x2538    Project Server    Reporting    auhd    High    PWA:https://Server/PWA, ServiceApp:Project Server Service Application, User:DOMAINUser, PSI: [RDS] ULS Event: ReportingResourceChangeMessageFailed was associated with exception: Microsoft.Office.Project.Reporting.ProjectReportingPublic.ReportException: A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.RDSBaseMessageProcessor.CheckIfAllowedToProceed(ReportingBaseMessage msg, MessageContext msgContext, Group messageGroup, JobTicket jobTicket)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ResourcesChangedMessageProcessor.HandleMessage(Message msg, Group messageGroup, JobTicket jobTicket, MessageContext mContext)    ae4c9ca3-2a2c-44d1-b7d3-3d54589fcc8a 07/14/2011 12:29:16.10    Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x2084)    0x3868    Project Server    Reporting    atwr    High    PWA:https://Server/PWA, ServiceApp:Project Server Service Application, User:DOMAINUser, PSI: [RDS] ULS Event: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed was associated with exception: Microsoft.Office.Project.Reporting.ProjectReportingPublic.ReportException: A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outside of the time range in which the refresh operation run.     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.RDSBaseMessageProcessor.CheckIfAllowedToProceed(ReportingBaseMessage msg, MessageContext msgContext, Group messageGroup, JobTicket jobTicket)     at Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.ReportingLayer.ProjectPublishMessageProcessor.HandleMessage(Message msg, Group messageGroup, JobTicket jobTicket, MessageContext mContext)    ae4c9ca3-2a2c-44d1-b7d3-3d54589fcc8a The first message will appear for cancelled resource sync jobs, and the second for projects.  If you don’t happen to notice this issue, then the next thing you might see are failed reporting publish jobs such as the resources that assignments belong to may not exist in the reporting database (if they were among the cancelled ones.  These errors will look something like this: Reporting message processor failed: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) – The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint “FK_MSP_EpmAssignment_ResourceOwnerUID”. The conflict occurred in database “ProjectServer_Reporting”, table “dbo.MSP_EpmResource”, column ‘ResourceUID’. The statement has been terminated.. Details: id=’24006′ name=’ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed’ uid=’6b806909-7a24-4409-8b80-b898f4a904a9′ QueueMessageBody=’Project UID=’79bf1075-a46a-467c-828a-24a1dc00ebbb’. PublishType=’ProjectPublish” Error=’The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint “FK_MSP_EpmAssignment_ResourceOwnerUID”. The conflict occurred in database “ProjectServer_Reporting”, table “dbo.MSP_EpmResource”, column ‘ResourceUID’. The statement has been terminated.’. Queue: GeneralQueueJobFailed (26000) – ReportingProjectPublish.ReportProjectPublishMessageEx. Details: id=’26000′ name=’GeneralQueueJobFailed’ uid=’29aca4ff-eb33-46ac-b6e6-1126f8532dae’ JobUID=’8ed284d5-7015-4e6e-a344-6380aae4b0d1′ ComputerName=’ServerName’ GroupType=’ReportingProjectPublish’ MessageType=’ReportProjectPublishMessageEx’ MessageId=’1′ Stage=”. For more details, check the ULS logs on machine ServerName for entries with JobUID 8ed284d5-7015-4e6e-a344-6380aae4b0d1. To better understand the reason for the failure it may help to understand more about the reporting database refresh process.  It is a process that gets automatically started based on certain conditions that would mean the data in the reporting database would not be consistent – and the most common of these is that some metadata such as the custom fields have been restored from archive.  Once this happens then the reporting data may be incorrect – as it may have custom field data that no longer makes sense – for CFs that were not in the archive so they no longer exist.  If you monitor the queue you will see an initial job that says Reporting Database Refresh and this will soon change to Reporting Database Refresh(Sleeping) – which is ok.  You will then see several sets of jobs getting added at intervals.  It will look something like this: Reporting (Fiscal Period Sync) – Immediate Reporting (Resource Capacity Range Sync) – Immediate Reporting (Lookup Table Sync) for each lookup table, and added to the queue 5 minutes after the Reporting (Resource Capacity Range Sync) Reporting (Custom Field Metadata Sync) for each custom field, and added to the queue 5 minutes after the Reporting (Lookup Table Sync) Reporting (Entity User View Refresh) for each view and added at the same time as the Reporting (Custom Field Metadata Sync) Reporting (Resource Sync) for each resource and added to the queue 5 minutes after the Reporting (Entity User View Refresh) Reporting (Workflow Metadata Sync) for stage, phase etc. – added 5 minutes after Reporting (Resource Sync)’s finish Reporting (Enterprise Project Type Sync) for the EPT’s – added at the same time as the Reporting (Workflow Metadata Sync) Reporting (Project Publish) for each project and added 5 minutes after the Reporting (Enterprise Project Type Sync) Reporting (Timesheet Assignments Refresh) – added 10 minutes after the Reporting (Project Publish) Reporting (Timesheet Project Aggregation) one for each timesheet period – added at the same time as the Reporting (Timesheet Assignments Refresh) While all this is going on the initial job will wake every few minutes to make sure things are still going along OK – and it is at this point that the bug this blog is about can break things.  It is a timing issue and it is possible that when the waking job checks to see if all is OK it gets a response it is not expecting so it thinks things have failed – writes a failure message to one of our database tables along with a failure time.  Subsequent jobs are checking this table too and will see that things have apparently failed so they will just cancel (or some of the jobs may show “Failed but not blocking correlation”).  This is the reason for the error message saying “A RDS message that was spawned during a RDB refresh operation attempted to execute outsid
e of the time range in which the refresh operation run” – as the current time does not fit between the apparent start and end time of the reporting database refresh. So how to recover?  There will be a fix coming along – and my hope is that it will make the August 2011 Cumulative Update – but there is a workaround if you should find yourself in this situation.  You will need to force a reporting update for all the resources and all the projects.  For the resource you can open them in Resource Center and Save (no change needed), and you will see the Reporting (Resource Sync) and the Reporting (Timesheet Project Aggregation) jobs kicked off for this user.  The reason you need to refresh all resources and not just the ones that failed is this second group of jobs – the Reporting (Timesheet Project Aggregation) – which puts data from the admin lines of the timesheets into the MSP_EpmAssignments and MSP_EpmAssignmentsByDay tables.  You can use the Bulk Edit option to enable you to do multiple resources at once but for this to work you need to make a change (you could add a new CF and just type some text into it)  – and you also need to be sure all your resources are checked in.  You may find the page a little unresponsive when you hit Save (you might want to limit it to a few hundred at once – I did around 200 at a time and that worked for me .  A trick that might help – if you select a group of rows using the shift-click you can then check the select box for all of the selected rows.  I’m still playing around with the options here – I will update the post if I find some new tricks and tips. For projects you will need to re-publish all the plans.  You can do this either using ProjTool from the SDK https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg446880.aspx or use a PowerShell commands made available by the code gallery sample at https://archive.msdn.microsoft.com/pj14PowershellPSI .  The getting started guide on that page has a sample that can do a check-out, publish and check back in.

Firstly I should announce that the ‘refreshed’ version of the June 2011 Cumulative Updates are now live on the support site.  If you downloaded an earlier version then please get the latest – same URLs, but you will see a revised date (for example on the Project Server 2010 server package that also includes SharePoint Foundation and SharePoint Server https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2536600 you will now see “ Article ID: 2536600 – Last Review: July 11, 2011 – Revision: 4.0 ” and the Note: This is build 14.0.6106.5002 of the cumulative update package.  The fixes over and above the original CU are the first two of the “Known Issues” posted on the KB article itself: Known issue 1 If you install an earlier build of this hotfix package on a SharePoint server that has .NET 4.0 installed, you cannot synchronize user profiles from AD and LDAP into the SharePoint User Profile Service application database. The user profile synchronization export process fails. Additionally, the System.PlatformNotSupportedException exception shows in Event Viewer. Note This issue is fixed in build 14.0.6106.5002 of this hotfix package Known issue 2 After you install an earlier build of this hotfix package, the following services may fail at either runtime or the provision process if you run these services by using a user account other than the farm administrator account: Session State Service Secure Store Service Business Data Connectivity (BDC) Service Note This issue is fixed in build 14.0.6106.5002 of this hotfix package. and the third is one mentioned by Adrian in our Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1 and June Cumulative Update webcast https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032487727&CountryCode=US regarding Fix 30793 – When saving a timesheet (also creating), custom field values for *other* timesheets are deleted. We had a number of questions came up during the session and we thought it would be useful to summarize them here, for those who did not attend the webcast or those who didn’t get a chance to look at the Q&A section as we were going along.  Thanks to all who asked such great questions! Question: Do we need to load the SharePoint Foundation SP1/June CU? Answer:   It is included in some of the roll up packages, so you may not need to explicitly install it.  However, if you are just going to load the Project Server 201 June Cumulative Update package (KB 2536586) and you have not installed previous CUs then you will need the SharePoint CU (or SP) or you will get the jsgrid issue reported when we shipped the August 2010 CU – https://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2010/09/17/project-server-2010-applied-august-cu-and-having-problems-with-jsgrid.aspx – the view failed to load, and Exception occurred in method Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.BusinessLayer.Project.ProjectGetProjectDetailsForGridJson.  If you are unsure if it is in a package then scroll down to the complete file list.  SharePoint Foundation stuff will be the files like sts-x-none.msp, and ones starting with wss. Question: Any requirements for Office 2010 app’s? Answer:  It isn’t necessary to also upgrade the client applications but it’s certainly a great idea to update both Project and Office to SP1. Question:   What’s the minimum CU, both client and server, that we need to be on before applying SP1? Answer:   No minimum CU is required. You can go directly from the initial release to SP1 if desired. Question:   Did the fixed work task type get fixed for entry in PWA? Answer:    Yes! Additionally, effort driven tasks are supported. Question:   Does SP1 contain the June CU or do I need to install them both? Answer:   SP1 does not contain the June CU, although the June CU does contain much of what is in the Service Pack.  It is advisable to load both. Question:   Install June CU then SP1 or vise versa? Answer:   Technically, it doesn’t matter. It is usual to install SP1 first and then June CU (and the configuration wizard can just be run once – after both are loaded, assuming you are doing it right away). Question:   Is hotfix 2534413 included in the June CU? Answer:   That hotfix was the Project 2010 April 2011 Cumulative Update, and is included in the KB 2536590 hotfix – the Project 2010 June 2011 Cumulative Update. Question:   Is there a list of bugs/fixes available for the 2nd June CU that will be coming out in a week or so? Answer:   There is – and I also mention what is fixed above. Question:    In June 2011 KB https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2536590 the 5th items says when you apply updates using PWA, your updates are lost. We had that issue in PS 2007 fixed it with Feb 2011 CU. After migration to 2010 we are getting it in PS 2010. The June 2011 restricts the issue from happening further. But is there a way to restore lost hours? Answer:   Best to contact support for assistance with this type of issue – and as it relates to a bug there will be no charge. The support engineer will be able to help identify if and how hours can be re-applied. Question:   Where can I find the links for the June CU? Answer:   We will get the latest link up on the Project Administration blog shortly,  or search https://support.microsoft.com . Question:  W e run this on a VM, with the server set to dynamic memory, it simply takes as much memory as it could, is that normal, and is there a wayconfig setting to limit this? Answer:   You can set an upper limit for Dynamic memory (certainly for HyperV) – if nothing else is using it then why would you want to limit? If you have conflicting apps then you can also set priority of memory usage. Question:   I missed the reasoning behind the statement that we should reconsider our settings for “manually scheduled tasks can be published to team members” Answer:   At release you could not record time-phased data against manually scheduled tasks so this was one reason you might have wanted to check that option. You may still want to restrict publishing if you are using manually scheduled tasks more for longer term planning. Question:   I have a resource who can not see his tasks in PWA. PWA displays loading and then “Cannot communicate with the server. Verify your connection and try again.”. Has this problem been resolved? Only one resource has this problem. Answer:  I don’t know off the top of my head – sounds data related if one resource is affected – or might be some customization of their view. Ping me via my Blog contact and I can give some pointers. Question:   Does the auto publish also close the projects it publishes? Answer:   It will submit a request to publish after auto approval so this will be queued and will actually when the job gets to the top of the queue, assuming the plan is checked in (or checked out in the same session doing the approval/publish).   The publish itself does not check the project out. Question:   Earlier it was mentioned re: multi-browser support, that Safari was supported not on PCs but only on PowerBooks. Did you guys mean any/all Apple native hardware? Or is that PowerBook, specifically? For instance, supported on iPads? Answer:   Although our testing was on desktop and laptop Apple hardware we are not aware of any issues on other Apple platforms such as the iPad and have heard anecdotal references to it working. Question:   Can you provide the URL’s for the links to the excel workbooks that contain the list of fixes? Answer:   https://download.microsoft.com/download/5/1/2/512CC712-4070-4CFF-BC4A-B3AFF0E21A1E/Microsoft%20Office%202010%20Service%20Pack%201%20Changes.xlsx https://download.microsoft.com/download/B/0/D/B0D1540B-6CF6-4674-9C8E-7A45FD91C163/Microsoft%20SharePoint%202010%20and%20Office%20servers%20Service%20Pack%201%20Changes.xlsx   Question:   If we upgrade both SharePoint Foundation and Project to SP1, is there a sequence to follow? Answer:   Recommendation is SharePoint Foundation first – but either way will work, and you only need to run PSCONFIG after loading both. Question:   When synching a Project 2010 file with a SharePoint 2010 task list, does SP1 now support multiple resources for e
ach schedule task? Answer:   That hasn’t changed. Question:   Regarding the new AutoPublish checkbox, would like to make sure I completely get it. The functionality looks great, no need for code or for publishing after the rule is run, correct? If so, that is great! Can I also take advantage of this functionality to create a generic / general rule that matches all updates on all projects, check the box, and have myself a completely automated task accept-update-publish function? I ask because customers have asked to program this before and we’ve had to use PSI previously. Would this scheme work to do it OOTB now? Answer:   Yes  – that is the intention of this feature. My top pick for SP1. Question:   Please could you let me know on what is the largest project schedule (task activities) uploaded and managed within the server environment as we are implementing Project Server 2010 within the mining environment here in South Africa as in 2007 it was a bit of a challenge? Answer:   Our suggested maximum is around 400,000 tasks – but there are many other factors that would need to be taken into account. Question:  When synching a Project 2010 schedule to a SharePoint 2010 Task List, does the Gantt chart now support summary tasks (similar to MS Project)? Answer:   This has not changed with SP1 and summary tasks are still represented as folders containing the sub-tasks within the SharePoint Task list. Question:   Does the project server 2010 SP1 contain the SP 2010 SP1? Answer:   There is just one SP covering Office Servers which includes Project Server 2010 SP1. Question:   Are budget resources supported in templates launched by EPT’s in PWA? Answer:   No, these are not supported for projects created from templates directly on the server, when not using the Project Professional client. Question: Is there any way for users to add tasks that are synced from project server (into the outlook tasks) into their calendar as well? Many of my clients liked this feature in the past, and find the task only one less friendly to use. Answer:   There haven’t been any changes in SP1 to expand the Exchange/Project server integration and how those tasks appear in Outlook. Question:   Hi, could you advise on any improvements with archiving of projects, simplification primarily. Answer:   There are no changes to project archiving. Question:   Project to SharePoint synch – does it support dependencies other than FS? Answer: (Not answered on the webcast, but the answer is…) SharePoint only supports Finish-to-Start predecessors without constraints or lag times. Question:   Is there a limit to how many approvals/publishes can be done at a time? Answer:   Not aware of a limit – but the questioner apparently had seen approvals fail is ~500 tasks updates.  We would need a support case if anyone wants to dig deeper on this issue – no known issue were found in our databases. Question:   How soon before the SP1 demo VM of Project server 2010 will be available? Answer:   We will pass the feedback on to the marketing team letting them know that the SP1 demo VM is needed.  But a great place to practice loading the updates!

At the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Los Angeles we are announcing the Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year 2011 winner and finalists! We want to take the opportunity to recognize just a few of the wonderful Microsoft Project Partners that help our customers implement, maintain, use and build applications on Project 2010 and Project Server 2010 . Congratulations to PTC! First of all, congratulations to the Project and Portfolio Management Partner of the Year 2011, PTC !   PTC is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing software companies delivering a complete portfolio of integral Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions to over 25,000 customers in the Industrial, High Tech, Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Consumer, and Medical Device industries. Assessing the future opportunity of the Project and Portfolio Management market, PTC addresses key customer business needs for aligning resources and investments with business priorities, gaining control across all types of work, visualizing performance while offering industry leading collaboration capabilities. PTC Windchill PPMLink tightly integrates with Microsoft Project Server 2010 resulting in combined portfolio analysis, resource management and project management with a program & portfolio metrics engine that aggregates traditional KPIs. “PTC continues to develop technologies that leverage the Microsoft technology platform, including Windchill PPMLink™, Windchill SocialLink™ and Windchill Webparts™ for SharePoint ” said Jane Wachutka, divisional vice president, Windchill product group, PTC.  “PTC is the only PLM software provider to receive this award, demonstrating the years of research, development and commitment to deliver PLM software on the Microsoft SharePoint platform.  PTC is working closely with some of Microsoft’s top Gold Project and Portfolio Management Partners on worldwide implementations to manufacturing customers! Finalists Congratulations to our finalists SharkPro Software Corporation and The Project Group (TPG) . SharkPro Software Corporation developed a highly innovative approach to adopt Project Server 2010 through “ready-to-go” rapid installation and configuration with built-in roles, dashboards, project templates, workflows, workspaces, and reports. The Project Group (TPG) traditionally known in the Project Server and SAP integration space built and delivered Project Management Control System for the construction industry based on Project Server 2010. The system seamlessly integrates with SAP, competitive Project Management system and surfaces data and processes through SharePoint 2010. What is the PPM award? Every year we give this award to innovative and breakthrough solutions on Microsoft Project Server. No surprise was the continued PPM Partner growth, and we experienced double the submissions compared to last year which was double from the year before! Each submission is read in its entirety and judged by three (3) qualified judges focusing on depth and breadth of the solutions!  Speaking for all of the judges and the WW Project Product Marketing Team, we would like to offer our BIG thanks to everyone who nominated Project 2010 solutions ! Join the celebration at WPC! The Project presence for WPC 2011 is growing  as previously reported agenda here .  Our former and new PPM Partner of the Year winners and finalists will be presenting in the Business Productivity booth on the Expo Floor .  Also throughout the WPC week, some of these Partners are presenting their solutions and offerings to other partners in private meeting spaces on the second floor meeting rooms – details here .   Thanks! Jan Kalis World-wide PPM Partner Lead, Technical Product Manager | Microsoft Project https://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/

We recently published a new article set to our Microsoft Project Server 2010 TechNet Library:  ” Database Maintenance Plans for Project Server 2010 “.  A Project Server 2010 farm environment includes not only the databases required for Project Server, but also databases required for SharePoint Server 2010.   Ensuring that these databases are maintained properly is key to smooth performance in your Project Server 2010 environment.  This article set contains information and guidelines for maintaining the databases that host Microsoft Project Server 2010. It describes and provides examples of the database maintenance tasks that we recommend when you are using Project Server 2010.   This document provides detailed examples for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2. External references for how to perform the same database maintenance tasks with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are also included. The goal of this article set is to provide you the information to create a database maintenance plan that best fits your environment.  This article set includes the following articles: Overview of Project Server 2010 databases Creating maintenance plans for Project Server 2010 databases Defragmenting indexes for Project Server 2010 databases Shrinking databases in Project Server 2010 Monitoring maintenance plans for Project Server 2010 For more information about maintaining the databases that are required for SharePoint Server 2010, read Database maintenance for SharePoint Server 2010 .  You should read this as well before you implement any database maintenance tasks or modify your Project Server 2010 or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 databases.

We are pleased to announce newly redesigned Solutions Page that is highlighting the key solutions built on Microsoft Project 2010 – including: Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Integrating PPM and Application Development processes helps to improve visibility across projects throughout their life cycle. It ensures project managers and developers can follow their own methodologies supported by different productivity tools, while remaining seamlessly connected with each other. Application Portfolio Management (APM) Gain control, reduce costs, transform your application portfolio and link your business strategy to your application management strategy. Capital Planning & Investment Control (CPIC) Powerful collaborative and analytical tools that provide consistent and visible decision-making capabilities for managing investments from launch to conclusion. Financial Management and Earned Value Driven by challenging economic times and enhanced compliance requirements, financial management has become a priority for organizations investing in project and portfolio management best practices. Hosting / On-Demand Solutions Unleash the power of Microsoft Project Server 2010 with a browser-based hosted solution. Innovation Process Management (IPM) Innovation Process Management (IPM) enables organizations to foster innovation by capturing, evaluating, and developing ideas to drive growth and profitability, and to increase competitiveness. Line of Business Integration Seamlessly integrate Microsoft Project and Portfolio Management solution with different applications and systems in order to automate business processes. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) / New Product Development (NPD) Emerging as a strategic driver of business value, PLM helps manufacturers tackle complex processes and synchronize the efforts of distributed teams to consistently create the best possible products, capture greater market share and increase customer satisfaction. Project and Portfolio Management PPM/EPM Project and Portfolio Management helps organizations gain visibility and control across all work, enhancing decision-making, improving alignment with business strategy, maximizing resource utilization, and enhancing project execution to optimize ROI. Project Professional 2010 Microsoft Project Professional 2010 gives you a powerful, visually enhanced way to effectively manage a wide range of projects and programs. It is also a powerful platform for extensions that address specific business needs. For those that would like to see a list of solutions by product – the “ Solution By Product ” section links directly to PinPoint – a Microsoft directory of Partner companies and their offerings – and lists registered solutions in PinPoint by product. (Any partner with valid PinPoint profile can register their solutions and align them with Project 2010 products directly in PinPoint.) Thanks! Jan Kalis World-wide PPM Partner Lead, Technical Product Manager | Microsoft Project  https://blogs.msdn.com/jkalis/

I was in San Francisco recently to receive an award on behalf of the Project team from the Project Management Institute College Of Scheduling (PMICOS), the award presentation was happening in the context of the PMICOS Conference taking place this week. It’s great that Microsoft Project got recognized as having “significantly contributed to the project management scheduling profession” among a crowd who until recently was more inclined to lean towards traditional players such as Primavera, Artemis, Planview and the likes. In fact, Microsoft was the only PPM software vendor to be recognized this year, the other nominees being practitioners of the profession. It was also great to see Microsoft receive the highest rating possible in the recently released Gartner Project and Portfolio Applications MarketScope . On behalf of the Project Team, we are very grateful for the recognition, just another small indication of the impact Project and its millions of users have in the project management industry and the continued growth and momentum we’ve seen in recent years. Here’s a picture of the actual award. Ludo.

Thanks to everyone who joined Adrian and I for this morning’s webcast – we sure covered a lot of stuff (well mostly Adrian – with the June CU update).  For those who couldn’t attend you can listen to the recording https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032487727&CountryCode=US . One thing I mentioned towards the end was a bug that both Adrian and I had seen since loading SP1 and the June Cumulative Update around provisioning PWA sites if you had more than one web application to choose from on your ManagePWA page.  Well we just had our first customer hit this same issue – so looks like it is out in the wild and not just something Adrian and I broke on our servers.  Still digging in to the detail and trying to find the root of the issue – but the workaround is simple – just use PowerShell to create the PWA site.  More on that later – first some details of the error so the search engines find this posting.  You will either get it when selecting a web app other than the default and filling the page and clicking OK – but you can also see it if you just change from a web app that is not the default to another one in this dialog: and this will be the error you get and the text for the search engine – String was not recognized as a valid boolean.: and from the ULS logs: 07/06/2011 16:27:50.59    w3wp.exe (0x1E10)    0x1FF4    SharePoint Foundation    Runtime    tkau    Unexpected    System.FormatException: String was not recognized as a valid Boolean.    at System.Boolean.Parse(String value)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.EntityEditor.ParseSpanData(String spans)     at Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.EntityEditor.LoadPostData(String postDataKey, NameValueCollection values)     at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessPostData(NameValueCollection postData, Boolean fBeforeLoad)     at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)    c52c7488-9e1f-4a26-a256-de796d689c12 The PowerShell workaround is really straightforward – you can use the New-SPProjectWebInstance command, and either give all the parameters or just hit return and respond to the prompts.  The URL is the full URL of the Project Web App you wish to provision.  Full details on using Windows PowerShell for Project Server 2010 can be found at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662497.aspx and here is the syntax listing from the {PowerShell get-help command on the  New-SPProjectWebInstance command NAME     New-SPProjectWebInstance SYNOPSIS     Creates a new instance of a Project Server service application. SYNTAX     New-SPProjectWebInstance -AdminAccount -ArchiveDbname -DraftDbname -PrimaryDbserver –publishedDbname -ReportingDbname -ReportingDbserver [-PrimaryDBMirrorServer ] [-ReportingDBMirrorServer ] -Url [-AssignmentCollection ] [-HostHeaderWebapplicationUrl ] [-Lcid ] [-Wait ] [ ] DESCRIPTION     Use the New-SPProjectWebInstance cmdlet to create a new instance of a Project Server service application. An instance of a Project Server service application is referred to as a Project Web Access (PWA) instance. RELATED LINKS REMARKS     To see the examples, type: “get-help New-SPProjectWebInstance -examples”.     For more information, type: “get-help New-SPProjectWebInstance -detailed”.     For technical information, type: “get-help New-SPProjectWebInstance -full”. Once you’ve used this you will never want to go back to the UI!  I’ll update this entry as we find more information and have news on any fix.