Project Hosts Blog

At the Microsoft Project Conference last week in Phoenix, there was a lot of talk about hosting, online, and cloud-based solutions.

In his keynote, Project GM Ludo Hauduc brought onstage Shannon Kirchoff with Fireman’s Fund who talked about how her company’s EPM deployment has helped them get a handle on skyrocketing IT costs. She described how Pcubed’s consulting services combined with Project Hosts’ hosting allowed her to get up and running for over 1,000 users far faster than if she had to make deploying EPM yet another project for her overworked IT department.

Of course the big story was the unveiling of Project 2010. It’s web-based project management, native portfolio functionality, and incredible BI capabilities had companies wondering how soon they could get it. But the fact that Project 2010 requires 64-bit hardware, Windows 2008 and MOSS Enterprise made some companies realize that their IT department might not be ready for it right away. No problem — they realized they could start hosted and always move onsite later.

Later, there was a lot of buzz about Project Migration Online — a service that migrates companies from 2003 to 2007 (and later 2010) for a flat $10,000. It’s hard to say which was more popular — the flat fee or the fact that the migration would be done by EPM engineers who had already done hundreds of other migrations.

Business applications are moving online, and Project is no exception!

2 years ago, Jones Lang LaSalle saw the value of using the relationship management capabilities of Dynamics CRM in a non-traditional way. They engaged a partner to extend and combine it with a real estate application to create a custom facilities management solution, which we hosted to get it deployed quickly and economically.

Expanding the definition of ‘relationship management’ to ‘any person, thing or function’ enables Dynamics to become a platform for all kinds of applications. We host Dynamics CRM, SharePoint and PerformancePoint, and see growing demand to bring them together, which makes xRM very interesting to customers and partners. Because Project Hosts can support all kinds of xRM customizations and extensions to these platforms on dedicated servers, very specific functionality can be developed and delivered quickly in a Software + Services model.

xRM is more aligned with business process and less dependent on the technical sophistication of users, whether they are internal or external. At WWPC last month, Microsoft cited a couple of examples: 311 non-emergency telephone information services , where operator turnover is high; and the public sector, where web self-service must reach diverse populations the vastly different interests and needs. In each case, the xRM systems are ‘virtual experts’ that guide users – with almost no learning curve – from multiple points of view.

When we think about enriching and streamlining the visibility of information to a variety of stakeholders, an xRM approach has clear value. Because it is designed to automate end-to-end workflow, xRM can also enable rapid development of Dynamics-driven Project applications that can maintain optimal relationships with all of the stakeholders needed to deliver successful projects in the cloud.

We think it’s a great step forward that fills real needs in our customer and partner community, and improves the overall integration, value and usability of Microsoft technology. We’d love to know your thoughts.

There’s a lot of buzz about Project 2010 because it includes some great features that improve ease of use and extend web-based capabilities. There are some good reasons to start planning your migration strategy now. Project Server 2003 users in particular, can realize substantial savings by first migrating to Project Server 2007. For example, customers that buy 2007 licenses with Subscription Advantage now will not need to purchase SharePoint Server (MOSS) licenses when they later move to 2010 (which requires MOSS).

In migrating from Project Server 2003 to 2007, it is best to test and tune the migrated 2007 environment on separate servers before moving off of 2003 production. Many customers use hosting for this. They keep their onsite 2003 environment going while testing a hosted, migrated 2007 environment. When the new environment is ready, they redirect their users to the hosted environment. So the changeover is instantaneous with minimal disruption to end users.

Our customers tell us that hosting made a huge difference in the speed and simplicity of their migration – days instead of months. They like the fact that our staff has done scores of previous migrations, so they know the best practices. And they like the fact that with our month-to-month contracts, they can start with an onsite deployment, use hosting for migration, then return to an onsite environment at any time.

If you’re using Project, it’s time to plan your next move. And, if you’re not using Project Server, check it out here (you can try it for free ).

Other interesting links:
A guide for 2003 to 2007 migration

An invitation to participate in the 2010 Airlift at the 2009 Project Conference in September

I’ve been fielding a number of questions from our customers about this SharePoint SP2 bug because it can affect Project Server users, but hasn’t been completely explained in the postings to date. 

I have had good news for Project Hosts customers …

Because we do not deploy either Service Packs OR hot fixes without thorough testing, we normally know about any bug like this well before it comes anywhere near production. If necessary, we implement workarounds that mask the problem from our users (such as the one mentioned in this Project support blog). As I write this, we’re monitoring the issue while testing SP2 and the workaround, but we don’t expect any disruption for our users.

Below is the statement from the blog of SharePoint Corporate VP Jeff Teper:

During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

We are working to release a hotfix to automatically fix this issue. A manual work-around is currently available and involves customers re-entering their Product ID number (PID) on the Convert License Type page in Central Administration.  For more information and detailed steps please read the KB article [that will be published by Sunday, May 24] at  KB Article.

Microsoft recently released a new case study on one of our customers: MEDSEEK.

MEDSEEK uses hosted EPM services from Project Hosts to supply web portal and collaboration solutions to over 600 healthcare organizations nationwide. View the case study on the Microsoft web site by clicking here.