P
PG
Is Project Server 2007 Ready for Primetime?
We have been installing and testing PS2007. To prepare, we sent one person
to MS administrator training and another to WSS training. We also purchased
the new books on Project 2007. We currently run PS 2003. We made a decision
to install 2007 totally separately on a new machine and isolated from our
ongoing work. We are also attending the Project conference.
Here is what we have found.
1. The courses offered by MS are just not very valuable. They are
disorganized. The course on administering PS2007 was far too IT – not really
about the central issues of having a PS.
2. The installation documentation is poor. There are lots of words. But,
having written lots of documentation, it looks to me as if the writers were
not actually sitting in front of a machine doing an install from scratch –
and better yet having someone who has not been involved do the install. The
documentation is not always clear which account to use and in what context.
3. We also found the cube building as described did not work. We found a fix
on a totally different web page not related to PS. The fix worked. We have
posted that.
4. The point of 2 and 3 is to ask MS to do things from scratch to the end.
They could also use screen shots!
5. In 2003 (as borrowed from previous work) there were Project Server
guides. These were not IT manuals on how to install only – but also about how
to configure and run the system. There are really no good books yet. We
bought Marmel but it’s too incomplete on the server configuration. There are
many other people writing books but they aren’t ready. The online help is not
any better. When you are trying to use a system, you want to understand the
logic of the choices you make.
6. The WServices (PSI) view makes total sense from the position of
separation of data from application. But, when you design a web service you
might not be doing the specific one that a specific application needs.
(Remember hailstorm?) MS writes “general†psi services – like they write
general “buttons†for visual studio. They don’t write the best – just working
ones. MS decided not to provide documentation to the structure of the
database(s) nor how they are used or the values or relationships. By doing so
they deny easy development of software for specific use – yes, in violation
of separation – but when done carefully this is OK.
7. Our current experience also suggests that the PSI web services are not
well tested and we just can’t trust them for everything. We have used them
for some things that work and others that don’t.
8. We have specific needs to access the data for a very specific report
where PSI does not work. So, we have studied the database structure – and it
is WAY better than before. The prior version had all the complexities of two
representations of the same thing. Keys had to be remapped between
contexts..thanks for cleaning that up. But, HOW COME you don’t use
referential integrity? Having FK’s would help understand how your tables
relate. This also raises for me the question of where to you enforce
integrity? Gosh, I hope you aren’t doing it in code – but I guess MS is
because I don’t see the FK’s in the database design. I am also surprised the
values in the tables are not controlled by other tables. Instead, like in the
“task values†for enterprise fields you have a PSI enumeration but no table.
How come? Why are you putting values in code? Why don’t you put things in the
DB so that errors can’t be introduced?
9. We have been thoroughly perplexed at the inability of the “importâ€
function of PS2007. It creates duplicate enterprise fields. We think we can
remove them at the db level. This problem has been reported in the discussion
group. This is so basic – how can we then trust the system in more
sophisticated areas? We have found if you create a project new, you won’t get
this issue. We had decided not to use the migrate just because we really
didn’t trust that – but instead wanted to bring down each project from our
current system, save it as mpp, then upload – and check it as we uploaded. We
are really frustrated about this. We also found that during import, if a
calendar is rejected at step 5 – after you have spent lots of times getting
all mappings straight – that the process can find an invalid calendar and
even though you are given the option to change it – that doesn’t work. We
tried to just change our offending calendar to standard – which “has to work’
– but it didn’t.
10. And due to lack of documentation, we are having a hard time figuring out
how to turn things off we don’t need or want. Or, how to fix things.
11. We have experienced repeated crashes of the Fat Client (Project
Professional) on Vista 32. It seems that once something “goes wrong†you are
susceptible to repeated crashing. The only solution was to go into the
directories where MS stores things in your profile and physically delete the
global.mpt and then delete all other subdirectories. The crash stops – we
hope. At least it did for last day.
So, is PS2007 ready for production? Should we wait for SP1 – a much needed
one! Also, is anyone aware of hotfixes yet? We have a comprehensive support
from MS but wonder if its worth trying to get them?
BTW, thanks millions to all those MVP and others who comment on this
board—your work has been invaluable.
We have been installing and testing PS2007. To prepare, we sent one person
to MS administrator training and another to WSS training. We also purchased
the new books on Project 2007. We currently run PS 2003. We made a decision
to install 2007 totally separately on a new machine and isolated from our
ongoing work. We are also attending the Project conference.
Here is what we have found.
1. The courses offered by MS are just not very valuable. They are
disorganized. The course on administering PS2007 was far too IT – not really
about the central issues of having a PS.
2. The installation documentation is poor. There are lots of words. But,
having written lots of documentation, it looks to me as if the writers were
not actually sitting in front of a machine doing an install from scratch –
and better yet having someone who has not been involved do the install. The
documentation is not always clear which account to use and in what context.
3. We also found the cube building as described did not work. We found a fix
on a totally different web page not related to PS. The fix worked. We have
posted that.
4. The point of 2 and 3 is to ask MS to do things from scratch to the end.
They could also use screen shots!
5. In 2003 (as borrowed from previous work) there were Project Server
guides. These were not IT manuals on how to install only – but also about how
to configure and run the system. There are really no good books yet. We
bought Marmel but it’s too incomplete on the server configuration. There are
many other people writing books but they aren’t ready. The online help is not
any better. When you are trying to use a system, you want to understand the
logic of the choices you make.
6. The WServices (PSI) view makes total sense from the position of
separation of data from application. But, when you design a web service you
might not be doing the specific one that a specific application needs.
(Remember hailstorm?) MS writes “general†psi services – like they write
general “buttons†for visual studio. They don’t write the best – just working
ones. MS decided not to provide documentation to the structure of the
database(s) nor how they are used or the values or relationships. By doing so
they deny easy development of software for specific use – yes, in violation
of separation – but when done carefully this is OK.
7. Our current experience also suggests that the PSI web services are not
well tested and we just can’t trust them for everything. We have used them
for some things that work and others that don’t.
8. We have specific needs to access the data for a very specific report
where PSI does not work. So, we have studied the database structure – and it
is WAY better than before. The prior version had all the complexities of two
representations of the same thing. Keys had to be remapped between
contexts..thanks for cleaning that up. But, HOW COME you don’t use
referential integrity? Having FK’s would help understand how your tables
relate. This also raises for me the question of where to you enforce
integrity? Gosh, I hope you aren’t doing it in code – but I guess MS is
because I don’t see the FK’s in the database design. I am also surprised the
values in the tables are not controlled by other tables. Instead, like in the
“task values†for enterprise fields you have a PSI enumeration but no table.
How come? Why are you putting values in code? Why don’t you put things in the
DB so that errors can’t be introduced?
9. We have been thoroughly perplexed at the inability of the “importâ€
function of PS2007. It creates duplicate enterprise fields. We think we can
remove them at the db level. This problem has been reported in the discussion
group. This is so basic – how can we then trust the system in more
sophisticated areas? We have found if you create a project new, you won’t get
this issue. We had decided not to use the migrate just because we really
didn’t trust that – but instead wanted to bring down each project from our
current system, save it as mpp, then upload – and check it as we uploaded. We
are really frustrated about this. We also found that during import, if a
calendar is rejected at step 5 – after you have spent lots of times getting
all mappings straight – that the process can find an invalid calendar and
even though you are given the option to change it – that doesn’t work. We
tried to just change our offending calendar to standard – which “has to work’
– but it didn’t.
10. And due to lack of documentation, we are having a hard time figuring out
how to turn things off we don’t need or want. Or, how to fix things.
11. We have experienced repeated crashes of the Fat Client (Project
Professional) on Vista 32. It seems that once something “goes wrong†you are
susceptible to repeated crashing. The only solution was to go into the
directories where MS stores things in your profile and physically delete the
global.mpt and then delete all other subdirectories. The crash stops – we
hope. At least it did for last day.
So, is PS2007 ready for production? Should we wait for SP1 – a much needed
one! Also, is anyone aware of hotfixes yet? We have a comprehensive support
from MS but wonder if its worth trying to get them?
BTW, thanks millions to all those MVP and others who comment on this
board—your work has been invaluable.