Project Server 2010 BetaYes, you too can get a preview of what’s coming in Microsoft Project 2010.  Microsoft has released the beta for Microsoft Project Professional 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2010.  We’ve seen these products in the office for some time as HMS is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner who has the Microsoft EPM Competency plus I worked on Microsoft’s EPM Partner Advisory Council for years and completed my participation on that council only recently. 

But now you can start seeing what will be coming in the new product.

Among functionality that I think will be well received you’ll see:

In Project Professional:

  • Timeline View.  This is like the Visio timeline bar that many people like for summary views
  • Team Planner.  This interactive view lets team managers drag and drop tasks onto a team member’s schedule
  • The ribbon menu (also known as the fluid user interface)

In Project Server:

  • Integrated Portfolio and Project Server functionality.  Yes, they’re together at last.
  • Project Data Pages.  Not enough has been said about these but I think they may end up being the most powerful aspect of what people will now do with Project Server.  The PDPs let you create forms to gather data and then use workflow to move data into different parts of the EPM system based on the context of the data at that stage of the workflow.

You can find the beta for Project Professional 2010 at: www.microsoft.com/project/2010/en/us/default.aspx.
The Project Server 2010 beta is at:
www.microsoft.com/global/project/2010/en/us/RichMedia/secondary/server_home.html.