Microsoft has released a cumulative update for Project Server.  Such updates typically include components of both Project Server and Microsoft Office SharePointe Server (MOSS).  You’ll find the relative information below.

Webcast on the June Cumulative Update:
Information About Microsoft Project and Project Server Cumulative June Update

How to deploy cumulative updates for Project and Project Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239177.aspx

Rollup Packages:
This is a set of two rollup packages which contains all the fixes for WSS, Project Server and MOSS.  These packages should be used when MOSS is part of the deployment and/or you have language packs installed.  The Server Rollup Packages are much larger (~200MB each) but they will greatly simplify MOSS patch deployment.

• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (WSS server-package): June 29, 2010
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983311
• Office SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update server hotfix package (MOSS server-package): June 29, 2010
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983310/

Individual Product Packages:
Individual Packages are specific to a particular product like WSS and Project Server.  These are smaller downloads but they do not include language packs or patches for other products so patches for those products would have to be downloaded and installed separately. 

• Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 hotfix package (sts-x-none.msp): June 29, 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983307
• Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp-x-none.msp; Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): June 29, 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983312
• Description of the Office Project 2007 hotfix package (project-x-none.msp): June 29, 2010 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028571

Client Installation:

In order to install this hotfix, you will need to have Microsoft Project 2007 SP1 installed on the client: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937154/en-us

NOTE: Microsoft strongly recommends testing within a NON-Production environment prior to rollout.

Want to try Project Server2010 for free? The best way to do that is to get a free hosted trial.  Ah, but where would you find such a fabulous deal?  Right here, that’s where.  HMS Software, Microsoft and Project Hosts have teamed together so you can enjoy a free trial of Project Server 2010.  Just go to the HMS Free Project Server 2010 Trial site to take a look at the latest Project Server!

Heather O’Cull from the Microsoft Project Development team has a great blog post explaining how Project deals with the rate to consume a resource on a task through the Assignment Units field.  You’ll see there’s some debate from commenters on whether the change in this functionality is the right move but whether you agree or not, this is a key element of Project’s Calculation engine that it’s important to know about just so you know how it works behind the scenes.  For those who do resource calculations in Microsoft Project, I encourage you to take a look.   You can find the post at the Project Dev Team Blog.

Well, we told you it was coming and now the release of Microsoft Project and Project Server is just about upon us. On May 1st, Microsoft’s Enterprise clients and its partners will be able to access the official release of Microsoft Project 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2010. While the official name of the products has dropped the word “Office” (It was quite a mouthful), both products continue to be part of the Microsoft Office family of products and will be released at the same time.

That’s not an accident.

Microsoft has made it quite clear that its strategy is to leverage client’s interest in one product line by tying it to another. The Office group has done this very successfully. You don’t think anymore of just buying Word or just buying Excel. No, you buy one of the bundles of Office and those products are contained within it.

Project and Project Server will continue to have their own licneces and aren’t available as part of any of the Office bubdles for now but there a bunch of other things that have changed.

Say bye-bye to Office Project Portfolio Server
One big change is how Microsoft has rolled some of the most popular Portfolio Selection functionality from Portfolio Server 2007 into Project Server 2010. There will not be a Portfolio Server 2010 product and, while existing users of Portfolio Server 2007 will see updates of that stand-alone product for some time, any new development on Portfolio management will focus on Project Server.

Did you say 32bit? Bite your tongue!
It’s all 64 all the time for server installations now. Installing Project Server will no longer be possible on a 32bit version of Windows Server. The new 64bit architecture makes a lot more memory available to Project Server but may cause some companies to take pause as the consider the costs of hardware.

Project Standard and Project Professional will still work on both 64bit and 32 bit versions of Windows Vista and Windows7.

Gotta love SharePoint
Previous versions of Project Server could be installed with either the free Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) of the licensed Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). (Don’t you love how many acronyms we use in this industry?) Project Server will require users to have a MOSS license. The system will now longer support just the free WSS. This may be a license cost issue for some users.

So that’s the bad news. What’s the good news?
There’s good news in this release in a couple of areas. First of all, the underlying architecture of Project Server and Project Desktop hasn’t changed since 2007 and that will almost certainly mean the stability of the product at release time will be better than 2007 was.

Rather than rewriting the system’s architecture, there are new features that should be popular including Project Data Pages that allow Project data questionaires to be gathered online and then woven into a workflow, some improvements in the timesheet that will be great for those tring to do a full timesheet week and then update the project progress, some easier dashboarding tools that should allow people with intermediate skills to create great graphical representations of their data and, of course, the aforementioned Portfolio Selection functionality.

On the Desktop look for a distinction between Project Standard and Project Professional that will no doubt result in some kind of push to have people upgrade to the more powerful version.

Project Professional will have a new Timeline View and a new Team Management view which I think will go over well.
The scheduling tool will not default to automatic scheduling and you’ll be able to enter a description rather than a duration iin the duraton column as a sort of placeholder for the data to be entered later. Purists may howl at this. It’s another sign of how Microsoft Project has become so ubiquitous and how the product must now cater much more to non professional project managers.

Expect the Microsoft marketing beast to crank up to a fever pitch in the coming weeks. It’s already been moving forward at a pedestrian speed for months but as the product hits the market, Microsoft will do what it does best as it announces everything new in the Office 2010 family of products.

Microsoft has released a new cumluative update for Project 2007 and Project Server 2007. dated August 25, 2009. Information on the key elements is linked below. See Microsoft’s guidance on deploying cumulative updates for more information on how to deploy these updates if they’re applicable to you. The links below include both descriptions and download links so you can see if fixes you require are included in this cumulative update.

• Office 2007 Cumulative Update for August 2009
• Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project.msp): August 25, 2009
• Download of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project.msp): August 25, 2009
• Description of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp.msp, Pjsrvwfe.msp): August 25, 2009
• Download of the Project Server 2007 hotfix package (Pjsrvapp.msp, Pjsrvwfe.msp): August 25, 2009
• Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Sts.msp): August 25, 2009
• Download of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Sts.msp): August 25, 2009
• Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Coreserver.msp): August 25, 2009
• Download of the SharePoint Server 2007 Cumulative Update Server Hotfix Package (Coreserver.msp): August 25, 2009

For more information on all updates for Project and Project Server 2007, visit our Project Server updates page.

Stay tuned.  I’ll be blogging from the floor of the Microsoft Project Conference in Phoenix this week  as Microsoft kicks off its promotions for what’s to come in the next year with Microsoft Project, Project Server and Portfolio Server.

Over the next few days, the Non-Disclosure agreements for much of what is in Project 2010 will expire and we’ll be able to talk a lot more about what you’ll find in the next version of Project here in the blog.

Microsoft has released an update to Project and Project Server 2007.  The “April 2009 Cumulative Update (CU).  Includes a number of changes that didn’t make it into Service Pack 2 which we’ve mentioned here previously.  The links on our Project and Project Server Updates page include descriptions of what has been fixed in this update, instructions on how to apply the fixes and some best practices on how to deal with updates when they’re released.  You can also find on this page the links to the Project and Project Server Service Pack 2 which is an important update for all users of Microsoft Project 2007 regardless of which version you’re using.
Read more…

Over the years, one of the most challenging changes to the success of project management software has been the lack of training and training materials that are included in any deployment. I wrote about this time ago in an article entitled “Batteries not included“. Organizations used to allocate a portion of their implementation budget to training and, as the price of project management software has dropped to a fraction of it used to cost in the 70′s and 80′s the amount of budget available to training has dropped proportionally. When software costs less than $1,000 and the budget for training is only $100 how do you get enough training time in on the basics to become effective with the tool?
 
One of the aspects of project management software training that has evolved in a very good way has been the evolution of computer-based training. Vendors like Apex Web Media have made Microsoft Project Tutorial Videos that you can follow along at your own pace. If your copy of Microsoft is handy, you can watch the lesson, then immediately turn back to your project data and try some of the techniques you’ve just learned.
 
 
It’s easy to imagine such tools being used to bring a large number of users up to speed on basic functionality of Project at a very low cost. At Apex, I was able to try several introductory lessons for free online and I was happily surprised to find lessons not only in Project desktop but also in the Project Web Access client among the dozens of lessons available. This type of technology may just fill the gap for those Project deployments with limited training budgets.

For those waiting on Project and Project Server updates, there is a new “October Cumulative Update” (fixes) available for Project and Project Server:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958847

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958138

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=958138

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957696

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957696

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957691

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957691

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957693

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957693