bug list

[John Horton]

A co-worker of mine is going to some dinner event with representatives from
the Microsoft Project development team. I was asked to give him some comments
about what I think of Project Enterprise 2007. Below is my first draft.


I wish we had the ability to:
1) give unsophisticated users a single click for Save, Publish and Check-In.
2) to save without being prompted to create a Workspace.
3) publish from a consolidated project.
4) refresh formulas in a project without opening the project. Specifically
to compare a date to the current date with PWA. (to filter by tasks that are
to start this week)

Stuff that is troublesome:
1) The queue gets stuck
2) When MS Project crashes the open files are unavailable until an admin
does a Force Check-in.
3) The security model is convoluted and confusing.
4) Bug regarding change of ownership.
5) More miscellaneous little bugs then a Commodore 64 running Vista.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

John --

I appreciate your willingness to air your grievances with this forum, but I
doubt your comments will actually help anyone. For example, in the first
section of comments:

1. Your users need training. The more unsophisticated they are, the MORE
they need training. Project Server 2007 is an extremely powerful and
sophisticated project management system, and "dumbing it down" for your
unsophisticated users is not a real option. Your comment shows the sheer
folly of trying to implement this tool without confronting the people issues
and process issues that can offer success or guarantee failure.

2. The system does not prompt when saving a project. It DOES prompt when
publishing the project the first time. I fail to see how this is a problem
of any kind. See my comments on #1 above.

3. The default permissions in Project Server 2007 allow you to publish a
master project. If you cannot do so, then your Project Server administrator
has disabled this permission, foolishly I might add, since it is safe to
both save and publish a master project. I suggest that he/she re-enable
this permission (click Server Settings - Additonal Server Settings in PWA).

4. I actually agree with you on this one.

In the second second section of comments:

1. This is a known and documented bug. Believe me, the Project Server
development team is working on this for SP1.

2. Your PM's can check in their own projects from the Project Center page
in PWA by clicking the Go To pick list and selecting the "Check in my
projects" item on the pick list. From there, the PM can select their stuck
project in the data grid and then click the Check In button.

3. The security model is what it is, whether you understand it or not. If
you are the Project Server administrator, then I would suggest you purchase
our newly released book on Implementing and Administering Microsoft Office
Project Server 2007, which gives a thorough treatment on the security model
with clear and undertandable explanations. It is available for purchase at:

https://projectserverbooks.com/shopexd.asp?id=213&bc=no

4. This is a known and documented bug as well. Again, the development team
is working on this in SP1.

5. This comment is purely childish. Do you seriously expect Microsoft to
respond to a silly comment such as this?

By the way, in case you don't like my response to your comments, please
understand that I don't work for Microsoft, I don't own their stock, and I
owe them nothing. However, I HAVE worked with every EPM solution from
Project Central, through Project Server 2002, 2003, and 2007. Each one was
a sophisticated and yet imperfect project management tool. Hope this helps.

 

[/pd]

I come from two different worlds.. in my professional duties I use ps07 and
use this forum as a sounding board to MSFT project team. I hope they scrape
out the issues that the community is discussing in here. As such, we dont
have a bugzilla list to submit bugs too.. -

On a personal interest basis, I am heavily entrenched with Google Products,
I know that google actually listens 'sliently' in the groups section and
carves out product strategies and features based on what they read and see
from community feedback.. that is part of their culture !!

Albiet, these two culture may be different- I am pretty confident that MSFT
listens and they are listening to learn !!

having said that and having read things like "The security model is
convoluted and confusing.:" or "More miscellaneous little bugs then a
Commodore 64 running Vista." is really not cohesive enough for the MSFT to
reaction. If you have something that you really know about and what to share,
please feel free to do so here !!

...and btw many of the issue you address are more of an error between the
keyboard and the chair !!

/pd

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

/pd --

"...many of the issues you address are more of an error between the
keyboard and the chair !!" You are WAY too funny, my friend!

eDale

 

[John Horton]

It is clear that my frustration and sarcasm are far from appreciated. I agree
that this is the wrong forum for spouting in this fashion. Dale, your
reputation precedes you and the fact that I required your admonishment is a
bit humbling.

I work in an environment with a far from optimal user group. If all of my
users were tech workers most of my issues would not be so problematic. I have
over 100 published projects, roughly 30 users and hundreds of resources. Some
of my users have engineering degrees and some have high school diplomas. This
is the reality of working in an industrial environment. As for education, I
spend ½ of my time hand holding and educating my users. At some point they
have other work they need to do.

I believe I was not clear about the Master Projects. I embed the Projects in
an offline MPP for a weekly high level meeting. At the end of the meeting I
can save everything back to the server but can not publish. I assume this is
because I am embedding in the non-server project file. As a whole this
practice of using the off line MPP for the meeting view may be undesirable
but I do not see a way around it at this point.

On a happy note I had never used the Check My Projects in from the Drop Down
and am happy to have found it.

I will get the book.

The final comment was a poor attempt at humor. I pay the mortgage with MSP
and at this point in my life would have it no other way. The roll out of 2007
has been quite a learning experience and has given me a bit of gray hair.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

John --

Thanks for your candor. After I "slapped you around" on the last point in
your original post, I regretted it. I try always to be kind to everyone,
regardless of what they ask or what they say in this newsgroup. My comment
to you was out of character for me, and I sincerely apologize to you.
Understanding now that it was a faint stab at humor makes me regret my
comments even more.

You are in good company at work, my friend. Because of your unsophisticated
users, there must be a mandate "from on high" that makes the proper use of
Project Server 2007 mandatory. The mandate should state that you will teach
everyone how to use the tool properly and then they must perform AS TAUGHT,
or else this becomes an issue at their next performance review. I would ask
you this, however: have you actually put your PM's through a formal
training class on using Project Server 2007 correctly? By this I mean a
minimum two to three day class using real curriculum. If not, you must do
this. Our "Managing Enterprise Projects..." book functions as both
curricula and a reference manual and I would commend it to you for training.

Regarding your approach with a master project, creating it as an .mpp file
was the source of your problem. Why don't you create and save a master
project in the Project Server 2007 system with the subprojects on which you
need to report, and then open it in Offline mode to use at a meeting? Then,
if you make changes to any of the subprojects during the meeting, you can
return the master project to Online mode and then save and publish the
master project and subprojects. Just a thought.

I also pay my mortgage with Microsoft Project 2003 and 2007, and with
Project Server 2003 and 2007. In the last 16 months, our company has
written three books totaling around 2700 pages on the 2007 versions of each
project. The two books on Project Server 2007 were quite a challenge at
times, and a bit dismaying as well, given the many bugs we uncovered and
documented in the process. Nevertheless, Project Server 2007 is an
extremely powerful enterprise project management tool, and I believe SP1
will reduce our level of frustration to a manageable level, and deliver the
business value we seek in the process. Hope this helps.