This Week in Bamboo (October 31st, 2010 – November 6th, 2010)

If you want to know what’s new with This Week in Bamboo, please check out our storefront for our latest and greatest releases of the week. SharePoint Project Management Central Release 2.0 and SharePoint Task Master Release 2.0 for SharePoint 2007 are now available on our storefront with many new features and enhancements.  Please see more details on our Product Manager Announcement blogs: 

• Project Management Central 2.0 Release Announcement
• SharePoint Task Master 2.0 Release Announcement

Also this week, we fixed some bugs and released patches for the following products of SharePoint 2007: Site Creation Plus, Wiki Publisher and Cross List Web Part.  More information on all of the changes can be found below, along with new features, bug fixes and known issues related to additional products.

Major Enhancements Release for SharePoint 2007:

SharePoint Project Management Central SA12 Release 2.0

Note: Version 1.2 is no longer supported.  Customers require to upgrade to 1.8 then 2.0. 

New: 

– Manage Budget, Schedule and Progress:

• Budget Work and Cost – You can set the Budget Work and Budget Cost for the project in the Project Health list.
• Progress Management – The application updates the Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date based on the % Complete progress. The application updates the Project Actual Duration, Project Actual Cost and Project Actual Work when you select the Update Project Cost & Schedule.
• Baseline – Once you finalize the schedule and cost, you can now baseline the task, the project and the project cost. This helps you monitor whether there are any changes from the baseline as the project and the tasks progress.
• Create Tasks Using Start Date & Due Date, Start Date & Duration, or Start Date & Work – Users can now create tasks using the Start Date and Work if they know when the resource can start and how long it will take the resource to complete the task. Users can also create tasks using the Start Date and Duration if they know when the task can start and the length of the task.
• Multi-line Editing – You can now modify multiple task items at one time.
• Filtering – Users can filter the available views, such as All Tasks or Active Tasks, to display specific criteria.

– Resource Management:

• Task and Project Allocation – Users can assign the percentage of the time the resource is working on a particular project and on a particular task.
• Adding resource – Users can add resources to the project using the Enterprise Resource Pool (ERP) or add a SharePoint account as a resource to the list.

– Multi-Level Tracking and Reporting – Users can view data such as status, resource allocation and reports at the top level and at the project. Now, they can also review all this data at the department level.
– Customization – Additional “nested” master pages and “nested” CSS files are available for users to keep their customization, including modifications to logos or color, so that in future upgrades post R2.0, they will be retained.
– New Reports:

• Monthly Resource Cost/Work Allocation – Users can now view the resource cost/work allocation for each month in a line graph. They can also save this information to a list to reference it later on.
• Risk Reports for the Portfolio and all the Projects – Risk bubble charts are available at the project and at the top level. This helps users to track risks and the projects that are at risk.

– Administrative Tools:

• Health Check – The Health Check report displays which components in PM Central were not installed.
• Timer Job – The timer job for updating the Project Health list runs every 10 minutes. Users who want to update it sooner can manually run it.
• Monitoring the Upgrade of Sites – To help the users know what sites have been successfully upgraded to the new version, a monitoring page is available in Central Administration under Operations > Bamboo Project Management Central.
• Tooltips/Descriptions – To help users better understand what the components and fields do, we have added descriptions to each section as well as to the lists and fields

– Site Creation – During the project site or department site creation, users can choose which template to use from the drop-down selection. 
– Use Web License Manager 1.3.2
– Use merged assembly and deploys Bamboo.Core.wsp and Bamboo.Core.V1.2.msi.
– Use new bundle installation.

Limitations:

• Users using anonymous login will not be able to see the My Summary, Overview or Issues tabs on the project site because the application sets the list view in SharePoint using the filter with user account = [Me] to show in the tab. This is a SharePoint limitation. 

Known Issues:  

• With Task Master, while editing a task in the form to change the Units (days/hours/minutes) for the Duration or Work field, the browser window will display “boxes” instead of the site title.
• Users need to log in with a farm administrator account in order to filter the Department site if a PM Central top-site template was used to create the top site in the site collection and then a Department site was created. 
• The portfolio site’s Resource Cost Allocation Per Month tab only reports in U.S. currency.
• Users cannot create the department site or the project site from SharePoint. Users are required to select the Add New Project option under Central Actions to create a site from the portfolio site via the Site Creation Plus Web Part.
• Users should delete the department site from its Delete Site option in the department site’s Settings tab instead of from SharePoint Site and Work Spaces. This ensures that the department site item is deleted from the portfolio site’s department site list.
• When there are 1,500 or more items in the Tasks list, users should not use the Update Data/Update Now option to update the Bamboo Update Summary Project List Timer Job Settings Web Part or the Bamboo Update Task, Issues, Project Health Lists Timer Job Scheduler. Users will get the error, “An unexpected error has occurred.”
• Users using an anonymous login will not be able to see some tabs on the portfolio site (Risks, Schedule, Issues) because the AssignedTo column is included to be displayed in the Data-Viewer Web Part via List Rollup R5.0. This is a bug in the backend of the List Rollup Web Part.
• Resource Allocation and Capacity Planning at the portfolio site might result in request timed out in cases where there are 500 items or more in the Tasks list per project.
• In R2.0, Days Overdue is now a Bamboo DaysOverDue custom column. In order to see the accurate status of Days Overdue and Due, users are required to go to the Scheduling View under the project site’s Tasks tab first instead of going to the Tasks list’s Overdue Tasks View. By clicking on the Scheduling View, it will register today’s date and update the Days Overdue and Due columns.
• When exporting data to excel from the Data-Viewer Web Part where the data source is from List Rollup Schema, such as Project Tasks under the portfolio site’s Schedules tab, the site path is blank.

Requires the following versions for these Web Parts:

• Alert Plus Web Part Release 3.0.55 or later.
• Calendar Plus Web Part Release 4.0.96 or later.
• List Rollup Web Part Release 5.0.77
• SharePoint Task Master Release 2.0

SharePoint Task Master HW45 Release 2.0

New:

• Create Tasks Using Start Date & Due Date, Start Date & Work, or Start Date & Duration – Users can now create tasks using Start Date and Work if they know when the resource can start and how long it will take the resource to complete the task. Users can also create tasks using Start Date and Duration if they know when the task can start and the length of the task.
• Multi-line Editing – Users can now modify multiple task items at one time.
• Save and Refresh – Users can undo recent changes via the Refresh button if they have not saved the changes.
• Show Selection – Users can focus on a certain number of specific task items selecting on their check boxes and clicking the Show button.
• Bamboo Duration Column – A new Bamboo custom column displays Duration in days, hours or minutes.
• Filtering – Users can filter the available views, such as All Tasks or Active Tasks, to display specific criteria.
• Use WLM 1.3.2
• Use merged assembly and deploys Bamboo.Core.wsp and Bamboo.Core.V1.2.msi.
• Use new bundle installation.

Bug Fixes:

• Internal bug fixes for SharePoint Project Management Central SA12 R2.0
• OnPreRender:: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Known Issues:

• The Start Date and Due Date cannot be the same if the Duration is greater than zero and the Start Date and Due Date are set to Date only in the SharePoint list. See KB.12570.
• If the bar in the Gantt view is short, representing the length of a task, when users drag and drop, the result will not be as expected.
• If the options to use Save and Refresh are turned on, after clicking the Save button, the Filters drop-down list will not display any options. Users need to refresh the browser using the option Control + F5. With Task Master while editing a task in the form to change the Units (days/hours/minutes) for the Duration or Work fields, the browser window will display “boxes” instead of the site title.
• When users customize the default master page in SharePoint (blue band.master), Tasks Master shows no data.  Use SP Design to check if the <WebPartPages:SPWebPartManager runat=’server’/> tag resides outside the <form> tag of the page. If so, modify the custom Master Page and move the <WebPartPages:SPWebPartManager runat=’server’/> tag inside the <form> tag.
• When upgrading from 1.7 or older version to 2.0, the existing task items will be displayed as 0 value for Work and Duration columns. Users are required to click on the Recalculate button.
• When Task Master is first installed or new items are first added, even if the tool pane is set to Automatically Expand Level as blank, the items will be collapsed. Users are required to edit the tool pane and click Apply and OK again.
• When Task Master is not set to expand and users expand certain task summaries, if they go to another site and come back, this information is not cached in the browser, and all the items will be displayed as collapsed.
• When upgrading from 1.7 or older version to 2.0, if users add additional columns in the tool pane via Add Row they will receive a javascript error. Users are required to refresh the browser using Control + F5 prior to modifying the tool pane.

Patch update for SharePoint 2007:

Wiki Publisher HW51 Release 1.0.39

Bug Fixes:

• On Form Based Authentication web application, exported content only shows the login page.
• The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized in web application that uses only Basic Authentication Mode.

New:

• Use Bamboo.Licensing.dll V2.9

Site Creation Plus HW28 Release 1.4.30

Bug Fixes:

• Internal bug fixes to support for SharePoint Project Management Central SA12 R2.0

Cross List Web Part HW09 Release 1.5.5

New:

• Use Bamboo.Licensing.dll v2.9 in merged assembly.
• Use Web License Manager 1.3.2.
• Use new bundle installation.