SharePoint.com Now Supported

A quick note that the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 Standard or Professional now supports Office 365 and SharePoint.com. This means you can share projects to internal SharePoint sites using your regular windows credentials, to external SharePoint sites using Forms Based Authentication or to sharepoint.com sites using Claims Based Authentication. The nice thing about all these options? You don't have to worry about selecting the right one, our IntelliGantt Add In figures it out for you.

Our IntelliGantt Web Part has of course been working with SharePoint online for a while. Now that the IntelliGantt Add In communicates with SharePoint online as well, the best way to sync and interact with tasks is ready. You have full mapping features available so that you can choose whether a field is updated bidirectionally, or is only owned by MS Project. This means no one will ever overwrite your start and due dates in MS Project again.

Here is the 'proof' screenshot:

But really, there's no better way than to check it out.

MS Project Tasks to SharePoint Calendar Events

When we built the new IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 Standard or Professional one of the features we were most excited about was the ability to choose a summary task within a project and send it to any SharePoint list. By default the add in will give you a choice of task lists, however, you can actually choose any SharePoint list. As it happens we've had numerous people asking if the IntelliGantt Add In can pubilsh project tasks/milestones to a SharePoint Calendar list. The answer is an emphatic Yes! Here's how you do it.

Let's start with a basic MS Project plan. There are two summary tasks, one called 'Milestones' containing milestones and one called 'Tasks' containing tasks. We've gone so far as to link the milestones to task endpoints just to give them a bit more weight.

Now we would like to get these milestones into a SharePoint Calendar to share and highlight these very important dates.

First we will select the 'Milestones' summary task to establish our root. Next, we will click on the illuminated 'world' image in the 'Sites' ribbon group. We use the dialog that pops up to connect to a SharePoint site.

By default this listing shows only the task lists, so we click 'OK' to save the site connection and move to the list connection dialog where we have more options. Click on the newly illuminated world image in the 'Lists' ribbon group. That will bring up a dialog with a few more options.

Click the 'Template ID' checkbox and enter the server template ID for a calendar list-- 106. Note that the calendar list appears in our list selection box. (For a table of more SharePoint server template IDs go here).

We're not quite done yet though. Since the default settings are geared toward task lists, we need to create a setting that is geared towards calendars. So select the 'Calendar' list and then click the 'Settings' button. The current settings dialog pops up. We will need to create new settings so click the 'Create' button.

I recommend we name the new settings something crazy, like 'Calendar'.

Finally, we will clear all the fields that our Calendar list doesn't support and map 'Start' and 'Finish' MS Project fields to something the Calendar list does support-- EventDate and EndDate.

Now we are ready to send the milestones to the Calendar list. Select the Calendar list and (optionally) choose to clear the calendar before we send the new data. Finally, click 'OK'.

In MS Project we see that all the sub tasks of the 'Milestone' summary task now have hyperlinks associated with them. Each hyperlink points to their corresponding event in the SharePoint calendar list we chose.

Let's see what things look like up in SharePoint. First a view of the milestones in the March calendar:

And then a view of the milestones in the April calendar:

Remember that we did set up the display name as bi-directional (ie. To SharePoint and From SharePoint). Therefore, changes we make to the calendar names in SharePoint can be brought back into MS Project. Also, changes to the milestone dates in MS Project can be sent to the SharePoint Calendar list as well.

Finally, if you would like to share the 'Tasks' to a SharePoint task list, simply click on the 'Tasks' summary task, connect it to a site and then a list.

MS Project Deadlines to SharePoint Tasks

Just a quick note to let folks know that we received a request to support the Deadline field in our IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010. So now it is! It is a date time field in project and can be mapped to a date time field in your task list that you can create. By default we suggest calling it 'Deadline', though you can map it to any date time SharePoint list column.

Also, not only Deadline, but all date time fields in MS Project will pay attention to the formatting options of your date time SharePoint list columns and change behavior based on the display options. If your SharePoint date time column shows date only, then the IntelliGantt Add In will compare year, month and day only when evaluating whether the field should be updated. If the SharePoint date time column shows date and time, then the IntelliGantt Add In will compare year, month, day, hour, minute and second when evaluating whether the field should be updated. In this way we make the sync cycle smarter so that only necessary updates happen. The end result is if you have turned on 'Notify when changed' within the SharePoint list, you won't be bombarded with useless update information.

Working with Master Projects

We just posted a new video showing the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 working not only with individual projects but with a master project as well. Basically a single MPP file is connected to a SharePoint task list. Then a second MPP file is connected to a second SharePoint task list. Finally, the two MPP files are added as subprojects to a master project. The master is then sent to a third SharePoint task list. Better yet, the IntelliGantt Web Part is used to display both projects, their hierarchy and task dependencies in a single view.

The cool thing about this video that doesn't come across (because I didn't want it to take tooooo long) is that all the connection information is self-contained. Each MPP file will remember its connection information, and the master project will remember it's SharePoint connection information. Why is this so great? Because it means the project managers can focus on their mpp plans, someone else can create a master using the two (or three, or four... there is no limit) and no data will be overwritten-- everyone can carry one oblivous to how many times an mpp file may be shared and where it goes.

This has immediate ramifications for projects that have 'backup' project managers that take over when a primary project manager goes on vacation. They simply check the mpp file out from SharePoint and continue on as normal. The IntelliGantt Add In will remember the connection information and they just need to click 'Refresh' once in a while. Or, better yet, they can turn on the auto-synchronization feature.

The key is the IntelliGantt Add In can adjust which text field it is using to store this SharePoint connection data. By default it's set to use Text11, however you can use any of the 30 available custom text fields. When you choose a custom text field to use, the settings files defined for the new Active Data Field are loaded into you dropdown list. Each active data field can have its own list of settings files-- basically whole new silos of sharing information and possibilities.

Just remember to be a bit parsimonius with who gets to update a tasks hyperlinks property. After all, there's only one of those!

One MS Project Plan to Many SharePoint Sites

Generally speaking, it makes sense to send one MS Project plan to a single SharePoint task list within a single site. However, real-life MS Project plans can get very large, easily passing one-thousand tasks items. When this happens there are often multiple groups involved that may or may not benefit from see the entire project plan.

For this reason we are introducing the ability to share any summary task within an MS Project plan to a SharePoint task list. Furthermore, the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 even lets you share any summary task to any SharePoint site (and one of its Task Lists).

This means you can have a single large MS Project plan and 'carve' it up up collaboratively (and metaphorically) so that your planners might see tasks within a 'Planning' SharePoint site or Task list while your engineering team might see tasks under a 'Executing' SharePoint site or Task list.

First up is sharing multiple summary tasks to multiple SharePoint task lists within the same site:




Next is sharing multiple summary tasks to multiple SharePoint sites:




Which configuration you choose is up to you. In one case it may make sense to use multiple tasks lists within the same SharePoint site if you project has well-defined phases, like a scrum for example.

For other projects, where perhaps you are working with a 3rd party vendor, you may wish to share a summary task with an external SharePoint site and other summary tasks with internal groups.

However you wish to share your project, and with whomever you choose, the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 will be flexibile enough to meet your needs.

Connect Project Resources with SharePoint Members

One of the significant issues we've seen with MS Project + SharePoint synchronization is matching MS Project resources with SharePoint members. A resource may be spelled one way in MS Project but exists as a member in SharePoint completely differently. As a result, connecting the two was a point of emphasis for the new IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010.

In this video we try to show how simple it is now:



The key takeway is we've brought the task of aligning resources and members front and center now right on the ribbon. In fact, we feel this is a great example of a complicated action you can accomplished right on the ribbon that required a dialog box back in the days of menus.

Now, given any shared project, just select the MS Project resource in the bottom dropdown and the corresponding SharePoint member in the top dropdown and click 'Connect'.

Some would say it's actually intuitive now.

IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010 Intro Videos

More videos are on the way of course, but here are the first two. They show how you connect and send an MS Project plan to SharePoint, and how you connect and receive a project plan.

How to connect and send:




How to connect and receive:



We'll be making many videos over the next few days to show off all the features.

One bonus is it also shows how well the IntelliGantt Web Part supports the story.

IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project 2010

We are finally ready to start the beta testing of our new IntelliGantt Add In for Microsoft Project 2010. This is a major upgrade from the current version and features new design philosophies reflecting the feedback we've received from users over the past 5 years. Yes, we've been working with SharePoint and MS Project for 5+ years now and we're tremendously excited with this new version as it includes:

• Rich Ribbon Integration within MS Project 2010
• Self-Contained mpp files (this means you can place the mpp file anywhere and it will know what SharePoint server and Task List to talk to)
• Multi-user support (because the mpp files are now self-contained, you can give them to colleagues and IntelliGantt will know what to do)
• Auto Synchronization configuration from 1 minute to 20 minute intervals
• Directional Data Flow (you choose which data fields go to the SharePoint server and/or come from the SharePoint server)
• Crazy Simple MS Project Resource to SharePoint Member mapping
• Tethering!!!

A word (or two) about tethering. Since it looks like this Internet thing is going to catch on, we've made the transition to design the IntelliGantt Add In assuming that your computer is in fact always connected to the network. This let's us do something really cool-- immediately send your changes in MS Project to the task list in SharePoint.

Why is this a good thing? Consider the common 'sync on demand' scenario and the dreaded 'who's data wins?' connundrum. With tethering, this problem goes away because, since the changes are immediate, it's just like you've edited the SharePoint Task List itself.

Tethering also lets us take advantage of a more efficient auto-sync scenario. In fact, when combined with our Directional Data Flow, we believe the time-sink bane of project managers everywhere can be related to the dustbin. Of course I'm talking about change approvals.

In the coming days we will post examples of these exciting features, and even a few we haven't mentioned yet.

By the way, if you have a huge, hairy, nasty mpp file that can't possibly be sent to a SharePoint Task List, feel free to send it to us. We'll be happy to make sure it works.

Forms Based SharePoint Login

A few people have been asking about this as they're working with IntelliGantt. SharePoint has a feature whereby you can 'disable' NTLM login and instead present a web form authentication challenge. Up to now IntelliGantt would alway use NTLM by default. However, with build 4.0.0.146 (which we just posted), IntelliGantt provides the ability to force a login when first connecting with a SharePoint site.

The built-in Windows Login form will still appear, but the value IntelliGantt will use will duplicate the same username/password values in the form authentication.

By default this 'Require Initial Login' is turned off. You turn it on by opening the 'SharePoint Settings' form. In the desktop this is found under the 'Settings' menu. In the Add In, it's also found under IntelliGantt->Settings. Because there are just a few way to customize SharePoint my hunch is you'll see more SharePoint Settings options in the future.

Here is the screen with the checkbox at the bottom. In case you're wondering what all the 'priority' and 'status' strings are for, this is how International users can customize the priority and status fields IntelliGantt uses when updating task values in SharePoint in your preferred language.

Working with SharePoint Members as Project Resources

We get this question quite a bit so we've posted a 'Best Practices' page explaining how both IntelliGantt and the IntelliGantt Add In for Microsoft Project work with SharePoint members. They also work with Outlook contacts and resources you add manually, but the SharePoint case is the most interesting.

The two use cases this page covers:

1) Building a simple resource pool from a SharePoint site
2) Turning resources that are really roles into actual SharePoint members (and yet they're still project members-- it's magic!)

Well, not quite magic. Basically, it all comes down to the email address. In MS Project, resources support an Email Address field. This is not in the default view so you have to insert the field into the 'Resource Sheet' view. If the Email Address field for an MS Project resource matches the Work Email field of a SharePoint member, they're connected! That's the manual approach.

Because connecting resources to SharePoint members requires this bit of housekeeping, there's really a third reason for the 'Best Practices' page-- how to add 'SharePoint Approved' members as resources to your project. With the IntelliGantt People pool, once they've been retrieved from SharePoint its as simple as clicking a checkbox.

Hopefully the 'Best Practice' page is more than a good read-- we want it to be helpful too!

IntelliGantt Custom Fields for SharePoint Released

We posted the release to the servers last night with the new features that many people have been asking for. The biggest by far is the ability to work with over 70 custom fields in your SharePoint task list.

Whether you're using IntelliGantt Plus or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project, now those 30 Text fields, 20 Number fields, 10 Cost fields and 10 Date fields can be added dynamically to the SharePoint task list you publish. What's more, you can control the synchronization switches for each field. For example, you might have one field support two-way synchronization, while other fields are only published to SharePoint. Best of all, you can make these changes at runtime, so you may start out with a 2-way field and then later make it publish only.

Let's say a project manager can publish a simple project and enable Start Date and Due Date as 2-way synchronizable. Team members can then put their scheduling $.02 in and collaboratively adjust the timeline. When the project manager wants to set the schedule 'in stone', he or she can call up the IntelliGantt Collaboration Settings and change the Start Date and Due Date fields to publish only.

We have a screencast with IntelliGantt Plus and a screencast with the Microsoft Project Add In showing custom fields in action.

We think this will help shepherd projects through their many phases-- from collaborative planning to collaborative updating. Furthermore, with IntelliGantt's rich custom field support, you can now model your projects with your company's nomenclature and keep everyone on the same page, using the same terminology, that much better.

Finally, TeamDirection is investing a bit more in to SharePoint and its offerings. We've just opened a SharePoint section to the site that will expand in the days and weeks ahead to show how best to maximize this great collaboration platform.

Connecting Groove with MS Project

Now there's a task for you! Figuring out how to combine a solitary scheduling tool with a highly distributed, cross-firewall collaboration platform (disguised as an Office 2007 application). Thankfully we've been doing this kind of thing since 2003.

Even better, we've just updated our product to make the link between MS Project and Groove event tighter. We've had more than a few customers download our free Groove workspace that includes a Task List. As a result, we've had more than a few customers ask how they can get the tasks they've been working on in Groove in to MS Project. Tasks lists typically start out small, and then grow.

Here's our screencast showing how to create an MS Project plan from a Groove task list. As you can see, it's eerily similar to creating an MS Project plan from a SharePoint task list.

Also like the SharePoint demonstration, you'll notice the 'Add New Tasks Created in Groove' checkbox. This feature allows IntelliGantt to recognize new tasks added via Groove and have them show up in MS Project, ready to be scheduled by the project manager. We feel this will be a handy workflow solution whereby people can enter their tasks or issues and project managers can put them on a timeline.

The free Groove task list has been available for a few months now. I think a few thousand of you are using it. This feature is absolutely compatible with the TeamDirection Groove task list-- you can start using it today (it's almost like we planned it :).

Schedule Your SharePoint Task Lists with MS Project

[November 2008 Update - Version 4 Released with a Portfolio Dashboard!]



It's new feature time at TeamDirection once again. This one comes straight from customer requests (pleas?)-- 'How can I schedule a SharePoint Task List we are currently using?'

We thought about it long and hard... Connect an existing SharePoint Task List to MS Project? A SharePoint task list that is currently in use? Can't be done. It's impossible... Inconceeeee-ivable! (apologies to Wallace Shawn :)

And then we realized our IntelliGantt services for SharePoint get us most of the way there. A simple wizard, several cups of coffee for our vaunted programming staff and a few friendly reality checks from QA have led to the cusp of a significant update. The next build of IntelliGantt will be available on the site sometime Wednesday (July 18), but here's a screencast of an MS Project plan created from an existing task list.

There's also a nice supporting feature here, in the middle of the demo, where we show multiple task assignments supported in SharePoint. This has been another high priority customer request and we are happy to deliver this one as well. It does require WSS 3.0 (WSS 2.0 only supports single task assgnments), but if this feature is important to you, then you probably have WSS 3.0 already.

Speaking of features, you may have noticed the 'Add Tasks Created in SharePoint' checkbox. This deserves its own post, and screencast, but the short answer is it will allow MS Project (and IntelliGantt) to recognize tasks people enter into SharePoint with their web browsers. I'll talk about the specific use case soon, but suffice it to say people can add tasks, and project managers can schedule them.

Finally, MS Project users will be happy to note we are making the IntelliGantt Add-In available with its own separate installer. We found companies that have invested in MS Project would like an easier way to distribute and use our add-in. We understand and are happy to oblige. The IntelliGantt Add-In for MS Project will be a standalone MSI installer perfect for pushing via SMS or simply putting on a file server.

We appreciate all of our customer's feedback and encourage everyone to keep pinging us with your ideas. As you can see, your good ideas make it into IntelliGantt products!

Shhh TeamDirection Doing a Soft Launch

Until next week.

We're still putting the spit and polish on a couple things before let everyone know what's up. But if you're interested, you can get the following before anybody else:

1) IntelliGantt -- Our rebranded Project Management solution that incorporates Amazon's S3 storage services. Now sharing projects with anyone in the world takes about three clicks.

2) IntelliGantt Plus -- Everything that IntelliGantt does, PLUS the ability to tightly integrate with business apps (MS Project and Mindjet MindManager) and collaboration platforms (SharePoint Services 2003 & 2007 and Groove 2007).

3) IntelliGantt MS Project Add-In -- Give the power of sharing tasks to MS Project Standard and Professional without having to buy Project Server-- for less than the price of upgrading MS Project Standard to Professional.

And we have a spiffy new website too.

We've done project management for Groove Networks for many years, but now we're branching out to bigger platforms (SharePoint) and bigger ideas (our 'Internet Workgroup', which uses Amazon S3 to share worldwide).

But don't tell anyone quite yet :)