An authorized leak!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Where does a project start and end?
IntelliGantt takes pride in its ability to communicate and synchronize project data amoung a group of people. Each person gets an interactive view not only of the tasks assigned to them, but tasks assigned to others and indeed all of the tasks in the project.
But exactly which project is that? Is it the one tailored just for the group with only the most relevent information? Or is it everything- all 2000 tasks that the group must wade through in order to find what's important to them?
Similarly, is the tool the right one for the job? Does everyone on the team require a heavyweight or a lightweight on their desktop? What about a mix.
We'll be answering these questions and more in the coming months as we start taking a look at the next generation of combinatorial project management-- or 'CombiProjects' as we like to call them.
G'Day Mate!
But exactly which project is that? Is it the one tailored just for the group with only the most relevent information? Or is it everything- all 2000 tasks that the group must wade through in order to find what's important to them?
Similarly, is the tool the right one for the job? Does everyone on the team require a heavyweight or a lightweight on their desktop? What about a mix.
We'll be answering these questions and more in the coming months as we start taking a look at the next generation of combinatorial project management-- or 'CombiProjects' as we like to call them.
G'Day Mate!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
What I Would Do With Groove
I've been getting great feedback from my previous post spawned by Groove angst. It does seem like Groove is at an inflection point and, given the state of things today, hard to see how it captures the imagination. As Don Dodge likes to put it, not only is Groove a vitamin and not painkiller, but its unclear what vitamins and minerals are even in the Groove pill.
Given that, I think it's time to dream again. After all, if you asked any Groover back in, say, 2004 if 'Offline SharePoint Cache' was their vision I doubt they would have had kind words for you.
So now in 2008, as part of the world's greatest Office Suite, don't you think its OK to be a bit more expansive? Putting on my virtual 'Chief Software Architect' hat, here's what I would do: mimic SharePoint not by copying data locally and pushing it back but by copying their architecture model.
Web Parts and Web Services
Here's a secret-- SharePoint is not concerned so much about the UI experience as it is about the data experience. Yes there are some nice icons and the color scheme is pleasing, but I'm confident SharePoint out-of-the-box won't be pushing the UI design and interaction experience. They'd much rather developers and ISVs flesh that out because, in addition to making things look pretty, they most likely also specialize their solutions for more specific business needs than a mass-market SharePoint product can do out-of-the-box.
So they have a Web Part architecture that folks like Bamboo Solutions (one of our partners) can develop against and users can drop in to their SharePoint environment.
And they have a Web Service architecture that folks like TeamDirection can use to send data back and forth from client to server and do interesting things with.
As a developer, it really is a Model View Controller architecture with the three elements being three applications working together according to contract.
If Groove is looking to copy SharePoint, then this is what it needs to copy. Better yet, because it's on the client, it will be able to do a few things only a client application can do-- most importantly integrate with data on your desktop, but also providing a rich visual experience.
Here's the vision:
No more effort with Groove Forms. No need to reinvent the arduous aspects of HTML form development on the client. Instead...
Go to Silverlight as the UI within the Groove client. This will let you leverage the current investment Microsoft is making to build a generation of Silverlight programmers. But add a wrinkle...
Make Groove a Special Silverlight Container that gives permission for Silverlight to integrate with the desktop. This allows Groove to become the world's best Rich Internet Application delivery platform. Which is great as long as you don't forget to..
Continually invest in Groove Web Services so that developers can easily pump desktop data in and out of these Rich Internet Applications and tie their current business processes together.
I am not saying Groove shouldn't talk to SharePoint. Groove needs to talk to SharePoint for SharePoint will be the way business will organize their data and processes.
But Groove's opportunity is just as big, only instead of coalescing data and process according to the macro business needs, Groove can coalesce data and process according to the micro Information Workers needs. Perhaps its a bit trite, but I do think Groove fits very well in line with Microsoft's former 'Information at your fingertips', current 'your potential' and general 'empower the user' vision.
There's nothing wrong with going back to your roots. You just have to re-dream it sometimes.
Given that, I think it's time to dream again. After all, if you asked any Groover back in, say, 2004 if 'Offline SharePoint Cache' was their vision I doubt they would have had kind words for you.
So now in 2008, as part of the world's greatest Office Suite, don't you think its OK to be a bit more expansive? Putting on my virtual 'Chief Software Architect' hat, here's what I would do: mimic SharePoint not by copying data locally and pushing it back but by copying their architecture model.
Web Parts and Web Services
Here's a secret-- SharePoint is not concerned so much about the UI experience as it is about the data experience. Yes there are some nice icons and the color scheme is pleasing, but I'm confident SharePoint out-of-the-box won't be pushing the UI design and interaction experience. They'd much rather developers and ISVs flesh that out because, in addition to making things look pretty, they most likely also specialize their solutions for more specific business needs than a mass-market SharePoint product can do out-of-the-box.
So they have a Web Part architecture that folks like Bamboo Solutions (one of our partners) can develop against and users can drop in to their SharePoint environment.
And they have a Web Service architecture that folks like TeamDirection can use to send data back and forth from client to server and do interesting things with.
As a developer, it really is a Model View Controller architecture with the three elements being three applications working together according to contract.
If Groove is looking to copy SharePoint, then this is what it needs to copy. Better yet, because it's on the client, it will be able to do a few things only a client application can do-- most importantly integrate with data on your desktop, but also providing a rich visual experience.
Here's the vision:
No more effort with Groove Forms. No need to reinvent the arduous aspects of HTML form development on the client. Instead...
Go to Silverlight as the UI within the Groove client. This will let you leverage the current investment Microsoft is making to build a generation of Silverlight programmers. But add a wrinkle...
Make Groove a Special Silverlight Container that gives permission for Silverlight to integrate with the desktop. This allows Groove to become the world's best Rich Internet Application delivery platform. Which is great as long as you don't forget to..
Continually invest in Groove Web Services so that developers can easily pump desktop data in and out of these Rich Internet Applications and tie their current business processes together.
I am not saying Groove shouldn't talk to SharePoint. Groove needs to talk to SharePoint for SharePoint will be the way business will organize their data and processes.
But Groove's opportunity is just as big, only instead of coalescing data and process according to the macro business needs, Groove can coalesce data and process according to the micro Information Workers needs. Perhaps its a bit trite, but I do think Groove fits very well in line with Microsoft's former 'Information at your fingertips', current 'your potential' and general 'empower the user' vision.
There's nothing wrong with going back to your roots. You just have to re-dream it sometimes.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Ruminations on SharePoint and Groove
One of the great things about being a Microsoft MVP is the chance to go to the MVP Global Summit. Microsoft essentially takes the most knowledgable, most active and most vocal people in to answer lots of questions, preview what they're working on and shower you with positive vibes. The cynic would say its only smart tactics (which it is :), but judging by all the product teams representatives-- both the presenters and the note takers-- I certainly came away with the impression they listen to and value feedback.
Without going in to specifics, one of the more contentious issues seemed to be how SharePoint and Groove will work together. As Internet News reported of Ray Ozzie's and Steve Ballmer's speeches, they both received 'what about Groove' questions during their Q&A. Again without going in to details, the Groove folks are not enthusiastic on what is happening today and what is planned for tomorrow.
Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise if you read this blog for TeamDirection was the premier Groove ISV with its bundled Groove Project Edition. The fact that I attended the conference as a SharePoint MVP is probably all I really need to say.
But I can't help myself.
Groove’s strength is its decentralized architecture, which should be the perfect complement to SharePoint’s centralized architecture. Two people gave me perfect examples of this during the conference: Matt, a SharePoint MVP I sat next to at several SharePoint sessions and Steve Ballmer. The example was being able to suck all the information from disparate sources onto your personal device and keep it synchronized.
Fundamentally this is a powerful architecture because it can centralize data on your desktop-- the flip side of SharePoint powerful architecture centralizing data on your server. In fact, it used to be Groove could house the .NET framework in its environment and thereby give developers a rich user experience with sophisticated peer-to-peer networking for gathering and updating all this data. I'd even go so far as to argue that Groove, because of its ActiveX and then .NET support, was a compelling vision of a Rich Internet Application framework.
Yes, I did say 'was', for you'll notice that the .NET framework is no longer accessible within Groove and their forms environment is too primitive for robust development. As a developer, I would love to see .NET reappear within Groove and give me the ability to integrate with desktop applications and the powerful peer-to-peer workgroup synchronization.
It doesn't even have to be Windows Forms as the UI. I'm most impressed with Silverlight and think that should be bolted on to Groove as a means to marry a better Rich Internet Application solution with a great distributed synchronization solution.
Think about it-- a unified model for accessing centralized (SharePoint) or decentralized (Groove) data with a common Rich UI tailored to the groups needs. In fact, Groove can enhance Silverlight in two important ways:
1) It could facilitate data synchronization among a group of Silverlight users without having to poll a central server.
2) It could be a recognized 'Safehouse' whereby Silverlight would be allowed to access local resources. That is, the one place where Silverlight will let you access local resources like your file system or other application interfaces.
What's the one complaint RIA developers have? You can't do anything with the local resources. How much of an advantage (and selling point) would it be if Groove could fulfill this story? I'm looking forward to providing Silverlight solutions married to SharePoint as a means bring value add to my customers working on a SharePoint hub. But I'd love to be able to take, more or less, the same UI, plonk it into a Groove spoke and provide uniformity for ad-hoc workgroups too.
I think you could even pitch 'RIA Safety Zone' in an elevator :)
Without going in to specifics, one of the more contentious issues seemed to be how SharePoint and Groove will work together. As Internet News reported of Ray Ozzie's and Steve Ballmer's speeches, they both received 'what about Groove' questions during their Q&A. Again without going in to details, the Groove folks are not enthusiastic on what is happening today and what is planned for tomorrow.
Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise if you read this blog for TeamDirection was the premier Groove ISV with its bundled Groove Project Edition. The fact that I attended the conference as a SharePoint MVP is probably all I really need to say.
But I can't help myself.
Groove’s strength is its decentralized architecture, which should be the perfect complement to SharePoint’s centralized architecture. Two people gave me perfect examples of this during the conference: Matt, a SharePoint MVP I sat next to at several SharePoint sessions and Steve Ballmer. The example was being able to suck all the information from disparate sources onto your personal device and keep it synchronized.
Fundamentally this is a powerful architecture because it can centralize data on your desktop-- the flip side of SharePoint powerful architecture centralizing data on your server. In fact, it used to be Groove could house the .NET framework in its environment and thereby give developers a rich user experience with sophisticated peer-to-peer networking for gathering and updating all this data. I'd even go so far as to argue that Groove, because of its ActiveX and then .NET support, was a compelling vision of a Rich Internet Application framework.
Yes, I did say 'was', for you'll notice that the .NET framework is no longer accessible within Groove and their forms environment is too primitive for robust development. As a developer, I would love to see .NET reappear within Groove and give me the ability to integrate with desktop applications and the powerful peer-to-peer workgroup synchronization.
It doesn't even have to be Windows Forms as the UI. I'm most impressed with Silverlight and think that should be bolted on to Groove as a means to marry a better Rich Internet Application solution with a great distributed synchronization solution.
Think about it-- a unified model for accessing centralized (SharePoint) or decentralized (Groove) data with a common Rich UI tailored to the groups needs. In fact, Groove can enhance Silverlight in two important ways:
1) It could facilitate data synchronization among a group of Silverlight users without having to poll a central server.
2) It could be a recognized 'Safehouse' whereby Silverlight would be allowed to access local resources. That is, the one place where Silverlight will let you access local resources like your file system or other application interfaces.
What's the one complaint RIA developers have? You can't do anything with the local resources. How much of an advantage (and selling point) would it be if Groove could fulfill this story? I'm looking forward to providing Silverlight solutions married to SharePoint as a means bring value add to my customers working on a SharePoint hub. But I'd love to be able to take, more or less, the same UI, plonk it into a Groove spoke and provide uniformity for ad-hoc workgroups too.
I think you could even pitch 'RIA Safety Zone' in an elevator :)
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Bamboo Showing IntelliGantt at SharePoint Conference
If you happen to be in Nashville, Tennessee this week, have heard about SharePoint but are more interested in the real world than bits and bytes, you should check out the SharePoint Information Worker Conference being held at the Gaylord Opryland.
The folks at Bamboo Solutions were kind enough to take a few copies of IntelliGantt Plus along with them to demonstrate what a nice solution project publishing from TeamDirection and Project Aggregation from Bamboo can do for your project managers and teams.
Stop by the booth for a hands on demo. Better yet, try a trial of IntelliGantt Plus and Project.Share for IntelliGantt and see how it works for you.
The folks at Bamboo Solutions were kind enough to take a few copies of IntelliGantt Plus along with them to demonstrate what a nice solution project publishing from TeamDirection and Project Aggregation from Bamboo can do for your project managers and teams.
Stop by the booth for a hands on demo. Better yet, try a trial of IntelliGantt Plus and Project.Share for IntelliGantt and see how it works for you.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
How to invite IntelliGantt users from a SharePoint web page
We're hearing more and more customers ask questions about how they may put IntelliGantt project files up on SharePoint so that everyone can work from the same copy. We're pleased to surprise them when we answer that IntelliGantt is already doing this for them.
The usage scenario is as follows:
A project manager publishes a project from MS Project or from IntelliGantt Plus to SharePoint. Let's take the simple project shown below:
After publishing, IntelliGantt fills out the task list so that the project on your desktop and the task list on your SharePoint server are in sync. But notice there has been an additional modification to the Shared Documents web part on the SharePoint site:
If we click on the 'TeamDirection' folder in the Shared Documents web part we see the following:
The folder with the long, ugly (but unique! :) name is where the shared copy of your IntelliGantt project data lives. IntelliGantt uses the files in this folder to merge and synchronize all your changes (and makes for a great backup-- a users machine might blow up, but all they'd need is to click on the invite file to catch to up where the group is).
It's the file with the box around it that we want. This is an invitation file. By default, it is the name of the project. However, notice the full URL at the bottom of the image? It ends with .tdiconnect. TDIConnect files are the invitation glue that allow multiple IntelliGantt users to work and collaborate together on the same project. It's also the same file that is attached to the emails sent to users inviting them to the workspace.
A user might navigate to this folder and click on the invite file. Or, the site admin might put a link to the invite file in the links web part like so:
This puts the invite file front and center on the SharePoint workspaces home page for easy access:
At this point, the project is shared via SharePoint and is represented in the SharePoint task list for any SharePoint user to view and update. And the invite file is also available for any IntelliGantt user to join the 'behind-the-scenes' project to see a rich desktop view. For example, here Julia has clicked on the invite file and has joined the project:
This situation is also ideal if the user is a member of the project, needs to take it offline and update outside the office, return to the office and synchronize changes. This means a project team can really be a mix of project managers, SharePoint only users and mobile IntelliGantt users in and out of the office.
The usage scenario is as follows:
A project manager publishes a project from MS Project or from IntelliGantt Plus to SharePoint. Let's take the simple project shown below:
After publishing, IntelliGantt fills out the task list so that the project on your desktop and the task list on your SharePoint server are in sync. But notice there has been an additional modification to the Shared Documents web part on the SharePoint site:
If we click on the 'TeamDirection' folder in the Shared Documents web part we see the following:
The folder with the long, ugly (but unique! :) name is where the shared copy of your IntelliGantt project data lives. IntelliGantt uses the files in this folder to merge and synchronize all your changes (and makes for a great backup-- a users machine might blow up, but all they'd need is to click on the invite file to catch to up where the group is).
It's the file with the box around it that we want. This is an invitation file. By default, it is the name of the project. However, notice the full URL at the bottom of the image? It ends with .tdiconnect. TDIConnect files are the invitation glue that allow multiple IntelliGantt users to work and collaborate together on the same project. It's also the same file that is attached to the emails sent to users inviting them to the workspace.
A user might navigate to this folder and click on the invite file. Or, the site admin might put a link to the invite file in the links web part like so:
This puts the invite file front and center on the SharePoint workspaces home page for easy access:
At this point, the project is shared via SharePoint and is represented in the SharePoint task list for any SharePoint user to view and update. And the invite file is also available for any IntelliGantt user to join the 'behind-the-scenes' project to see a rich desktop view. For example, here Julia has clicked on the invite file and has joined the project:
This situation is also ideal if the user is a member of the project, needs to take it offline and update outside the office, return to the office and synchronize changes. This means a project team can really be a mix of project managers, SharePoint only users and mobile IntelliGantt users in and out of the office.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Vicarious Travel, Part II
My friend is at it again. There's a few perks to being young and mobile.
This time it's Costa Rica and Hermosa beach for a month of surfing. Well, he says he will be working on his Trileet games, but come on... please!
How can you think of surfing with all these deadlines? Deadlines, Nic, Deadlines!
This time it's Costa Rica and Hermosa beach for a month of surfing. Well, he says he will be working on his Trileet games, but come on... please!
How can you think of surfing with all these deadlines? Deadlines, Nic, Deadlines!
Sunday, December 16, 2007
MOSS and Task Integration Article Published
SharePoint Beagle's latest issue came out and it includes an article I wrote. No surprise, but its all about project management and SharePoint, how easy SharePoint makes it to collaborate with your project team and the tools you can use.
The short summary is Outlook and IntelliGantt work great for both the team member and the project manager. Read the article (and notice the accompanying pictures) and see what you think.
The short summary is Outlook and IntelliGantt work great for both the team member and the project manager. Read the article (and notice the accompanying pictures) and see what you think.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
A Quick Review of our Licensing
Sometimes the industry has conditioned consumers to such an extent that they assume the worst case-- no matter what. As much as we'd love to be a money-grubbing mega-corp fleecing the ma and pop shops of the world, the reality is we're the mom and pop shop and we're trying to bring the best value possible to other ma/pa shops AND even big mega-corps.
The way we do that is two-fold. One is philosophical, the other is grounded in easy economics. Let's tackle philosophy first.
Quick question-- why do most projects fail? The answer: communication. Lack of communication. Disjoint communication. Half-hearted communication. Meaningless communication. You get the idea.
If communication is improved, project success rates will improve.
IntelliGantt improves communication by making everyone a full participant in the project. It encourages the project manager to share project plans and team members to easily see their tasks, update them and even reschedule things if settings allow. Our 'Local Workgroup' solution enables this with Windows Server machines you most likely already have. Our friendly UI invites even the most jaded curmudgeon-- people like me :)
The 'Local Workgroup' scenario requires everyone using a copy of IntelliGantt on their desktop. The question, of course, is 'can't I do this with an online solution?'
On to the economics.
Yes, most certainly you can. However, unlike an online solution, you only pay for the IntelliGantt solution once. We don't require monthly fees to keep everyone involved. As you can see from our comparison with eProject (now Daptiv?), monthly fees for each user can really add up!
What's more, we even support a scenario where only one person, typically the project manager, needs an IntelliGantt license-- our SharePoint scenario.
Whether you're a ma/pa shop or the world's largest corporation, everyone likes to make a smart decision and save a buck. With SharePoint core services (WSS 3.0) you get a great collaboration platform from Microsoft FOR FREE! WSS 3.0 is perfect for creating workspaces for your team to work on projects. If only there was project software that could make it easy to publish and update task schedules in SharePoint...
Hello IntelliGantt Plus!
In the hands of the project manager, IntelliGantt Plus can publish and synchronize most aspects of a project plan with SharePoint workspaces and specifically Task Lists. Better yet, economically speaking, the project manager can purchase 1 license of IntelliGantt Plus (or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project), use the FREE WSS 3.0 package and invite as many team members to the workspace as he or she wants.
For example, say the project manager of the US Government creates a SharePoint workspace and publishes a project plan. In licensing theory, the project manager could invite every employee of the federal government to this workspace and all they would need is one license of IntelliGantt Plus. In fact, they could go ahead and invite all the citizens too :)
Improved communication and insanely great economics. Now that is a good deal!
The way we do that is two-fold. One is philosophical, the other is grounded in easy economics. Let's tackle philosophy first.
Quick question-- why do most projects fail? The answer: communication. Lack of communication. Disjoint communication. Half-hearted communication. Meaningless communication. You get the idea.
If communication is improved, project success rates will improve.
IntelliGantt improves communication by making everyone a full participant in the project. It encourages the project manager to share project plans and team members to easily see their tasks, update them and even reschedule things if settings allow. Our 'Local Workgroup' solution enables this with Windows Server machines you most likely already have. Our friendly UI invites even the most jaded curmudgeon-- people like me :)
The 'Local Workgroup' scenario requires everyone using a copy of IntelliGantt on their desktop. The question, of course, is 'can't I do this with an online solution?'
On to the economics.
Yes, most certainly you can. However, unlike an online solution, you only pay for the IntelliGantt solution once. We don't require monthly fees to keep everyone involved. As you can see from our comparison with eProject (now Daptiv?), monthly fees for each user can really add up!
What's more, we even support a scenario where only one person, typically the project manager, needs an IntelliGantt license-- our SharePoint scenario.
Whether you're a ma/pa shop or the world's largest corporation, everyone likes to make a smart decision and save a buck. With SharePoint core services (WSS 3.0) you get a great collaboration platform from Microsoft FOR FREE! WSS 3.0 is perfect for creating workspaces for your team to work on projects. If only there was project software that could make it easy to publish and update task schedules in SharePoint...
Hello IntelliGantt Plus!
In the hands of the project manager, IntelliGantt Plus can publish and synchronize most aspects of a project plan with SharePoint workspaces and specifically Task Lists. Better yet, economically speaking, the project manager can purchase 1 license of IntelliGantt Plus (or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project), use the FREE WSS 3.0 package and invite as many team members to the workspace as he or she wants.
For example, say the project manager of the US Government creates a SharePoint workspace and publishes a project plan. In licensing theory, the project manager could invite every employee of the federal government to this workspace and all they would need is one license of IntelliGantt Plus. In fact, they could go ahead and invite all the citizens too :)
Improved communication and insanely great economics. Now that is a good deal!
Monday, October 29, 2007
A Partnership with Bamboo Solutions
TeamDirection is very pleased to have inked a partnership agreement with Bamboo Solutions. We provide desktop connectivity to SharePoint. Bamboo offers a wealth of web parts to enhance your SharePoint experience.
We will soon be making 'Project Share for IntelliGantt' available for everyone. Pricing for the web parts and site templates will be determined by Bamboo, with TeamDirection able to resell and support it.
What will Project Share for IntelliGantt do?
The Project.Share Productivity Pack includes three of Bamboo's most popular Web Parts: Calendar Plus, List Rollup and Alert Plus. These three Web Parts together are used in many organizations today to allow SharePoint users to effectively manage their projects. Providing features such as:
* Ability to aggregate multiple project tasks from multiple project lists into a single view
* Ability to display the project tasks in a single calendar with color coding
* Allows users to manage effective alerts when a tasks is about due or overdue
This is right on the heels of our partnership with Softalot and their GanttPoint solution. TeamDirection is very pleased the complementary nature of our desktop-based solutions combined with SharePoint solutions is being recognized by leading vendors in the SharePoint market.
If you have a web part or two, solve a piece of the project management pie and would like to showcase it, contact us at TeamDirection. We are enhancing our SharePoint Solutions page to include web part and template offerings from our partners.
We will soon be making 'Project Share for IntelliGantt' available for everyone. Pricing for the web parts and site templates will be determined by Bamboo, with TeamDirection able to resell and support it.
What will Project Share for IntelliGantt do?
The Project.Share Productivity Pack includes three of Bamboo's most popular Web Parts: Calendar Plus, List Rollup and Alert Plus. These three Web Parts together are used in many organizations today to allow SharePoint users to effectively manage their projects. Providing features such as:
* Ability to aggregate multiple project tasks from multiple project lists into a single view
* Ability to display the project tasks in a single calendar with color coding
* Allows users to manage effective alerts when a tasks is about due or overdue
This is right on the heels of our partnership with Softalot and their GanttPoint solution. TeamDirection is very pleased the complementary nature of our desktop-based solutions combined with SharePoint solutions is being recognized by leading vendors in the SharePoint market.
If you have a web part or two, solve a piece of the project management pie and would like to showcase it, contact us at TeamDirection. We are enhancing our SharePoint Solutions page to include web part and template offerings from our partners.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
IntelliGantt SharePoint Web Parts
[21 February 2011 Update - We now have the IntelliGantt Web Part available for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010]
We've had a huge response to the release of our boffo customization of SharePoint Task Lists. Our accountant had some work to do last week! Expect to see a few TeamDirection IntelliGantt ads to start popping up here and there-- all very tasteful and informative, of course.
But we're not done yet!
We have a new product in BETA testing geared strictly for SharePoint. If you haven't noticed, business are really responding to the value proposition of SharePoint. TeamDirection has certainly noticed, and we are proud to let you know of a new set of web parts for your SharePoint server that work with IntelliGantt.
The goal? Project rollups of course.
IntelliGantt has provided the plumbing from your desktop to SharePoint, now its getting ready to fill the aqueducts and let the information across all your projects flow to your team. Here is a page introducing the GanttPoint web parts you can deploy on your SharePoint server that automatically finds IntelliGantt projects you've published and aggregates them in one view-- personalized for the current user.
The really great thing about this solution? TeamDirection worked with a great new partner to bring it to you-- a project management company also here in Seattle, Softalot LLC. With IntelliGantt on the desktop and Softalot on the server, its a natural way for both of us to bring our strengths to the table for a better comprehensive solution for you.
You can also expect another exciting announcement with another great SharePoint solution provider in the very near future.
We've had a huge response to the release of our boffo customization of SharePoint Task Lists. Our accountant had some work to do last week! Expect to see a few TeamDirection IntelliGantt ads to start popping up here and there-- all very tasteful and informative, of course.
But we're not done yet!
We have a new product in BETA testing geared strictly for SharePoint. If you haven't noticed, business are really responding to the value proposition of SharePoint. TeamDirection has certainly noticed, and we are proud to let you know of a new set of web parts for your SharePoint server that work with IntelliGantt.
The goal? Project rollups of course.
IntelliGantt has provided the plumbing from your desktop to SharePoint, now its getting ready to fill the aqueducts and let the information across all your projects flow to your team. Here is a page introducing the GanttPoint web parts you can deploy on your SharePoint server that automatically finds IntelliGantt projects you've published and aggregates them in one view-- personalized for the current user.
The really great thing about this solution? TeamDirection worked with a great new partner to bring it to you-- a project management company also here in Seattle, Softalot LLC. With IntelliGantt on the desktop and Softalot on the server, its a natural way for both of us to bring our strengths to the table for a better comprehensive solution for you.
You can also expect another exciting announcement with another great SharePoint solution provider in the very near future.
Monday, October 22, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, October 15, 2007
IntelliGantt Synchronization with Outlook and SharePoint
Many people don't realize there is a great synchronization feature available to keep your tasks on track with MOSS 2007 and Outlook 2007. If you spend your day within MS Outlook, are constantly on the go or just simply like working on the desktop more than through your web browser, then check out how easy it is to bring the SharePoint task list to you.
Say your project manager has scheduled out a few tasks on a SharePoint site. He or she may have used a tool like IntelliGantt to quickly publish a project, invited SharePoint members to the site and is now expecting these tasks to get done. If you'd rather work with them in Outlook, here's how:
First, on the SharePoint site, go to the task list in question and select 'Connect to Outlook'. Remember, this is an Office 2007 only feature.
MS Outlook pops up a dialog asking if you really want to do this.
If you say yes, Outlook goes and gets the SharePoint task list data and creates a view for you.
But its much more than a simple import. Outlook remembers where these tasks came from. As a result, you can edit these tasks and the changes will be synchronized back to SharePoint. The really cool thing is, because Outlook is on your PC, you can unplug from the office, go about your day, update on the move and Outlook will take care of the rest-- synchronizing your changes back to that SharePoint task list.
We use a similar philosophy with our IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. Much like the Outlook to SharePoint connection, TeamDirection connects MS Project to SharePoint and lets the project manager have this feature too.
In many ways its even more powerful for the project manager because not only do they receive everyone's updates within the MS Project plan, they also can easily make schedule changes with a real project management tool. For example, it's much easier to reset the start date of a project and let a scheduling engine do the work of updating all the task changes then doing it by hand with a click-happy web browser.
Say your project manager has scheduled out a few tasks on a SharePoint site. He or she may have used a tool like IntelliGantt to quickly publish a project, invited SharePoint members to the site and is now expecting these tasks to get done. If you'd rather work with them in Outlook, here's how:
First, on the SharePoint site, go to the task list in question and select 'Connect to Outlook'. Remember, this is an Office 2007 only feature.
MS Outlook pops up a dialog asking if you really want to do this.
If you say yes, Outlook goes and gets the SharePoint task list data and creates a view for you.
But its much more than a simple import. Outlook remembers where these tasks came from. As a result, you can edit these tasks and the changes will be synchronized back to SharePoint. The really cool thing is, because Outlook is on your PC, you can unplug from the office, go about your day, update on the move and Outlook will take care of the rest-- synchronizing your changes back to that SharePoint task list.
We use a similar philosophy with our IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. Much like the Outlook to SharePoint connection, TeamDirection connects MS Project to SharePoint and lets the project manager have this feature too.
In many ways its even more powerful for the project manager because not only do they receive everyone's updates within the MS Project plan, they also can easily make schedule changes with a real project management tool. For example, it's much easier to reset the start date of a project and let a scheduling engine do the work of updating all the task changes then doing it by hand with a click-happy web browser.
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Perfect Graphic for that AH! Moment
You know the moment I'm talking about-- the one where a mystery has been cleared up for you. I usually experience after I've been trying 1023 permutations of the wrong way to do something. Maybe you receive a cryptic email from tech-support that tangentially applies to the question at hand, but seems like an accident. Perhaps you've wondered why everyone was going the wrong way on a street except you. You might have even wondered what compelled that person sitting next to you to eat your cookies.
And then it's magically explained and the 'Ah!' moment occurs.
I'm pleased to present the Ah! graphic:
Feel free to pass it around so everyone can share the moment :)
And then it's magically explained and the 'Ah!' moment occurs.
I'm pleased to present the Ah! graphic:
Feel free to pass it around so everyone can share the moment :)
Monday, October 08, 2007
SharePoint MVP Community
There is an interesting information resource forming around SharePoint that fellow MVP Bob Mixon is spearheading-- the SharePoint Beagle Newsletter. My understanding is the Beagle will be a conduit for SharePoint MVPs to share with everyone their opinions and experiences on real-life SharePoint solutions.
When you look at the the profiles of every SharePoint MVP, its a bit humbling-- to the point where you ask yourself 'what can I bring to the group?' Well, TeamDirection does know project management in a collaborative environment. I'd love to contribute an article explaining how you can turn a WSS 2.0 or WSS 3.0 server into a real project management solution. (cue writer's block :)
I know Groove did an internal study a few years ago and found over 50% percent of their customers used Groove for project management. I can't point to a specific study, but anecdotal evidence is making me think similar percentages are at work with SharePoint as well.
And I have to think IntelliGantt, of any non-Microsoft application, is in the top 10 for exploiting SharePoint web services. Sharing our trials and travails getting web services to reliably work with WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0, while maybe not quite as gripping as The DaVinci Code, should certainly be interesting.
I look forward to sharing our experiences and learning so much more from the SharePoint MVP group. Instead of the proverbial firehose, the Beagle looks like a great way to get started.
When you look at the the profiles of every SharePoint MVP, its a bit humbling-- to the point where you ask yourself 'what can I bring to the group?' Well, TeamDirection does know project management in a collaborative environment. I'd love to contribute an article explaining how you can turn a WSS 2.0 or WSS 3.0 server into a real project management solution. (cue writer's block :)
I know Groove did an internal study a few years ago and found over 50% percent of their customers used Groove for project management. I can't point to a specific study, but anecdotal evidence is making me think similar percentages are at work with SharePoint as well.
And I have to think IntelliGantt, of any non-Microsoft application, is in the top 10 for exploiting SharePoint web services. Sharing our trials and travails getting web services to reliably work with WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0, while maybe not quite as gripping as The DaVinci Code, should certainly be interesting.
I look forward to sharing our experiences and learning so much more from the SharePoint MVP group. Instead of the proverbial firehose, the Beagle looks like a great way to get started.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
IntelliGantt and SharePoint Help a Boatbuilder
Unsolicited testimonials are always the best. Unsolicited testimonials you find and share with the group are even better.
Thorwald Westmaas was searching for a better way to share projects (tasks, schedules, content, etc) the other day when he found TeamDirection and SharePoint. Not a project manager by trade (but an excellent boatbuilder judging by his blog), Thorwald was able to quickly get IntelliGantt Plus running with a hosted SharePoint provider and begin publishing projects.
From not knowing about IntelliGantt Plus or SharePoint to up and running in a day, Thorwald was able to solve his project management/collaboration issues and get back to his real task-- planning his next expedition.
Thorwald Westmaas was searching for a better way to share projects (tasks, schedules, content, etc) the other day when he found TeamDirection and SharePoint. Not a project manager by trade (but an excellent boatbuilder judging by his blog), Thorwald was able to quickly get IntelliGantt Plus running with a hosted SharePoint provider and begin publishing projects.
With our team members, vendors and other stakeholders in 7 different countries, an online data repository with workflow and project management tools is a great aid to keep this conversion project on track.
From not knowing about IntelliGantt Plus or SharePoint to up and running in a day, Thorwald was able to solve his project management/collaboration issues and get back to his real task-- planning his next expedition.
Monday, October 01, 2007
I'm a SharePoint MVP!
Talk about a nice surprise.
I knew I was nominated, but I never figured I'd actually receive a SharePoint MVP award. Of course, I doubt there are too many people not working at Microsoft that know as much about SharePoint and Groove web services and behavior as yours truly. What's more, all of that knowledge has been earned the hard way-- making it work for shipping products.
Call me a curmudgeon still living in the past 5 years, but I actually believe people are just starting to deduce both the benefits of desktop/web synergy and the best way to go about it. In fact, I think the interaction between the desktop and web applications (way beyond the generic web browser) will define the next 5 years or so of computing. Well, that and virtual machines.
So how strong a position is Microsoft in for the next 5 years? Well, they have the best collaboration platforms (SharePoint and Groove), a strong web service strategy and quite possibly the best (potential) virtual machine with .NET.
It's nice to know they like me too :)
Thank you to whomever nominated me and to April over at Microsoft. I really appreciate it.
I knew I was nominated, but I never figured I'd actually receive a SharePoint MVP award. Of course, I doubt there are too many people not working at Microsoft that know as much about SharePoint and Groove web services and behavior as yours truly. What's more, all of that knowledge has been earned the hard way-- making it work for shipping products.
Call me a curmudgeon still living in the past 5 years, but I actually believe people are just starting to deduce both the benefits of desktop/web synergy and the best way to go about it. In fact, I think the interaction between the desktop and web applications (way beyond the generic web browser) will define the next 5 years or so of computing. Well, that and virtual machines.
So how strong a position is Microsoft in for the next 5 years? Well, they have the best collaboration platforms (SharePoint and Groove), a strong web service strategy and quite possibly the best (potential) virtual machine with .NET.
It's nice to know they like me too :)
Thank you to whomever nominated me and to April over at Microsoft. I really appreciate it.
IntelliGantt Enhances SharePoint Integration
TeamDirection will be releasing a beta (most likely on Oct 2.) of its newest version of IntelliGantt, IntelliGantt Plus and IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. Over the next week or so I'll be highlighting some of the cool features specific to every collaboration platform, but the one we're most excited about I'm happy to preview first.
In the 'old' IntelliGantt days, you could publish tasks to a SharePoint task list, but the range of fields was limited to the defaults SharePoint provided. And, of course, you could update the % complete and notes, but nothing else.
We just made project management with SharePoint a whole lot more powerful. Check this out:
If you're asking what that is, the answer is its all the fields you can now create, use, modify and synchronize. Thirty text fields. Twenty number fields. Ten cost and date/time fields. And each field is customizable-- set the display name you prefer, add a helpful comment and even set whether the fields supports 2-way synchronization or not.
We put together a short 'enhanced SharePoint' screencast to show it off. This barely touches on the extent of the functionality, but we couldn't wait. A couple things that aren't obvious in the screencast:
1) You can changed the synchronization settings at any time. For example, you may want to start out by giving SharePoint users the ability to update task start and finish dates, but once the project gets going, you can unclick the 'From SharePoint' setting for Start Date and Due Date. This puts the project manager in full control of the schedule.
2) You don't have to share every field that you use. You may use Text1 for Client Code, as we do in the demo, but you can also use Text2 as 'Super Secret' in IntelliGantt Plus and NOT share that to SharePoint. This can be very handy with those cost fields.
3) We will be publishing all the field names we are using so that 3rd party web part developers can take advantage of this feature. We feel this lays the foundation for a real workflow system based on the customized fields your business needs to run.
And finally, these settings are available even after you share a project to SharePoint.
Better yet, you can save any project published to SharePoint as a template that will include the collaboration settings as well.
We look forward to introducing more about this release in the days ahead.
In the 'old' IntelliGantt days, you could publish tasks to a SharePoint task list, but the range of fields was limited to the defaults SharePoint provided. And, of course, you could update the % complete and notes, but nothing else.
We just made project management with SharePoint a whole lot more powerful. Check this out:
If you're asking what that is, the answer is its all the fields you can now create, use, modify and synchronize. Thirty text fields. Twenty number fields. Ten cost and date/time fields. And each field is customizable-- set the display name you prefer, add a helpful comment and even set whether the fields supports 2-way synchronization or not.
We put together a short 'enhanced SharePoint' screencast to show it off. This barely touches on the extent of the functionality, but we couldn't wait. A couple things that aren't obvious in the screencast:
1) You can changed the synchronization settings at any time. For example, you may want to start out by giving SharePoint users the ability to update task start and finish dates, but once the project gets going, you can unclick the 'From SharePoint' setting for Start Date and Due Date. This puts the project manager in full control of the schedule.
2) You don't have to share every field that you use. You may use Text1 for Client Code, as we do in the demo, but you can also use Text2 as 'Super Secret' in IntelliGantt Plus and NOT share that to SharePoint. This can be very handy with those cost fields.
3) We will be publishing all the field names we are using so that 3rd party web part developers can take advantage of this feature. We feel this lays the foundation for a real workflow system based on the customized fields your business needs to run.
And finally, these settings are available even after you share a project to SharePoint.
Better yet, you can save any project published to SharePoint as a template that will include the collaboration settings as well.
We look forward to introducing more about this release in the days ahead.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Looking for Partners in Australia
A bit of a double-entendre, but we are looking for partners in Australia who are smart and enjoy helping people with their projects. Outside of the US, we receive more downloads from Australia than any other nation (though Germany has been on the upswing recently). And while we have excellent European partners and Mindlogik in New Zealand, Australia really does represent a land of opportunity.
If you're a reseller of Microsoft Project and/or Mindjet MindManager products, or if you're looking for straightforward ways to bring collaboration to your customers, give me a shout at j.o.h.n.m [at] teamdirection.com. We would be happy to make your acquaintance and see if we're a match.
And bonus points if you happen to be from Frankston, Victoria. It could very well be a family myth, but apparently Frankston was named after a relative of mine (yes, named Frank) who jumped in to the sea and saved someone who had great influence in naming towns. I'm sure it's a lovely place!
Thanks mate.
If you're a reseller of Microsoft Project and/or Mindjet MindManager products, or if you're looking for straightforward ways to bring collaboration to your customers, give me a shout at j.o.h.n.m [at] teamdirection.com. We would be happy to make your acquaintance and see if we're a match.
And bonus points if you happen to be from Frankston, Victoria. It could very well be a family myth, but apparently Frankston was named after a relative of mine (yes, named Frank) who jumped in to the sea and saved someone who had great influence in naming towns. I'm sure it's a lovely place!
Thanks mate.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Local Workgroups and Security
As my previous post mentioned, people are catching on to IntelliGantt's Local Workgroup as a way to easily manage projects with colleagues in the office or connected via the corporate network. Today we were talking with a company about using IntelliGantt and the Local Workgroup to help a team in the US work with a development group in India. They are a large company with resources at hand, but basically it's just a fast connection between Mumbai and California with a file server visible to both.
The question that came up is security. As in 'how secure is IntelliGantt?' While we hang our hat with pride on our multi-user project management solution for teams, TeamDirection is not about to claim we have solved your security issues too. We'd much rather pass that requirement to the underlying collaboration systems like SharePoint, Groove.... and your file server.
You see, in order for IntelliGantt to work on a File Server, the person using IntelliGantt must have permissions on that file server. Specifically read/write permissions. No permissions; no joining a project; no way to be malicious. If you really don't want people outside of the project to be able to change anything, you can use the security of a Windows server to grant access only to people who need to be members of the project.
It works like this: IntelliGantt uses a folder that has been shared on the file server. When you share a folder, by default users can read from it but not write. You could grant 'Users' the permission to write as well, but this means every user account on the file server would have this permission for this folder. This can be a good thing, if you want everyone in the company to use a single shared folder for all local workgroups (it certainly makes backups easier). Or you may want to be more restrictive.
If you have a project you wish to invite only a handful of named users to, then rather than granting the generic 'Users' group read and write permissions, you can grant particular individuals read and write permissions. When someone tries to join a project, they are first asked for their email and display name. IntelliGantt then connects to the file server and asks for permission to talk. If the file server needs authentication, IntelliGantt uses the built in Windows Authentication libraries and challenges for a user name and password. If the user fails the user name and password challenge, they are not allowed in to the project.
What this means is even if someone got ahold of an IntelliGantt invitation and happened to know the email address of a member, they still could not get into the project because the basic security of the file server would prevent it.
Which really is a good way to go, we think. Which would you rather have, a project management company rolling their own security solution, or a project management company that uses what the underlying systems have to offer? SharePoint, Groove... and in this case the under-appreciated file server.
The question that came up is security. As in 'how secure is IntelliGantt?' While we hang our hat with pride on our multi-user project management solution for teams, TeamDirection is not about to claim we have solved your security issues too. We'd much rather pass that requirement to the underlying collaboration systems like SharePoint, Groove.... and your file server.
You see, in order for IntelliGantt to work on a File Server, the person using IntelliGantt must have permissions on that file server. Specifically read/write permissions. No permissions; no joining a project; no way to be malicious. If you really don't want people outside of the project to be able to change anything, you can use the security of a Windows server to grant access only to people who need to be members of the project.
It works like this: IntelliGantt uses a folder that has been shared on the file server. When you share a folder, by default users can read from it but not write. You could grant 'Users' the permission to write as well, but this means every user account on the file server would have this permission for this folder. This can be a good thing, if you want everyone in the company to use a single shared folder for all local workgroups (it certainly makes backups easier). Or you may want to be more restrictive.
If you have a project you wish to invite only a handful of named users to, then rather than granting the generic 'Users' group read and write permissions, you can grant particular individuals read and write permissions. When someone tries to join a project, they are first asked for their email and display name. IntelliGantt then connects to the file server and asks for permission to talk. If the file server needs authentication, IntelliGantt uses the built in Windows Authentication libraries and challenges for a user name and password. If the user fails the user name and password challenge, they are not allowed in to the project.
What this means is even if someone got ahold of an IntelliGantt invitation and happened to know the email address of a member, they still could not get into the project because the basic security of the file server would prevent it.
Which really is a good way to go, we think. Which would you rather have, a project management company rolling their own security solution, or a project management company that uses what the underlying systems have to offer? SharePoint, Groove... and in this case the under-appreciated file server.
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