Every year, UMT360 participates in the Gartner PPM Summit. This year’s event was held June 12-14 in National Harbor, MD. As they have in previous years, the folks at ProjectManagement.com asked me to provide some observations on this year’s Summit. You can find the whole article here, but if you don’t have an account (register for free here) here’s a brief overview.

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UMT360 has once again been recognized as a Visionary in Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Integrated IT Portfolio Analysis Applications (IIPA). This is the sixth consecutive year that UMT360 has been recognized by Gartner for its completeness of vision and ability to execute. The full report can be found here (Gartner subscription required).

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I was recently teaching a class for UMT360 Administrators, and as I was covering the feature Dependencies and Validations for Project Server Fields, one of my students in the class exclaimed in a eureka moment, “I didn’t know we could do that!” So I thought, maybe others who are not aware of what their UMT360 product can do for them would like to learn about this too!

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There’s no question that Microsoft Project Online and Project Server are world-class PPM solutions. When implemented correctly, Microsoft’s PPM platform enables organizations to establish the solid foundation they need to manage project execution. But when it comes to extending capabilities beyond Microsoft’s core PPM features, organizations have historically relied on expensive and complicated customizations and work-arounds.

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Gartner recently published its Market Guide for Strategy Execution Software. If you’re a Gartner client, you can access it here. The report speaks to the “execution gap” that many organizations are struggling with, and the main culprit seems to be a reliance on traditional tools and processes that keep project success rates stuck at around 64%.

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Microsoft recently announced new pricing for its Project Cloud PPM platform. As with any pricing change, how this new plan may impact your organization depends on your particular situation. Let’s first take a look at the facts, which will help provide a clearer idea of what it could mean to you.

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What do people really mean when they talk about business transformation? And why do we seem to be hearing so much about business transformation within the context of project and program management? Perhaps a few insights from this year’s Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit in Orlando can help to answer those questions.

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We’re excited to be participating in the Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit once again this year. The Summit will will be in Orlando from June 6-8. If you plan on attending, please do stop by the UMT360 booth and say hello.

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A recent Forrester Consulting report commissioned by Microsoft examines the costs and benefits of deploying Office 365 Project and Portfolio Management. The bottom-line? According to Forrester, a typical organization can realize a 301% ROI over three years! That’s a pretty bold claim, so let’s take a look at how they arrived at that figure.

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“Decades-old fables about Microsoft Project’s lack of capabilities bear little resemblance to today’s reality.”

We’ve all heard the age-old myths about the moon being made of cheese or fantastic creatures patrolling murky depths or hairy giants haunting the Pacific Northwest. With experience comes the wisdom to recognize which is truth and which isn’t. Yet, some of us do still occasionally fall for a modern myth or urban legend. Just ask anyone who still believes that Elvis has never really “left the building.”

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The end of the year is a time to connect with loved ones, celebrate the holidays, and make resolutions for the New Year. For PMO leaders, it’s also the perfect time to take a step back and assess the effectiveness of the processes you use to manage project and program investments, while also assessing their impact on your business.

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This fall, the UMT360 team participated in several industry events featuring PMO leaders presenting thought-provoking keynotes and informative breakout sessions. Attending these events always gives us a chance to learn, along with an opportunity to speak with PMO leaders from all walks of life. It also is a great reminder that no two organizations have exactly the same needs or face precisely the same challenges.

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UMT360’s own Ben Chamberlain presents the keynote at this year’s Project Management Days event in Helsinki.

I was invited to be the keynote speaker at this year’s Project Management Days in Helsinki. It was an honor to kick off this event in front of hundreds of project management professionals from around the world. But I have to admit to wondering how my presentation would resonate with the an audience comprised largely of folks who don’t share my native tongue. (Of course, some who know me would argue that an Englishman living in the U.S. must already have plenty of experience communicating with people who don’t speak his language.)

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The UMT360 team, along with PMO leaders from around the world, will be in Phoenix from November 8-11, 2015 for the PMO Symposium.

The PMO Symposium is one of our favorite events of the year. It’s where hundreds of business leaders gather for a behind-the-scenes look into the proven strategies and practices that drive success for some of the world’s leading PMOs. Each year it seems to get better and better, with just about everyone responsible for directing their organization’s portfolio of projects, programs and initiatives in attendance!

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It’s back-to-school time. And that means a fresh start for kids just looking for an opportunity to learn and grow. This year, the UMT360 team is hoping to make a difference for a few foster kids here in Washington state. Because each fall, thousands of them head back to school, and too many lack the essentials to succeed in the classroom.

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Part 5 in a series on how to extend the value of Microsoft Project Online & Project Server…
By now we know how important good business cases are to ensuring good project and program selection. A business case helps the organization determine the relative value of investments, and are also used to evaluate and prioritize competing initiatives.

But what happens to those business cases once the project has been approved? Read the rest of this entry

Part 4 in a series on how to extend the value of Microsoft Project Online & Project Server…
OK, so we’ve seen how to easy it is to integrate financials into our PPM process. We’ve recognized the importance of building robust business cases. We’ve realized that time wasted on manual reporting can be spent on more strategic activities. We should be feeling pretty good about ourselves now.

In fact, with all this newfound visibility and insight, we could do a much better job with our traditional “set-it-and-forget-it” approach to annual planning. Read the rest of this entry

Part 3 in a series on how to extend the value of Microsoft Project Online & Project Server…
One the banes of today’s Project Management professionals is status reporting. It’s an important component of any PPM process. But’s it’s often a logistical nightmare that typically involves manual processes that suck valuable time away from more strategic activities. Data must be gathered and reconciled from disparate systems and then reports must be manually developed. Read the rest of this entry

Part 2 in a series on how to extend the value of Microsoft Project Online & Project Server…
An organization’s portfolio of projects is really a collection of strategic investments. And these investments are of course made with the expectation that they will drive better business results. Too often, not enough is done on the front-end of the PPM process to manage the demand for new investments.

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Part 1 in a series on how to extend the value of Microsoft Project Online & Project Server…

The growing pressures on today’s PMO require that they deliver more than just strong tactical project management skills. To support these strategic demands, project management professionals need increased visibility. They need direct access to information that helps guide better decision-making. In short, they need to add more sophisticated business governance and investment planning and controls to their PPM process. But how?

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This year’s Gartner PPM Summit was held just outside of Dallas, TX, in early June. One of the highlights of the event was the standing room-only presentation by UMT360 client Frank LaRocca about how PMOs need to adjust their methods to adapt to a changing business environment.

Clicking on video will link to Gartner site and open new browser.
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No, the UMT360 team didn’t come up with the theme for this year’s Gartner PPM & IT Governance Summit. But we certainly could have. Because from our perspective, the event’s theme — Thriving on Digital Chaos: Innovation, Agility and Collaboration — sounds exactly like what we’ve been telling our clients for years now. Read the rest of this entry

We met a lot of folks at the Microsoft Ignite Conference in Chicago last week. And while everyone we spoke with had unique and specific challenges, one common thread ran through our conversations. Most organizations we spoke with used Microsoft Project Online or Project Server as their PPM tool, yet still wanted a more efficient and effective way to manage their projects.
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If you work in public sector IT, you’ve probably heard of FedRAMP. And if it hasn’t yet made an impact on you or your agency, it soon will. FedRAMP stands for The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program. It’s essentially a comprehensive framework, established in 2012, that defines what it takes for a company providing cloud products and services to federal agencies to be recognized as a secure provider.

Making it easy for federal agencies

I’m happy to report that UMT360’s Solutions for Microsoft Project Online & Project Server are now available as a FedRAMP Compliant Cloud Service.

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Close to 20,000 people will gather in Chicago for Microsoft Ignite during the first week of May. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone there, but we’re particularly interested in connecting with anyone who manages or depends on Microsoft Project Online and Project Server. If that sounds like you, and you’re planning on attending Ignite, please stop by booth # 549 – we’d love to see you! Because not only can we show you how to make Project work harder for you. We also have a fun challenge that could make all your walking of the show floor really pay off!

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A recent UMT360 webinar attracted about 200 project management professionals interested in learning more about how today’s PMO can bridge the planning and execution gap. Judging from the responses to our poll questions during the presentation, nobody doubts that there is a gap. But it’s clear that many organizations are not quite sure what may be causing that gap, and what they can do to start addressing it.
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We asked the audience attending a recent UMT360 webinar – comprised mostly of Enterprise Architects (EAs) – a few questions. I learn the most when I hear directly from the professionals in our industry, so I thought I’d share a few of the results that I found particularly illuminating.
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I am an avid proponent of the transformative effects of technology. Indeed, digitalizing traditional PPM is core to our mission of helping organizations bridge the gap between strategy and execution. That’s why the recent Q&A with Gartner “Thriving on Digital Chaos” caught my attention.

It’s an interesting read, one that touches on the disruptive impact that technology is having on today’s PPM professionals. One point in particular really resonated with me – traditional know-how is no longer enough for PPM professionals.
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(Final post of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

In this series of blog posts, we’ve established the importance of focusing on capabilities, prioritization, allocation and road maps as they relate to the Strategic PMO. But at the end of the day, all of those ideas and concepts simply set us up for being able to effectively deliver results. And delivery is a bit more complex than simply “finishing the project”. Successful delivery requires organizations to:

• Measure Outcomes
• Understand Variance
• Predict Impacts
• Realign
• Reallocate

Let’s take a look at each one of those capabilities in a bit more detail:
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(Part five of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

Effective planning and execution of strategic initiatives requires that processes, technology and implementation all be synchronized with company strategy. Organizations that ignore these dependencies risk not being able to implement even moderately complex programs.
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(Part four of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

For many companies, the allocation of resources is driven from the bottom up. Allocation decisions are often disconnected from business capabilities, are commonly based only on one year of data, or are guided by a simple “allocate-or-not” mindset. Needless to say, these static and stagnant approaches are not very efficient.
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(Part three of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

A recent Gartner report provides some interesting perspective on the impact that prioritization has on today’s enterprise. Gartner reports that a majority of CIOs agree that non-prioritized, competing projects and programs are an obstacle to implementing strategies. Clearly, the ability to appropriately set priorities is crucial when it comes to managing enterprise investments.
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(Part two of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

To be truly successful, every organization must have a well-articulated strategy. And it’s crucial that this strategy be tightly aligned with an execution plan. But for many, there’s still a significant gap between strategy and execution. Organizations struggle to bridge this gap because they lack the clarity required to focus on the capabilities that will help them achieve their strategy.
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(Part one of a series on the forces helping to drive a tactical to strategic transformation of the PMO.)

For decades now, the PMO has been typically focused on tactical execution. Which is what made the keynote address at this year’s PMO Symposium – by one of the world’s foremost authorities on competitive advantage – so fascinating. As I listened to Harvard Business School Professor Dr. Michael E. Porter’s presentation, some ideas occurred to me about the gaps between strategy and execution that are way too prevalent in today’s enterprise program and portfolio management (EPPM).
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The UMT360 team just returned from the PMO Symposium in South Florida, where we met lots of folks interested in learning about transforming their PMO. Symposium attendees stopping by the UMT360 booth learned about the benefits of establishing a strategic PMO and participated in the UMT360 PMO Maturity Assessment. The assessment survey helps organizations picture themselves on the continuum of establishing a strategic PMO. Literally. Because after taking the survey, each participant placed an old-school Polaroid selfie on the UMT360 booth corresponding to their score, showing how each respondent measured up against their peers. Read the rest of this entry

You’re probably familiar with the grim statistics. Industry analysts tell us that traditional PPM is failing to deliver the anticipated results. And despite continued and significant investments in PPM, companies are still losing up to 46% of the planned business value from their project portfolios.

Clearly, the status quo isn’t working. But a new breed of business leader is emerging to help buck the trend and transform PPM. And the UMT360 team will be at the PMO Symposium in Miami to help showcase how these leaders are breaking the cycle of unreliable planning, cost overruns and project failures.

If you’re planning on attending the PMO Symposium in Miami from November 16-19, stop by the UMT360 booth to say hello. You can participate in our survey, picture how you measure up against your peers and be in the running for one of the free GoPro cameras we’ll be giving away at the end of each day. Read the rest of this entry

A big thanks to all the attendees of the IT Portfolio Management Conference in Chicago who stopped by the UMT360 booth. The event was a fantastic opportunity to connect with IT leaders looking to transform how they manage enterprise IT investments.

Many of the folks who stopped by the UMT360 booth participated in our 2014 IT assessment survey. It was a quick and fun survey that measured responses on a scale ranging from “I have No Idea” to “We’re Awesome!” This survey was designed to help provide a sense of how IT leaders see their own organization’s development and transformation especially as it relates to these five principles of Enterprise Portfolio Management.

The results of the survey suggest that there’s ample opportunity for IT organizations to improve their portfolio management capabilities. Read the rest of this entry

Enterprises have invested billions of dollars implementing PPM solutions under the promise that they would increase project effectiveness and efficiency. But have those solutions delivered on their promises?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Traditional PPM is simply failing to deliver the anticipated results. There are many reasons, but at a fundamental level, PPM is notorious for lacking a business focus and for placing too much faith in scheduling. In a recent UMT360 webinar Transform 2015 Planning: Moving from Project to Capability Based Investment Planning, CEO Mike Gruia shared some startling statistics:

• Nearly 33% of projects fail to meet their goals or business intent
• Nearly one in five projects fail to be completed
• 43% of all projects are delivered late or over budget
• Only 54% of the investments deliver their promised value

Are We Just Planning for Planning’s Sake?
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UMT360’s recent webinar schedule has focused on enabling PMOs to be strategic. Great topics, with some world-class PMO professionals including Learning How to Establish a Strategic PMO with Carl Souchereau from SNC Lavalin T&D, and Changing the PMO Status Quo with Frank La Rocca from ConEd. In fact, we’ve seen so much interest in the Strategic PMO idea that we’ve created a local breakfast series, starting initially in Chicago and Houston.

But we also thought it would be good to step back and define just what makes up a strategic PMO. We reached out to some industry folks to get their views, and one response stood out in particular. Andy Jordan is the president at Roffensian Consulting, and has over 20 years within the portfolio, program, project and PMO space. Andy’s response aligned very closely with our view, and so we thought we’d let Andy share directly! You can reach Andy at andy.jordan@roffensian.com, and we thank him in advance for the guest post! – Paul

Just What is a Strategic PMO?

By Andy Jordan

In the last few years PMOs have been asked to take on much more ‘business critical’ functions. Some have embraced this opportunity, some have not. The idea of a project focused central services style PMO (people, process, tools, training) is rapidly losing favour because it is not delivering business results. Instead, the idea of a PMO more aligned with the business is gaining traction, and that is what PMOs should always have been. A Strategic PMO is a project centric business department and should be structured and managed in the same way as other business departments – goals and objectives set by enterprise leadership that help the organization as a whole succeed. That’s what we expect for sales, or operations, or fill in the blank other department, and that’s what we should expect of PMOs.

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Back in July, we ran a successful webinar discussing what it takes to create a strategic PMO. The webcast, led by Carl Souchereau, formerly of TransAlta and now Project Director at SNC Lavalin, provided practical advice around mastering the important yet tactical aspects of project management as well as taking strategic responsibility for managing the investment decisions for the portfolio. (If you missed the webcast, it is archived here.)

Because interest in the webinar was so strong, we wanted to extend the conversation and have created the UMT360 Strategic PMO Breakfast Series. We’re fortunate in that Carl has signed on to present his wisdom again, but we’ll also take some time to look at the latest product developments that help the Strategic PMO fulfill the vision Carl will present, including:

• Integrating investment planning and controls across the PPM life-cycle that result in optimized spend and maximized ROI
• Streamlining capital planning and building stronger business cases
• Automating financial tracking and variance analysis to enable dynamic planning
• Establishing a benefits realization framework to measure results

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During a recent UMT360 webinar covering How to Become a Strategic PMO (see archive here), we found that only 1% have regular dynamic reallocation reviews via automated processes. Another 39% have regular reviews, but require manual, time-intensive efforts to collect and standardize data.

UMT360’s message to PPM practitioners is that this is their opportunity to take the leap to becoming a strategic PMO office by focusing efforts on gaining control of their investments. Annual planning and traditional resource allocation is not enough, as it cannot accommodate the challenges of market complexity and rapid change. Portfolio rebalancing allows organizations to keep their investment priorities in check and optimize the resource allocation and consumption.

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We’re pleased to announce the availability of UMT360 v5.10 – Cumulative Update 10 (CU10). Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• New features and significant enhancements
  • UMT360 My Resources: adds the ability for Resource Owners to manage individual assignments of all resources they are responsible for
  • Added the ability to reassign work from one resource to another
  • Added calculated Resource Dimensions to display time-phased work variance: Planned vs. Committed and Actuals vs. Committed
  • Roadmap Tracking Icons: added visual indicators that help track milestone status and interdependencies within UMT360 Roadmaps
• Core Financial Capabilities
  • Fixed issues when setting the Timeline Start Date/End Date to a non-working day after resetting the execution of a project
  • Fixed issue with UMT360 Update Entity Timelines jobs failing while using specific locales (regional settings)
  • The View Total column is now governed by the order set for the Financial Custom Fields
  • Number of decimals displayed for financial values is no longer trimmed when Currency Symbol is not in use
  • Fixed issue with the Timeline End Date not reverting to its original value when deleting or rejecting a Change Request
  • Change Request approval no longer requires projects to be checked-in unless Custom Fields are included with that Change Request
  • Fixed issue with Financial Custom Field values not being saved when Change Requests were not enabled
  • Fixed issue with inaccurate Change Request approver lists when using comma as a name separator
  • Fixed issues that occurred when disabling Change Requests for existing entities in execution
  • Fixed issue with changing the Enterprise Financial Type properties from Budget Only to Budget, Actuals and Forecast
  • Automatic Snapshots triggered by Stage Transitions are now  executed even if the UMT360 Project Instance has not yet been created
  • Fixed issue with financial values not being updated when integrating with Resource Plans and updating a resource assignment with 0h
  • Fixed issue with financial and work values not being properly updated when using the Edit Values only through Project Server Synchronization option
  • Synchronize Entity Project Plan queue job no longer fails when publishing a Project Plan that has a task assigned to a resource with its Cost Type value mapped to lower levels in the financial hierarchy
• Resource Management
  • Resources are now added to Build Team when the project is checked-out
  • Fixed issue with the Sync Provider Assignments queue job not waiting for Project Publish, and causing values not to be displayed in the Project Integration pop-up
  • Default values of Assignment Fields are now displayed in OData.AssignmentFieldValues view upon the first assignment being saved
  • Improved handing of recurring calendar exceptions
  • Availability is now recalculated when changing the Resource Timeline via Crop/Redistribute or when performing a Copy to Dimension action
  • Fixed issue with financial values being imported from the Resource Plan while using specific locales (regional settings)
  • Fixed grouping when using Assignment or Resources Fields of type Flag
  • Fixed grouping when using Resource Fields of type Text with the Allow multiple values to be selected from lookup table option enabled
  • Added the ability to search for resources using Custom resource fields in Add Resources popup
• Data Exchange
  • Fixed issue with creating entities and importing values at the same time
  • Entire Project no longer needs to be inserted in the input file in order to import to Entire Timeline granularity
  • Updated status of the import operations to better reflect unsupported update scenarios
  • Fixed issue with importing values in multiple financial nodes for projects using Identifier column for Nodes and Allocation Centers
  • Fixed issue with not being able to reach Step 3 of the Data Exchange process, when using and updating a Data Exchange Template with additional mappings
  • Values are now imported when using a Custom Field as Entity Identifier and the import file contains a space character after the identifier value
  • Added a more relevant error message in Import Entity Data queue error details when a Custom Field cannot be updated due to a value mismatch
  • Improved performance when using a large number of columns in the import file
• Jira Integration
  • Resources from Project no longer require a login account in order for them to be synchronized with the Assignee Jira Field
  • The Project Name value is no longer updated when manually synchronizing projects from Microsoft Project to Jira
  • Assignee field is no longer cleared when Tasks are synchronized from Microsoft Project
  • Fixed issue with the Provision Connector queue job failing when connecting to a JIRA Server running version 7.4.x or older
  • Fixed issue with the Sync Connector Concepts queue job failing when attempting to bring an empty value from a Text Custom Field to the Description Field in Jira
• Other
  • Fixed issue with Workflow Viewer displaying the incorrect workflow chart for projects having PWA URL set as site address
  • Enterprise Custom Fields are no longer validated when creating an Enterprise Association based on a SharePoint Field
  • Multiple Entity Details web parts can now be added to the same UMT360 Form of type New
  • Entity Start Date and Entity End Date out of the box fields are now populated correctly in Portfolio Center views and in Entity Details web parts
  • Entity Details web part no longer validates required SharePoint Fields and Columns that are hidden
  • Fixed issue with generic error message and ribbon buttons being disabled when adding an invalid date in Entity Details web part
  • Timeline can now be updated on existing entities, after addressing gaps in the definition of existing Fiscal Periods
  • Fixed issue with Stage Transitions not being executed when multiple consecutive submits firing Sync Remote Entity queue jobs are executed in a short period of time
  • Improved performance in Entity Settings page when having thousands of users in SharePoint groups
  • Values from calculated Currency fields are now rolled up and formatted correctly in Portfolio Center views
  • Update Breakdown Fields Values for Reporting queue job no longer fails when updating values on a Subtraction Financial Breakdown
  • Fixed error in UMT360 Roadmap web part when the timeline of the Entity is not set and the Roadmap Template uses any other option than Use the Start and End Date of the Entity as the default Date Range
  • Added the ability to edit the Description field of UMT360 Milestones that are synchronized with the Project Plan
  • Improved handling of non-working day variance calculation between the Actual Date and the Planned Date of a milestone
  • Values are now correctly saved and displayed in UMT360 Fields web part when using Default and Available Values outcome dependencies between Custom Fields
  • Added the ability to reverse the status of a Milestone from Completed to Planned by using the Unlock ribbon button
  • The Planned Date of a Milestone is now read-only when the Milestone status is Active or Completed
  • When UMT360 Milestones are synchronized from Project Schedule and their Percent Complete is set to 100%, users are now able to set them all as Completed without Locking them first

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU10 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.

We’re pleased to announce the availability of UMT360 v5.9 – Cumulative Update 9 (CU9). Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• Core Financial Capabilities
  •  Addressed timeout issues when submitting Change Requests on sites with large number of users
  • Fixed issue with Entities availability after upgrade, when using Custom Granularities
  • Fixed performance issue when updating data for reporting for Change Requests and Snapshots
  • Fixed queue constraints error when creating Bulk Snapshots
  • Fixed the Copy Stage Transition error when destination Financial Dimension had a different granularity than the source Financial Dimension
  • Fixed issue with non-working days not being handled properly after a major upgrade
  • UI improvements to better differentiate between closed and open financial reporting periods
  • Fixed performance issue when editing Global Templates on sites with large number of users
  • The Not Applicable option from Entity Type Settings is no longer applied when Pushing Settings
• Resource Management
  • Added the ability to associate a Lookup Table to the Phase resource assignment field
  • Fixed issue with automatically updating a Project Plan Team with multiple resources
  • Fixed issue with Financial Views when updating the resource plan with 0h of work
  • Improved performance on the My Resource Plans web part
  • Improved user experience when adding resources to a Resource Plan based on Availability
  • Fixed issue with searching for resources using special characters
• Roadmap and Milestone Management
  • Fixed issue with the Milestone variance calculation
  • Fixed issue with changing the date range for Portfolio Timeline Roadmaps
• Data Exchange
  • Fixed issue with Change Requests not being created when importing values into a Budget Financial Dimension in execution using identifiers
  • Multi-select fields can now be updated with more than one value through a single Data Exchange session
  • Fixed issue with too many Fields Update queue jobs being triggered when saving values or importing through Data Exchange
• Jira Connector
  • Values from the Priority Jira Field can now be synchronized to Microsoft Project
  • Fixed issue with Jira Connector Settings resetting to default after upgrade
  • Fixed issue with Jira events not being received when having at least two site bindings set on the SharePoint Site of the Web Application, created with the same type
  • When manually synchronizing entities, the Projects in the Synchronize Projects popup are no longer filtered by the Synchronization Filed, and this Filed is automatically set to Yes when the mapping is saved
• Performance and Reliability
  • Fixed error in the Reporting Update Financial Dimension queue job when deleting a Financial Dimension
  • Fixed issue with Field Updates queue items getting stuck in Sleeping state for long periods of time or even failing
  • Fixed issue with Aggregate Values for Entity queue job being triggered when values are updated on Financial Dimensions which were not involved in Financial Aggregations
  • Fixed the ProjectServerError(s) LastError=DatabaseUndefinedError issue
  • Fixed errors related Create Snapshots for Entity queue jobs
  • Improved OData Refresh reliability
  • Fixed OData performance issues for FinancialValuesLeaves view while the system was heavily used
  • Fixed issue with OData calls made from Sharepoint Designer
  • Added a new Snapshots OData View which exposes CreationDate
  • Added a new EntityRelationships OData view to help easily identify the Entities in a Relationship
  • Added a new SurveyUserAnswers OData view which shows the Survey Question Answers per Entity
• Other
  • Added the ability to define filtering conditions in the definition of Portfolio Center Views
  • Added CreateFiscalPeriods, DeleteFiscalPeriods, ReadAllFiscalPeriods, ReadFiscalPeriodByUid, ReadFiscalPeriods, UpdateFiscalPeriod API methods
  • Values can be imported via API/CSOM at parent node level even though there are values in their children nodes
  • Provider Connectivity Settings can be updated regardless of the state of the UMT360 site
  • Fixed error in Create Enterprise Association pop-up when using a Financials Legacy
  • Fixed issue with Field Mappings displaying 0 when the PWA Currency was the same as the UMT360 Reference Currency but both were different from USD
  • Fiscal Periods can the sorted By Start/Finish Date in the UMT360 Fiscal Periods page
  • Modifying the name of a Project Details Page is now updated under Form Mappings
  • Fixed error when trying to delete a UMT360 instance connected to Project Online when the Provider Connectivity user no longer has rights in Project Online
  • Fixed timeout issue when using Synchronize with Reporting option from Global Options
  • Fixed issue with Entity Start Date and Entity End Date field values not being displayed in UMT360 Forms and in Portfolio Center Views
  • Fixed rendering issue when loading the UMT360 Workflow Viewer web part

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU9 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.

We’re pleased to announce the availability of UMT360 v5.8 – Cumulative Update 8 (CU8). Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• New features and significant enhancements
  • UMT360 My Resource Plans: added the ability to bulk update Resource Plans across multiple projects
  • Resource Availability: added new availability views that provide the ability to easily find and add resources with availability to a Resource Plan, including advanced searching and filtering
  • UMT360 Jira Connector: this is the general availability / public release of the bi-directional Jira integration, previously available to select customers only
• Core Financial Capabilities
  • UI improvements to preserve the order of the selected Breakdown Financial Custom Fields across sessions
  • Fixed Value’s period must match project’s period error which occurred when values were saved on Actuals reporting periods in Financial Breakdowns
  • Fixed issue with nodes selection when editing the Breakdown Template
• • Fixed issue with UMT360 Fiscal Periods definition when using specific regional settings other than US
  • Fixed error when performing timeline changes during execution, with a username larger than 50 characters
  • Financial Breakdown timelines are properly adjusted when the financial timeline is cropped using Change Requests
  • Fixed ribbon issue when using Breakdown FCFs with Lookup Table
• Resource Management
  • Resource Dimensions can now be set as Read-only at the workflow stage level
  • Added the ability to create Assignment Fields with Lookup Tables
  • Enabled the use of Crop and Redistribute adjustment types when addressing inconsistencies in the Resources Timeline
  • Improved performance when creating or editing UMT360 Resources, when more than 300 Allocation Centers are in use
• Data Exchange
  • Improved usability when using Financial Period Identifier in Data Exchange
  • Improved handling of special characters when matching Financial Period names and using Fiscal Calendars
• Queue
  • Fixed error in UMT360 Queue page when multiple UpdateRelationshipFieldTable queue jobs were generated and one of them fails
  • Addressed timeout error for UpdateEntity Reporting Queue job when deleting a project
  • Fixed issue with Sync Entity Project Plan and Sync Milestones queue jobs being fired when the Resource Plan was published and Milestones with Automatically update Milestones when the Project Plan is Published were used
  • Improved queue usability by automatically retrying the queue jobs which have failed with ‘PSError’ or ‘Unknown Error’ and also by resetting the Number of Retries to 0 when the job is manually retried
  • Fixed timeout issue on Update Entity reporting queue job when deleting a project
  • Fixed ProjectHasWriteLock error on Update Entity on External Publish Event and Fields Update queue jobs when pushing project settings
  • Snapshots are no longer duplicated when being created in bulk and the UMT360 Queue Service is running on multiple servers
  • Fixed Update Instance queue job error when the financial timeline of an entity in execution was reduced using Crop Adjustment Type to fit its previous End Date
• Other
  • UI Improvements to the UMT360 Relationships web part
  • Improved handling of Fiscal Calendars for time periods labels in UMT360 Roadmaps
  • Fixed issue with the UMT360 Fields web part not functioning properly when using Custom Labels
  • Search field from Create Relationship is no longer case sensitive
  • Added UpdateChangeRequestApproversForEntity public method to help set approvers for Change Requests
  • Values are now reflected correctly via FinancialValuesLeaves OData View when there are periods with nodes in leaves at different levels

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU8 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.

We’re pleased to announce the availability of UMT360 v5.7 – Cumulative Update 7 (CU7). Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• New features and significant enhancements
  • Resource Rates and Financial Integration: added the ability to manage secure global resource rates in UMT360 and to automatically update financial views (cost nodes & allocation centers) from the UMT360 Resource Plan
  • OData enhancements: added new views for UMT360 configuration – OData.Fields, OData.FinancialDimensions, OData.FinancialTemplates, OData.EntitySettings (including Timeline information) and renamed a few views for consistency – OData.EnterpriseFinancialTypes, OData.Entities, OData.Surveys
• Core Financial Capabilities
  • Added notification emails for the Submitter of a Change Request on approval or rejection
  • Portfolio Managers now have the Approve Change Request permission set to Allow by default
  • Fixed issue with the Review Change Request button disappearing when creating a draft or pending Change Request under specific scenarios
  • Fixed issue with the Report Text Fields being displayed in Change Requests when performing copy actions in a Budget Dimension in execution
  • Bulk Snapshots are now created without the need for any of the following permissions:  Contribute permission level, Manage Lists, Override List Behaviors
  • Allocation Centers are no longer deselected from Display Filter after performing a Timeline change
  • Timeline takes into consideration Saturday and Sunday as valid working days to be set for Start Date and End Date if they are set as working Exceptions in Project, but not if they are set as working days from Work Weeks
  • Fixed error occurring in financial grids in projects with Fiscal calendar, Entire Project granularity and a Timeline of one day
  • Values are no longer displayed in Forecast after being deleted from an Actuals Aggregation Financial Breakdown
  • The lookup table structure is now expanded to the level of the currently selected value for a Breakdown Financial Field with lookup table
  • Fixed issue with values from current period being overwritten with null in Forecast, when using‘Overwrite upon approving Actuals values
  • Fixed issue with values from Forecast not being correctly overwritten from Actuals when using Overwrite upon approving Actuals values and Auto-approve actuals
• Roadmaps and Milestones
  • Roadmaps are no longer reliant on entity workflows and their stages
  • Added ability to print the entire content of a Portfolio Timeline/Slicer/Impact View
  • Added Full Screen functionality to all Roadmap Views
  • Added the possibility to filter a Timeline Views by Entity Type Name
• Added unique name requirements for Portfolio Roadmap Views
  • New entities are automatically added in Portfolio Roadmap Views
  • A Roadmap Timeline is now updated when the Map to specific Entity Fields option is used
  • Fixed issue with custom filter only applied after a refresh on Portfolio and Slicer Views
  • Milestones having Actual Date greater than Planned Date are now displayed in the Roadmaps as red diamonds and the variance is a positive number
• Resource Management
  • Selected Resource Dimensions are now persisted
  • Users having Edit Permissions for one or more Resource Dimensions can now change the Timeline Range even without View permissions
  • The Number Alignment option from Global Options is now taken into account by Resource Cost Fields with lookup tables
  • Fixed format for Date Fields
• Data Exchange
  • Decimal values can now be imported in Breakdown Financial Fields of type number
  • Fixed issue with values not being imported on Actuals using UMT360 Fiscal Periods which don’t start/end in January or December
  • Updated description for Financial Identifier
  • Fixed throttling issue on updating Fields
• Queue
  • Fixed issue with duplicate values being added as a result of an Update Instance queue job failing due to lack of Edit permissions on Financial Values when the Financial Timeline is changed
  • Fixed performance issue generated by multiple UpdateForecastValues queue jobs for the same project when Actuals are approved and the Forecast is overwritten
  • Fixed issue with Update Values for Entity queue job failing when changing granularity
  • Addressed minor display inconsistencies in the queue work item details pop-up
  • Improved reliability of the Synchronize Entity Information to the Reporting Database, Update Change Request Values, Update Exchange Rates for Reporting and Sync Entity Resource Plan queue jobs
  • Added automatic retry mechanism for queue jobs that fail with a CICOCheckedOutToOtherUser error
  • Fixed timing issue with queue job failing when the Change Request workflow started before information on Change Request (Status/Submitter/Submitted date) got a change to get updated
• Other
  • Performance improvements on UMT360 Fields web part
  • The Manage UMT360 Forms page is no longer accessible when Manage UMT360 Forms permission is set on Deny
  • The Form Type column is now displayed in the Manage UMT360 Forms page
  • Fixed issue with the DeleteExchangeRate method deleting all the Exchange Rates of a currency, not just the one indicated
  • Improved error and validation handling for DeleteSnapshot, UpdateResourceDimension and ValidateResourceDimension
  • The InExecution column has been removed from cmExecutionStatuses
  • Fixed issue with percentages added to Allocation centers not being properly formatted in locales which use comma as a decimal separator
  • Added the ability to create multiple Snapshots on the same Stage Transition using different Snapshot Templates
  • Added ability to define default filters for Portfolio Center views
  • Added confirmation dialog when the Lock Budget button is used
  • Fixed issue with Does not contain filter condition not working properly on Portfolio Views
  • Exporting Forecast values now generates an excel file having the name of the project

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU7 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.

We are pleased to announce the release of the UMT360 for SharePoint 2013 (UMT360 v4.1) – Cumulative Update 8 / CU8. Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• Core Financial Capabilities
  • Improved handling of various regional settings for the Allocation Center – Percentage Allocation dialog
  • Addressed issue where financial values are still displayed in a Forecast Financial Dimension after deleting values from a related Actuals aggregation Financial Breakdown and Overwrite Forecast with Actuals is enabled
  • Fixed behavior that led to Allocation Centers selection being lost when a timeline change is made
  • Extended functionality to allow for users to add of change Financial Custom Fields for an existing breakdown
  • Fixed backend issues that led to change requests not being approved
  • The UMT360 code now overwrites values for periods with no Assignments on the selected Financial Nodes or Allocation Centers when  Edit Values only through Project Server Synchronization is enabled
  • Addressed issues with the Review Snapshot dialog showing Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  • Improved handling of inactive resources when synchronizing Resource Plan data to UMT360’s financial structures
  • Added the ability to control behavior for Forecast reporting period editing through a new global option – Lock Forecast Values
• Relationships and Roadmaps
  • Addressed scenarios where deleting the last financial aggregation relationship for an entity would not trigger a refresh of aggregated values
• Other
  • Improved AddExchangeRate API method reliability
  • Addresses issues with Survey settings when exporting and re-importing UMT360 configuration
  • Added custom fields of type text and date to snapshot reporting tables
  • Addressed specific issues with handling of claims-based authentication
  • Improved reliability on slow farms of the event handlers deployed by the UMT360 code in Project Server

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU8 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.

Thank you,
The UMT360 Team

I’ve heard of lots of folks having issues displaying a People Picker in a Project Server web part. Well, good news, there’s a fix that I found recently in this article by James Boman, Use SharePoint people pickers on Project Server or Online PDPs.

Read the rest of this entry

We’re pleased to announce the availability of UMT360 v5.6 – Cumulative Update 6 (CU6). Cumulative Updates include all previously released public updates and private hotfixes. We strongly recommend that any patch and release is validated in a non-production environment first before being applied to production environments.

• New features and significant enhancements
  • UMT360 Resource Plans (including enhanced reporting and Automatically Build Team feature)
  • UMT360 Enterprise Associations for UMT360 Entities based on SharePoint List
  • UMT360 Milestones Templates
  • Full OData support for UMT360 reporting
• Other fixes and improvements
  • Core financial capabilities
    • Read-only cells can now be more easily highlighted in financial grids
    • Provide ability to add / remove Financial Custom Fields for an existing breakdown
    • Addressed issues with Approvers not being read and approval tasks not being created when using filter by department
    • Fixed display issues with Approvers when a Change Request approval task is deleted by the Workflow automatic cleanup job
  • Milestones
    • Milestones with variance are displayed as red diamonds in the Timeline roadmaps
    • New workflow stage setting that locks the Planned Date of all Planned milestones and change their status to Active
    • New user permission to use the Lock Plan and Unlock Plan ribbon buttons
    • Lock Plan and Unlock Plan ribbon buttons apply to both manually created milestones as well as milestone integrated with the project schedule
  • Roadmaps
    • Reduced vertical space between bars displayed in the Timeline roadmaps
    • Roadmap content is automatically adjusted when web part size is increased vertically and horizontally
  • Infrastructure
    • Improved AddExchangeRate API method to properly set end dates
    • Using Edit Values only through Project Server Synchronization now overwrites values for periods with no Assignments on selected nodes
    • Addressed Queue timeout problems when handing a large number of jobs
    • Add ability for administrators to delete any type of Queue job
    • Added user-friendly message for scenarios where mapped custom fields updates fail due to required fields with no values
    • Performance and reliability improvements when dealing with large numbers of custom fields

Visit the UMT360 Product Version History page for version details.

Customers and Partners can download CU6 via the online portals on www.umt360.com.