Category: Do it Yourself

The posts you will find in this category are step by step guides to produce a certain valuable end goals. Most of the time I will share my personal end results with you on the special TPC OneDrive folder. And sometimes I will only share it with the membership folder, that you get access to when you sign up to my newsletter. The content is highly actionable and will result in a better understanding and use of tools such as Microsoft Project and Project Online / Server. You might like articles such as Building a scope creep view and Build custom bar styles in Project Center using Project Server and Project Online.

The Do It Yourself (DIY) character of the posts make them short but content rich. They really are a lot of fun creating and I hope you will enjoy reading them and that you of course: Do It Yourself!

But there is much more content, please explore and I hope you find the content that you are looking for. If not, you can always reach out by adding a comment on a post.

Project for the web Feedback portal update July 2022

I’ve skipped over May and June, it has been a very busy time for me. And I didn’t want to rush any new post just for the sake of consistency.

Welcome to a special update post, today I want to zoom in on a specific Project for the web feature request. This request came in through one of the newsletter subscribers, Jared Kay (who makes lovely handmade American furniture). But first, let’s look at the progress of the other requests on the feedback portal.

Create a Power BI report that shows all files in Project Online

Hi reader,
I was recently asked by one of my clients to give them an exact number of all the files that were in the Project Online environment. The reason behind it was that the organisation wants to use Microsoft Teams to store all project related files instead of the classic Project Sites.

This is of course music to my ears! I get to play around with Power BI and the client is moving towards a future where Teams is available to all their teammembers. You might remember my previous video in which I share how to connect Teams with Project Online.

In this article I’ll share with you the steps I took to create this report. Then, at the end of the article I’ll share the video on how to do it. And as a final offer, I’ll give you the template I created so that you can do it even faster yourselves. Sounds goud? Here we go!

Teams 2 Project, App introduction

Hi again reader, I hope you are doing wonderful! I’m excited. And let me tell you why. Projectum, the company I work for, created a new PowerApp that lets you link specific parts of a Project Online Project to a Teams Channel.

Now why is this great? Well just ask the 121 voters on this UserVoice item I recently covered. In the last post I did I shared the 15 items Microsoft needs more information for to implement. Projectum took a shot at it, and let me say it is spot on! And even better yet! It’s free and available for you to download right now.

Four things to know about the Power BI Content Pack for Project Online

At Ignite 2017, Microsoft presented a great new content pack for the Project Online Power BI combination. And after some initial issues with the launch it’s here to stay! I’m very excited about this new version of the Power BI content pack and I would like to share four things that you might not know yet.

Continue reading Four things to know about the Power BI Content Pack for Project Online

The VAT liable resources case

I received a question from one of the TPC newsletter members. Rob thanks for this, hope you can use this post for your question. Rob wanted to know how I would approach this situation:

With the projects I work on some costs are liable to a value added tax charge and others are not. How do I get Project 2016 to calculate VAT on those charges to which it applies while omitting it from those which do not so that I get an accurate overall cost budget.

Continue reading The VAT liable resources case

The Project Online administrator links

This is a DIY post about creating The Project Online administrator links, a Promoted links list with a couple of the most used administrator actions for Project Online. I’ve created the administrator links in Project Online, but it can also be created in much the same way in PPM 2013 and 2016.

Continue reading The Project Online administrator links

Build custom bar styles in Project Center using Project Server and Project Online

Hi there,

Creating custom bar styles for a schedule brings out the artist in us. I have seen schedules that would make a Rainbow jealous (more on that later). Creating a bar style on the project center view however, is not easy. It could be very useful, because it can show the phases of a project without the need to open that schedule. Ideal for portfolio managers or PMO members.

This is a Do it Yourself post on how to achieve a Project Center view with phase colors. It can be applied for Project Server 2010, 2013 and Project Online. I could say it works for 2007 as well, but I have not been able to test this theory. All examples shown are created within Project Online.

—- Edit 2018 —–

Guillaume Rouyre, a Project MVP with his personal blog took the concepts in this post to add his twist to the solution. Take a look at the post, I’m sure you will like it: Click here.

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Continue reading Build custom bar styles in Project Center using Project Server and Project Online

Updating the visual reports in MS Project 2010 and 2013

Hello readers,

Recently I got to be more active on the Linkedin forums, and I came across an interesting post that could use some elaboration. It concerns the Visual Reports within Microsoft Project 2010 and 2013. As a standard, these reports are created using old Excel templates. But what if you want to use some nice new features? You would need to save that sheet and move away from the compatibility mode. In this post I will share the things you can do to create stunning reports.

Update feb 2016 —————

Hi there, I uploaded my own versions of the Excel Reports to TechNet (they are also available from the TPC OneDrive). Here is the link to the gallery:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/An-updated-version-for-the-da120217

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Continue reading Updating the visual reports in MS Project 2010 and 2013

The Office templates within Microsoft Project

Hi there readers,

First of all, let me thank all of you. I just reached 11K views since I started this blog in Q3 2013. Amazing, thank you all for reading the blog.

This post has been on my mind for quite some time now, ever since I wrote the 80-20 blogpost. Microsoft offers a number of standard templates trough their service Office.com that can be reached via the application. There are templates for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and even Microsoft Project. Great! But, have you ever taken a look at what is there? Me neither, so let’s take a look together.

— Supplements —

Erik here, I took a close look at all the comments and decided to upload the 5 templates I discussed in this article to the Project Corner OneDrive. There seems to be an issue with the office.com templates where some people are unable to access them. I also found out that people were searching for MS Project Budget templates, so I created a post about this.

Please feel free to download any of the files that are on The Project Corner OneDrive. Hope you enjoy the rest of the post.

—end of supplements—

Continue reading The Office templates within Microsoft Project

How I passed the Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 exam 70-331

Here is a little celebration post! Yesterday I passed the Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 exam with 725 points. Woohoo! But not only to celebrate, but also to educate: Here are a number of resources I found very useful.

Continue reading How I passed the Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 exam 70-331