Managing Projects Using Project Server and Team Foundation Server

Project managers and software development teams can use the tools they prefer, work at the granularity that supports their needs, and share information transparently between Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Microsoft Project Server 2007 with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Project Server 2010. When the two server products are configured, the synchronization engine maintains scheduling data and resource usage for the configured data in the mapped enterprise project plan and the team project.

The integration of the two server products provides flexibility in how projects are managed. As a project manager, you can manage your project by using one or a combination of the following three methods:

• Define and track deliverables. You define the requirements and features to be delivered, and the development team defines the implementation tasks. For more information, see Top-Down Planning of Business Requirements within an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project.

• Define and track both deliverables and tasks. You define the project details, and the development team reports status updates. For more information, see Managing Project Details in an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project.

• Review progress of agile teams. You review progress of work submitted to Project Server, and the development team manages both project deliverables and tasks. For more information, see Making Agile Team Progress Visible to the Program Management Office.

For each of these methods, resource managers can accurately plan and manage resources, project managers can balance workload across resources for multiple software projects, and the program management office (PMO) can view up-to-date status and track the overall health of the software portfolio that is under development. In addition, business analysts have access to quality metrics over time.

Important

This topic applies to Microsoft Project Professional 2007 or Microsoft Project Professional 2010 from a client computer that has Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Visual Studio 2010 installed. Also, the integration of Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server must be configured. For more information, see System and Setup Requirements to Support Integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server.

You can manage work items in Team Foundation by using Microsoft Project or Project Professional if you use the Team Foundation plug-in as Scheduling Tasks and Assigning Resources Using Microsoft Project describes. The plug-in connects a project plan to a team project but does not synchronize work items. This plug-in is disabled when an enterprise project plan is mapped to a team project. For more information about how to manage work items by using Project, see Operational Differences in Managing Projects Using Team Foundation and Project.

In this topic

• Tasks for Project Managers to Manage Projects and Track Progress

• Tasks for Development Leads and Teams

• Tasks to Configure, Map, and Customize Data Synchronization

Tasks for Project Managers to Manage Projects and Track Progress

Task	Related topic
Define deliverables. You can define business requirements and specific deliverables, and you can leave the definition of specific tasks to the development team. You can view the rollup of resources and effort, and you can view the impact to the schedule as the development team defines, estimates, and updates its detailed tasks.	Top-Down Planning of Business Requirements within an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project
Define both deliverables and tasks. You can manage both business requirements and implementation tasks. You can manage your workflow independent of the development team while you stay informed as work progresses.	Managing Project Details in an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project
Review progress of agile teams. You can view work progress and resource usage as the agile development team manages the definition and schedule of user stories and tasks. You and the PMO can view schedules, progress on user stories, and rollup of resources.	Making Agile Team Progress Visible to the Program Management Office
Review how fields are updated. If you suspect that the synchronization engine is not working as expected, you should verify how specific fields are updated. The data type of the affected field or fields, the OnConflict attribute for mapping fields, and the task hierarchy affect how the synchronization engine updates specific fields. Tasks will not update correctly if the project manager rejects one or more submission updates or if the project plan was not published.	Understanding How Updates to Specific Fields Are Managed
Assign resources and view resource utilization. When the development team breaks down requirements and tasks into child tasks, as a project manager, you can see the rollup of work and resources. You can use resource rollup to view resource allocation and work estimates, perform resource leveling, and determine whether a common resource to multiple projects is over-allocated.	Working with Resource Rollup in Enterprise Projects Mapped to Team Projects
Resolve errors when you publish tasks to Team Foundation Server. You must resolve all data validation errors that may occur when you publish an enterprise project plan that is mapped to a team project. A data validation error occurs if you define a value that violates a rule that is defined for the work item type that is associated with the task.	Resolving Validation Errors

Back to top

Tasks for Development Leads and Teams

Task	Related topic
Review deliverables, define tasks, and estimate work. For each deliverable that is submitted to Project Server, you define and estimate the tasks that are required to implement the deliverable. As work progresses, team members update their task hours, which are automatically submitted to Project Server and the project manager for review.	Top-Down Planning of Business Requirements within an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project
Review work breakdown and update work. As a development lead, you can use the Work Breakdown team query to review the work items that a project manager submits. As work progresses, team members update their task hours, which are automatically submitted to Project Server and the project manager for review.	Managing Project Details in an Enterprise Project Plan Mapped to a Team Project
Define and submit user stories to Project Server. As a development lead, you provide visibility into the project schedule and resource utilization if you set the Project Server Submit field to Yes for those user stories on which your team is working. You can set the value of this field quickly if you use the Product Planning workbook.	Making Agile Team Progress Visible to the Program Management Office
Find and address rejected work item submissions. When the project manager rejects an update to a work item, you must address the reason for the rejection and resubmit it to Project Server. Until you resubmit the update, the work item can no longer participate in data synchronization.	Resolving Conflicts and Managing Rejected Work Item Submissions
Remove tasks and work items that no longer need to be tracked. When you delete a task from your project plan that has been synchronized with a work item in Team Foundation, you remove the association between the task and the work item. This removal occurs after you publish the plan to Project Server and the synchronization process completes updating the published changes. However, you must use the witadmin destroywi command to permanently remove the work items from the team project	Deleting Tasks and Removing Work Items That Are No Longer Participating in Synchronization

Back to top

Tasks to Configure, Map, and Customize Data Synchronization

Task	Related topics
Obtain permission to map your enterprise project plans to a team project. To map your project plans, you must have the Administer Project Server integration permission for a team project collection that is assigned to you.	Assigning Permissions to Support Integration of Project Server and Team Foundation Server
Map an enterprise project plan to a team project. To support synchronization of data between an enterprise project plan and a team project, you must map the plan to the team project. You can map multiple plans to the same team project, but you cannot map one plan to multiple team projects.	Managing the Association of Enterprise Projects to Team Projects
Add or remove a work item type from participating in data synchronization. You can define the types of work items when you associate a project plan to a team project, and you can later add or remove types. You can also list the types of work items that are mapped for a team project.	Specifying the Work Item Types That Can Be Synchronized
Add fields to or remove fields from participating in data synchronization. You can add fields and specify how they synchronize by customizing the field mapping file. For example, you can share data that does not relate to schedules (such as cost centers, team names, or health status) if you add the fields that store these types of data to the mapping file. You can map fields that are associated with pick lists in Team Foundation. However, you must create lookup tables in Project Server to match the pick lists. You cannot automatically synchronize pick lists and lookup tables.	Customizing the Field Mapping Between Project Server and Team Foundation Server
Change the configuration for synchronization. You can remove components that you have configured to participate in data synchronization. However, you should always follow the recommended reconfiguration sequence when you remove such components.	Removing a Component from Participating in Data Synchronization
Add team project members to the enterprise resource pools. To assign and manage Team Foundation users as resources in Project, you must add them to the enterprise resource pool. To make this process easier, you can configure Project Server to automatically synchronize the security groups with groups that have the same name in Active Directory. Also, you can synchronize users and resources in Project Server with the users in Active Directory across multiple domains and forests. Important Each time that you add team members to the resources for a project plan, you must publish the project plan so that the synchronization engine will register the changes.	See the following pages on the Microsoft website: Add resources to the enterprise resource pool (Project Server 2007) Add resources to the enterprise resource pool (Project Server 2010) Manage Active Directory synchronization in Project Server 2007 Manage Enterprise Resource Pool synchronization with Active Directory in Project Server 2010

Back to top

See Also

Tasks

Configuring the Integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server

Concepts

Overview of Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration Features

Overview of the Synchronization Process for Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration

Change History

Date	History	Reason
September 2011	Clarified the need to publish the project plan after you add team members to its resource pool.	Information enhancement.
April 2011	Added information and a link to a topic about how data fields are synchronized between Project Server and Team Foundation Server.	Information enhancement.
April 2011	Corrected information in the first note, and added link to topic that describes how to add resources to the enterprise resource pool in Project Server 2007.	Content bug fix.