How to Export a SharePoint 2007 User List to Excel

We almost all faced this question from our users, “can you extract me the list of accounts we have in our site collection?”.

You can easily display the list of users by going in Site Actions > Site Settings > People And Groups, but there is no easy way under WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007, SharePoint Foundation and Server 2010 to export user list.

Here is the trick to export the list of users:

SQL Server: Displaying the sizes of your database's tables

For maintenance purpose, I needed to create a dashboard that reports database tables’ size to monitor growth of them. The first command that should be known is the sp_spaceused stored procedure. This command returns the following information:

·         Name (table name)

·         Rows (number of rows existing)

·         Reserved (Total amount of reserved space)

·         Data (Total amount of space used by data)

·         Index_size (Total amount of space used by indexes)

·         Unused (Total amount of space reserved but not yet used)

EXEC sp_spaceused 'dbo.Countries'

Creating a Work Breakdown Structure in Microsoft Project 2010 with Visio (WBS Modeler add-in for Visio 2010)

As part of the Initiating phase of a project, a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) should be delivered. I usually prepare a high level planning using Microsoft Project. It’s not really a WBS, but more a milestone and hammock tasks Gantt chart.

I always wanted to present it as a real WBS diagram but never found a good and simple tool to create it. Here is now the solution; the WBS Modeler add-in for Visio 2010 that allows generating the WBS based on a project plan, or the other way, generates a project plan based on a WBS. This add-in has been released end of 2011 by Microsoft (initially developed by David J Parker, Microsoft MVP for Visio).

First, the system requirements:

Windows XP Service Pack 3 or later with Visio Professional 2010; not that there is also a version for 2007 available), Project 2003 SP 1 or later AND Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

You can download the add-in from this page. The installation is very simple; it’s a series of “next” buttons.

Color coding calendar in SharePoint 2010

We put in place for our projects, SharePoint workspaces where we can share documents and collaborate with our client on the progress of their projects.

Among other items, I have created a team calendar mainly to share meetings, travels and vacations plans. Because I also wanted to manage differently those event types, I have created a Category for each of them.

·         Meeting

·         Holiday

·         Travel

·         Other

Here is my calendar with some information.

Click on the image to zoom

Microsoft Project Server 2010 resources

I recently have to deliver a series of workshops and trainings for one of my client about doing Project and Portfolio Management using Microsoft Project Server 2010. I will blog later on some interesting part of this area but in the meantime I wanted to share with you a list of useful resources on Microsoft Project Server 2010 I found while creating my presentation and training materials.

How to recreate a damaged msdb Database

I just face this problem in one of my projects, MSDB database was damaged and I did not have any backup of it. After Googling a long time, I found many links with some true and false tips. Finally I managed to find the correct way and wanted to share it with you.

There is one important aspect to mention here, if you recreate a new MSDB database using the method I will describe here, this will eliminate all the information stored in MSDB such as jobs, alert, maintenance plans, Database Mail… Find what the MSDB is used for in this MSDN article.

Welcome to the Process Excellence Revolution

Watch this excellent video from www.processexcellencenetwork.com about process and how “Process excellence improves the way you create and deliver value to customers.”

Microsoft's new releases plans (Feb. 2012)

For the ones who did not get the time to follow the news….

Windows 8

Anticipated release date: Beta expected "late February"; possible release to manufacturing on x86 and ARM between Q3 2012 and early 2013

Windows Server 8

Anticipated release date: Possible release to manufacturing between Q3 2012 and early 2013

System Center 2012

Anticipated release date: Early 2012, possibly April, to coincide with the Microsoft Management Summit event

SQL Server 2012

Anticipated release date: First half of 2012

Internet Explorer 10

Anticipated release date: Between Q3 2012 and early 2013

Office 15

Anticipated release date: Q4 2012

Exchange 15

Anticipated release date: Q4 2012

Doing Scrum in Microsoft Project 2010

Two year ago, I was involved in a project for a luxury company, and previous project manager used Scrum to manage it and the deliveries. After a quick introduction of this methodology, we used his tools (mainly Excel) to implement Scrum.

Today I would like to reuse Scrum in another project, but I wanted to see if it’s possible to use Microsoft Project instead of Excel to manage Scrum artifacts as Product backlog, Sprint Backlog and Burn down chart.

Note that this article will not explain the methodology; you can check this article in Wikipedia or watch this interesting video by Hamid Shojaee for a quick course on Scrum.