Although migrating from Microsoft Project Server 2003 to
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 is well documented on
Microsoft TechNet, there are a few items that deserve further
mention.
At a high-level, the complexity of the migration increases
based on the quantity of SharePoint content; and/or if a partial
migration is being contemplated.
A migration always should be well planned and one of the
first steps of the planning process should be doing an inventory
of the current system. An inventory allows you to verify the
success of the migration plus it can identify elements that need
to be handled pre- or post-migration. At a minimum, an inventory
should include:
A list of projects with project names, the custom
project fields, the start and finish dates, the URL for the
SharePoint workspace and whether the project is externally
modified. (Note that for a project to be marked as
externally modified the last modification must have been
made by something other than MS Project. If you modify a
project’s custom field’s value using PWA that would qualify
as externally modified.)
A list of resources with resource names, Windows
accounts, custom resource fields and whether the resource is
externally modified.
A list of PWA views noting the grouping and filtering
defined.
The security objects: groups, categories and users.
A detailing of the custom development including reports,
connections with other systems, macros within MS Project,
Guides, and so on.
Revisit Security
Installing Project Server 2007 creates the standard security
groups and categories but when the migration utility runs, it
migrates the security settings from the 2003 database. This
results in two set of security objects. You will need to merge
the two sets taking into consideration your requirements and the
permissions new to Project Server 2007.
Update Views
There are a number of data elements that are not moved as
part of the migration (see the Microsoft migration guide for
more details), but one item that is partially moved is the
views. The grouping and filtering for views must be recreated
manually after the migration.
Don’t Forget!
Client-Side Software
Don’t forget to co-ordinate the deployment of the client-side
software (MS Project 2007, the PWA ActiveX controls and the
necessary software to access OLAP views) with your migration.
SharePoint Workspace
If you are using a customized SharePoint Workspace template
in Project Server 2003, it will not be migrated. Instead you
need to customize the default 2007 template and deploy it in
your new environment.
Training
One key to a successful migration is training, particularly
for Project Managers so they can take advantage of the new
features in Project Server 2007.
Gord Schmidt is Technical Lead for Enterprise Project
Management Solutions. He can be reached at
or 416-994-4673.
