An Enterprise Data Warehouse

The last project ended a complete success. So I have been running a new project for the last three weeks. This time I’m responsible for implementing a data warehouse. The overall project looks like its going to be broken down into two projects. The first project is going to last three months. The goal of this project is to build a single data mart for one area of the business. For this project I have a four man team. It consists of a BI Specialist, two Software Engineers, and QA Specialist. It will be interesting to manage a slightly larger team; although still smaller than the teams I manage at NG. One interesting aspect is two of team members are commuting from Philly each week.

We just completed the third week of the project. Everything is running smoothly so far. We have learned quite a lot about the company’s business processes. We have built a base architecture using SSIS packages within a SQL Server 2005 Enterprise server. We have extracted data from five different data sources. Two of these data sources used Oracle, two used SQL Server, and one used Pervasive SQL to store data. We have built preliminary dimensions and facts to prove our ETL methodology. All in all it’s been a successful three week.

A Quiet Time

The good news about executing a project well is that the last few weeks of a project should be very quiet. The bad news about executing a project well is that the Project Manger, me, is quite bored. I have mitigated all my known risks. I have schedule all the remaining work. I have updated all the project documentation. I’m in the process of putting together the project’s closing documentation. And while I know the closing documentation is important it is very hard to motivate myself to work on it. It’s just not fun!

All in all the project looks like it is going be a huge success. We have succeeded in implanting all the functionality that the customer approved. It’s looking like we will finish on time and ~10% under budget. Finishing under budget, depending on who you ask, may be good or bad. Especially, since the project was T&M. Since this in my blog and I was the PM for the project, I’ll say it’s a good thing. Better under than over!

Here is a quick laundry list of custom MOSS features we created during the course of the project:

• Custom Site Templates
• Custom List Templates
• Custom Document Library Templates
• Custom web part that handles site provisioning – including the addition of dynamic default content, documents & list items
• Custom web part that manipulated word documents based on user specified criteria
• Including decomposition of a single document into sub documents. It also merged the subdocuments together.
• Launch multiple custom and out-of-the-box workflows simultaneously against several documents.
• Custom InfoPath forms for custom workflow
• A custom column type that for a filtered lookup list.
• A custom web part that launched an out-of-the-box workflow based on lists of users.
• Persistence of state information for users between page visits (remembered what items were selected in drop downs)
• Persistence of button states within a custom web part active/non-active
• All custom web parts used user controls to separate presentation layer from logic layer
• Web part communication from our custom web parts to lists to select filters.
• Programmatically changed views of lists in response to events.
• Custom Event handlers to track workflow status
• Custom Event handlers that limit access to editing list items at incorrect times in a the workflow.
• A custom web part that deleted a site and persisted certain information off lists so it could be reused.
• An MSI installer that installed the entire solution including:
  o Deleted the solution if previously installed
  o Created a custom security policy
  o Modified the web.config file with safe control and other entries
  o Deployed all required files
  o Created the site collection.

I Pass the MS 542 Exam

Just a quick note, Microsoft notified me that I passed the MS 71-542 exam, TS: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Application Development. This was the beta version of the 70-542 exam. So was exciting to hear that as I thought this test was challenging. This is the third certification I have achieved in the last 12 months including my PMP, which was my largest accomplishment.

Into Construction

Well my team and I just completed the Elaboration phase of our project. That finishes week 10 of this ~18 week project. We have 5 weeks of development under our belt and have created both an Alpha 1 and an Alpha 2 release. We have implemented three different custom workflows using .NET 3.0 and MOSS 2007. We have an MSI installer that we have successfully handed over to the client that deploys our Features and Solution then programmatically builds our site collection with our custom templates. We have custom templates for our workspaces as well as custom templates for our lists. We have deployed 5 custom web parts that do a fantastic job at manipulating documents.
Looking at how we have handled the single word document problem to allow multiple users to interact with it, I don’t see why no one has done this before. Oh well that is the fun of building software. I do think we are going to be able to make a huge impact on how the organization creates is public financial reports.
I was also talking with my boss today and he is thinking of using this project as an internal case study for the successful execution of an iterative project. I’m pretty excited by that; so all in all not a bad 2.5 months of work.

SEC Reporting Project Entering Elaboration

Well, I’m finish week four of my current project. The aim of this project is to utilize MOSS 2007 to implement an SEC reporting process for one of RDA’s current customers. In addition to MOSS we will be using .NET 3.0 for custom workflow and some technology to programmatically handle word documents.
Things are going well. My team and I have laid out a strong plan and we are a couple of days ahead of schedule. Next week we start building the inner architecture for the system. That will determine whether the plan survives the first shot. As of right now, we are slightly ahead of schedule and budget. So for everyone who is tracking this keep your fingers crossed.