Love Business Intelligence on Project Server, install the December 2011 CU now!

It’s always sound advice to try and keep your Project Server 2010 environment patched to the latest cumulative update, typically these include bug fixes or small enhancements to keep your environment running smoothly. Back in December, Microsoft released the December Project Server 2011 CU, which included a number of fixes and changes to timesheets amongst other things. As Project Server runs on top of your SharePoint environment,  it’s also necessary to patch SharePoint at the same time. With the December 2011 CU, the PerformancePoint team rolled in a number of enhancements to allow the viewing of PerformancePoint dashboards, reporting services reports and excel services on the iPad which Project Server gets to benefit from free of charge! Check out the screenshots below of the various Business Intelligence reports and dashboards rendering on an iPad.

There are a number considerations for allowing your reports and scorecards to render correctly on an iPad. From my limited testing most, if not all of the the Project Server v1 demo image rendered correctly without modification, with the exception of one of the status reporting services reports. Microsoft published a technet article outlining the limitations of the type of reports that can be displayed on the iPad and tips on how to interact with the reports.

Finally, don’t forget to check Brian Smith’s and Adrian Jenkins webcast covering the contents of the December CU including the various fixes and design changes it implements, to make sure the patch is right for your farm & circumstances.

Happy Patching