Microsoft Office Specialist–First step

As part of my sabbatical I am planning to update my Microsoft Office Specialist certification. Microsoft have changed the way in which this certification can be obtained. Basically there are two stream, Word or Excel. Full details are on the website.

In order to go the Excel route I need to pass two exams for excel, 77-427 and 77-428, one exam for Word (77-418) and choose one from PowerPoint (77-422), Access (77-424), SharePoint (77-419) or OneNote (77-421).

Alternatively it is possible to take two exams in Excel (77-427 and 77-428), two exams in Word (77-425 and 77-426) and one from PowerPoint (77-422), Access (77-424), SharePoint (77-419) or OneNote (77-421).

Note that in the two different scenarios the Word exams are different.

Excel

Since people keep referring to me as the Excel expert I thought I would go the Excel route (although I shy away from the term Expert. There is always someone who knows more than I do and the word reminds me of a has been (ex) and a drip under pressure (spurt)).

Anyway, today saw me sit the first two excel exams. 77-427 and 77-428.

These are managed by Certiport and my nearest testing center is in Grove near Wantage. I duly headed down there this morning to take the exams. The initial setup was easy enough and the exam flowed well enough. However, I am glad that there were two monitors as the format of the exam makes it much easier if the questions are on a different screen. Basically, you are presented with a scenario and a project to complete. The exam presents a number of tasks that must be completed using the actual application. It is recommended that you save your work regularly, in case the system crashes, and the exam should be saved at the end before clicking on Finish as the last saved version is used to mark the exam.

77-427

I started with this exam and worked through it OK, finishing with about 15minutes remaining on the clock. I ensured that I had saved everything and then clicked on Finish.

The screen flashed  a few times and then displayed a message that the exam had failed to load properly, or something similar.

After a few minutes of the invigilator on the phone to Certiport it transpired that my work had been saved but that it had been moved to a separate folder for inspection by a real person, as opposed to being marked by computer.

So I shall have to wait a few days for the result.

77-428

Undeterred I set off on the next exam, after a short break.

This one proved a bit more tricky, mainly because it tested functionality and functions that I was not familiar with. I used up the entire 50 minutes and still was not able to complete one question.

Despite this I passed

So that is one down, hopefully two down, and two to do.

Changing the image used in EPTs

A question that arises quite regularly on the Project Server configuration courses, is:

Is it possible to change the icon used for the Enterprise Project Types?

These icons are the ones that appear next to the name of each EPT on the New button in Project Center.

The out of the box EPTs have the following image URL:

The folder that stores these images may be accessed by connecting to the server itself, by remote desktop connection, and then navigating to the following address:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\INC\PWA\IMAGES

This folder contains a number of images, three of which begin with the word “Center”:

It is therefore possible to copy one of these images, rename it and edit the image, using something like Paint.

The new image can then be used for existing and new EPTs.

An error occurred. You cannot edit the team at this time

The full text of this message is:

“An error occurred.

You cannot edit the team at this time. Verify that Project is still connected to the server and try again”

We have a training environment set up in the office, running on a separate sub-domain. This means that we can access the training environment easily enough using the training machines, but we need to connect via remote desktop from our own laptops, whether we are working in the office or from home. I was working from home yesterday, connected to the training environment using remote desktop connection.

I could open Microsoft Project Professional 2013, create tasks, link them, save, publish and close the project, all with no problems at all. However, as soon as I tried to build a team of resources the above message appeared. I tried to search on the web for it but with no luck.

In the office today I raised it with our support team, who were able to come up with a solution:

Create another connection to the Project Server from Microsoft Project Professional.

So using my original account, TCPS, I get the message as shown above.

However, by adding another account, using exactly the same details;

It works perfectly:

It is then possible to remove the first account, that was causing the problems, and to change the properties of the second account. For example, deleting TCPS, then renaming TCPS2 to TCPS.

SharePoint Communities

Discussion boards have been a feature of SharePoint in both the last two releases (2010 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007). They have been a great way for members of a team to ask questions and share information. With the 2013 release of SharePoint Microsoft have taken the principles of discussion boards and created new sites and features called Communities. These allow the creation of a number of categories to organise discussions, the ability to award “badges” to certain users so that they can be recognised as moderators, and the ability to award points and grades to users.

An introduction to SharePoint communities is given on the official Microsoft SharePoint blog, with details of how to configure communities in a separate post here.