Serena Project Portfolio Management 10.2 Readme

Serena Software, Inc.
March 2011


Table of Contents

1.0 Support Platforms

2.0 Installation Recommendations

2.1 Installation Overview

2.2 Installation Testing

2.3 For More Information

3.0 What's New

3.1 Project Archiving

3.2 Task Plan Performance

3.3 Improved Overall Performance

3.4 SQL Server 2008 Support

4.0 Defects Resolved

5.0 Known Issues

5.1 (DEF187938)Task plan unusable when running JVM 1.6.0_20, _21, _22, _23, or _24

5.2 (DEF198917) Recalculate All Labor Attributes in the Configuration Module fails on Windows 2008 R2 Servers

5.3 (DEF199004) Scheduler job for archived items fails on Windows 2008 R2 Servers

6.0 No Longer Supported

6.1 SQL Server 2005 no longer supported




1.0 Support Platforms

For detailed information on supported platforms for Project Portfolio Management, see the online Supported Platforms matrix at http://support.serena.com/Roadmap/MARINER/10.2/MARINER_10.2_Supported_Platforms.aspx.

2.0 Installation Recommendations

2.1 Installation Overview

If this is the first time you are installing Project Portfolio Management 10.2, follow the detailed instructions in the Serena Project Portfolio Management 10.2 Deployment Guide.

To upgrade to this release, you must first upgrade the application and then migrate the database. The steps needed to migrate your database depend on the version of the application that you are currently using. Performing a migration using tools that don’t match your version can result in database corruption. It is critical that you follow the correct upgrade and migration path. Detailed installation steps for each path can be found on the Serena Knowledgebase:

If you are unsure of your current release, contact support at support@serena.com.

2.2 Installation Testing

We STRONGLY RECOMMEND that Customers deploy all service releases, service packs, and patches to a test environment before deploying to a production environment. A test environment should have:

After deploying to the test environment, testing should be performed on all user activities prior to deployment in production. Proper industry practice is to always complete a backup before deploying software, including new installs or updates of any kind. Thus, before deploying this release, the host environment should be prepared as follows:

2.3 For More Information

If you need additional assistance, use the Serena Support webpage to find the appropriate phone number. You can also send e-mail to support@serena.com, and a representative will reply as soon as possible to help answer your questions.


3.0 What's New

3.1 Project Archiving

Serena PPM now supports the ability to archive completed projects while at the same time automatically freeing up resources with future allocations or assignments on a project. Bulk archiving is no problem as this new feature supports archiving an entire portfolio of projects in a quick two-step process. Reporting and searching on data across archived projects is also supported so that historical project information can be leveraged for future project efforts. Other benefits of this feature include improved performance load times of your portfolio tree hierarchy and faster nightly financial post job processing.

3.2 Task Plan Performance

Task Plan Load times have been improved by up to 55% and Task Plan Save/Publish times have been improved by up to 90% over PPM 2010 R1, improving the overall usability of our task plan functionality. In addition, we have fixed a number of issues around our task plan noted in our release notes.

3.3 Improved Overall Performance

In addition to the Task Plan performance and usability improvements, we also spent a good deal of time and effort improving overall PPM application performance, focusing on specific high-use areas. Areas include application view load, timesheets load and time entry, and our portfolio tree hierarchy load times.

3.4 SQL Server 2008 Support

We now support SQL Server 2008 R2 with our PPM 10.2 release. Unfortunately, given compatiblity issues with our custom SQL Reporting Services integration with PPM, we will no longer be supporting SQL Server 2005 with our PPM 10.2 release. SQL Reporting Services 2008 brings many improvements over 2005 that customers will be able to take advantage of.


4.0 Defects Resolved

For a complete list of fixes in Serena Project Portfolio Management 10.2, consult the following query in the Serena Support Knowledgebase.

If you have additional questions, use the Serena Support webpage to find the appropriate phone number. You can also send e-mail to support@serena.com, and a representative will reply as soon as possible to help answer your questions.


5.0 Known Issues

5.1 (DEF187938)Task plan unusable when running JVM 1.6.0_20, _21, _22, _23, or _24

When running with JVM 1.6.0_20, VM 1.6.0_21, JVM 1.6.0_22, JVM 1.6.0_23, or JVM 1.6.0_24, Project Portfolio Management displays the task plan header only and the task plan is not usable.

The workaround for this is described in D11448.

5.2 (DEF198917) Recalculate All Labor Attributes in the Configuration Module fails on Windows 2008 R2 Servers

On Windows 2008 R2 servers, the Recalculate All job gives the following error: Access to register key Global is denied.

The workaround for this is described in D12212.

5.3 (DEF199004) Scheduler job for archived items fails on Windows 2008 R2 Servers

On the Scheduler server, Project Portfolio Management does performance monitoring to trace the system memory usage. In IIS 7.5 (Windows 2008 R2 Servers), DefaultAppPool runs under ApplicationPoolIdentity by default. This account does not have permission to use the performance monitor. This causes the Scheduler job to fail with a Recalculation All failure.

The workaround for this is described in D12212.


6.0 No Longer Supported

The following features and activities are no longer supported in Project Portfolio Management 10.2:

6.1 SQL Server 2005 no longer supported

Because of compatiblity issues with our custom SQL Reporting Services integration, we will no longer be supporting SQL Server 2005 with our PPM 10.2 release.

For detailed information on supported platforms for Project Portfolio Management, see the online Supported Platforms matrix at http://support.serena.com/Roadmap/MARINER/10.2/MARINER_10.2_Supported_Platforms.aspx.