Microsoft Visio Professional 2007 Review

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(More customer reviews)I been using Visio Enterprise 2003 for the last 3 years with Sql Server 2000. My only use of visio relates to database modeling. Once the drawing is been approved, I simply used "Update" option to update database. The update option is a time saving feature in a rapid application development environment for changing relationship, keys and constraints. Writing those changes back to Sql Server is a smooth process.
Recently i changed my development environment to SQL Server 2005 and figured out that Visio 2003 Enterprise does not work with SQL Server 2005. So I decided to buy visio professional 2007 to use the single feature of database modeling.
Upon installation, I figured that there is no option for writing changes back to SQL Server 2005 in either version of Visio (2003 Enterprise, 2007 Professional). In simple there is no "update" or "generate" command in visio professional 2007.
Put it simple. If you want to use database modeling and hoping to write those changes back to SQL Server 2005 with visio, DON'T BUT IT......IT WILL NOT WORK

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Office Visio 2007 makes it easy for IT and business professionals to visualize analyze and communicate complex information systems and processes. Using professional-looking Office Visio 2007 diagrams you can improve your understanding of systems and processes gain insight into complex information and use that knowledge to make better decisions for your business. Using Office Visio 2007 visually document design and fully understand the state of your business processes and systems with a wide range of diagrams business process flowcharts network diagrams workflow diagrams database models and software diagrams just to name a few. Make diagrams more useful by linking them with underlying data to provide a more complete picture. Office Visio Professional 2007 will make it easy for IT and business professionals to visualize analyze and communicate complex information systems and processes with clear compelling diagrams. By using Office Visio 2007 people will be able to easily visualize information from multiple data sources to better understand the current state of systems and processes analyze information visually to highlight key trends and exceptions and share diagrams broadly for effective and efficient decision-making.GeneralCategory:Office applicationsSubcategory:Office applications - projects / processLicense Type:Complete packageLicense Qty:1 userLicense Pricing:StandardDistribution Media:CD-ROMPackage Type:RetailPlatform:WINSystem Requirements / OS Required:Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or laterUNSPSC CodeUNSPSC Code:43233004Product IDUPC:882224157476Manufacturer Part:D87-02785

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Project Management: Best Practices for IT Professionals Review

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(More customer reviews)This is not a book about project management, rather it is a collection of IT project management best practices that will guarantee success if they are incorporated into your project management bag of tricks.
Mr. Murch has classified the best practices by providing a set of general practices and a set of specific ones that are aligned to each phase of the system development life cycle. This organization allows you to use this book as a resource guide when planning, estimating and scheduling the project, and as a desk reference when controlling it.
While some of the best practices are widely known (although not as widely practiced), the real gems in this book are: associating tasks with deliverables (too often the deliverable part of the task is not identified during planning, which results in tasks that do not contribute to project goals - if a task does not produce an associated deliverable you need to question why the task is included), project status reporting (the sample status report is excellent, except for one glaring omission discussed below), and the focus on quality assurance and configuration management metrics, which encompasses factors that are frequently missing from IT project controls.
The project status report example is a highlight of this book. Mr. Murch's proposed format will provide a succinct summary of a project's health, and give the project manager, his or her team and the sponsor an ongoing view of the project's status. What mars this otherwise perfect format is an integrated view of cost and schedule performance is completely missing from the picture. He comes close by discussing estimate at completion vs. budget in the project cost performance of the report format, but does not connect it to the schedule performance. A true best practice is to compute a schedule performance index (Budgeted Cost of Work Performed divided by Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled), and a cost performance index (Budgeted Cost of Work Performed divided by Actual Cost of Work Performed). These link schedule and cost performance and show a true picture of the project's health. I hope this gets rectified in the next edition of this excellent book.
Every chapter of this book contains at least one or more gems that will make you a better project manager. I think every IT project manager should have a copy close by. We should applaud Mr. Murch's efforts for successfully cataloging and documenting these IT project management best practices. Despite the incomplete picture his project status report gives this book deserves 5 stars.

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