Exam Profile MCTS 70-633: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects
Date: Sep 11, 2012
The 70-633 exam is meant to be taken by those who use Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 to manage and support projects in an Enterprise Project Management (EPM) environment. You should have experience managing projects in the EPM environment, including risks, issues, documents, task progress, and timesheets. Familiarity with the key project management concepts and terminology found in the Project Management Institute's A Guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) is recommended.
After you pass the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects exam, you complete the requirements for the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 certification.
Exam 70-633: TS: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects counts as credit toward the Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Enterprise Project Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 certification.
Exam Details
- Number of Questions: Approximately 55 questions (Since Microsoft does not publish this information, the number of exam questions may change without notice.)
- Type of Questions: This test format is multiple choice.
- Passing Score: 700
- Time Limit: 120 minutes
- How to Register: Prometric.com
This passing score does not mean that you must answer 70 percent of the items correctly in order to pass the exam The actual percentage varies from exam to exam and may be more or less than 70 percent. There is no penalty for guessing. No points are deducted for incorrect answers. If a question specifies that you must choose multiple correct answers, you must choose the exact number of correct answers specified in the question in order to earn a point for that item. Some of the questions on the exam may not count toward the calculation of your score. Microsoft will often throw a question in that is meant to gather data that will help them improve the exam.
Trouble Spots
As with any exam, it will vary from person to person as to what is deemed to be difficult. Be sure you are familiar with each of the topics in the exam objectives listed below.
There are many of out-of-the-box templates in Project 2007 to help accelerate the project creation process. A Project template allows you to pre-populate task and resource information, and apply formatting, macros, and other project-specific settings. These templates make Project 2007 a highly effective tool soon after it is put into use by applying consistency across the project portfolio.
You can experiment with what-if scenarios in Project 2007 to optimize plans by understanding the effects of each possible choice or change. The new Multiple-Level Undo feature enables users to undo and redo changes to views, data, and options. Users can test several what-if scenarios in order to fully understand the implications of each choice while making scope changes.
Microsoft Project allows you to monitor project financials to forecast and manage project costs and track variances against the budget. You can assign costs to project tasks, providing a clearer picture of the project’s total cost.
The new Cost Resources feature enables users to assign costs to tasks and provides new fields for cost information that enable better project accounting, resulting in precise project cost estimates. This feature also supports integration of Project 2007 with many popular accounting systems.
You can allocate funds and track costs to keep projects on budget. The new Budget Tracking feature provides users with an efficient way to assign budgets to projects and programs, and to allocate funds and track costs, work, and materials against the budget quickly and easily. These capabilities help to ensure that project time and money are used effectively.
The new Task Driver pane helps users determine the factors driving the start date of the task such as task dependency, calendar constraints, schedule dates, or non-working time. This makes it possible to follow a chain of factors to find the root cause of a particular issue.
The new Change Highlighting feature allows users can determine the impact of changes on dependent tasks and automatically highlights all items that shift as a result of the most recent changes made, enabling project managers to understand how changes will affect project dependencies.
The Visual Reports feature uses Microsoft Office Excel to produce PivotTable views, charts, graphs, and professional-looking reports based on project data. Users can easily build work breakdown structures (WBS) or resource diagrams in Microsoft Office Visio Professional. With data-driven diagrams, users can show progress bars, flag important tasks, color-code on cost, or create custom diagrams to match their project needs, resulting in improved stakeholder satisfaction and team coordination.
The Project Web Access home page is the primary entry point for users who work with data saved to the Project Server 2007 database. When you log on to Project Web Access, pending items that might require action (such as task updates that must be approved) and items that have changed since the last time that you logged on are displayed. From the home page, you can access Project Web Access features, including the Tasks, Project Center, Resource Center, Updates, Status Reports, Documents, Issues, and Risks pages.
Preparation Hints
Review the Exam Objectives below and make sure that you are familiar with them. Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects exam is designed for those who have experience in this environment. Always check the Microsoft site for the specific exam you are going to take. In this instance, the site is http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?ID=70-633.
There are many web sites and blogs that can help you to research topics, but be careful to fully research the information you read. It is not advisable to try to find sites that list questions and answers for several reasons. First, you don’t know if you will be asked a specific question and second, the answers given in a blog may be inaccurate and third, you need to understand the information to adequately prepare.
Classroom Training
Microsoft has developed classroom training for exam 70-633. If you want, you can contact a certified Microsoft training center and schedule training in one of the following three classes:
- LP633A: Learning Plan for Exam 70-633 TS: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects (1 Forms)
- 5928A: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects (3 Days)
- 5928AD: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects (3 Days)
There are currently no Microsoft E-Learning training or Microsoft Press Books available for this exam.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, Microsoft recommends the book, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge. This is a 450-page book that is not an easy read. You can purchase it at several locations including Amazon.com for about forty dollars. If you just want to become familiar with the terms and definitions related to Project management, visit the PM Connection website. This site does not explain concepts or go into any great narrative; it just has terms and definitions.
When taking the exam, read each question carefully. Microsoft is notorious for adding a lot of unneeded information in their questions. Make sure that when you click on a choice, that it is really marked. Be careful clicking anywhere on the screen. I found that by inadvertently clicking near the scroll bar on the right of the screen, I actually changed an answer. You get a single piece of paper and a marker for writing. You can use a small amount of time before you even start the exam to make notes once you enter the test area. Sometimes there is even a questionnaire at the beginning of the test that does not count against your test time. You can even use this time to write down notes, facts, tables or other information by taking your time between answers.
Recommended Study Resources
Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Unleashed [Paperback] from QuantumPM LLC
Exam Objectives
The exam objectives are broken up into five different categories. The 70-633 exam measures your ability to accomplish the technical tasks listed below.
The objectives for Exam 70-633 as stated by Microsoft are as follows:
Initiating Projects
- Save Microsoft Office Project Professional projects.
- Create proposals.
- Create activity plans.
- Build a resource plan.
Planning Projects
- Plan scope and cost.
- Plan time.
- Plan resources.
- Manage resource capacity.
- Create a risk item.
Executing Projects
- Match and replace resources.
- Build Project Team with named resources.
- Distribute information to project stakeholders.
- Create a timesheet.
- Manage timesheets.
- Review and approve a timesheet.
Monitoring and Controlling Projects
- Enter task updates.
- Manage status reports.
- Report data by using PWA.
- Manage issues and risks.
- Manage deliverables.
Managing Project Professional and PWA Environments
- Access Project Center.
- Log on to PWA by using Windows Internet Explorer.
- Authenticate Project Professional to a project server.
- Set options.
- Create, save, or update enterprise templates.
Where to Go from Here
After you pass the Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects exam, you may want to take the following exams:
- TS: Microsoft Office Project 2007, Managing Projects Exam 70-632
- Pro: Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, Managing Projects and Programs Exam 70-634