Q3 '06 Tech Tip: What should I do if my project actuals become out of sync with Project Web Access?
When Managed Time Periods are turned on in an environment, the assumption is that all actual work should come through Project Web Access.
Q2 '06 Tech Tip: Manipulate how multi-value fields are displayed in the Resource Center
View Options in Resource Center allows you to manipulate how multi-value fields are displayed.
Q1 '06 Tech Tip: Adding Tasks to an Existing Baseline
Tasks can be added to a project and baselined into a baseline previously saved.
Q4 '05 Tech Tip: Addressing Spooler Errors in Project Pro 2003
The Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 spooler is a supporting application that conveys messages from Microsoft Office Project 2003 to Project Server 2003.
Q3 '05 Tech Tip: Setting the Toolbar Locations in Project Pro 2003
MS Project Professional 2003 does not save the toolbar location if the cached global file (Global.mpt) already exists on the computer.
Q2 '05 Tech Tip: Modifying the Resource Usage Views in Project Pro 2003
Modify your default Microsoft™ Office Project Professional 2003 settings to not show all summary resource assignments in the resource usage views.
Q1 '05 Tech Tip: View Resource Assignments Summary Rollup Checkbox
Selecting this checkbox displays detailed Gantt bars instead of a solid summary line.
Q4 '04 Tech Tip: Using the Collaborate Toolbar in Project Pro 2003
Many of the Collaboration tools used in Project Web Access can be accessed directly from Project Professional.
Q3 '04 Tech Tip: Migrating a Team Services site to Windows SharePoint Services
How to migrate a Sharepoint Team Services 1.0 site to Windows SharePoint Services 2.0!
Q2 '04 Tech Tip: New features in the Project 2003 SDK
The latest version of the Microsoft Office Project 2003 Software Development Kit (SDK) contains documentation, tools, and samples called Solution Starters to help customize Project 2003, and to extend Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 and integrate with other applications.
Q1 '04 Tech Tip: How safe is your implementation?
Is your Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 implementation disaster proof? Are you aware of the steps required to make your system completely recoverable in the event of system failure?

TECH TIP: What should I do if my project actuals become out of sync with Project Web Access?

When Managed Time Periods are turned on in an environment, the assumption is that all actual work should come through Project Web Access. If a project manager tries to change % complete or actual work in Project Professional, the following message is displayed:

This message indicates that actuals have been manually changed in Project Professional. If you answer "Yes" to the question, the system will change Actual Work to match Actual Work Protected (because the Actual Work Protected is the time that was actually entered in PWA).

If you are manually entering time into a plan (say for a contractor) or trying to move actual time around within a plan, we would suggest using Adjust Actuals in PWA. This will prevent the out of sync message because it follows the proper process by sending the updates to the PM to accept (similar to team member updates). It also allows you to enter time on behalf of team members and it does not matter if the time periods are closed. This is a process to override where people enter their time and should be used with caution. To use adjust actuals, the resource must be an enterprise resource.

Note: The "Overwrite actual work entered by resources" option in Project's Republish dialog box is grayed out when Managed Time Periods is turned on.

TECH TIP: Manipulate how multi-value fields are displayed in the Resource Center

Did you know that View Options in Resource Center allows you to manipulate how multi-value fields are displayed?

Resource Center | View Enterprise Resources | View Options tab | Show multi-value fields at drop-down list: includes options to show all concatenated levels (the default), just the bottom skill level, or selecting a specific outline level shows leading dots; this provides for a much cleaner view of resource skills

TECH TIP: Adding Tasks to an Existing Baseline

Tasks can be added to a project and baselined into a baseline previously saved. If done properly, the new tasks will not affect the existing baseline data.

1. The project should already be baselined.
2. Use shift + click or control + click to select only the new tasks to be baselined (be sure summary tasks are expanded and all subtasks displayed).
3. To ensure which tasks do not already have a baseline, insert a Baseline Start or Baseline Finish date column into a view; tasks without baselines will have NA in those columns.
   

(Note the estimate for Task 1 has changed since the baseline was saved. Saving the new (highlighted) tasks into the existing baseline following the process below will NOT update baselines in existing tasks.)

4. Choose Tools| Tracking| Save Baseline.
5. Select the Baseline you have already saved from the drop down.
6. To update the baseline with ONLY the new tasks, you MUST click the radio button next to Selected tasks or you will overwrite existing task baseline data.
7. Click the checkboxes to Roll up baselines To all summary tasks and From subtasks into selected summary task(s) to enable summary tasks to reflect the new tasks.

8. Click Yes to confirm overwriting the data, ensuring that you chose to only save the baseline for the selected new tasks.

The new baseline is now set:

(Note that the baseline work does not match the work since Task 1 was updated after its baseline was saved.)

TECH TIP: Setting the Toolbar Locations in Project Pro 2003

When you start Microsoft Project Professional 2003 and connect to a computer that is running Microsoft Project Server 2003, the Standard and Formatting toolbars appear together on the same line. However, when you start MS Project Professional 2003 in offline mode, the Formatting toolbar appears on top of the Standard toolbar. If you change the location of the toolbars while you are connected to a computer that is running MS Project Server 2003 and then quit MS Project Professional 2003, you find the locations of the toolbars were not saved when you restart MS Project Professional 2003.
This occurs because MS Project Professional 2003 does not save the toolbar location if the cached global file (Global.mpt) already exists on the computer. MS Project Professional 2003 only saves the toolbar location when creating a new Global.mpt file.  
To save the toolbars where you want them, follow the steps below.  To do this, you must have administrator rights in MS Project Server 2003.

        o       Start MS Project Professional 2003 and connect to a computer that is running MS
          Project Server 2003
o       Move the toolbars to the desired position
o       Go to Tools | Enterprise Options | Open Enterprise Global
o       Go to Tools | Organizer | Toolbars tab
o       In the Global (+ cached Enterprise) area, click Formatting, then click Copy >> to
         move the Formatting toolbar to the Check-out Enterprise Global area
o       In the Global (+ cached Enterprise) area, click Standard, then click Copy >> to
         move the Standard toolbar to the Check-out Enterprise Global area



o       Click the X in the upper right to close the Organizer dialog box
o       Close MS Project Professional 2003
o       Choose Yes, to save the Checked-out Enterprise Global changes
o       Start MS Project Professional 2003 and connect to a computer that is running MS
          Project Server 2003 and the toolbars will be separated

TECH TIP: Addressing Spooler Errors in Project Pro 2003

The Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 spooler is a supporting application that conveys messages from Microsoft Office Project 2003 to Project Server 2003. When you publish information from Microsoft Project to Project Server, the spooler begins to send the information and its icon appears on the Microsoft Windows taskbar. If an error occurs as assignments are being published, a red exclamation mark appears next to the icon .  A popup will also appear to indicate a spooler error is pending. 

You must address the spooler error or the popup will continue to reappear. 
Following are two common spooler errors project managers may experience: 

o      General publishing error – This error may occur if there was an interruption in the publishing process.  Select Retry from the Actions menu to resend the information.

o      Published New and Changed Assignments – The manager cannot create the resource account –  This error may occur if a project plan being published contains local resources and the Administrator has denied the ‘Create accounts from Microsoft Office Project’ permission.  Project Server interprets the publish operation as an attempt to create enterprise resources from the local resources.
 

Select Undo from the Actions menu.  This does not affect anything else that was being published.
 

You can avoid this error by selecting “generic” in the local resource’s properties.  This removes Microsoft Project’s attempt to change these local resources into enterprise resources in order to publish assignments to them.

 To do this, go to the Resource Sheet View in the project plan.  Double click the resource name, check the ‘generic’ box on the bottom right, and click ok.  Try publishing the plan again.  

TECH TIP: Modifying the Resource Usage Views in Project Pro 2003

You can modify your default Microsoft™ Office Project Professional 2003 settings to not show all summary resource assignments in the resource usage views.

Previously, the setting "Load summary resource assignments" has always been checked by default every time you launched Project Pro 2003. If you didn't want to load the summary resource assignments, you had to uncheck the option every time you opened the application.

Figure 1.1

When the "Load summary resource assignments" option is checked, and you choose a resource usage view in a project, you see hours for ALL of the projects a resource is on, not just the project you have open. This can be helpful when you want to see where one of your resources is over-allocated, given all of the other projects to which they are assigned.

In Figure 1.2, each entry with .published is a different project and is being included in the Work and Remaining Work totals.

Figure 1.2

If you open up Project Pro 2003, and uncheck the "Load Resource Assignments" option, you will only see the resource usage for the particular project you have open.

Figure 1.3

Figure 1.4 displays the resource summary view. Notice that you now only see the resources assigned to tasks on this project.

Figure. 1.4

Depending on your preference, you may want to change the default option so Project Pro 2003 does not automatically show all of the projects for the resources in the Resource Usage view. If so, the functionality to keep the "Load summary resource assignment" box unchecked every time you launch Project Pro 2003 is available as a hotfix from Microsoft. You will still have the ability to check the option when you do want to see all projects, but this hotfix enables Project to retain your setting from the last time you launched Project Pro.

To obtain the hotfix, you will need to call Microsoft and request hotfix 893622, dated February 10, 2005. This is a client hotfix for Microsoft™ Project Professional 2003 only, and it requires that Service Pack 1 has been applied. Both the call and the hotfix are free. Please remember that hotfixes have not been through Microsoft's full regression testing. All hotfixes should be tested in a test environment before installing in a production environment.

TECH TIP: View Resource Assignments Summary Rollup Checkbox

Resource Center | View Resource Assignments | View Options tab | Summary rollup checkbox: Selecting this checkbox displays detailed Gantt bars instead of a solid summary line; this provides an effort-based view of when resources are working on specific project tasks rather than the typical duration-based view.

TECH TIP: Using the Collaborate Toolbar in Project Pro 2003

Many of the Collaboration tools used in Project Web Access (PWA) can be accessed directly from Project Professional (PPro) by using the Collaborate toolbar.

Project Managers can Publish and Update their project plans, as well as access Project Center, Resource Center and Portfolio Analyzer, and view Documents, Issues and Risks associated with a specific project plan without opening PWA.

To open the Collaborate toolbar:

1. Open PPro
2. Open the Project you wish to manage
3. From the menu, select View | Toolbars | Collaborate
4. The Collaborate toolbar will open

Toolbar Options:

	Publish All
	Publish New and Changed Assignments
	Publish Project Plan
	Republish Assignments
	Update Project Progress
	Request Project Progress
	Project Center
	Resource Center
	Portfolio Analyzer
	Portfolio Modeler
	Documents
	Issues
	Risks

TECH TIP: Migrating a Team Services site to Windows SharePoint Services

Most often, a SharePoint Team Services installation will be associated with a Microsoft Office Project Server 2002 implementation and will remain in place until Project Server is upgraded to the 2003 release. In such cases it is most likely that your STS 1.0 instance will be migrated in it's entirety to Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 at the time of the Project Server upgrade. In situations where this is not the case, or where a transition plan dictates both versions be kept online simultaneously, there is a technique which can be used to move single STS 1.0 sub webs to WSS 2.0 one at a time. The following tech tip explains how to do this.

PREREQUISITES:

Windows SharePoint Service 2.0 must already be installed with a functional content database.

On the SharePoint Team Services server, be sure you have installed SharePoint Team Services SP1 and SP2. After installing the service packs, run the stswiz.exe utility to reapply the Project Server templates.

Apply the OWS1002.EXE patch on the SharePoint Team Services 1.0
This patch can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center and enables SharePoint Team Services subwebs to export additional schema information about SharePoint Team Services subwebs. This information is required by SMIGRATE.EXE during the migration process to Windows SharePoint Services.

Run PSMIGRAT.EXE.
Insert your Office Project Server 2003 CD into your CD-Rom drive. Click Start and then Run. Type CMD and click OK. From the command prompt, change to your CD-Rom drive and change to the \SUPPORT\PSMIGRAT folder.

This tool requires the following information:

• The Windows SharePoint Services managed path under which the newly-migrated sites will be created
• The folder where all the backup files will be stored
• The connection information for the Project Server 2003 database
• The range of project IDs (optional)
• The location of the log file (optional)

The command with typical switches would look like this:

PSMIGRAT.EXE –w http://wss_svr/projects -f \\<serverName>\<path to server> -dbserver <serverName> -dblogin <loginName> -dbpassword <password> -p <prefix>

For each subweb, PSMIGRAT.EXE does the following:

• Verifies that the OWS1002.EXE patch is installed on the server running SharePoint Team Services.
• Backs up each subweb on the server running SharePoint Team Services.
• Creates a working folder in the same file directory, and then extracts the file manifest.xml.
• Modifies the file manifest.xml and does the following:

  Inserts a new template ID (6215)

  Changes the Comments field types to Note field types for Documents and Issues

  Changes the issue list ID to 101 so that it can be migrated into a custom list

  Rebuilds the CAB file into 101.fwp

  Deletes the working directory (unless the –bo switch is specified)

  Runs the tool SMIGRATE.EXE to migrate SharePoint Team Services information to the new server running Windows SharePoint Services

  Updates the list GUIDs and new site addresses in the Project Server 2003 database

  Migrates Issues from the custom list type in SharePoint Team Services to the Windows SharePoint Services Issues list type

  Updates site properties in the server running Windows SharePoint Services

  Updates the Project Server 2003 database with the new site address and the new list GUIDs

   

TECH TIP: New features in the latest Project 2003 SDK

The Microsoft Office Project 2003 SDK is designed to enable you to customize Project 2003 and to extend and integrate Project Server 2003 with other applications for Enterprise Project Management. It features articles, programming references, tools, and sample code, including extensive articles called Solution Starters. Microsoft Office Project 2003 SDK contents:

Project Client Development
These sections include articles, samples and references that work with Project Professional and Project Standard. They do not require the use of Project Server.

Creating COM Add-ins for Project provides guidance and samples for creating Microsoft Office Project COM add-ins. The samples use Microsoft Visual C#® and Visual Basic 6.0.

Project Guide 101 shows how to design and develop custom Project Guides and custom views, and includes five samples.

Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) reference includes the Project object model and an update to the built-in VBA Help in Project.

XML Schema Reference is included with the Project SDK for convenience. It is also installed with Project.

Extracting Timephased Data shows how to use data from an ODBC database for Project. This sample can also be used with Project Server.

Solution Starters
Solution Starters provide extensive documentation and working applications with source code that show how to build and install extensions to integrate other applications with Project Server. Some of the Solution Starters use components developed with the Project Data Service (PDS), and source code for PDS Extenders. The following are Solution Starters:

BizTalk Server Workflow Solution Starter integrates timesheet data using Microsoft BizTalk® Server with Project Server to enable quick changes in business workflow processes. The sample includes PDS Extenders that synchronize timesheet management between BizTalk and Project Server.

Project Server to Siebel Solution Starter integrates Project Server with the Siebel CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application. The sample includes a PDS Extender to generate projects in Project Server 2003 from sales opportunity and resource data in Siebel, a Siebel Business Service extension to synchronize Siebel with data from Project Server.

OLAP Extensions Solution Starter shows how to extend the Portfolio Analyzer cube and add views. Samples include adding a pay period dimension, and extensions for task issues and risks and task earned value. These extensions help project managers analyze and report the earned value and evaluate risks across a project portfolio.

Enterprise Reporting Solution Starter describes the recommended way to implement enterprise rollup and a single point of query. It includes a working sample of code that can be deployed quickly with little or no customization that uses technologies that are already included in every Project Server deployment.

SAP Connector Solution Starter shows how to integrate Project Server with SAP Human Resources and Finance systems. Samples include synchronizing the resource breakdown structure (RBS) and enterprise text fields and outline codes with SAP data, creating projects from SAP internal orders, and integrating timesheet actuals with SAP cost accounting. The solution starter includes an ASP.NET administration page for Microsoft Project Web Access 2003, and five PDS extensions written with Microsoft Visual C#.

Project Data Service (PDS) Reference. The PDS is an extensible XML-based API for Project Server. The PDS Reference includes test tools and code templates in Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual C# for developing PDS Extenders and components that integrate with Project Server.

The Project SDK also includes the following articles and references:

Project Server Components and Authentication Project Server Security Object Grid Control Reference shows how to customize the Project Web Access Grid Control and other Project ActiveX® controls.

Integration with InfoPath shows how to use Microsoft® Office InfoPath™ 2003 with Project Server 2003 to simplify and bring more visibility, control, and participation to Enterprise Project Management.

Project Server Web Parts and URL Options shows how to create Web Parts and Web Part Pages for Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

Object Link Provider Reference (OLP) shows how to work with the OLP and describes the OLP properties, methods, and interfaces that help extend the integration of Windows SharePoint Services with Project Server.

Creating Project Specific Windows SharePoint Services Sites shows how to create your own Project Data Service (PDS) Extender for project-specific Windows SharePoint Services Web sites.

Modifying the Default Project Web Access Site Definition shows how to create custom site and list definitions.

System Requirements for installing the Office Project 2003 Software Development Kit:

Supported Operating Systems:
Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP

The SDK works with the following applications:
Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003
Microsoft Office Project Standard 2003
Microsoft Office Project Server 2003
Microsoft Office Project Web Access 2003
Internet Explorer 5.0 or later

Download the Microsoft Office Project 2003 SDK now!

TECH TIP: Backing Up Your Project Server 2003 Implementation

Is your Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 implementation disaster proof? Are you aware of the steps required to make your system completely recoverable in the event of system failure? The following list details everything that should be taking place to ensure minimum down-time should disaster strike...

Databases

A Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 installation with Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 2.0 will reside across three Microsoft SQL Server databases which should be backed up daily:

Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 (Project Server) data
The default name given to this db is: projectserver

Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) content data
The installation program names the first content database: STS_servername_1 (additional databases will have user-defined names).

WSS configuration data
The name of this db was entered at the time of installation. PM Resource Group engineers will typically name it: wssconfig.

File Folders

A complete file system backup of servers hosting the Project Server application and WSS is the simplest way to ensure complete recoverability. If this is not an option due to time or media limitations, be sure to backup the following directories:

Server hosting Project Server:

<system root>\inetpub
<system root>\program files\microsoft office project server 2003\IIS virtual root
<system root>\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions

Server hosting WSS:

<system root>\inetpub
<system root>\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions

Internet Information Services

The Internet Information Server metabase should be backed up regularly on servers hosting the Project Server front-end, as well as the one hosting WSS if they are not the same.

This is set to happen automatically by default in IIS but it is recommended that the frequency be changed to weekly, if not daily. The resulting backup "snapshot" that comes from this process will be included when you backup the 'inetpu' folder.

These are minimum server-based backup and recovery recommendations. The Project Administrator should also be backing up the enterprise global before, and after, any changes to enable roll-back.