MS PROJECT NOW! BLOG

Inconsistent metrics between Project Professional 2010 and Project Web App 2010

Daniel Bell — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:09:00 GMT

Hello, We have a client that has a pretty significant issue with PS2010. What happens, is when you publish a project from PWA the work hours in pro and pwa will match. The cost, however, may not. A publish with the Project Professional client resolves the issue, making the metrics between PWA and ProjPro consistent and in sync. The issue, however, is that the project MUST be opened in ProjPro to resolve the inconsistent actuals. In this case, the client does not want to have to, nor should they have to, publish all projects via ProjPro. Since this client has 100s of active projects this is a huge issue. it basically makes the AutoPublish functionality unusable. 02/03/2012: Microsoft is aware of the issue and working on a fix. Unfortunately the complexity of the fix is delaying the release, because when they fix one thing, another breaks. It will therefore be at least April before we see a cumulative update addressing this issue.

SharePoint 2010: "503 Service Unavailable" returned when accessing Central Administration

Daniel Bell — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:27:59 GMT

Recently a client applied SP1 and the December 2011 cumulative update to their SharePoint farm. Although the installs went without a hitch and the configuration wizard finished successfully they received the 503 Services Unavailable message when attempting to access any SharePoint sites. A quick look in IIS revealed that all but a few application pools had stopped. Once we started them back up the entire farm was back to normal (with the added benefit of SP1 and 12/2011 CU of course!).

-Dan

Project/SharePoint Server patch versions

Daniel Bell — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 22:23:19 GMT

Select * from Versions (published database) to get current version

Setup a SQL Alias for SharePoint 2010 using a named instance

Daniel Bell — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:48:22 GMT

I had a client who wanted to change the SQL server used in a SharePoint farm. We did so using a SQL Alias and a named instance for SQL Server. The next few screenshots prove it out. Our original server was MPNTPRJ10A. server moving to is MPNTPRJ10B, and we want to use a named instance for SQL called N01. The SQL alias was setup on the Project Server application server as shown below. I logged into the N01 instance on MPNTPRJ10B, and created a simple database named AAA. I simply wanted to confirm I would see the same database when connecting from the other server. For my testing, my original SQL box also happened to be my Project Server application server. meaning, I had a single server solution. Once the SQL Alias was created I stopped the SQL Server service on mpntprj10a. I then opened SQL Management studio and connected to mpntprj10a (remember, I used an alias, so mpntprj10a actually connects to mpntprj10b\N01). If you ...

Hosted/Packaged vs. In-house Microsoft Project Server Implementation

Daniel Bell — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:22:00 GMT

We recently announced a hosted, packaged Project Server solution and it begs the question, when would a company use a hosted solution versus an in-house solution? We have found when talking to clients that some require a customized implementation and configuration because they have multiple legacy systems and large, complex projects. Other, companies need a project management solution, but don't have the same customization requirements or the resources to maintain the solution in house. Particularly for small and quickly growing companies, they want the oversight and business intelligence of Project Server, but don't have multiple, complicated projects or legacy systems to integrate. For these customers, a packaged, hosted system is the best option. For more information, click here or contact us about a free demo.

Automated export of SharePoint 2010 sites using PowerShell and Windows Server 2008 Task Scheduler

Daniel Bell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:01:50 GMT

Hi There! At a client of mine recently they wanted to have site level backups created on a nightly basis. I decided to use PowerShell and Windows Task Scheduler to perform this tasks. Creating the PowerShell scripts was easy enough, see below: First set execution policy Set-ExecutionPolicy “Unrestricted” Next, add the PowerShell snapin for SharePoint Add-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell Lastly, export each targeted site as follows: Export-SPWeb –Identity http://serverName/siteName –Path d:\backups\siteName.bak –force –IncludeUserSecurity The finished product is below: Set-ExecutionPolicy “Unrestricted” Next, add the PowerShell snapin for SharePoint Add-PSSnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell Export-SPWeb –Identity http://serverName/siteName –Path d:\backups\siteName.bak –force –IncludeUserSecurity Save these commands in a .ps1 file. I will call mine backupSitesTest.ps1. Create the Task in Task Scheduler: Create a basic task with the follow ...

SQL Statement to update user Permissions for Project Server 2010

Daniel Bell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:01:15 GMT

If you have ever run into a situation where you or someone changed the permissions of your only Administrator account in Project Server to something less permissive, then you will find the queries below helpful. You would first need to run a query to find out the security group ID of your Administrators security group. Once this is done you would fun the first query below to get the information for the resources you would like to change. The query at the bottom inserts the appropriate record to create a relationship between your user account and Administrators security group. SELECT MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.WRES_GUID , MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.WSEC_GRP_GUID, MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.CREATED_DATE, MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.MOD_DATE, MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.CREATED_REV_COUNTER, MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS.MOD_REV_COUNTER, MSP_RESOURCES.RES_NAME, MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUPS.WSEC_GRP_NAME FROM MSP_WEB_SECURITY_GROUP_MEMBERS INNER JOI ...

Why would you move from Primavera to MS Project Server?

Daniel Bell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00:00 GMT

I have mentioned before that Microsoft Project Server replaced Primavara at Shire (we'll be talking about this at the Microsoft Project Conference in March with Shire) and think a few of the outcomes are particularly interesting. First, after the change they are able to rank projects for selection by strategic objective and then further use predefined constraints to help with project selection. Second, they are able to have tangible, fact-based post project reviews given the information they can now access. And third, and possibly most important, they are now able to do what-if planning for future projects to determine their impact on the bottom line. These results drove other groups within the organization to want to use the dashboards as well, and this means overall project management is improved. We helped Shire and we can help you with your implementation, upgrade or general MS Project Server 2010 consulting needs. Contact us today and see why Shire, and many other organizations, have chosen ...

Cancel Delegate Session in Project Server 2010 via SQL Statements

Daniel Bell — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:00:00 GMT

I recently had a client in a situation where they started a delegate session as another user, however, that other user was not assigned to any security groups within Project Web App. Obviously this caused an issue as the user could no longer access PWA. Simply logging in as another use and delete the delegate does not resolve this either. The correction is easy, provided you are not weary of running update statements against your published database. In a nutshell, there is a field in the MSP_PROJECTS table named RES_ACTING_AS_UID. This field gets populated with a UID of the DELEGATION being used which is located in the MSP_RESOURCE_DELEGATIONS table. To cancel the delegation, you merely set the RES_ACTING_AS_UID field to null. Here’s a simple process to do so: Locate the user record assigned to the delegation as follows: SELECT RES_UID, RES_ACTING_AS_UID from MSP_PROJECTS where RES_NAME like ‘%resourceLastName%’ Make note of the value in the RES_ACTING_AS_UID field ...

Ask the Experts: How do you see the task name of a Predecessor?

Jacques Goupil — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:17:00 GMT

There are several ways to view the names of the successors/predecessors in Microsoft Project. Any easy start is to use the Task Form and show Predecessor and Successor. In Project 2007 - Windows Split and Project 2010 - Click Details on the View tab. Project 2010: Project 2007: Learn more tricks like this by attending our Scheduling for Success course!