Automating task update approvals

[Gerardv]

New to this forum and to Project Server. Hope someone can help!

In a related post, Jonathan Sofer wrote that there is no way to fully
automate approval of tasks, i.e. the schedule owner needs to push the Run
Rule button to run the autoapproval rule.

I also am looking for a way to get around having to click the Run All Rules
button.
I noticed that even though I am not the owner of some schedules my task
updates are still autoapproved for these schedules. Is this because of some
global permission? I played around and managed to deactivate this (my tasks
are no longer automatically approved) but I can't figure out how to
reactivate it. Tried adding myself to all groups, no luck.

If there is such a setting/permission I'd like to give all my resources that
permission so that any updates are implemented automatically so that my cube
contains the latest info when my republish all macro runs.

If this can't be done with settings, did anybody try the SDK?

Thanks!
Gerard

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Gerardv --

Jonathan is absolutely correct. There is no default automated way to push
task updates directly into the Microsoft Project plan. Nor should there be.
Like Microsoft, I believe that the PM's need to be at least minimally
involved in the task updating process. Otherwise, how do you expect to
prevent "dirty data" from getting into enterprise projects if the PM's don't
review the updates? If you want to try a programmatic approach, I suggest
you repost your question in the microsoft.public.project.developer
newsgroup. Hope this helps.

 

[Gerardv]

Thanks Dave

I don't agree but I do appreciate your reply and I'll try
microsoft.public.project.developer.

In my setup all the PMs need to know is whether an inhouse task is signed
off or not. I got it all automated apart form this last one thing, bunch of
vendors own mpps for 57 projects (they use it to track their work), they send
these back (automated) daily, engineers inhouse need to sign off on a number
of tasks linked to milestones in the vendor owned MPPs so I have 57 schedules
on Project Server in house and daily sync the milestone dates between vendor
MPP and PS schedules and republish. Engineer get their task in Outlook (that
addin is not great) and they signoff. Tasks info is then pulled into a XLSM
via cube and published on a SharePoint site where PM can view task status +
other relevant stuff. I can't make this info "live" (well with say 15 minutes
delay) if tasks need to be OK'ed first. It really is a pain but I guess I am
not using Project Server as it was meant to.

Thanks again for the help though, it saves me valuable time
G.

 

[Gerardv]

Think I found what I need on microsoft.public.project.developer. Now trying
it out

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Gerardv --

My name is Dale, but you can call me Dave if you like! And you are more
than welcome for the help, even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear.

 

[Gerardv]

opps, apologies Dale!

Gerardv --

My name is Dale, but you can call me Dave if you like! And you are more
than welcome for the help, even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear.

 

[Stephan_mindSHIFT]

Gerard,

My company is also using project as a time tracking system for various tasks
and I am interested in 2 things:

1. The Auto publish all project macro you speak of
2. Information on auto approving tasks that you said you found in the
developer forums.

I agree with you, a lot of our PMs find it a hassle to approve task updates
for miscellaneous projects, and just hit "accept all" instead of checking to
see if it's dirty data or not. People don't really like inputting hours and
using time sheets, and for that reason I think Microsoft should work on
making the product as easy to use as possible.

Also, the "actual hours" worked on tasks does not appear in queries until
the project has been republished. I think it will be easier to auto-publish
all projects nightly to have up-to date instead of asking everyone to publish
their projects on a daily basis.

Thanks very much for your help!

Stephan Bayer

 

[srout]

Gerardv

I am interested for this solution, we need to automate the approval process.
Can you plese guide me, where you got the solution and it it worked for you?

Regards
srout

 

[Justin]

Did anyone find where you can enable/build functionality to Auto-Approve or
Auto-Publish? I saw the previous replies, but I was wondering if somehow had
a link explaining how this can be done?