Can adding Project task create SharePoint Workflow?

[TAS_SPadmin]

I apologize if this gets confusing, but it's hard to not overuse "task"

Can this scenario work?
1) start with a bunch of tasks in a Task List in SharePoint
(I use MOSS 2007, but discussion should be same for WSS)
2) convert SharePoint Task List to a Project Server project
3) within Project, I now add a task to the set of activities
4) the task also (automatically) gets added to my SharePoint Task List
5) spawn SharePoint workflow based on Creation of new Task List item

I've been told that this breaks down at item 4, because Project does not
inform SharePoint of any changes to a project (even though it came from a
SharePoint Task List). Once the "conversion" of a Task List to a project has
taken place, Project owns it and that's the end of it.

If this is really what happens, it seems that once you convert a SharePoint
Task List to a project, you should delete the Task list. Otherwise, you have
2 places to maintain and it would get confusing.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,

 

[Marc Soester [MVP]]

Hi TAS,

the scenario you described can only be achieved via costum development and
would be feasable to a certain extend depending on your business
requirements. Generally I would differenciate between SharePoint Task lists
and Project Task Lists. Project task lists have a lot of functionality that
sharepoint task lists do not have ( e.g. Workbreakdown Structure, part of
schedule where tasks link to other tasks etc).

You can start of with a SharePoint list to start a simple task list, but
once you have converted this task list into a Project Task list, I would
exclusivelly manage the task list in Project Server and not in SharePoint
anymore.

I know it can be very confusing when it comes to different tasks in
different technical solutions and I hope that MS will address this a little
better in the future.
Hope this helps

 

[Robert]

There is the option to import a SharePoint List into a Proposal of PWA when
creating.
Then convert the Proposal when ready to a Project.
Your right though the List would not be updated, but not sure why you would
want to have it in both places unless its a business requirement.

 

[TAS_SPadmin]

Marc, Robert,

Thank you for the replies. Agreed, the idea of having the same information
in more than 1 place gives me heartburn (and breaks the 1st Law of the 5
Rules of Data Normalization, if I remember my poster correctly).

For the same reason, I want to make SharePoint the ONE place for people at
our company to go for their "To-Do" list. Why should they have to go to
SharePoint, VSTS, Project Server, etc. to figure out what they need to do?
If all tasks assigned to a person were visible from their MySites page,
they'd never have to look anywhere else and would drastically reduce those
annoying things that "slip thru the cracks."

If the described scenario was possible, then project managers could have
continued working in their familiar environment, Project. Each new item
added to the project would have caused an item to be added to the original
SharePoint Task List. I would have hidden that original SharePoint Task List
once the project was populated with the initial items. But I could have
written a workflow that would sense a new item created, and then assign a
task (or tasks) based on that new item. Those tasks would be shown on Task
Lists that remain visible to all.

As it is, I believe you can cause an email for each new item added to a
project. I'll try being creative and send that email to SharePoint, and make
SharePoint Task List items get created that way.

 

[Brian Lukanic]

Related question on this topic: Can a project manager use the task list in
the Project Workspace to assign to-dos to the resources and have that
information cascade to each person's My Tasks page on PWA? From what I can
tell, the only way My Tasks works is if the task comes from a published
Project schedule.

If the answer is that the Sharepoint list does not sync to My Tasks, then
can anybody recommend a best practice for the PM who plans to use both tasks
in PWA AND the task list in the associated workspace? I am worried about
making my resources have to check two places to see their to-dos.

 

[Christophe Fiessinger [MSFT]]

Brian the SharePoint Task list and "My Task" list in PWA are disconnected in
2007.
You would have to write customization to sync the two

 

[Brian Lukanic]

OK fair enough, i pretty much assumed that to be the case. So an open
question to the group - if a resource is a team member of five different
project workspaces, and the PM on those workspaces use task lists for the
items too small to go on the project schedule, then is the only
out-of-the-box option to tell those resources that they either need to
bookmark/subcribe to those invidual task lists on each page? I wonder if
there's a web part that could be inserted onto PWA that collects all tasks
from all workspaces, to at least combine all sharepoint tasks into one place.
Then the PWA page would have "My Tasks" and "My Sharepoint Tasks" in a
one-stop shopping place.

Sounds like a good add-on from the projectdaddy guys.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Brian:

By design, Activity plans are the vehicle for accomplishing what you want to
do. I'm not terribly fond of them, but they do work for this purpose.

--
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Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[Brian Lukanic]

Thanks, Gary. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of activity plans but they are ok I
guess. What I have done in our workspaces is to set up a task list in
datasheet view, so it's essentially behaving as an "online spreadsheet." From
a usability perspective I see great value in this view, because it behaves
like Excel (Project's biggest competitor haha) yet it at least is on a server
that everyone has access to. In my experience, PMs invariably default to an
issues list or task list that is separate from the schedule - which is fine
to me, I just want to sync all the to-do's into a single place. I think that
telling people what they're accountable to keep an eye on via Project Server
(in a variety of places) is ok. Hoping that Server 2010 improves on this
concept, though.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

The next version definitely makes it easier to gather and report on the
data, but it doesn't solve the disconnect between Project Management theory
and Project Management practice in the real world, which is more the problem
here than the technology. There's absolutely no reason why you can't
accomplish this using the current toolset, but it it will require some dev
time. I think you'll find that the same holds true for version next. Know
that if you choose to go this route, your code will easily port from 2007 to
2010.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com