Cannot edit enterprise global

[DocO]

OK, one more stab at the "Cannot open enterprise global template." issue.
1) I have verified that there are no group permissions prohibiting me from
gaining access using the View Effectives Rights tool (it's a great tool,
btw). My access is explicitly set to "Allow" for the feature at all levels in
all groups.
2) I have verified both through PWA as well as SQL that the 'entglobal'
project is not checked out.
3) I have created brand new accounts and tried to have them access and get
the same error.
4) I have upgrades to Professional SP2 to make sure I am running the same
version as the server (I was not the last time I edited the global template).

What am I missing????

Thanks!

 

[Frederick]

Just a thought: are you running SP2A or not? My company was one of the first
to report a problem on SP2 with regards to the ability to manage the EGT.
Problems were later fixed in SP2A.

 

[DocO]

Frederick,

Unfortunately, I just verified w/IT that we are on SP2A.

<sigh>
Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Scott m Wagner - EPM Consulting Services]

The only two times I have seen this, the Client and Server were out of sync.

Have you tried to log in from another desktop or using the administrator
account?

Just a thought but maybe there is something amiss with the client.

I would try first to log in with the admin account, if that does not work
then reinstall MS project and SP2, if both fail I would attempt to log in
from another client computer. If all of that fails please post back and we
can troubleshoot further.

Hope it helps!
Scott

 

[DocO]

Scott,

Thanks for helping out with this VERY frustrating problem. Unfortunately,
there is no SP2A for the client which corresponds to SP2 for the server, so
an exact SP match is not possible (however, I think these two correlate).

I have indeed tried this from several other machines and have verified that
the behavior is the same. I have also verified that there have been no new
updates to the server or the clients for several weeks before this started
happening. In fact, it was literally working fine on the 15th (added some
enterprise fields) and didn't work again a few days later when I went in to
make additional changes. This leads me to think it's some sort of corruption
issue, yet we're able to populate enterprise data without issue.

Out of frustration, I created a brand new PWA user, group and category that
allows this new account only to login, read and save the Enterprise Global
template. This user is not affiliated with any of the existing
groups/categories (just to make sure I wasn't missing anything).
Unfortunately, this failed as well (there went my work around!).

Help!

Thanks!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

DocO --

If you launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server
using the built-in Administrator account, are you able to open the
Enterprise Global for editing? Let us know.

 

[DocO]

Dale,

I tried logging on using 'Administrator' from an IT machine and was actually
not even allowed to connect after authenticating ("Cannot connect. Project
was unable to establish a connection with the selected Project Server. This
could be caused by a loss of network connectivity or problems with the
Project Server or database.").

Oddly enough, it looks like 'Administrator' doesn't belong to any Groups.
Using View Effective Rights, I confirmed that 'Administrator' has User access
to all permissions, although a few or not allowed through a category (like
creating accounts when delegating tasks, etc.).

Is this leaning more towards a corruption issue?

Thanks!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

DocO --

Interestingly enough, the built-in Administrator account is totally unique.
It is not a member of an Group, contains the My Organization category, has
every permission in the system, and you cannot edit this account. So, no,
your problem does not necessarily point to corruption.

By the way, speaking of permissions, are you controlling permissions only by
adding users to Groups? You are not setting permissions individually for
every user account, are you? You haven't added Categories to each user
account and set the permissions for each individual user, right? I have
seen two enviroments so far where the Project Server administrator has set
permissions individually for every user in the system, and this has led to
major permissions issues with Project Server to the point where user
accounts don't work correctly. Let us know.

 

[DocO]

Dale,

Phew! No, I have only set individual user access for myself since this
security issue began (before I got View Permissions Tool). Security has been
managed by the Group that the user is assigned to. So in theory, as I am a
member of the Administrators Group, I have the ability to do pretty much
everything in the system (barring the use of Project 2002).

However, if you think this is more of a permissioning issue than one of db
corruption, I can try rebuilding the permissions. I did create that test
account that had explicit user rights to the global, but that didn't work
either......

Thanks!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

DocO --

I have never seen your problem before, so I'm in the dark as to how to solve
it. Nobody else seems to have much of an idea either, or they would have
proposed a solution.

Have you considered using EditSite to create a new Project Server instance
with a totally new database? With minimal work, that would at least allow
you to see if there is corruption in your existing Project Server database,
since the new instance would be a virgin install, so to speak. Just a
thought. Hope this helps.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

DocO:

I'm concerned that you misunderstood what Dale recommended in a previous
post. When talking about "Administrator" he was not talking about a Windows
account, rather the built-in account in Project Server that uses Project
Server authentication. Are you certain that you made this distinction
correctly? Dales advice here is the best possible approach as this account
is immune to security issues like the one you're currently having, unless
someone mucked with it badly.

 

[DocO]

Gary,

Thanks for following up. I was indeed refering to the built-in account (PSA
only), which IT has assured me has not been altered in any way.

Thanks again!

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

In this case, I'd recommend reverting to a last known good backup.