Custom Fields and Views across multiple projects

[Ryan]

In our organization, we are up to 3 project managers (who all use project
professional 2003) and 20+ users. This number is likely to grow to 5+
managers and 50+ users over the next year. I'm having some difficulties in
managing customization for the project managers (I am the software
specialist here for MS Project and I handle training the project managers as
well as taking care of the server). Here is what I am trying to do:

Manager A wants a view (accessable through his quick-menu bar on the left)
called "PW view". This view contains 5 custom cost fields. What I did is
create this view in the Enterprise Global Template and it uses "Cost1"
through "Cost5" (not Enterprise Cost1, etc). I created these 5 custom cost
fields in a new project and saved them to the Enterprise Global using the
organizer. I had to open each existing project that wanted to use this view
and transfer these custom fields from the enterprise global to the existing
project (using the organizer). However, I'm running some odd problems with
the fields. For example, the fields do not all roll-up correctly. Instead
of "sum" they are set to "none", except for Cost1, which is the only field
that works correctly. I can open a project, set Cost2 to Cost5 to "sum",
transfer the Cost2 to Cost5 fields to the organizer (after saving the
project) and these fields go back to "none" in any other project (even when
opening other projects and transferring from the global to the open
project).

Other managers will undoubtably want their own custom views as well as we
progress and begin to use Microsoft Project more heavily. Am I going about
this the right way as far as per manager customization? Why will the
organizer apparently not handle custom fields correctly? Thanks for any
advice. By the way I have several reference books and have looked through
help files to no avail.

Ryan

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

Ryan:

I think the heart of your problem is that you're expecting local fields to
behave the way enterprise fields behave and they don't. Any customization
you make to these fields is local to the project you're making them in and
can't be saved in the Enterprise Global. The views you create can be saved,
but the field customizations can't. Does that help? Try this with Enterprise
Cost Fields.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

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[Ryan]

Gary,

I tried the Enterprise fields first and I'm not sure why I went away from
them, but I will give it another shot. One thing I'm worried about is that
this is only 1 Project Manager and he requires 5 custom cost fields. Since
their are only 10 enterprise cost fields available, what happens when I have
5 Project Managers, each who require 5 custom cost fields?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Ryan]

Gary,

I changed cost1 to cost5 to enterprise cost1 to enterprise cost5.. the
problem I am having now is this:
Upon opening Project Professional, I get the error:

"The field name "Conceptual Cost" cannot be copied because "Global (+ cached
Enterprise)" already contains a field with that name.
Do you want to copy all other field attributes except the name to the
"Cost1" field in "Global (+ cached Enterprise)"?"

If I click "yes", I end up with problems with the rollups (they do not sum).
If I click "no", then everything works properly, but I get this error EVERY
time I start up MS Project.

I don't understand why I am getting this error upon opening MS Project to a
new project. I have done away completely with the custom Cost1 to Cost5
fields as far as I can tell. By the way, I actually get 5 errors (1 for
each field).

Ryan

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

Ryan:

You can't name both a local field and and Enterprise field by the same name.
You said that you copied the local fields to the Enterprise Global, which
was a mistake. You need to remove these from the Enterprise Global and
rename them if you intend on keeping them in a project.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

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[Ryan]

I didn't actually "copy" any local fields to the Enterprise global.

All I did is open the Enterprise Global Template and rename the Enterprise
Cost1 through Enterprise Cost5 fields. I still don't understand why I am
getting the errors or how to resolve them. Something is being saved on my
local PC that is causing the errors because I do not get these errors from
the PM's PC. I realize that it is a naming conflict. I'm doing everything
I can think of to delete the Cost1 to Cost5 (local, not enterprise) field
names.. something is causing them to stick.

Ryan

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

Ryan:

Your act of opening the Enterprise Global likely copied them there. Open the
Enterprise Global, and go to the Organizer. Make sure you look at the
Enterprise Global side and remove them from there. Even if they're not
there, you must not name two fields with the same name as this causes the
error anyway. Make sure your local custom fields do not share the same name
as Enterprise fields.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

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