Filtering out unwanted assignments in My Tasks?

[anovak]

We've got a situation where folks are continuing to post time in My
Tasks against a project that has been completed. From what I
understand, as long as they do not post time for the time period
specified for "current tasks", (e.g., 2 weeks), if the current tasks
option is checked, these tasks will naturally fall off the radar.
However, since they continue to post, that doesn't happen.

Is there any other way to remove an assignment (not delete because
history needs to be preserved for reporting) from My Tasks? I don't
believe there is a filtering capability on that screen in PWA.

Thanks,
Andy Novak
University of North Texas

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andy --

You have pointed out one of the many frustrating features of the My Tasks
page. I wish that Microsoft had continued to use the definition of a
"Current Task" as it was used in previous versions of Project Server, which
included unstarted tasks in the past, in-progress tasks, and future tasks in
the next two weeks. When Microsoft added the two-week "look back" at
completed tasks and make them "Current Tasks," this added frustration for
every user. One of the workarounds to this issue is for the PM to set the
Publish field value to No for any completed task and to republish the
project. This will remove the completed tasks from each user's My Tasks
page. This solution does not work for everyone, however, as it impacts the
data shown in Data Analysis views and in information extracted from the
Reporting database.

Our company has begun offering some Web parts for the My Tasks page that
eliminate much of the frustration for end users. Refer to the following for
information about these custom Web Parts:

https://projectdaddy.com/shopdispla...at=Project+and+Project+Server+Software+Addons

Hope this helps.

 

[andy.novak]

Andy --

You have pointed out one of the many frustrating features of the My Tasks
page.  I wish that Microsoft had continued to use the definition of a
"Current Task" as it was used in previous versions of Project Server, which
included unstarted tasks in the past, in-progress tasks, and future tasksin
the next two weeks.  When Microsoft added the two-week "look back" at
completed tasks and make them "Current Tasks," this added frustration for
every user.  One of the workarounds to this issue is for the PM to set the
Publish field value to No for any completed task and to republish the
project.  This will remove the completed tasks from each user's My Tasks
page.  This solution does not work for everyone, however, as it impactsthe
data shown in Data Analysis views and in information extracted from the
Reporting database.

Our company has begun offering some Web parts for the My Tasks page that
eliminate much of the frustration for end users.  Refer to the following for
information about these custom Web Parts:

https://projectdaddy.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=16&cat=Project+an....

Hope this helps.

Thanks Dale. Does that mean that if you say "No" to those
assignments, all time posting history is no longer available for those
tasks in the Data Analysis views and the reporting database? We use
both of those heavily for reporting.
I'll look at your web parts. Do they provide filtering capability?
Other frustrations have been headers floating off the page and the
lack of totals by day/week.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Andy --

I don't know all the particulars about what disappears when a PM changes the
Publish value to No for a task. I would invite you to test this on a
sandbox instance of Project Server 2007 to know for yourself what happens.
Given your dependence on custom reporting, I don't think this would be a
viable option in your organization.

Take a moment to read the descriptions of our custom Web parts for the My
Tasks page. I think you will find they eliminate many of your users'
frustrations. Happy shopping! Hope this helps.

Andy --

You have pointed out one of the many frustrating features of the My Tasks
page. I wish that Microsoft had continued to use the definition of a
"Current Task" as it was used in previous versions of Project Server,
which
included unstarted tasks in the past, in-progress tasks, and future tasks
in
the next two weeks. When Microsoft added the two-week "look back" at
completed tasks and make them "Current Tasks," this added frustration for
every user. One of the workarounds to this issue is for the PM to set the
Publish field value to No for any completed task and to republish the
project. This will remove the completed tasks from each user's My Tasks
page. This solution does not work for everyone, however, as it impacts the
data shown in Data Analysis views and in information extracted from the
Reporting database.

Our company has begun offering some Web parts for the My Tasks page that
eliminate much of the frustration for end users. Refer to the following
for
information about these custom Web Parts:

https://projectdaddy.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=16&cat=Project+an...

Hope this helps.

Thanks Dale. Does that mean that if you say "No" to those
assignments, all time posting history is no longer available for those
tasks in the Data Analysis views and the reporting database? We use
both of those heavily for reporting.
I'll look at your web parts. Do they provide filtering capability?
Other frustrations have been headers floating off the page and the
lack of totals by day/week.

 

[Monika]

Dale,

Is this Publish field only available in PS 2007? We are using PS 2003 and I
have a similar issue and thought the workaround might help but I cannot find
that field in our environment. Thanks, Monika Vaccaro-Smith

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Monika --

Yes, the Publish field is only available in Project Server 2007. Hope this
helps.

 

[Monika]

Unfortunatley, yes, it does help... I just wish I had that field in PS2003.
We have a user that has somehow published tasks that he never wanted to
publish to his team members. I was hoping that we could use that field to
remove these tasks from the team members' Tasks page.

Any ideas? Thanks for all your help!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Monika --

What if the PM simply removed the resources from the tasks and then
repubished the project? It sounds like your organization is ripe for some
of the new features of Project Server 2007!

 

[Monika]

Yes, Dale, you are absolutely correct, we are definitely ready for PS2007...

That marks the tasks as deleted assignments but they will still display,
right? Although with PS2003 it seems we can try to filter them out using the
"current task" definition.

As always, thanks for your insight.