Importing a project into Project Server Problem

[Anthony]

when I import an existing project into Project Server 2003, two things happen:

1. All the Task Duration, Start, and End dates get changed, which screws up
the project plan.

2. For tasks with multiple resoures, the Units % gets changed. For example,
Mike and Joe are assiged to the same task. Mike has a units % of 56% and Joe
has a units percent of 0%. After import, Mike has 236% and Joe has 0%
(expected).

I suspect its a problem with the project plan, but my client does have
enough experience with Project to troubleshoot it. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Anthony]

Note: We are running SP1

 

[Gaurav Wason]

Check the Task Type Setting in Project Server.

Go to Admin > Customize Project Web Access > Check if you have option
checked (Force project managers to use the progress reporting method
specified above for all projects)

Could be potential cause when importing project to Project Server 2003.

Let me know

 

[Anthony]

Unforunately that didnt work. Any other ideas?

Thanks

 

[RickD]

Check the options in the plan against those in Enterprise Global. When the
plan was created locally, it inherited the options as set on the desktop.
When you import into MPS, SOME of the options are inherited from MPS and some
are not.

The options to check are:

1. Calendar: working hours, start time, end time, hors per day, hours per
week;
2. Schedule: task type and new tasks are effort driven.

As an example, if you import a project that has the local options set to an
8 hour day but MPS is set to 7.5 hours per day, your task durations will all
change. A 1 day task will become 1.07 days etc.

If you find any discrepancies in the opened plan options, set them in the
plan to the same as MPS. Then I'm afraid it's leg-work to realign task
duration with what you originally set. I also recommed you advise users to
set their local options to be the same as MPS so that if a plan is created
locally, one can assume all options are the same and the problem should not
reoccur.

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Anthony --

I would suspect that most of your import problems are caused by a conflict
between the Standard calendar used in your .mpp file and the enterprise
Standard calendar that is applied when you import the .mpp project into the
Project Server database. My guess is that the Standard calendar in your
..mpp project does not contain any company holidays, and shows the standard
working schedule of 8 hours per day, from 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Monday through
Friday.

I would suspect that the enterprise Standard calendar which was set up by
your Project Server administrator contains less than 8 hours of work per day
(perhaps only 5 or 6 hours of work per day) and probably contains your
company holidays as well. If this is the case, when you import the project
into Project Server, the system will reschedule all of your tasks based on
the working schedule specified in the enterprise Standard calendar. This
will effectively change most of the Start and Finish dates for the project,
and will recalculate the Durations as well.

If your enterprise Standard calendar contains less than 8 hours of work per
day, then you will need to set the Calendar options in your project to match
the Standard calendar settings. To do this, you would need to complete the
following steps:

1. Launch Microsoft Project Professional and log into Project Server
2. Open the project from the Project Server database
3. Click Tools - Change Working Time
4. Examine the From and To times on the calendar, and determine the number
of hours of work each day for that calendar
5. Click Cancel
6. Click Tools - Options - Calendar
7. Change the Default Start Time to the first From time shown on the
Standard calendar
8. Change the Default End Time to the last To time shown on the Standard
calendar
7. Change the Hours Per Day value to the same number of hours shown on the
Standard calendar
8. Click OK
9. Click Project - Project Information
10. Click in the Start date field and type the start time you entered in
the Default Start Time field in step #7 above
11. Click OK

These are just a few ideas about what might be wrong. Perhaps the others
have some ideas, too.

 

[Gaurav Wason]

I do agree with Dale Excellent Reply.....
--
Gaurav Wason
(e-mail address removed)
MCP - Project Server

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

G --

Thanks for the nice compliment, my friend!