E
Edward.Iskra
I'm working for an organization integrating Project Server 2003 with
the existing (proprietary) workflow management tool. The existing tool
creates work tickets which are managed in queues by engineers.
We have a dev environment where the system successfully creates a new
work ticket for the engineers based on upcoming tasks in the published
projects.
When an engineer closes a ticket, we want to automatically update the
project to reflect that the work is complete. We do not want the
project planners to have to review or approve such updates. MS Project
is not and will not be used to manage resources, time sheets, etc. When
an engineer closes the ticket, the task should be marked complete and
the project should advance. The existing tool is written in ASP.
We have had some success getting the system, on ticket closure, to mark
tasks complete by directly updating the records in the SQL Server
database, and the system successfully drove new tickets against
subsequent dependent tasks, but the behavior of the projects in MS
Project and PWA was erratic. %complete figures did not roll up
properly, etc. Clearly, we need to ensure all the proper business logic
is being applied.
We have experimented with setting
TASK_PCT_COMP
and
TASK_PCT_WORK_COMP
I suspect we need to set TASK_ACT_DUR equal to TASK_BASE_DUR so that
the %complete numbers - which appear to get recalculated at times -
stay correct.
We also mean to set TASK_ACT_FINISH with the actual ticket closure
timestamp.
Do you have, or can you suggest a reference for developers? There is a
resource for the local MS Project database
(file:///C:/Program%20Files/Microsoft%20Office/OFFICE11/1033/PJDB.HTM#aboutDatabase),
but it explicitly says that the information may not apply for Project
Server 2003, and that Project Data Service(PDS) should be used, but we
have been unable to find a way to directly update the tasks using PDS.
Any advice would be appreciated!
the existing (proprietary) workflow management tool. The existing tool
creates work tickets which are managed in queues by engineers.
We have a dev environment where the system successfully creates a new
work ticket for the engineers based on upcoming tasks in the published
projects.
When an engineer closes a ticket, we want to automatically update the
project to reflect that the work is complete. We do not want the
project planners to have to review or approve such updates. MS Project
is not and will not be used to manage resources, time sheets, etc. When
an engineer closes the ticket, the task should be marked complete and
the project should advance. The existing tool is written in ASP.
We have had some success getting the system, on ticket closure, to mark
tasks complete by directly updating the records in the SQL Server
database, and the system successfully drove new tickets against
subsequent dependent tasks, but the behavior of the projects in MS
Project and PWA was erratic. %complete figures did not roll up
properly, etc. Clearly, we need to ensure all the proper business logic
is being applied.
We have experimented with setting
TASK_PCT_COMP
and
TASK_PCT_WORK_COMP
I suspect we need to set TASK_ACT_DUR equal to TASK_BASE_DUR so that
the %complete numbers - which appear to get recalculated at times -
stay correct.
We also mean to set TASK_ACT_FINISH with the actual ticket closure
timestamp.
Do you have, or can you suggest a reference for developers? There is a
resource for the local MS Project database
(file:///C:/Program%20Files/Microsoft%20Office/OFFICE11/1033/PJDB.HTM#aboutDatabase),
but it explicitly says that the information may not apply for Project
Server 2003, and that Project Data Service(PDS) should be used, but we
have been unable to find a way to directly update the tasks using PDS.
Any advice would be appreciated!