Project Import / Export feature for .NET 1.1-solution

[ProjectImportExport]

I need to develop an MS Project import / export feature for a .NET
1.1.-Project Management solution with a SQL Server 2000 database. It has to
work for Project 98-2003 users and no data or customizing of the MS Project
file should be lost. I already thought about using office automation
server-side but I read the Microsoft article advising against it. I already
found a tool for reading and writing project files server-side without using
automation (Aspose.Tasks) but it doesn't provide writing MPP-files
server-side so I can't use it. I can't make any changes to the client and I
need to provide support for at least MS Project 2000-2003.

Which is the best solution for importing data from a project 98-2003 file to
a web application and exporting changed data back to the client in an
MPP-file format?

Do I really have to use Office Automation for that purpose - is it worth a
try, do you have any experience with it?

 

[Rod Gill]

You can read data from .mpp 2000+ files using oledb (2000 oledb has no time
phased data). prjoledb.htm in one of Project's program folders has all
details.

You can't write to .mpp with oledb

Best solution is to save projects in a database instead of .mpp file. You
need a different database for 98, 2000 and 2002-2003 as there are new fields
in each version.

If you must write .mpp files then you have to use automation, preferably
from a workstation. This process could run weekly at the end of the update
cycle. Project very rarely get updated more than once a week so real time
updates of projects is a bit of an oxymoron!

 

[ProjectImportExport]

Thank you for your quick reply! Have you got any experience with automating
project server-side? I want to create a pool of incoming upload-requests to
our application to manage concurrent imports but I still fear that project
automation crashes the whole server in case of an error. Is it better to use
Project Data Services and it's webservice to update a Project Server database
which is then used to import to our application's database or is that much
more complicated?

 

[Rod Gill]

So this is Project Server? You can do updates with PDS but you still need to
open in Project to do final updates and re-calculate the schedule. Note that
PDS is unlikely to be supported with Project Server 12 as a completely new
programming interface is replacing it (and a much better one from what I saw
at the Project Conference).

I would still tend to have a Project VBA macro running on a workstation
doing a weekly update if needed, or just have art of your workflow getting
all PM's to open and update their schedules weekly, especially if you intend
upgrading to Project 12 this year (lot of great new features): see some in
Dieter's Blog - he's high up in the Project development team)
http://blogs.msdn.com/dieterz/.