Project Manager/Executive Notifications

[Pete Hay]

Do I need to configure some sort of Project hierarchy (with RBS?) in order to
have the project manager receive task updates submitted via Outlook/Pwa
add-in. Right now the PWA task form defaults to "and submit to project
manager" but nothing is received. I'm assuming that project owner = project
manager.
Along this line - can I configure alerts to others up the corporate food
chain of overdue tasks and such?
Pete

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Pete --

Task updates go to the personal who originally PUBLISHES the project,
designated in the project as the Status Manager for each task. There is
nothing special you need to configure, assuming of course, that the person
who saved the project is the person who published the project initially.

There is no way to configure Executives to receive alerts about overdue
tasks. The PM of each project can configure this for the resources in
his/her own projects, but in order for Executives to receive these alerts
you would need to do custom software development. Hope this helps.

 

[Pete Hay]

Dale,
UP front - I'm a newbie working in a test environment to evaluate MS
Project/Project Server/MOSS for my company. Please bear with me.

I have set up a simple system with myself publishing projects and a "sample
user" who is assigned to the tasks. All seems to be somewhat straightforward
but when Sample Users responds to a task through PWA, I get nothing in the
way of a notification. I'm assuming that this notification would come through
Outlook. Am I wrong here?
Also how can I verify the person "designated in the project as the Status
Manager for each task"? Is this the person listed as Project Owner in PWA?

Pete

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Pete --

Welcome to the fast-paced world of Project Server 2007!

The default permissions in Project Server 2007 will cause the system to send
an e-mail message to the Status Manager whenever one of his/her team members
submits a task update from the Task Updates page. Is this sample user
sending a task update from the My Tasks page or the My Timesheet page? It
makes a difference. Furthermore, did you actually set up the e-mail options
in Project Server 2007? If you do not, the system does not send e-mail
messages.

To see the Status Manager for every task, apply any task View, such as the
Gantt Chart view and then insert the Status Manager field in the list of
fields on the left. The Status Manager, by the way, may or may not be the
Owner of the project shown in PWA. Hope this helps.

 

[Pete Hay]

Dale,
Sample user is publishing/sending the task update from Outlook tasks via the
PWA sync add-in. I did add the "Status Manager" column to my Gantt view and
yes I am the status manager for all tasks.
I have a 3pm PST meeting so I hope I will be able to check the Project
Server mail settings before I leave for the day. I think I was working under
the impression that since Project Server was installed on top of MOSS, I
wouldn't need to config mail separately.
I will post my findings. Thanks for the tips.
Pete

 

[Pete Hay]

Dale,
I set the Project Server to point to our Exchange server and used my email
address as the sender. Nothing seems to be going through from the Project
Server.
Is there an easy way to test this connectivity short of poring over SMTP logs?
Pete