Project Professional - % Complete changes dont update PWA in repub

[Garon]

We have created a project with three tasks, which have been assigned and
published.

For one of the tasks (Task 1) the assignee (Bill) has updated the status to
say the item is complete. This was approved by the PM.

In our project we now have 3 tasks, 1 is 100% Complete and the other two are
0% complete.

As PM I contact Bill and discuss task status as he is out of the office.
Bill advises me;
The Task 1 update was wrong. It should have been Task 2 100% complete and
Task 1 0% Complete.

I open the project in Project Professional and make the necessary changes.
a) Bill is the assignee for all three tasks
b) I update Task 1 and set the Status to 0% complete
c) I update Task 2 and set the Status to 100% complete
d) I save a republish the project (All Information)

Bill logs into PWA from the remote site and advises that the PWA view has
not changed a bit. That is
a) Task 1 is no longer displayed as it is 100% complete and
b) Task 2 is still showing 0% complete

I call Bill a bunch of names about being dumb and all and then go test it
for my self.

Sure enough after many hours of testing and retesting I get the same results.

I have discovered a clumsy work around for the problem
In Project professional
a) Remove Bill as the Assignee from both tasks
b) Save the project
c) Add Bill back as assignee to both tasks (1 and 2)
d) Make the % complete changes and then republish
e) This then shows Bill (in PWA) that he has two deleted tasks and two new
tasks with the new assignments
i ) Task 1 with 0% complete and
ii) Task 2 with 100% complete (It still shows the task, but shows as
100% complete)
f) If Bill highlights the Deleted Tasks and clicks the "Hide" button the two
Deleted Task and the 100% Complete task all disappear leaving just Task 1 &
Task 3 with 0% Complete.

What I need to know is
1. Is it a fault that Project Professional does not update Protected
Actuals (PWA Actuals) when you set status information in Project Professional
and republish
2. Is there a better work around to the one I have come up with, which is a
nightmare if you have many Tasks to change
3. Have others had the above experience

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Garon:

You have to briefly turn off managed periods to perform this action. Then
use the republish, selecting to overwrite actual work on the timesheet. Be
careful to do this only for the selected tasks, and turn your managed time
periods back on immediately after the republish. When Project Server says
"protected" actual work, it means it.

 

[Garon]

Thanks for the response Gary.

We are not usinng Managed Periods. I still appears to write details to the
Actual Work Protected field despite that fact.

I am using Non-managed periods and "Percentage Complete" status reporting.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Well then ignore my instructions about turning them off. Use republish and
select the checkbox to overwrite the actual work in the timesheet. this will
synch the changes in the plan to PWA. By the way, you mentioned that you use
Synch to Protected actuals in a previous post, which is a feature used with
managed time periods, so you've got me a little confused. Are your posts all
referring to one implementation? If not, my aggregating information from
various posts is going to cause me to steer you in the wrong direction.

 

[Garon]

Hi Gary,

Yeah it may all seem confusing. No the issues are for a single
installation. We are just trying any method possible to get a resolution. I
tried running the synch to actuals because I could see a value in the "Actual
Work Protected" field.

I thought, given that the "Actual Work" value was showing zero the "Actual
Work Protected" ought to as well. So I tried a Synch. to see what would
happen. I know the synch copies PWA values to Winproj, but thought I would
just give it a go and see what happens.

Anyway your suggestion re: "select the checkbox to overwrite the actual work
in the timesheet" does work. One of the other guys working on this issue
with me actual worked this out as well. We have tested it and it works.
Thanks!

I am a little frustrated I did not recall/spot this myself, but that is
often the way when your bashing your head up against a problem. You often do
not see the obvious stuff, because you figure your problem is well past
obvious.

Some of these issues have been show stoppers, but I believe they are all now
satisfactorily resolved, which is great news.

Thanks for your help. Thanks for taking my agression on the chin and
continuing to assist. Sorry if I misinterpretted your earlier e-mail, but if
you re-read it from my side you may see how it could have been
misinterpretted.

Anyway - all water under the bridge.

I would be happy to repay the favour and help out to resolve any thorny ones
you need some help with inn the future. If you have one and want a fresh set
of eye my address is (e-mail address removed)

The biggest weakness of MS Project Server is that there are too few people
that truly understand all the quirks. Furthermore their does not seem to be
any genuinely good Partner Forums.

I think this user forum is a good one, but they need a partner forum where
consultants/partners can assist each other with the tough stuff.

Microsoft Business Solutions (Project Accounting) does this extrememly well,
be the classic products are way behind in terms of partner support.

Take care, speak with you again some time.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Garon:

This is as much a partner forum as it is a community forum. Many of the
posts you see are from people working for partners. All of the MVPs that
answer questions in the Project Server group work for partners. Our firm is
a certified partner. Microsoft does have partner level forums, but by in
large, partners don't try to help each other. Sad but true.