Projects Import Problem

[David F-H]

We are using MS Project Server 2007 (SP1) / SQL Server 2005. One of the
problems that we experienced prior to SP1 was tasks appearing at wrong levels
or out of order when plans were closed and subsequently re-opened. Since we
have
installed SP1 this appears to be behaving better, with the following
exception:
I have imported a project plan (.mpp) into Project Server and have found
that a couple of the tasks have not imported correctly. The interesting thing
is, however, that the tasks are correct when viewed in PWA / Project Center,
but incorrect when opened in MS Project Professional. I have tried clearing
the cache and deleting the 12 and cache folders (as it appeared to me to be a
caching problem), but this made no difference.
The tasks appear in PWA correctly as :

....
Project Management (level 3 summary task)
Customer Project Manager (level 4 detail task)
Internal Project manager (level 4 detail task)
Kick off Meeting (level 3 detail task)
Sign Contract (level 3 detail task)

but look like this in Project Professional :

Project Management (level 3 summary task)
Customer Project Manager (level 4 detail task)
Internal Project manager (level 4 summary task)
Kick off Meeting (level 5 detail task)
Sign Contract (level 3 detail task)

We can fix by changing the plan in Project Professional to be correct, but
would like to know if there is a better fix that can be applied? If not,
then this does not instil confidence in the import process for us.

We also have another (low impact) problem reported by the users of one
project where blank lines appear to be rearranged when they go back into a
project in MS Project Prof (though the actual tasks are OK and in correct
order).

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

David:

Do all of your plans include blank lines in their structures? If so, this is
at least a likely contributor to your problems. Inserting blank lines is a
bad practice, keeping in mind that this actually creates database rows with
blank values for key data.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
For Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
For Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com

 

[David F-H]

Hello Gary,
It's up to the individual PMs, and we only have 2 currently as we are
running this as a pilot to iron out any problems. However, I will take your
comment and make it a recommendation (not to insert blank lines) out of the
pilot which will conclude in a couple of weeks.

On the other problem (import / wrong level tasks) - do you have any ideas
about this, or is it just something we need to be on the lookout for each
time we import a project? (FYI - the project in question does not have any
blank lines). That wouldn't be TOO bad, as long as we can be confident that
it is limited to the import process. We had a similar issue prior to SP1
where tasks that were directly input in MS Project became corrupted, but this
does not appear to have recurred since SP1.

 

[David F-H]

Just chasing up the second part to this question - does anyone know whether
there is still a problem with corrupted tasks, and whether it only applies to
imported projects?

 

[GM]

Gary, I assume that the issue about blank lines in MSP creating blank
database rows is equally applicable in 2003. What are the negative
repercussions of having blank database rows with blank values for key data?
Thanks.