Publishing Master Project problem in 2007

[ST]

I have a glitch with viewing one master project in PWA (2007) in particular.
It used to display OK before. But, I must say that it was acting a little
wierd when I would click the "+" next to the sub-projects, such that the
title of the inserted project would change to display the name of the
sub-project file name instead of the text that I had enter on the project
summary row with the master. I've experienced such behaviour before. I've
overcome it by abandoning the set of problem files and going with a new set.
But this has to stop.

After I made a copy of the master and took care of the external links
business that goes with such an operation, the original master project inPWA
would not permit me to expand the subprojects in PWA. I tried republishing
from the master. This made things worse in that I can no longer even see the
contents of the master in PWA (it says I either do not have permission, or
the files are deleted...Bogus! I'm the Admin!). I deleted the master and
tried recreating it by reinserting the subprojects and publishing it. No
luck... However, the copy of the master is working fine.

Folks, any suggestions as to what I can do to unblock/ publish this master
and have it publish.

/Spiro Theopoulos

 

[ST]

Well, it comes down to this... In PWA, I can see the summary rows for my
subprojects when I click the master project from the Project Center. But, I
can not expand them when I am there. While I am there, if instead I select
the subproject's name , it has no problem taking me into to the project
detail view for that subproject. It is just when I try to expand the
subproject from within the master that there is a problem... the message I
get..."Project Center cannot access the project you are trying to expand. It
is most likely that you either don't have permission to view the project,
another user has deleted this project before you were able to view it or that
another user is in the process of publishing the project".

/Spiro Theopoulos

 

[ST]

I found the problem... I had to kill the copy I made of the new master and
subprojects. Eventhough I created a seperate set of files (no overlaps), it
somehow did not like me using the published master to make a new set of
files. So now my original master file in PWA is responding again, allowing
me to expand my subprojects... this must be a bug! The question now is, how
should I go about making copies of sets of files?

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

ST:

Where are you making the copies?

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[ST]

Hi Gary,

I open the master project that is published on Server (2007) using MS
Professional as read-only. Then, I proceed to save. Given that the master
is openned in MS Pro as read only, I provide the new file names for each
subproject within the master and presto, I have my new files on the server.

However, as may know, with interlinked projects, I end up with links accross
the new and original master. I clean up these links that run from the
original set to the new set with a simple macro.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

I don't understand why you are doing this, but I can now see why you are
having problems. If you need your Master project to have a new name, then
change the name, don't do a save as. Perhaps you should tell us what problem
you are trying to solve and maybe we can suggest a better approach.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[ST]

Gary, I appreciate you taking the time to understand...

I don't want to change the name of my master. I want to make a complete
carbon copy of my master and it's respective sub-projects (thus, a new set of
files with different names is required). I succeed in performing this
operation.

However, the problem is that after I've created my new master with a new set
of sub-projects, my original master in PWA Project no longer allows me to
expand its respective subprojects (although it does allow me to click them
and go into a PWA detailed view for that sub-project project). My new master
with its respective sub-projects works fine and I can expand all the
subprojects in the same detail project view. If I delete my new master and
its respective sub-projects, then the problem with my original master I just
described goes away and works fine again. Note, that the new master and the
original master are in no way linked to each other, nor do they share any of
the subprojects.

/Spiro.

 

[ST]

They are not 2 copies... they are two seperate programs. I use the original
master as you would a template.

I would normally work form a template, but templates do not lend themselves
to what I need...it is more complicated to create a master project template,
if not impossible. So, I just make copies of published files as described tp
serve me as templates.

/Spiro.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Spiro:

To make this work correctly you need to do some clean-up on the plan file
first. We have a good process for plan clean-up for template conversion in
our Ultimate Learning Guide to Project, including resetting task completion
states, unnecessary constraints, task splits, etc. In addition to these
standard desktop clean-up steps we outline, you should open from Project
Server, Save As > Save As File > Select file type template (mpt). In the
save dialog you will see checkbox options to remove values for baselines,
actuals, Resource Rates, Fixed Costs and Whether tasks have been Published
to Project Server. The last option is critical for the plans to be used as
clones. After you save the clean files, use the import wizard to save them
as new templates in the system.Cloning regular project plans without
scrubbing them through the convert to template process is a very bad idea.

I understand your issue with recreating the Cross Project Links and Master
Project Links, so I suggest that you develop a macro or macros to help you
with this process.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[ST]

In theory you are right, but not in practice in this case. Or, I'm missing
something...

The only way I can make a template of my existing enterprise master in the
manner in which you recommend is to open the master as read only. Only then
will Pro give me the option to save its inserted "subprojects" as an
(enterprise) template. Otherwise I will end up with a master template that
has the active subprojects in it. We want new subprojects, not the active
subprojects in the new master. Anyhow, this causes another set of
problems... I get an error on openning the subproject. So, instead I tried
saving to my C drive instead of the enterprise (which I believe is what you
suggested) ... well, more problems... when I try to perform a save operation
I get a message that the files are already in use by me (Duuuww) and that I
can choose to be "notified", "access read-only", or to "cancel" the
operation... and so that doesn't work either.

The other problem is that if you save these things on the C drive and you
try to save the master, it complains that the subprojects are not enterprise
projects so you can not save a master in this fashion either.

As for going the template route in order to avoid all the bagagge of an
existing project... I do not have any of that baggage because the I intended
to create the copy of the master right away before any actuals, baselines,
etc.

Bottom line... I think 2007 is limited, because I have no problem doing what
I need in 2003 (I don't use templates there either).

I think I will open a call with Microsoft... there has to be a fix for what
I mentioned about not being able to expand the subprojects in PWA after I've
create a copy of the files using the master.

 

[ST]

Oh, one thing that I am able to do is to do a save on the master (need to
open read only though), then make it a template but save the subprojects as
new enterprise files. Well this brings up the old problem again...I can not
expand the subprojects in PWA in the original master again!

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Sprio:

I think it's a good idea to open a ticket with Microsoft as I don't believe
that I can talk you through this one on the news group. I think you will
need a different process and perhaps some macros to do what you want to do.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
Project Server Training: http://www.projectservertraining.com
Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
Project Server Help Blog: http://www.projectserverhelp.com

 

[ST]

yes.

fyi, I have a workaround for the time being. Given that the original file
is the one that becomes problematic in PWA I will resort to the working with
the copy.

In this case, I was trying to make a template, which caused my original to
malfunction. I will flip over to the working copy and use the one that
malfunctions to create other copies in the future.

thanks again.