Reinitialize manage timesheet periods with actual - I need help

[Rene]

Hi Anyone;
I'm about to roll out PS timesheets to our organization and I see in
Admin>Customize Project Web Access>Manage Timesheet Periods that the
existing Start and Finish dates are incorrect. I cannot change nor
delete them. I can add or insert the correct Start and Finish dates
but this generates a "Gap" error when a "check" is performed. I need
to change or delete these dates to initiate this roll out - Please
Help!!

Environment:
We have not officially rolled out PS. There are 25 current PS projects
that we've been playing with. Some have actuals that may have occurred
during a short period when the Managed Timesheet Period was enabled.

How do I restart the managed timesheet periods without losing
unofficial existing project data.

Thanks to anyone,
Rene

 

[Rick Roszko]

You have to delete all managed time periods. You need to start from the end
and work backwards. If there is data already in a managed time period, you
can't delete the period; however, try to figure out which projects have time
in them (hopefully one or two and not all of them!) and save them off as a
file and then delete those projects off of PWA. Delete the rest of the time
periods. Once all periods have been deleted, import the projects that were
saved as files. Now, you can start new time periods with the correct dates.

 

[Rene]

Rick;
Thank you for your response. Yesterday, before I got your message, a
similar idea occurred to me. Through PWA>Resources>adjust actuals, I
deleted and "updated" a few task hours recorded. I did this for one
managed timesheet period. It cleared and now I can delete that time
period.

However, now I'm concerned about the project ramifications. Question:
If adjusted actuals are not approved, that is, they are rejected, will
the update action of "rejecting" restore the hours deleted?

If the answer to this question is Yes, then I've found a soultion. I
can go through all the time periods, delete all the hours, perform the
update, and ensure that these updates are rejected. That's plan A.

Plan B is to do all the above and export to excel the original history.
If all else fails, I can fat-finger the original hours back in. It's
not a huge task but I'm hoping I don't have to do the extra step.

Thanks for your suggestion. If Plan A & B fail, I'll follow your idea.
Rene

 

[Rene]

Resolved - Reinitialize manage timesheet periods with actuals -

I resolved my Managed Timesheet Periods (MTP) with Actuals. This
solution is not elegant but it did work. How did this problem occur?
I'm a new PS Administrator. I'm untrained and I was getting familiar
with the lay of the land by playing with things. I did not understand
the ramifications. The action to configure MTPs with an arbitrary
dates and then to allow timesheet hours to be recorded over time burned
me. I had no idea the problems I could cause down the road. I've
learned to be more careful. Best of luck to you and be careful.

There is good and bad with this solution.

The good:
You don't have to delete/move offline all published projects from the
server.
You will not lose project progress data.
Assigned resources will be retained.
You can export to excel a history of all timesheet data.
You will be able to deleted MTPs.

The Bad:
All resource timesheet data will be deleted from the server. If you've
been in a test environment or tracking timesheet hours, unofficially,
then this loss may be acceptable. It was for me, better yet, my boss.

Here is what to do:

Through PWA>Resources>adjust actuals,
Select all the resoruces in the pool. Fortunately, mine had less than
100.
Next, selected the first MTP to be deleted and export a snapshot of all
the timesheets to excel. Just click "export to excel". I did this just
in case I needed to restore each timesheet's history.
Deleted all timesheet hours. It's a monotonus task but each timesheet
cell that has hours recorded must be zeroed out. A way to see if you've
completed this task successfully is to scroll to bottom of the table.
All the totals should be zero.
"Update" when complete. A warning message will appear on every project
affected when it is next opened and an attempt to saved is perfromed.
The warning message asks whether you would like to synchronize
timesheet data with the open project. SELECT NO - SELECT NO! TELL
EVERYONE TO JUST SAY "NO". If you don't, all project progress data
will return to ZERO. You don't want that to happen.
Move to the next MTP to be deleted and repeat the process.

You should now be able to delete and reinitialize the MTPs.

Good Luck,
Rene

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Renee --

Thanks for sharing your pain and your solution to the problem. You are not
alone, my friend, as Managed Time Periods have been troublesome for many!


--
Dale A. Howard [MVP]
Enterprise Project Trainer/Consultant
http://www.msprojectexperts.com
http://www.projectserverexperts.com


"We wrote the book on Project Server"