J
John Hauck
I thought some readers of this group might find some help in here.
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Terms
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PWA – Microsoft Project Web Access.
MSP – Microsoft Project Windows Application
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PWA tasks issues
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1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
get errors if you attempt to accept updates from
within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.
2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are
marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
removed from the project. The only way to remove these
tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA
task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
– if it was not previously hidden.
3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
the bottom. If they make changes to the task and
select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.
4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
task at a time. This is a tedious process as only
one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript
dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
that were previously collapsed are expanded.
5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
opposite of the order in which they were added, and does
not follow the order of the tasks in the project.
6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors
help because you can drag the screen wider.
7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be
fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
and republishing.
8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.
9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
one screen.
10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
adding a task) includes summary tasks that have
been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one
of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
project.
11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct
their mistake.
12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
delegates task list before it is approved. It does,
however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.
13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting
over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
task resource.
14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting
over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
of times the project is published via the collaborate
menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
"Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the
missing assignments will show up.
15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
does not save any filtering criterion.
16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA
user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
show the order in which remaining work should be
accomplished.
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Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
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17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
an .mpp file.
From Microsoft:
PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639
From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=206
18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
renaming the project to new name. See listing B.
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Issues relating to updates
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19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You
need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
information is not provided.
20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
within the project. See listing A.
21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed
out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
changes.
22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to
compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
under Tips.
23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to
100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
– which is basically impossible. See Updates under
Tips.
24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
the same time. Below are three scenarios and their
results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
No publishing or updating has taken place yet…
a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.
b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.
c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
(X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
Server. Your logon information might not be valid
anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
deleted by another user. [OK].
After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are
only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
your projects to the file system, just like you save
spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp
files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column
called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.
Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
the SQL Server database. For example, publishing
places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,
TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
such as task split data, and all those extra Text &
Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
and update.
Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.
In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a
reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of
the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.
Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
binary data, and storing the entire contents of each
project in an improved set of SQL tables.
The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...roject/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35
45.asp
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Issues relating to master/sub-projects
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26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will
show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".
You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master
project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no
entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.
27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This
cannot be fixed.
28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
"S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will
continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
"S2".
29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will
continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
"S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.
30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
Master - subproject double counting of work
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15
Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=85&pre
v=/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3
Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=160
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Tips
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31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
other project will show up in gray. You can hide
from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
disabling Show external successors / predecessors.
32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
the PWA user to control the duration of the task
ads they adjust the work amounts.
33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
name for amount of resources. If a task does not have
any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.
34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
the PWA users:
Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or
allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes
the affect of selecting each tracking method:
1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the
Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
page. Team members are only able to enter actual
progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of
the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are
not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side
of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual
progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet
on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right
are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
Timesheet grid.
3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left
side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual
progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the
task sheet on the left.
You can change this for you project by following these steps:
a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
f) Select one of the three options as described above.
g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.
35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to
the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create
at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as
well as one or more of the subtasks".
36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
"Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"
mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or
add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.
37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select
"Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
Although, this is not exactly the same view when
assignments get doubled. See listing B.
38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see
what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".
39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.
This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits
in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
schedule to the bottom.
40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
applying updates to work done and work remaining is
more accurate when you follow this procedure:
a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
date to today's date.
b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
date.
And move start of remaining parts back to status date
Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
status date
And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
d) Perform the update.
You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
and editing these columns After steps a) and b).
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Links to study
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44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19
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Conclusion
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MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
such as automatic task splitting are perfect for
realistic concurrent task progress tracking.
The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive
when compared to a native Windows application.
MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
synchronized between these two repositories. From the
above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.
Except from Microsoft:
Microsoft Project 2002 tables
Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every
version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
tables, along with enterprise resources and the
enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are
additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been
altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work
against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
are a part of this set follow the naming convention
MSP_*.
Microsoft Project Web Access tables
The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New
tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
to increase the scalability, performance, and
functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
project data that is shared with your executives and
resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
high-level project data reported in the Project Center
(formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
updates are also stored in these tables for approval by
the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of
this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.
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Terms
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PWA – Microsoft Project Web Access.
MSP – Microsoft Project Windows Application
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PWA tasks issues
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1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
get errors if you attempt to accept updates from
within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.
2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are
marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
removed from the project. The only way to remove these
tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA
task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
– if it was not previously hidden.
3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
the bottom. If they make changes to the task and
select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.
4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
task at a time. This is a tedious process as only
one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript
dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
that were previously collapsed are expanded.
5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
opposite of the order in which they were added, and does
not follow the order of the tasks in the project.
6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors
help because you can drag the screen wider.
7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be
fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
and republishing.
8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.
9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
one screen.
10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
adding a task) includes summary tasks that have
been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one
of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
project.
11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct
their mistake.
12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
delegates task list before it is approved. It does,
however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.
13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting
over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
task resource.
14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting
over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
of times the project is published via the collaborate
menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
"Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the
missing assignments will show up.
15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
does not save any filtering criterion.
16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA
user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
show the order in which remaining work should be
accomplished.
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Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
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17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
an .mpp file.
From Microsoft:
PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639
From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=206
18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
renaming the project to new name. See listing B.
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Issues relating to updates
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19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You
need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
information is not provided.
20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
within the project. See listing A.
21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed
out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
changes.
22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to
compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
under Tips.
23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to
100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
– which is basically impossible. See Updates under
Tips.
24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
the same time. Below are three scenarios and their
results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
No publishing or updating has taken place yet…
a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.
b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.
c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
(X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
Server. Your logon information might not be valid
anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
deleted by another user. [OK].
After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are
only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
your projects to the file system, just like you save
spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp
files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column
called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.
Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
the SQL Server database. For example, publishing
places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,
TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
such as task split data, and all those extra Text &
Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
and update.
Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.
In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a
reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of
the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.
Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
binary data, and storing the entire contents of each
project in an improved set of SQL tables.
The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
at:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...roject/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35
45.asp
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to master/sub-projects
-----------------------------------------------------------------
26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will
show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".
You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master
project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no
entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.
27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This
cannot be fixed.
28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
"S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will
continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
"S2".
29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will
continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
"S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.
30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
Master - subproject double counting of work
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15
Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=85&pre
v=/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3
Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=160
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------
31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
other project will show up in gray. You can hide
from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
disabling Show external successors / predecessors.
32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
the PWA user to control the duration of the task
ads they adjust the work amounts.
33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
name for amount of resources. If a task does not have
any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.
34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
the PWA users:
Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or
allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes
the affect of selecting each tracking method:
1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the
Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
page. Team members are only able to enter actual
progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of
the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are
not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side
of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual
progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet
on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right
are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
Timesheet grid.
3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left
side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual
progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the
task sheet on the left.
You can change this for you project by following these steps:
a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
f) Select one of the three options as described above.
g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.
35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to
the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create
at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as
well as one or more of the subtasks".
36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
"Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"
mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or
add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.
37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select
"Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
Although, this is not exactly the same view when
assignments get doubled. See listing B.
38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see
what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".
39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.
This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits
in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
schedule to the bottom.
40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
applying updates to work done and work remaining is
more accurate when you follow this procedure:
a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
date to today's date.
b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
date.
And move start of remaining parts back to status date
Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
status date
And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
d) Perform the update.
You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
and editing these columns After steps a) and b).
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Links to study
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44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19
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Conclusion
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MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
such as automatic task splitting are perfect for
realistic concurrent task progress tracking.
The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive
when compared to a native Windows application.
MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
synchronized between these two repositories. From the
above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.
Except from Microsoft:
Microsoft Project 2002 tables
Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every
version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
tables, along with enterprise resources and the
enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are
additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been
altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work
against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
are a part of this set follow the naming convention
MSP_*.
Microsoft Project Web Access tables
The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New
tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
to increase the scalability, performance, and
functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
project data that is shared with your executives and
resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
high-level project data reported in the Project Center
(formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
updates are also stored in these tables for approval by
the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of
this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.