Syncing issues within plans

[Wendy]

Hello,

I have a few questions regarding synching issues within plans. To
provide overall detail on our configuration, we are using Project
Server 2003, sp 2a.

1. This week, I've spoken with a few PMs who advised of actual time
not reflecting accurately in their plans. When I compared actual work
to actual work protected, the two were out of sync, so I advised the
PMs to sync to protected actuals. However, what causes a plan to
become out of sync that you don't receive the syncing prompt? So,
things were out of sync but there was no ongoing prompt to sync as
their typically is. Is it just coincidence that this happened in a few
plans this week or could there be something deeper with the
configuration itself that caused this for multiple plans?

2. Every so often, we have PMs who receive the out of sync prompt.
When they sync back up, plan changes that may have been long changed
come back (e.g., planned work/remaining work, etc.). The PMs are aware
not to do anything with % complete/% work complete in plans, which is
I think the most typical cause of the situation. What the PMs do is
zero out remaining work and at times, this presents the "an action
you've taken could result in out of sync actuals" message. They
usually undo, however, the damage seems done and they need to sync up,
which makes times pop back in. Are there steps I can advise PMs to
take to avoid this situation?

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Wendy, I posted this as a response to another user with similar issues. Not
sure how much help this will be for you but here goes:

There are many ways for actuals to become out of synch with timesheets that
the project manager accidentally does in the project plan without realizing
it.

Also, the whole managed time periods in 2003 always seemed a little flaky.
The only solution I know of in 2003 to fix this issue is to turn off managed
time periods temporarily, have the PMs open and republish the project plans
with Re-Publish Assignments to synch the actuals back up and then to turn
managed time periods back on.

In MSPS 2007, the locking down of actuals to timesheets seems to be a little
bit more sophisticated and hopefully will prevent this message from popping
up each time the plan is re-opened.

Some differences I have seen around this is that the PM will get a message
instantly when making a change that affects actuals which warns the PM that
actuals are now out of synch. The other difference I have seen is that the
project plan will revert its actuals back to match the actuals from PWA on
each save, thus not allowing the plan to be saved in an out of synch state.

Jonathan