Task updates (approvals) grid empty despite pending approvals

[Huckey]

Hi all,
this morning one of my project team members submitted two task
updates. Something strange must have happened then because in the
automated e-mail I got from the server informing me about the
submission it says:

Start: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Finish: Friday, November 14, 2008
Work: 422400h Remaining Work: 422400h % Completion: 0.

Well, I have double checked with this project team member and he
sure does not think to work for the next 48 years on this task...

When I then went to the Task approvals the grid was empty (even
though the system shows "You have 2 task updates from resources
pending your approval." on my homepage). I guess this is connected to
the value of Work in the task update.

I have checked that there was a similar thread not so long ago here
but no solution was given here (at least I did not find any).

I have also find that in my dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS table I
can identify records connected to these two updates. There is also
another record/transaction with ASSN_TRANS_APPROVER_RES_UID field
value set to NULL despite the fact that I am the only approver for all
transactions.

It seems like the database is corrupt. I was thinking if deleting
these rows from dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS could help the
situation but I do not know if there are any dependencies.

Please help.

Best regards

Huckey

 

[Huckey]

Hi again,
after republishing the project for a number of times and receiving
errors about the publish job failing I finally managed to get two out
of six task updates in the grid and approve them. Among them was the
update which I mentioned in my previous post but... it had correct
work values (22 hours).

So the situation now is that I could approve two out of six task
updates waiting for me but the other four I still can not approve. The
difference now is that I can actually see the Task Approvals grid but
there I see the message:
There are no new updates to review at this time.

To receive information about task changes from your resources, you
must publish assignments to Project Server. To publish assignments,
check out the project and choose the Publish option from the File
menu.

If you know that your resources have updated, added, reassigned, or
declined tasks, they may not have clicked the submit button on their
Tasks page.

Still on my homepage I can see: You have 4 task updates from resources
pending your approval.

Do you have any ideas how I can get this to work? I tried
republishing the project many times but it didn't help.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards

Huckey

 

[Huckey]

[...] The

difference now is that I can actually see the Task Approvals grid but
there I see the message:
There are no new updates to review at this time.

To receive information about task changes from your resources, you
must publish assignments to Project Server.  To publish assignments,
check out the project and choose the Publish option from the File
menu.

If you know that your resources have updated, added, reassigned, or
declined tasks, they may not have clicked the submit button on their
Tasks page.

Still on my homepage I can see: You have 4 task updates from resources
pending your approval.

[...]

Hi again,
I feel a bit stupid answering my own posts but since I have found a
solution I want to publish it in case someone has a similar problem.

I discovered that the situation when my homepage was displaying that
I have task updates from resources pending my approval but the Task
Approvals grid was empty was reflected in the database by table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS having these 4 updates with status 1
but table dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED was empty. Seems like PWA is
looking into dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS to check how many updates
there are but is looking to dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED to actually
display them in the grid (this I checked in SQL trace).

What helped me in this case was publishing the project WITHOUT the
problematic tasks and then publishing it again with all tasks.
Publishing the project without the problematic tasks caused the
assignments to become... rejected.

I think what could also help in this case (but I could not check it)
is that the resource who stood behind the problematic updates could
update the tasks once again - i guess table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED would be then filled again and the grid
would be populated. Eventually one could populate the table oneself
but that seems to be risky...

Best regards

Huckey

 

[RQ]

Huckey - I posted a similar issue on 12/23 and then saw your post. I went
ahead and applied any updates I knew had been submitted to the Status Manager
directly in the project plan but on the Status Manager's home page it still
says there are 176 tasks pending approval but no tasks to be approved.

Have you found a solution that resets the counter on the reminder web part?

RQ

[...] The

difference now is that I can actually see the Task Approvals grid but
there I see the message:
There are no new updates to review at this time.

To receive information about task changes from your resources, you
must publish assignments to Project Server. To publish assignments,
check out the project and choose the Publish option from the File
menu.

If you know that your resources have updated, added, reassigned, or
declined tasks, they may not have clicked the submit button on their
Tasks page.

Still on my homepage I can see: You have 4 task updates from resources
pending your approval.

[...]

Hi again,
I feel a bit stupid answering my own posts but since I have found a
solution I want to publish it in case someone has a similar problem.

I discovered that the situation when my homepage was displaying that
I have task updates from resources pending my approval but the Task
Approvals grid was empty was reflected in the database by table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS having these 4 updates with status 1
but table dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED was empty. Seems like PWA is
looking into dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS to check how many updates
there are but is looking to dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED to actually
display them in the grid (this I checked in SQL trace).

What helped me in this case was publishing the project WITHOUT the
problematic tasks and then publishing it again with all tasks.
Publishing the project without the problematic tasks caused the
assignments to become... rejected.

I think what could also help in this case (but I could not check it)
is that the resource who stood behind the problematic updates could
update the tasks once again - i guess table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED would be then filled again and the grid
would be populated. Eventually one could populate the table oneself
but that seems to be risky...

Best regards

Huckey

 

[AmWall]

We have also had similar situation but found that we have multiple PC's
working in the plan. THe updates showed up on the other PC even though she
was not listed as the Status Manager in the Plan.
Microsoft provided a tool to run because our Resouce Availability was not
showing up correctly the P12ACTool and it identified Missed Updates as well
as a results for 2 Status Managers listed on a Task. We were also provided a
ApplyMissedWork Tool to run to reapply the missed work. We actually had a
project with 194 missed updates, and at least 15 projects with more than 1
status manager. Aug CU fixes for 2 Status managers but Feb 09 CU 9Not yet
released) will fix three status managers.

Multiple Staus Managers is a Known bug and does cause the Approval grid to
not work and was verified by MS.

We are currently working on running the ApplyMissedWork tool to recapture
the missed work.

Hope this helps
Margaret

Huckey - I posted a similar issue on 12/23 and then saw your post. I went
ahead and applied any updates I knew had been submitted to the Status Manager
directly in the project plan but on the Status Manager's home page it still
says there are 176 tasks pending approval but no tasks to be approved.

Have you found a solution that resets the counter on the reminder web part?

RQ

[...] The

difference now is that I can actually see the Task Approvals grid but
there I see the message:
There are no new updates to review at this time.

To receive information about task changes from your resources, you
must publish assignments to Project Server. To publish assignments,
check out the project and choose the Publish option from the File
menu.

If you know that your resources have updated, added, reassigned, or
declined tasks, they may not have clicked the submit button on their
Tasks page.

Still on my homepage I can see: You have 4 task updates from resources
pending your approval.

[...]

Hi again,
I feel a bit stupid answering my own posts but since I have found a
solution I want to publish it in case someone has a similar problem.

I discovered that the situation when my homepage was displaying that
I have task updates from resources pending my approval but the Task
Approvals grid was empty was reflected in the database by table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS having these 4 updates with status 1
but table dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED was empty. Seems like PWA is
looking into dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENT_TRANSACTIONS to check how many updates
there are but is looking to dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED to actually
display them in the grid (this I checked in SQL trace).

What helped me in this case was publishing the project WITHOUT the
problematic tasks and then publishing it again with all tasks.
Publishing the project without the problematic tasks caused the
assignments to become... rejected.

I think what could also help in this case (but I could not check it)
is that the resource who stood behind the problematic updates could
update the tasks once again - i guess table
dbo.MSP_ASSIGNMENTS_SUBMITTED would be then filled again and the grid
would be populated. Eventually one could populate the table oneself
but that seems to be risky...

Best regards

Huckey

 

[RoyH]

Where can one get the ApplyMissedWork tool from?

 

[AmWall]

It was supplied from Microsoft to resolve an issue. We had to submit a ticket
with Microsoft.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz]

Roy:

You need to open a support case with Microsoft.

--
----------
Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
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