Timesheet update to Project Pro Defects

[kroyce]

I am fairly new to Project Server 2003 and am not familiar with all of
its nuances yet. However, I am fairly certain I have discovered some
pretty significant bugs with how Project Server updates Project
Professional 2003 through the timesheet approval process. Here is the
basic setup information for our implementation:

MSPS 2003 SP2a
MSPP 2003 SP2
MS Server 2003 (not sure of the patch level)
IIS 6.0
MS SQL Server 2002 (not sure of the patch level)
WSS (not sure on any of the details)

Scenarios tested
I created a dummy enterprise project that looks like the following and
updated the Actual Work field in either Project Pro (MPP) or Project
Web (PWA):
1. Task 1
1. fixed unit (MPP)
2. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
3. fixed unit (MPP)
4. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
5. fixed duration (MPP)
6. fixed duration - effort driven (MPP)
7. fixed duration (PWA)
8. fixed duration - effort driven (PWA)
9. fixed work (MPP)
10. fixed work (PWA)
2. Task 2
1. fixed unit (MPP)
2. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
3. fixed unit (MPP)
4. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
5. fixed duration (MPP)
6. fixed duration - effort driven (MPP)
7. fixed duration (PWA)
8. fixed duration - effort driven (PWA)
9. fixed work (MPP)
10. fixed work (PWA)
3. Task 3
1. fixed unit (MPP)
2. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
3. fixed unit (MPP)
4. fixed unit - effort driven (MPP)
5. fixed duration (MPP)
6. fixed duration - effort driven (MPP)
7. fixed duration (PWA)
8. fixed duration - effort driven (PWA)
9. fixed work (MPP)
10. fixed work (PWA)


The tasks have a constraint type of "as soon as possible" and a
duration of 1 day. The tasks were scheduled across a three day period
with 2 non-working days (a weekend) in the middle. Tasks 1.1 - 1.10
occurred on Thursday, tasks 2.1 - 2.10 occurred on Friday (I also
spanned this set of tasks to occur both Friday and Monday with similar
results), and tasks 3.1-3.10 occurred on Monday.

When updating the timesheet in PWA and Actual Hours in MPP I input 10h
on all the 8h tasks. This had the effect of updating Work and
Remaining Hours on the timesheet and it had the effect of changing
duration or units (as appropriate) in MPP

When time was approved and updated through PWA the information was sent
to MPP. I expected behavior to be similar to updating through MPP
itself. The bottom line is that the Gantt (Both Gantt and Tracking
Gantt) took a beating. There is not an easy way to show the results so
bear with me:

PWA Results:

1) Duration did not change appropriately.
The calculation for Duration is Work/Units
-OR-
Duration = (Remaining Work + Actual Work)/Units

When the Project Schedule was updated through MPP (fixed work or
fixed units tasks) the duration changed to 1.25d (with Actual Work =
10h on an 8h task). When updated through PWA there was no change to
duration.

2) Work did change as expected (which was unexpected based on the
above)

3) Constraint rules were not followed (possibly due to duration not
being calculated) therefore the Start and Finish fields did not update
as tasks exceeded work. As soon as possible constraints should have
caused task Start to move and Actual Work that exceeds Work should have
changed Duration (on Fixed Units and Fixed Work) which should have
moved task End.

If anyone would be willing to validate my work I would be most obliged.
I have run this test several times using different scenarios and
continue to come up with a pretty big mess.

I have found some other "defects" as well but they aren't as bad as
this one.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi ,

Try posting on the server newsgroup as this one is closing down. Please see
FAQ Item: 24. Project Newsgroups. FAQs, companion products and other useful
Project information can be seen at this web
address:http://project.mvps.org/faqs.htm .

Mike Glen
Project MVP