Utilities and tools...

[Mark Byington]

Article ID 839457 list various tools that can be set up to use with project
server:

Project Server 2003 SetTracing utility
Microsoft Project Server 2002: SetTracing utility
Project Server 2003: EditSite tool
Microsoft Project Server 2002: Site Editor utility
Project Server 2003: View Populator tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Cleaner tool - Microsoft Project
Server 2002* and Project Server 2003
Project Server 2003: Delete Duplicate Projects tool
Project Server 2003: Rename Project tool
Project Server 2003: Restore Single Project tool
Project Server 2003: View Effective Rights tool
Project Server 2003: SmokeTest tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Health Monitor tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Data Population tool
Project Server 2003: View Backup and Restore tool
Project Server 2003 ConnInfo utility – Project Server 2003 only
Project Server 2003 PSCOMPlus tool
Microsoft Project 2002: PSCOMPlus tool
WinHTTP Proxy Configuration utility– Microsoft Project Server 2002 and
Project Server 2003


Are these useful? Do they work? Several are quite involved to set up. Is
it worth the effort? Why didn't MS include them with the installation disc.

Some look useful, but I have a problem updating the registry in order to use
them.

Thanks,

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Mark --

Just an opinion about these tools:

1. The EditSite tool is very useful as it allows you to easily create
additional instances of Project Server, which you could then use for
testing, training, archiving, etc.

2. The Project Server Cleaner tool is very useful as it allows you to
perform a mass deletion of resources or projects.

3. The Rename Project tool is very useful as it allows you to easily rename
a project, knowing that the only other way to rename a project is time
consuming.

The above three are the most frequently used tools and will give you the
most benefit from their use. I will gladly invite others to share their
experiences with these tools and with the other Project Server tools as
well. Hope this helps.

 

[Rolly Perreaux]

Comments inline...

Article ID 839457 list various tools that can be set up to use with project
server:

Project Server 2003 SetTracing utility
Microsoft Project Server 2002: SetTracing utility
Project Server 2003: EditSite tool
Microsoft Project Server 2002: Site Editor utility
Project Server 2003: View Populator tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Cleaner tool - Microsoft Project
Server 2002* and Project Server 2003
Project Server 2003: Delete Duplicate Projects tool
Project Server 2003: Rename Project tool
Project Server 2003: Restore Single Project tool
Project Server 2003: View Effective Rights tool
Project Server 2003: SmokeTest tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Health Monitor tool
Project Server 2003: Project Server Data Population tool
Project Server 2003: View Backup and Restore tool
Project Server 2003 ConnInfo utility – Project Server 2003 only
Project Server 2003 PSCOMPlus tool
Microsoft Project 2002: PSCOMPlus tool
WinHTTP Proxy Configuration utility– Microsoft Project Server 2002 and
Project Server 2003

Are these useful?

Very Useful!

Do they work?

Yes they do

Several are quite involved to set up. Is it worth the effort?

Absolutely they are worth the effort. Especially my favorite tool "View
Effective Rights tool" is quite involved but worth every last minute to
setting it up. IMHO it is the one tool that PS Administrators need to
install.

Why didn't MS include them with the installation disc.

If you click on any of the links to the tools in the KB article you will
notice that the publish date of most if not all the tools is after
August 2003, which was when Project Server RC code went to RTM. So the
tools came after the RTM with the exception of of ConnInfo and PSCOMPlus
that were included in the CD

Some look useful, but I have a problem updating the registry in order to use
them.

Are you logged in with administrative rights to your computer/server?
Your username needs to be added to the local Administrators Group in
order to make changes to the Registry.

Good Luck

--
Rolly Perreaux, PMP
Project Server Trainer/Consultant

IT Summit Series
Advanced Microsoft Technology Training
http://www.itsummitseries.com

 

[Mark Byington]

Sorry, Rolly...I MEANT to say I have a file integrity problem as in 'I hate
to go in are start changing complex important files'...not a user authority
problem.

Thanks to both of you for your comments.

 

[Matt Steele]

Perfect timing for me. I am trying to get the smoketest (on Project Server
2003) to run (right now) and it stalls at the "Initiating Script: Navigate"
stage and dies with a message "Error validating server, login name, or
password".
The server path is being used on the health monitor test and is good. The
user is "smoketest" and has all the proper permissions, etc.

Did any of you ever run into this error message?

Also I cannot find the SetTrace tool in the toolkit folder or anywhere on
our servers or on the Microsoft site for download. Where is this little
bugger?

Thanks for any help you may give.
Matt

 

[Raymond Chiu (gatorback at yahoo . com)]

Hi Dale,

Your comment regarding the EditSite tool and archiving caught my interest.
In what way could it be used to archive old projects? Is there a procedure
to migrate a finished project into a "archive site"?

Raymond

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Raymond --

Unfortunately, there is no defined process for using an Archive instance to
archive completed projects. You would need to save each completed project
as an .mpp file from the production Project Server database, and then import
it into the Archive instance. Moving Risks, Issues, and Documents is
problematic. Therefore, I would gladly invite others to share if and how
they have ever used an Archive instance.




"Raymond Chiu (gatorback at yahoo . com)"

 

[Raymond Chiu (gatorback at yahoo . com)]

Dale,

Maybe the Sharepoint component (risk, issues, documents...etc.) could remain
where they are and would not need to be migrated. One could map the archival
project server to point to the original sharepoint links. Would this become
problematic?

Ray

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Raymond --

I don't know. I would recommend you ask this question as a new question in
the newsgroup to see if any of our SharePoint experts can answer it for you.
Hope this helps.




"Raymond Chiu (gatorback at yahoo . com)"

 

[Rolly Perreaux]

Dale,

Maybe the Sharepoint component (risk, issues, documents...etc.) could remain
where they are and would not need to be migrated. One could map the archival
project server to point to the original sharepoint links. Would this become
problematic?

Ray

Hi Ray,

Project Workspaces (are any WSS Workspaces) are temporary in nature, in
that once the work is complete they should be removed from the WSS
Server.

Now with that said, most people will leave these workspaces as
repositories of information. However, this would be considered a bad
practice as it makes it virtually impossible to search for specific data
over multiple WSS sites. Now if you have SharePoint Portal Server (SPS)
that's a different story altogether.

So anyway, to answer your question...
If you had 2 Project Servers (one Production, one Archival) and you want
to use Archival to point to the WSS server that has the issues, risks
and documents, then I would say YES you could do this. But make sure
that you clear the Automatic create site in the Site Provisioning
settings as you will need to manually add the site address to the WSS
server address.

Does that make sense?

But if it was up to me and I had 2 Project Servers...
I would simply add WSS on the Archival and do a simple backup and
restore of the Project site from Production to Archival. No fuss, no
muss

Hope this helps

Cheers,

--
Rolly Perreaux, PMP
Project Server Trainer/Consultant

IT Summit Series
Advanced Microsoft Technology Training
http://www.itsummitseries.com

 

[Raymond Chiu (gatorback at yahoo . com)]

Hi Rolly,

I think I like your method Rolly.

Is there a tool (preferable) or a published procedure for migrating an
entire sharepoint site?

Thanks,
Raymond

 

[Rolly Perreaux]

Hi Rolly,

I think I like your method Rolly.

Is there a tool (preferable) or a published procedure for migrating an
entire sharepoint site?

Thanks,
Raymond

I knew you were gonna ask that Raymond ;-)

Backing Up and Restoring Web Sites (Windows SharePoint Services (2003)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en
-us/stsf20.mspx
OR
http://tinyurl.com/6z5hj

Have a Great Day!

--
Rolly Perreaux, PMP
Project Server Trainer/Consultant

IT Summit Series
Advanced Microsoft Technology Training
http://www.itsummitseries.com

 

[Rolly Perreaux]

I knew you were gonna ask that Raymond ;-)

Backing Up and Restoring Web Sites (Windows SharePoint Services (2003)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en
-us/stsf20.mspx
OR
http://tinyurl.com/6z5hj

Have a Great Day!

More specifically...

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/wss/2/all/adminguide/en
-us/stsf19.mspx
OR
http://tinyurl.com/e26qh

And I would use the STSADM.exe command-line tool

Good Luck

--
Rolly Perreaux, PMP
Project Server Trainer/Consultant

IT Summit Series
Advanced Microsoft Technology Training
http://www.itsummitseries.com

 

[Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]]

Rolly:

I don't know which news reader you're using, but all of your long URLS get
busted. There must be a setting for this?

 

[Rolly Perreaux]

Rolly:

I don't know which news reader you're using, but all of your long URLS get
busted. There must be a setting for this?

Hey Gary,

There is a setting for this, but the Internet news standard for line
wrapping for postings is anywhere between 72 - 80 characters long (80 is
the max width of the old terminals).

In any case, I use MicrPlanet Gravity 2.50 news reader and mine is set
to the default of 73 characters.

Besides, I always include a TinyURL address in case of URL wrapping
For more info: http://tinyurl.com

Have a Great Weekend!

--
Rolly Perreaux, PMP
Project Server Trainer/Consultant

IT Summit Series
Advanced Microsoft Technology Training
http://www.itsummitseries.com

 

[Lynn D]

Dale,
(posted separately) I installed the Rename Project Tool, followed the
install instructions (all
seems to have installed and registered properly - SQL and Project are on he
same server) and can log into the server to see all the projects. When I
choose a project to rename I get the following error message
"An unexpected error has occured on the server. Please contact your
administrator"
Any ideas what I should be looking at to fix this?

Would you provide the other method for changing the name of a project?
Thanks, Lynn

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Lynn D --

I have no idea what is causing that error. Perhaps someone else has an
idea.

To rename a project the other way, refer to the Project Server 2002
directions in the following FAQ:

http://www.projectserverexperts.com/Shared Documents/RenameProject.htm

Hope this helps.

 

[Lynn D]

Dale, thanks for trying to help with this.
One thing I thought of that I am wondering if it may be giving me this
problem is passwords? I have a different password for project administrator
than for the sql administrator. Could this be a problem when the admin is
trying to update the database?
Let me know what you think. If this could be an issue, do you know how to
change the password forthe sql?
Thanks, Lynn

 

[Dee]

I had a similar problem. But it went away when I got myself admin
access to both project and sql server. Also, when logging in as the
administrator,
I replaced "http://localhost/projectserver/" with the project server
add, left the password blank, and checked on trusted sites.

Not sure if this will work for you, but......

HTH
Dee

 

[kas]

I thought what I needed to do was going to be easy.... well, I don't think
anything is easy. Here's my situation.
I have a PM who backed up her plan offline last evening before doing some
work in the project plan file (offline).
Then, thinking she was back in the plan, continued to make 2 hours' worth of
updates.
Came into the office the next morning and checked in her plan.
Well, the plan she checked in did NOT have the 2 hours' worth of work she
done.
She was very frustrated and upset.
I calmly asked her if she had made a back up before doing her work (me being
familiar with her work routine). She had made a back up. I asked her to
open that plan to see if perhaps she had made her updates into the backup
version thinking it was her checked out version. We determined she had made
the changes into this backup copy.
Now I have the correct version of her plan stored in a backup directory on
the network and an incorrect version check in and stored on project server.

HOW DO I GET THE CORRECT VERSION STORED BACK IN THE PROJECT SERVER????
I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE, I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION ALL DAY, BUT MAYBE
IT'S TOO OBVIOUS, AND I'M MAKING IT HARDER THAN IT REALLY IS.

PLEASE HELP.