Working Offline

[ScottB]

I am working with Project Professional 2003 in a school
environment. We want teachers to be able to check out
projects, work on them at home and then check them back in
after they return to school. From what I can tell,
working offline means that you can work on the project
offline but that, in fact, you need to be connected to, in
our case, the school's network to make it work right.
When we use laptops at home, we don't sign in with our
regular network account (because we're not on the
network) but, rather, use a standard user name of 'user'
and a password of 'user' and change the domain to a pre-
designated name like 'laptop02'. When logging in as user,
MS Project opens but has no memory of the project...which
is buried in some obscure file too hard for most people to
find. If I log in under my school account name, the
program folder shows up as 'empty' and MS Project is
nowhere to be found. I understand that a copy of the MS
Project file can be made (Save As...) but this complicates
things since the saved copy can't be checked in so files
need to be deleted, etc. which is (a) too confusing for
most and (b) complicates things if someone else has worked
on the file during the interim.

Any suggestions? Scott

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

Scott:

You really need to get training to use some of these features correctly.
Here's what you need to know:

After taking the project offline, instruct the users to start Project as
they typically do, but select the Project Server account that they normally
use to connect to Project Server, not "my computer" on startup, and then
click the workoffline button. The system then, in a sense, logs them onto
their own make-believe copy of Project Server. Now when they use file open,
they'll see the offline project in the open from server window and nothing
else.

In the future, post your EPM questions to microsoft.public.project.server
for faster responses.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts

-

 

[ScottB]

Gary, many thanks for getting back to me on this. I, in
fact, understand how this process is supposed to work and
have done what you've said. When I log in normally, all
works well. My problem is that the software doesn't work
the same when I'm not connected to our LAN system (when
I'm working as a stand alone, like I would if I were
working at home). If I log on as 'user' I don't get MS
Project to even show up. If I log on as myself, I can
pull up MS Project but when I try to open the file it
jumps directly to the open file dialog box like you'd
expect to see when opening up Word or Excel; implying that
I know exactly where I'd last saved the Project file. I
spoke to our Systems Administrator and he said that he's
configured the laptops the way Microsoft itself recommends
it be done...(so it's not his problem).

I would appreciate it if you would confirm that you are,
in fact, able to open a file from the server, save it
offline and then close your computer completely,
disconnect it from a LAN line (i.e., any access to the
server), restart your computer and then open up the file
again that you'd saved for offline work. If you know you
can do this then I'll at least know that I 'should' be
able to do the same.

My sincere thanks for trying to assist me with this
one...I can assure you that posting a message came after
many hours of research and experimentation. Scott

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

Scott:

This feature is bullet proof. I can assure you that it works for everyone
and that you're simply making a mis-step.

After taking your project offline:

Log into your laptop using your standard logon to the domain, this should
work whether you're connected or not as Windows caches this information so
you can log into your correct profile whether or not you're connected to the
network. If you logon as another user, you won't be able to access your
offline project.

Next, start Project. If it launches directly to Project 1, then you need to
do the following:

1) Select Tools > Enterprise Options > Microsoft Office Project Server
Accounts
2) In the Project Server Accounts dialog, select the radio button for
Manually control connection state
3) Click OK and exit out of Project

Now start Project again. This time you should see the Project Server
Accounts Dialog just as you do when you're online, connected and want to
connect to Project Server

Select the Project Server account that you used to take the proect offline
and click the work offline button

Now, click File > Open - You should now see the open from Microsoft Office
Project Server dialog as if you're about to open a project from the server,
however the only project or projects that appear are the ones you took
offline.

Have all your Project Managers set their copies of Project to manually
control the connection state and teach them the work offline procedure
outlined here.

Please use microsoft.public.project.server for further questions about
Project Server.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the book on Project Server
http://www.msprojectexperts

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