projectified

Use of the Duration1-Duration10 Gantt Chart Styles in PWA

I was recently asked about how to display a custom Gantt bar in one of the PWA Gantt chart views. At first I did not see a way to do it but then tested and verified that the Duration1 –Duration10 bar styles available in several of the bar sets in PWA can be used. I had some some reading on the Internet that implied that they were non-functional but I found that they draw using the StartX-FinishX date sets for tasks. So Duration1 is drawn from Start1-Finish1, Duration9 between Start9 and Finish9.

Server Settings | Gantt Chart Formats:

Then this project draws like this:

Visual Studio Setup Registry Entries for VSTO Addin Deployment

OK so I’m building a Project 2010 addin using Visual Studio 2010 (VSTO) and I got tired of the clickonce deployment option. I added a Visual Studio installer project to my solution and went about following the advice on this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsto/ff937654.aspx

It was mostly pretty good. A bit confusingly worded in a few places but I wrote that off to me not having enough real development background to pick up on the flow as I might if I was an experienced dev. In the section on registry entries it made mention of this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386106.aspx. It also showed sample registry entries settings and how to set them up in your installer project. I followed these to the letter and matched mine up with their screenshot to make sure they matched. For the Manifest entry mine was:

"[TARGETDIR]ADDINNAME.vsto|vstolocal"

I used this and my addin installed the proper ribbon tabs and buttons which meant that the system was able to interpret my entry enough to install my code into Project 2010. But some of my code was not quite working properly.

Two of my dialog boxes should have read in a default value from an Application setting but the combobox controls that should have contained these defaults were blank. Click events for buttons were not firing off the code connected to them. The load event of a graphing control did not fire so while the graph control was there with the right visual settings it contained no data.

I spent most of last night and much of the early part of this morning trying to figure out what was going wrong. I rebuilt my setup project from scratch. I double checked dependencies and looked to make sure I was building my setup project based on the right output, etc, etc. No Joy.

I then checked in with old friend Colby Africa, one of the resident developer geniuses over at forProject to see what I was doing wrong. He had seen some roughly similar oddities in one of his projects and his research with his contacts suggested that I needed to add ‘file:///’ to the beginning of my registry setting in my Manifest key. It had something to do with the way the system interpreted the entry.

I was skeptical but did it anyway. My Manifest entry was now “file:///[TARGETDIR]ADDINNAME.vsto|vstolocal". I rebuilt my setup project and reinstalled my addin and poof! It worked!

As always, having smart friends is at least as important as being smart yourself! :-)

What do you wish Project 2010 could do, but doesn’t?

I’m working on a toolkit for Project 2010 that will have several tools and utilities that people have, over the years, asked me to write for them in VBA.

 

I'm looking for feature suggestions from the crowd. What do wish there was a button for in Project 2010? do you want to run a series of checks against your project to make sure your tasks and resources abide by a set of standard rules? Do you want to create a logfile of all the new tasks, task deletions, resource assignments, etc for that project? How about a tool to remove rates and costs from a schedule before you send it to a client or partner? What about one that lets you prepend or append some text to the Task Name of a set of selected tasks? Well my toolkit has these already. What would you like to see?

Send me an email at brian.kennemer@projectified.com and tell me what you wish there was a button for and I will try to add it to the toolkit.

‘An unknown error has occurred’ when adding an Administrative Task to a Timesheet

Just a quick post to get this into the search engines for the next person.

If you have an Administrative Task in Project Server 2010 that has either any of the following characters in the task name you cannot manually add that task to a timesheet.

&

<

>

There are likely others but these are the 3 I know of for sure.

When you add one of these tasks to a timesheet you get the error “An unknown error has occurred” as shown below.

The odd thing is that you can set one of these tasks to “Always Display” and the task will display with no problem but it cannot be manually added to the timesheet.

 

Speaking at the Project Conference in March

I found out this week that the technical session DeltaBahn proposed was accepted for the Project Conference in March.

I will be giving a talk titled “Planning and Executing a Multi-Instance, Multi-Version Project Server Migration” about the process required to merge a Project Server 2007 instance and a Project Server 2010 instance into a new Project Server 2010 instance.

Hope to see you all there!

Damn ALL the Non-Working Timescaled Values!!!

Quick note to save someone down the road some time and frustration. :-)

When working with VBA TimeScaleValue collections in Microsoft Project 2007 or Microsoft Project 2010 remember that timescaled values that fall on nonworking days are not zeros. They are also not NULLs. They are in that shadow world between numbers and NULLs. They are “”. Why is this important you ask?

It is NOT important if you are just going to set the Value directly as in:

TSV(Counter).Value = $400.00

It is VERY important if you are doing a running total of creating a rollup inside of a loop (in my case a For…Next looping through sets of Tasks, as in:

TSV(Counter).Value = TSV(Counter).Value + TaskObject.Cost10

If you fire that second line of code off and the TSV(Counter).StartDate is a nonworking day AND there is not already a number in that value then the value that is there by default is that crazy shadow “” value. The result is a Type Mismatch error because you are trying to add your TaskObject.Cost10 to a non number.

So to get around this you have to test the current value of TSV(Counter).Value to see if it is numeric:

If IsNumeric(TSV(Counter).Value) = True then

TSV(Counter).Value = TSV(Counter).Value + TaskObject.Cost10

Else

TSV(Counter.Value = TaskObject.Cost10

End If

Now the first pass through this TSV ‘slice’ will show a nonnumeric value and it will just set the value to be the Cost10 value for the TaskObject. But on the second pass through this slice it will be a numeric value since you just set it on the first pass and then it can start your ‘rollup’.

T-SQL for Returning Tasks Scheduled to Start within 7 Days

This is just a snippet of T-SQL to return the Project Name, Task Name, Task Start, and Task Finish dates for all tasks in the Project Server Reporting Database that are scheduled to start between the current SQL Server system time and the current system time plus 7 days.

The core of this is really just the use of SysDateTime and the DateAdd functions. Other than that it is a very basic query.

This gets asked for every once in a while so I will put it out here for those searching.

 

   1: SELECT     MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectName, MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskName, 

   2:            MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate,MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskFinishDate

   3: FROM         MSP_EpmProject_UserView INNER JOIN

   4:                       MSP_EpmTask_UserView ON MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectUID = 

   5:                       MSP_EpmTask_UserView.ProjectUID

   6: WHERE     (MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate > sysdatetime()) AND 

   7:           (MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskStartDate < DATEADD(dd, 7, sysdatetime()))

Sort Order of Groupings in Project Center Views

OK, so you have a nice view in Project Center and it groups by a given field, we will call it Location. You get all your projects into the system and you notice that the grouping works as expected but the sort of the grouped headings is odd. Not even alphabetical.

Now, this is an “issue” that I'm sure has been around for as long as there has been a Project Server but I only just found it because on this engagement I’m on I broke with my normal process and did not prepare my custom field information the way I normally do. Normally, I gather up the lookup table values and set them up in Excel first. By force of an old habit from other systems I would either sort them in Excel or for those that did needed to be in a non-alpha sort I would put numbers in front of the values. Then I would put them into lookup tables.

I know that Project Server allows you to control the display order of the lookup table (see  below) but I have always done this and habits are hard to break.

 

So what was my problem with the sort of my groups? Project Server views sort the group headings according to the display order set in the lookup table of the field you grouped on. My issue was that I had not put numbers in front of the values and I did not pick Sort Ascending. The default is By Row Number and that has always worked for me given my odd ‘pre sorting’ that is part of my normal routine. I went in and changed the sort order or my lookup table and my grouping was correct.

The moral of this story could be “Don’t break with your process” or maybe it is “Update your process”. I'm going to go with the idea that it is “Don’t break with your process!” :-)

When Does an Enterprise Project Field without a Default Value Setting Get a Default Value?

Almost all Project Server administrators know that when you have an enterprise custom field using a lookup table that you can pick one of the values from that lookup table to be the default value for new entities.

 

But what about a case where the field is set to NOT have a default value but some new projects are being created where when the Save button is hit on the New Project PDP a value is being entered for that field? What might cause that?

There are (at least) two possible answers.

Templates on Enterprise Project Types

When you create your enterprise project types you can associate an enterprise project template so that when a new project is created using an EPT it will automatically use that template. It is possible for a template to contain values in some enterprise fields as part of the template. If the template associated with the EPT has a value in that custom field then it can look like there was a default value set for the field, even when the field itself does not have a default set.

Two things lead to this being overlooked:

1. EPTs are a new feature to Project Server 2010 and it does not always occur to users that clicking “New” in the Project Center could call up a template to begin with.
2. Many organizations tend to strip out custom field values when saving a project as a template so the idea of there being a value in the fields for a template might not occur to everyone.

I have seen this issue at 2 different locations now and it can cause some pretty severe head-scratching.

 

Workflow Code or Custom Event Handler Code

Through workflow coding or custom event handler code there could be situations where the code would examine the values of certain custom fields when the project is initially saved and then make decisions about the values of other custom fields. An example of this is if a project is created and the user picks “Washington” as the value for the ‘Location’ field. The code might be set to assign a certain value for an Account Manager” field based on the project being located in Washington state. For some users that do not know about this coding it might appear as if there were default values on some fields.

This type of coding is much more common now in 2010 and in most cases users and certainly the administrators are likely to know about these kinds of changes. In my experience the most common cause for confusion about mystery ‘default’ values is going to be from a template on an EPT.

2010 Reporting Whitepaper Goodness!

Some old buddies of mine from the Microsoft Consulting Services EPM team went NUTS and generated about 200 super high quality pages about Project Server 2010 reporting. Blaise Novakovic, Jean-Francois LeSaux, Steven Haden, and Amit Abrol outdid even the high standards MCS sets. Nice work guys!

 

Microsoft Project Server 2010 Reporting with Excel Services and also Creating Dashboards for Microsoft Project Server 2010

Excellent work!

What is Project Server Consulting?

One of the hardest questions I am asked is not one I get ‘on the job’. It is the one I get all the time from family, friends and people I meet at my kids basketball games: “So, what is it that you do for a living?”

For a long time I struggled with a short, accurate yet meaningful response. “I’m a project manager” is too general. “I deploy project management software” is accurate but is a little bit vague for most people.

What I have started saying is “I work with companies on the best ways to manage their projects and resources using Microsoft Project and Project Server.” If their face goes blank and they start looking for a way to escape I leave it at that. If they seem interested in knowing more I break into the more detailed version: “I learn how they decide which projects to do, how they manage them and how they use their people to work on them. Then I work with them on streamlining some of those processes and then on how to model those processes in the software.” By that time even people that love me are ready to talk about something else and I don’t blame them. What we do as Project Server consultants lacks the mass-appeal of a game developer but for our own purposes it is worth examining what it really IS that we DO.

In no particular order:

1. Listen to customers about what they do, how they manage their projects and resources.
2. Build a picture of what is really happening with their projects, resources and other work. How do projects flow through the organization and\or how does the organization flow through the projects.
3. Examine how they are currently using data from their existing processes and systems to make decisions about what projects to start, what projects to keep doing, what resources to use or not use, what projects are costing, when projects will finish.
4. Design reporting solutions, in some cases, from scratch to provide usable data to inform the decisions that need to be made
5. Be the project manager for the Project Server deployment
6. Manage customer expectations about what the system will and will not do
7. Understand and model how users will interact with the system and design appropriate security constructs
8. Train, train and then when you think you are finished training, train the people that did not think they needed training.
9. Workflow design. This one is new to 2010 but it plays into the work we have been doing for years to understand how projects moved through their lifecycles, but now we have some cool tools to automate\enforce the process.

So this list is OBVIOUSLY not complete. I’m hoping to generate some comments from the community to round it out a bit. What are your additions to this list of what it means to be a Project Management Software or Project Server consultant?

New Position!

I am happy to announce that I have accepted a position as a Senior EPM Solutions Architect with DeltaBahn, LLC. This is a Microsoft Project Partner that was created and is run by many of the people I was working when I was at Microsoft Consulting Services.

I VERY MUCH enjoyed my time with forProject Technology. They are a great team with some amazing new products coming out around earned value management and DCMA compliance work. If you have needs in those areas definitely give them a call. However, as much as I enjoyed working with forProject, I could not pass up the opportunity to go and work the the guys from my old Microsoft team.

Let me know if your company  needs help deploying Project Server or getting more out of your Project Server deployment. You can reach me at briank@deltabahn.com

Groups and Categories

This is something I posted over on my Microsoft blog a while back but it comes up so often that I wanted to repost it over here.

Project Server security is something that is very flexible once you get used to how it works but it can be a bit confusing when you first look at it.

Here are the basics as I explain them to my customers:

The Group

Groups contain sets of users and they define the system level permissions that those users have the rights to perform. These include: Logging in, performing certain admin functions, create a new project, create a new resource, etc..

The Category

Categories provide access to projects, resources and views. The projects and resources that the category provides access to can be specifically called out by name or they can by dynamically included based on a set of rules within the category itself. For example a category can provide access to all projects where the user is the project owner or a status manager on a task, or all the projects where the Project Owner is ‘below’ the user in the RBS structure. I refer to this set of projects and resources as the “Scope” of the category.

Categories can be shared by many groups because of the dynamic way the scopes can be defined. The dynamic options for project and resource scope are dependent on the user and their relationship (via the RBS structure) to either the owner or team members on a project or to the resources themselves. I often, for simplicity, create a role based group and then a corresponding category. It sometimes means that there are technically more categories than is absolutely required but it does make the whole security model a bit easier to follow.

 

The Group\Category Permissions

This is the part that people often overlook.

A group and a category can be ‘linked’ or joined. When this happens there is a set of permissions that sit at that joint. This set of permissions defines what the members of that group can DO with the projects and resources within the “Scope” of the category.

If you open a Group and you see the list of Categories that are associated to group there is one of these grids for each category. If you select one of the Categories associated with the group the grid pertains to THAT pairing of group and category. If you select a different category the grid changes and is now pertaining only to THAT pairing. The same is true if you open a category and select the Groups that are associated with it. The grid pertains to the pairing. It can be edited in both places but it remains the same.

Circular Relationships in the PWA Schedule Web Part

I recently found that it is possible to create circular link relationships between tasks within the PWA Schedule Webpart. Project Pro checks for things like this as you are editing but the PWA webpart only calculates and checks for things such as circular logic when you hit the Calculate button. The part that makes it more difficult to deal with is that the error message that one gets when the Calculate action finds the circular logic does not contain the ID of the task(s) involved in the link the way that Pro does.

This means that if a user goes into the schedule webpart and makes many changes, including some circular logic they will not see the error message until they hit Calculate or Save, at which point the bad link is already in place and the error does not tell them which task it is.

The solution is to open the project into Pro which will immediately let you know about the bad logic and give you the task ID.

The error you see when you save or calculate is like the one below:

All Things Old, Become New Again…

As some of you may already know, I am no longer with Microsoft. So I will be blogging from here once again. I like TypePad better than the Telligent platform that Microsoft used anyway (so there!). :-)

 

I hope to continue sharing information about how best to configure and use Project Server. I’m still a Project Server nerd. I will just be nerding for someone else now. Who that someone else is, is not yet known so if anyone wants to rent me and me for a while give me a shout at brian.kennemer@live.com and we can talk it out. :-)