Custom Attributes - what's the best way to accomplish this?

[Brian Lukanic]

I make use of the Project Workspace for our team resources to use that as
their collaboration area almost as much as the PWA pages. On that Workspace,
I want a standard set of fields to display the key attributes of the project,
such as: Estimated golive date, The link to the contract on our document
server (not Sharepoint,) a revenue field (how much we are getting paid for
the project,) and legal name of the project (The SOW name.) Perhaps also a
field stating whether the project is an internal iniative or a client-facing
saold project.

The end result is this: I'm picturing some type of web part on the workspace
that displays these fields in a standard way for every project on every
workspace. I also want/am willing to have my PMs manually enter this
information once (except for golive data, which might change) at the onset of
a project. So I don't need this automated or anything, although it would be
GREAT to be able to display the project end date (estimated golive date)
dynamically as it changes during the life of the project.

I also would like the ability to report off these fields eventually - either
by the native reporting services in Project Server or by direct querying.

So my question is: What's the best way to get this data into the system? I
can think of two options. Option 1: Ask the PM to manually enter the
attribute information into the custom Sharepoint list that will be the
display of that information. Seems like an acceptable option, but seems
low-tech compared to option 2. Option 2: Create a custom enterprise field on
Server for each attribute and make them be required by the PM upon initial
publishing. I am ok with the PM getting up to 6 required fields as hoops to
go through before publishing. Then, the Sharepoint web part that displays
this key information would be some flavor of a Project Details web part that
is a custom view created to show only the 6 enterprise fields and perhaps the
project end date from line 0 which WOULD be able to dynamically update since
it is driven off the PM's republished schedule. I would then keep the display
depth of the web part to be very shallow, since there'd be only one header
row and one data row for all of this information.

Can somebody validate my thinking and/or recommend an alternate strategy?

 

[Andre Venter]

Brian ,

Does not sound like a bad plan .. I mean option 2 , but for the Web part, i
think you could possibly get allot more functionality and options if you use
SQL Reporting Services. There is a WEB Part that can display these reports
and the reports are totally customizable and display only the info that you
would like to Display.

Also that way its a lot easier getting Compiled information across your
entire enstance of MOPS.

Andre

 

[Brian Lukanic]

Thanks. Are you saying that there is a SQL reporting web part available in
WSS that I can use? What's the name of it? Or, do I need to install it
separately (I don't see it in my list of available web parts, unless I am
missing it.)

 

[Brian Lukanic]

After trying a variety of options with Project Details and Project Center
views as webparts on each project's workspace, I need to decide whether to
use Enterprise Custom fields. This seems to be preferred over custom text
fields, but it looks like any customized Project Details view I create only
allows me to use custom fields at the task level - not the Enterprise level.
So unless I am missing something, I can't display enterprise custom fields in
a Project Details view. At least the GUI on the Manage Views area does not
give me the ability to create a Task view that includes enterprise custom
fields.

So to display the information, I need to use enterprise custom fields &
require the PM to enter this data upon initial mpp save, which is great so
far but here's the problem: Project Details Webparts won't show me that info.
I need to go to a Project Center web part to show enterprise custom fields at
a project level. But from a viewing perspective at the individual Project
Workspace, I don't want a full dump of all project; I want the information
that the Project Center web part displays, but filtered only on "current
project."

When you insert the Project Details web part in a page, it is smart enough
to default to the current project (you can conceivable toggle to a different
project, which is counterintuitive, but it's allowed. Bottom line is that WSS
is "nice" enough to assume you want the .mpp of the current project
displayed.) But when you insert the Project Center Web part on a workspace,
it assumes you want all projects shown. Seems logical, but I'd prefer it to
be smart enough to filter that view down to only the current project.

Does anybody know if you can make the Project Center web part default to a
custom view (one that uses my custom enterprise fields,) but which includes a
custom filter to show only the "current" project? I know you can hard-code
the filter when making a custom view for Project Center, but for this to be
repeatable I want to template out my workspaces and have the Project Center
webpart/view/filter combo ready to go to show the current project - with no
adminstrative action to fix each workspace's view.

Lastly - because this all sounds like a bit of a hack even if I can get it
to work, it sounds like a SQL web part would make a lot more sense. If so, I
will need some guidance on how to set that up, and to make it too be able to
be smart enough to perform its query based on the currently-open project
workspace (Again, if WSS is smart enough to know which project to default to
when using the Project Details web part, then I am hoping that a SQL web part
would be equally smart enough to know to query certain custom fields on the
current project.)

This is all in the hopes of making displayable, consumable information to
the project team and sponsors when visiting the Project workspace. For the
PMs and the PMO (me,) I'll probably be doing most of my work from within
Project Center natively, so for me all I can about is ensuring my PMs get the
custom information input when they post their schedules. I can figure out a
good PWA view for myself off that data. But I want a user-friendly display in
the Workspace's GUI for everybody else.

 

[Andre Venter]

Brian ,

You have to download and install it

Thanks. Are you saying that there is a SQL reporting web part available in
WSS that I can use? What's the name of it? Or, do I need to install it
separately (I don't see it in my list of available web parts, unless I am
missing it.)

 

[Brian Lukanic]

ok thanks. Can you just tell me the actual name of the web part and/or give
me the download link?