Thanks for the suggestion, Dale. Not sure a macro is going to do it
either -
I have to ensure the unique identifier gets created once, upon inital save
or
publish, and does not get updated. I'm not familiar enough with VBA to
write
a macro to do this, and I can't figure out a way to record a macro like
this
either.
I can state with some certainty the Custom Field formula in P2007 is not
even as good as it was in P2003. At least in P2003, when you had syntax
errors, you'd get some indication of where in your formula you had goofed.
P2007 doesn't even give you that much help. In addition, P2003 gave you
some
help regarding the fields you had available to work with. P2007 gives you
no
help in this regard. These are annoyances at best, and are more than a
hinderance when you're less familiar with the functions and, esp, the
fields
available for formula work.
There, now I've vented and I feel a little better. I'm still stuck, but at
least I'm no longer stuck AND mad!
Thanks again, Dale. You, Gary, Jack, and the other MVPs are tremendous
resources for info. Thank you for all your help.
Dale Howard said:
Astro Boy --
I think your best approach would be to write a macro that creates the
unique
identifier for the project. Hope this helps.
Astro Boy said:
Dale, thanks for your continued follow up.
The problem seems to be around the fields I'm trying to capture.
Neither
[Enterprise Project ID] nor [Created] appear to be available for
display,
calculation, or manipulation via formula.
My problem remains - how to generate a unique "project identifier" at
time
of publishing (or saving). The "identfier" must be unique and must not
change.
I thought about capturing a budget year (manual entry into another
Custom
Field), date/time stamp of the date/hour/minute/second the project was
initally pulbished and the author's name, but can't get that to work
either.
Instead, I get a result which updates itself every time the project
opens.
My
current formula reads thusly:
Budget Year & CStr ( Year ( Now() )) & CStr ( Month ( Now() )) & CStr (
Day
( Now() )) & CStr ( Hour ( Now() )) & CStr ( Minute ( Now() )) & CStr (
Second ( Now() )) & Author
Do you have any suggestions for changes to this formula which would
result
in a one-time capture of the info, only upon inital publishing?
:
Astro Boy --
After you create the formula in the field, and then you open a
project,
did
you press the F9 function key to recalculate the project? If not, try
it
and let us know if the error disappears.
Dale, many thanks for your prompt reply.
I am trying to get Project Server to generate a unique identifier
for
each
project - a "project number" if you will. The "project number" will
have
to
remain constant for the life of the project and should not be
duplicated
across projects.
I had the brainwave of using the EXTREMELY long Enterprise Project
ID,
which
is many alphanumeric characters. I was going to use a formula that
would
give
me the first 5 characters of this field (formulaicly:
left([Enterprise
Project ID],5) and concatonate on the creation date [Create].
However, even though Project 2007 is OK with the syntax of my
formula,
it's
returning an error.
Can I get either of these fields using a formula? Do you have any
suggestions for how to generate a unique "Project Number" without
going
through these gyrations?
THANKS!
AB
:
Astro Boy --
The dialog is no longer available or necessary in Project Server
2007.
Thus, you should not believe everything you read in either Help or
in
Microsoft's current documentation on the Web. In your situation,
why
don't
you create a custom enterprise field and then add the custom field
to
the
My Assignments view in PWA? Hope this helps.
Has anyone found the location of the "Customize>Publish Fields"
dialog
box
in
Project 2007? It is not in Tools>Customize any longer, despite
the
fact
that
Project Help says it is.
Is this dialog box even necessary any longer? Does EVERYTHING in
the
project
go to the database now? I'm looking specifically for [Created]
and
[Enterprise Project ID] to concatonate a unique project
identifier
via
a
formula. Does anyone have any suggestions on a better way to do
this?
Thanks!
AB
