enterprise custom field for overdue tasks

[Robert Juarez]

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a new Task

Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And [%

Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add the new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they are not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Jonathan Sofer [MVP]]

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is 100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a new
Task

Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And [%

Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Robert Juarez]

In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't let you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no output for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a value or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the same message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from the PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no success in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find it when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I don't see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is 100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a new
Task

Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And [%

Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Robert Juarez]

One other question - is there any sort of "setup" that needs to happen before
I can have custom fields utilizing equations? I'm wondering if maybe I'm
getting blank values in the field because it is not hitting the database
correctly or because the database doesn't have the required content? Are
there any tests I can run to see if it is? We're running Project Server 2007

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is 100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a new
Task

Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And [%

Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Jonathan Sofer [MVP]]

No setup is required for the formulas to work.

One other question - is there any sort of "setup" that needs to happen
before
I can have custom fields utilizing equations? I'm wondering if maybe I'm
getting blank values in the field because it is not hitting the database
correctly or because the database doesn't have the required content? Are
there any tests I can run to see if it is? We're running Project Server
2007
on MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition running SQL Express 2005 (default SQL
engine
installed with SharePoint).

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is
100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Jonathan Sofer [MVP]]

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field is only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and try to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..." button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan

In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't let you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a value or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no success in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is
100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Robert Juarez]

Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. Through your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to get it to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used Text1 as you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then re-published the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation refresh them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the PAW view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show up fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but when I go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me from being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I can't save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field is only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and try to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..." button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan

In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't let you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a value or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no success in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or "Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh? This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task is
100%
and finishes in the future.

I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date] And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Jonathan Sofer [MVP]]

Hi Robert,

Glad you are making progress. It could be that you are getting an error in
PWA editing the custom field because the cache hasn't been updated correctly
in Project Pro. You probably noticed that you cannot edit a custom field
that has a formula in it without Project Pro being open. If you don't have
Pro open, it will automatically be launched when you try to edit a custom
field with a formula via PWA. Anytime you make a change to a custom field,
I would first make sure to close out of Project Professional completely so
the next time you log in, it pulls the latest custom field definitions into
the global cache.

In order to do a thorough global cache cleaning follow these steps:

1) Close out Project Professional
2) Start>Run, enter %appdata% and click enter
3) Navigate to ...Microsoft\MS Project
4) Delete the 12 and Cache folders completely

Also, try having Project Professional open first with a connection to the
enterprise environment before you attempt to edit the custom field in PWA.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. Through
your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to get it
to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used Text1 as
you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then re-published
the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation refresh
them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the PAW
view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show up
fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but when I
go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me from
being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I can't
save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it
working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be
available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field is
only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and try
to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without
graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it
into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..." button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan

In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks
where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't let
you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no
output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators
part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a value
or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I
need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from
the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no success
in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

:

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The
fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads
me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or
"Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh?
This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task
is
100%
and finishes in the future.

message
I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having
some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date]
And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate
that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all
tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Robert Juarez]

Still no dice. I followed all of those steps and whenever I open that
particular enterprise custom field (or any custom text field using graphical
indicators) in PWA and try to save it I get the message. I am giving up for
now and just using a Number type field instead of a Text type and replacing
the "red" and "green" in my formulas with 1 and 2. If I do this the
graphical indicators save/show fine. I'm guessing there is just something
wrong with the way I'm using text for graphical indicators...I don't know
what it is but I can't get anything to work with text.

Hi Robert,

Glad you are making progress. It could be that you are getting an error in
PWA editing the custom field because the cache hasn't been updated correctly
in Project Pro. You probably noticed that you cannot edit a custom field
that has a formula in it without Project Pro being open. If you don't have
Pro open, it will automatically be launched when you try to edit a custom
field with a formula via PWA. Anytime you make a change to a custom field,
I would first make sure to close out of Project Professional completely so
the next time you log in, it pulls the latest custom field definitions into
the global cache.

In order to do a thorough global cache cleaning follow these steps:

1) Close out Project Professional
2) Start>Run, enter %appdata% and click enter
3) Navigate to ...Microsoft\MS Project
4) Delete the 12 and Cache folders completely

Also, try having Project Professional open first with a connection to the
enterprise environment before you attempt to edit the custom field in PWA.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. Through
your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to get it
to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used Text1 as
you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then re-published
the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation refresh
them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the PAW
view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show up
fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but when I
go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me from
being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I can't
save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it
working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be
available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field is
only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and try
to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without
graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it
into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..." button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan


In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks
where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't let
you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no
output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators
part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a value
or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I
need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from
the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no success
in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

:

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than [Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in? The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The
fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators leads
me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or
"Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh?
This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status" that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the task
is
100%
and finishes in the future.

message
I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am having
some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current Date]
And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate
that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all
tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Gary Chefetz]

Robert:

What is your patch level on this system. This sounds like an issue that
surfaced and was corrected in very early builds of Project Server.

Still no dice. I followed all of those steps and whenever I open that
particular enterprise custom field (or any custom text field using
graphical
indicators) in PWA and try to save it I get the message. I am giving up
for
now and just using a Number type field instead of a Text type and
replacing
the "red" and "green" in my formulas with 1 and 2. If I do this the
graphical indicators save/show fine. I'm guessing there is just something
wrong with the way I'm using text for graphical indicators...I don't know
what it is but I can't get anything to work with text.

Hi Robert,

Glad you are making progress. It could be that you are getting an error
in
PWA editing the custom field because the cache hasn't been updated
correctly
in Project Pro. You probably noticed that you cannot edit a custom field
that has a formula in it without Project Pro being open. If you don't
have
Pro open, it will automatically be launched when you try to edit a custom
field with a formula via PWA. Anytime you make a change to a custom
field,
I would first make sure to close out of Project Professional completely
so
the next time you log in, it pulls the latest custom field definitions
into
the global cache.

In order to do a thorough global cache cleaning follow these steps:

1) Close out Project Professional
2) Start>Run, enter %appdata% and click enter
3) Navigate to ...Microsoft\MS Project
4) Delete the 12 and Cache folders completely

Also, try having Project Professional open first with a connection to the
enterprise environment before you attempt to edit the custom field in
PWA.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. Through
your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to get
it
to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used Text1
as
you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then
re-published
the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation refresh
them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the PAW
view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show up
fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but when
I
go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me from
being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I can't
save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

:

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it
working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be
available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views
in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field
is
only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a
task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this
formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators
but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and
try
to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without
graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need
to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it
into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..."
button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your
Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan


message
In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks
where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date
is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't
let
you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type
of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no
output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators
part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a
value
or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I
need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the
same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from
the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no
success
in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find
it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I
don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should
be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

:

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than
[Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in?
The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The
fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators
leads
me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or
"Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh?
This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status"
that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the
task
is
100%
and finishes in the future.

message
I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am
having
some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to
create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current
Date]
And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate
that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the
criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red
or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I
add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all
tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me
they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Robert Juarez]

I think you were on to something. It said I was running SP 2, but when I ran
and installed all available Microsoft updates, it seems to have fixed the
problem. I can now save and view text type custom fields graphical
indicators.
Thanks!
Robert

Robert:

What is your patch level on this system. This sounds like an issue that
surfaced and was corrected in very early builds of Project Server.

Still no dice. I followed all of those steps and whenever I open that
particular enterprise custom field (or any custom text field using
graphical
indicators) in PWA and try to save it I get the message. I am giving up
for
now and just using a Number type field instead of a Text type and
replacing
the "red" and "green" in my formulas with 1 and 2. If I do this the
graphical indicators save/show fine. I'm guessing there is just something
wrong with the way I'm using text for graphical indicators...I don't know
what it is but I can't get anything to work with text.

Hi Robert,

Glad you are making progress. It could be that you are getting an error
in
PWA editing the custom field because the cache hasn't been updated
correctly
in Project Pro. You probably noticed that you cannot edit a custom field
that has a formula in it without Project Pro being open. If you don't
have
Pro open, it will automatically be launched when you try to edit a custom
field with a formula via PWA. Anytime you make a change to a custom
field,
I would first make sure to close out of Project Professional completely
so
the next time you log in, it pulls the latest custom field definitions
into
the global cache.

In order to do a thorough global cache cleaning follow these steps:

1) Close out Project Professional
2) Start>Run, enter %appdata% and click enter
3) Navigate to ...Microsoft\MS Project
4) Delete the 12 and Cache folders completely

Also, try having Project Professional open first with a connection to the
enterprise environment before you attempt to edit the custom field in
PWA.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts. Through
your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to get
it
to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used Text1
as
you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then
re-published
the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation refresh
them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the PAW
view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show up
fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but when
I
go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me from
being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I can't
save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

:

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it
working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be
available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project views
in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The field
is
only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a
task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this
formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical indicators
but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional and
try
to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without
graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not need
to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert it
into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..."
button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your
Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan


message
In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display tasks
where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current date
is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it won't
let
you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a Type
of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get no
output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical indicators
part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a
value
or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text do I
need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the
same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7 from
the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no
success
in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should find
it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I
don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it should
be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

:

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than
[Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in?
The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text. The
fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators
leads
me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or
"Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation refresh?
This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called "Status"
that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the
task
is
100%
and finishes in the future.

message
I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am
having
some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to
create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current
Date]
And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to populate
that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the
criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show red
or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When I
add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for all
tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling me
they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.

 

[Gary Chefetz]

Glad that this is finally working for you.

I think you were on to something. It said I was running SP 2, but when I
ran
and installed all available Microsoft updates, it seems to have fixed the
problem. I can now save and view text type custom fields graphical
indicators.
Thanks!
Robert

Robert:

What is your patch level on this system. This sounds like an issue that
surfaced and was corrected in very early builds of Project Server.

Still no dice. I followed all of those steps and whenever I open that
particular enterprise custom field (or any custom text field using
graphical
indicators) in PWA and try to save it I get the message. I am giving
up
for
now and just using a Number type field instead of a Text type and
replacing
the "red" and "green" in my formulas with 1 and 2. If I do this the
graphical indicators save/show fine. I'm guessing there is just
something
wrong with the way I'm using text for graphical indicators...I don't
know
what it is but I can't get anything to work with text.

:

Hi Robert,

Glad you are making progress. It could be that you are getting an
error
in
PWA editing the custom field because the cache hasn't been updated
correctly
in Project Pro. You probably noticed that you cannot edit a custom
field
that has a formula in it without Project Pro being open. If you don't
have
Pro open, it will automatically be launched when you try to edit a
custom
field with a formula via PWA. Anytime you make a change to a custom
field,
I would first make sure to close out of Project Professional
completely
so
the next time you log in, it pulls the latest custom field definitions
into
the global cache.

In order to do a thorough global cache cleaning follow these steps:

1) Close out Project Professional
2) Start>Run, enter %appdata% and click enter
3) Navigate to ...Microsoft\MS Project
4) Delete the 12 and Cache folders completely

Also, try having Project Professional open first with a connection to
the
enterprise environment before you attempt to edit the custom field in
PWA.

Jonathan

message
Jonathan,
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my posts.
Through
your
suggestions (and you were right on the formula (= ) I was able to
get
it
to
work. I had to modify one of the existing custom fields (I used
Text1
as
you
suggested) in project professional, once I saw that it worked (with
the
graphical indicator), I made it an enterprise field and then
re-published
the
file. I see that for all other project's I have to calculation
refresh
them
and then republish them in order to see the values populated in the
PAW
view.
My only problem still lies with the graphical indicators. They show
up
fine
since I created the custom field in Project Professional 2007, but
when
I
go
to edit the enterprise field in PAW, it still tells me the graphical
indicators are not valid, even though they work. This prevents me
from
being
about to edit my enterprise custom fields in PAW at all because I
can't
save
the changes. This is quite the annoyance and I'm not sure why it is
happening. Any thoughts?

:

Robert,

Once you get output I think you will see that you want to reverse
the
current date and the finish date in your formula. Once you get it
working
it will be easy for you to determine which way to go with that.

The [Status] field is a task level field and therefore will not be
available
for use in Project Center views. But I also checked the Project
views
in
PWA and this field is not available for use there either. The
field
is
only
available in Project Professional to use. If you want to create a
task
custom field that is based on this field then you can use this
formula:
IIf([Status]=0,"Completed",IIf([Status]=1,"On
Schedule",IIf([Status]=2,"Late","Future Task")))

I am not sure what you are doing wrong with the graphical
indicators
but
what I would first try is to work solely in Project Professional
and
try
to
get your task custom field to work at the local level and without
graphical
indicators. Once you start getting values back in the Text1 field
for
example, then try to add the graphical indicators, BTW you do not
need
to
add quotes around the text value, just type the value as it is.

Once you get the local field working like you want you can convert
it
into
an enterprise field by clicking the "Add Field To Enterprise..."
button.
Then you will be able to add this custom enterprise field to your
Project
views under PWA>Manage Views.

Jonathan


message
In response to your post:
a) I still think mine makes sense since I'm trying to display
tasks
where
the finish date is earlier than the current date (ie - current
date
is
greater), but I tried reversing it for the sake of testing, still
no
output
once I took b) below into consideration.
b) You're right...I was using a custom date field. Since it
won't
let
you
change it I created a new field with an Entity of "Task" and a
Type
of
"Text". I tried my formula my way and your way and I still get
no
output
for
that field when I add it to any task view. The graphical
indicators
part
still gives me an invalid message as well. I used "equals" and a
value
or
"red" without quote marks...is that correct or since it is text
do I
need
quotes? I tried both and tried using contains but still get the
same
message.
c) I opened the project schedule in MS Project Professional 2K7
from
the
PWA
window, hit F9, saved and published, and closed it but still no
success
in
PWA view.
d) I can't find a task field called status. I assume I should
find
it
when
I go to modify a Project Center view under "Available fields"? I
don't
see
it there. If I should be looking elsewhere please let me know.

I really would like to get this working and it seems like it
should
be
relatively simple but I'm running into some hiccups.
Thanks,
Robert

:

a) Your formula has a mistake in it I believe. The first
condition
should
be reversed i.e. [Current Date]<[Finish] rather than
[Finish]<[Current
Date]
b) Did you use a custom "Text" field to define your formula in?
The
results
of your formula yields text so the field type has to be text.
The
fact
that
you get an error when trying to define your graphical indicators
leads
me
to
believe you are using some other type of field like "Date" or
"Duration"
maybe?
c) Did you hit F9 in your schedule to force a calculation
refresh?
This
sometimes needs to be done to force the formula to calculate
d) There is an existing out of the box task field called
"Status"
that
will
generate a similar results if you want to look at that instead.
e) You might want to consider a different formula result if the
task
is
100%
and finishes in the future.

in
message
I'm trying to create a view that shows overdue tasks and am
having
some
trouble. I went into enterprise custom fields and tried to
create a
new
Task
Date field with the following formula :IIf([Finish]<[Current
Date]
And
[%
Complete]<100,"red","green"). Now I would expect it to
populate
that
field
with either "red" or "green" depending on if it meets the
criteria.
Furthermore I would like to use graphical indicators to show
red
or
green
stoplights. However, I cannot get this formula to work - When
I
add
the
new
field to a view that displays the data values it is blank for
all
tasks
and
when I try to setup the graphical indicator it keeps telling
me
they
are
not
valid. What am I doing wrong?

.