Making Workgroup Projects into Enterprise Projects. HELP!!

[Chris Moran]

I am using Project Professional 2003 and Project Central Server 2003.

My organization has several projects that are of the type "Workgroup". We w
ould like to make the Enterprise projects.. Here's what I do:

Open the project from within PWA, opening in Project Pro 2003. Project 2003
is opening from the server account in enterprise. Click Save-As, and type
in the name of the project to be saved to the project server... It saves
to the server under the EXACT same name...

Here's the problem, there is now a duplicate project that does not have the
links associated with tasks. Also there is now a duplicate Document Library
, with no documents in it. The orginal document library and the workgroup p
roject are still linked..

HOW do I save a copy of the project on the server, without creating a duplic
ate project? In other words, how do I make a workgroup project into an ente
rprise project?

HELP!!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Chris --

First, ask your Project Server administrator to delete each of the projects
and its duplicates, along with the associated subweb for each of the
projects. Once he/she has done this, then you should import the project
into the Project Server database using Tools - Enterprise Options - Import
Project to Enterprise. You should always import non-enterprise projects
using this method, and should never use the Save As... method you have been
trying to use. Hope this helps.

 

[Chris Moran]

Dale,

Thank you for your prompt response... Here is the problem: We have already
entered notes and links all over the place for tasks in these projects. I
don't want to lose the links and notes. I also don't want to have to re-link
everything.

I am curious as to what the difference is between Import Project Into
Enterprise and Save to the Server.

Also, what exactly makes a project an "Enterprise" Project?

Thanks!

Chris

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Chris --

You will not lose the task dependencies or notes in these projects when you
import them. I am assuming, however, that you you do not have cross-project
dependencies between these projects. If you do have cross-project
dependencies, you will need to do the following:

1. Create a list of all of the cross-project dependencies in each project
2. Open each project and remove the cross-project dependencies
3. Save each project again as an .mpp file
4. Import each project into the Project Server database
5. Open each project in the Project Server database and reestablish the
cross-project dependencies

The Import Project to Enterprise wizard gives you complete control the
process of converting a non-enterprise project to an enterprise project. It
is very important that you use the wizard in doing so, as it allows you to
map resources in the project with those in the Enterprise Resource Pool. It
also allows you to map custom task fields with enterprise custom task fields
and to synch up calendars in the project with enterprise calendars.

An enterprise project is any project in the Project Server database. A
non-enterprise project is any project outside of the Project Server
database, such as those saved as .mpp files. Hope this helps.

 

[Chris Moran]

Dale,

Just to clarify (and I REALLY appreciate your help),

Steps:

Open the "workgroup" project from PWA into Project 2003
Save the project to the local computer
In PWA, goto admin and delete the project and selected website
Open Project Pro 2003 using the Enterprise account
Import the project into the enterprise (same nameas project from before)

And the new enterprise project will still have the links to the document
library and all the notes associated with tasks?

-Chris

Chris Moran
Operations Program Manager
TAMSCO Communications
an ESSI Company

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Chris --

Are you referring to the Document library in PWA or documents linked to the
project using another method? If you are referring to the Documents library
in PWA, then ask your Project Server administrator to do the following:

1. Log into PWA with administrator permissions
2. Click the Admin menu
3. Click the Manage Windows SharePoint Services link
4. Click the Manage SharePoint sites link in the sidepane on the left
5. Write down the Site addresses for each of the troublesome projects (DO
NOT skip this step!)
6. Click the Clean up Project Server database link in the sidepane
7. Select the Projects and To-Do Lists option
8. Select an offending project in the data grid
9. DO NOT select the "Delete the SharePoint team Web site..." option (to
preserve the Documents library for the project)
10. Click the Delete button
11. Repeat steps 8-10 for each troublesome project

After he/she has done so, you should import each of the .mpp projects into
the Project Server database using the Import Project wizard. Pay special
attention to the Wizard page dealing with resources, and map every resource
in the project to a corresponding enterprise resource.

After you have imported the projects successfully, your Project Server
administrator will need to reconnect the existing SharePoint site to each
newly-imported project by doing the following:

1. Log into PWA with administrator permissions
2. Click the Admin menu
3. Click the Manage Windows SharePoint Services link
4. Click the Manage SharePoint sites link in the sidepane on the left
5. Select one of the newly-imported projects and click the Delete Site
button
6. Click the Edit Site Address button for the selected project
7. Enter the URL for the original WSS site correspondong to this project
(he/she wrote down this URL in step 5 in the previous section) and click OK
8. Repeat steps 5-7 for each newly-imported project

Hope this helps.

 

[Chris Moran]

I am referring to the Document Library and documents linked to tasks in the
mannor you are refering to in your last post.

Thank you so much for your help Dale! I am going to load up a test project
in workgroup mode, set some links, add some notes to a task, and test what
you have provided me. I will post the results.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Chris Moran]

Dale!

Eureka! the KEY to having links transfer over is to update all the task in
the project, prior to importing it into the enterprise. Everything worked as
planned and now we have all of our projects in enterprise mode.

Thank you!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Chris --

You are very welcome, my friend!