MS Project Server - Administrative Plan issue - Can not close it out

S

Scott E

Does anyone know how to close out an administrative plan. We have 3
admin plans and I want to close 2 of them out. I do not want them to
show up on my user's timesheets anymore. Any suggestions would be
greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Scott E --

If you want to remove the admin project entirely from the Project Server
database, do the following:

1. Save the administrative project as an .mpp file (click File - Save As -
Save as File)
2. Delete the admin project from the Project Server database (Admin - Clean
up Project Server database)
3. Analyze the information in the admin project according to your
organization's reporting needs

If you need to keep the admin project in the Project Server database, you
can set the resource assignments in the project to Proposed and this will
remove the admin tasks from each user's timesheet in PWA. To do so, open
the admin project and then click Tools - Build Team from Enterprise. Set
the Booking type to Proposed for each project team member and then click OK.
Click Collaborate - Publish - All Information to "push" the latest project
changes to PWA. Hope this helps.
 
S

Scott E

Thanks Dale...the booking type will come in handy. Though, we can't
delete the plan from the server because we would like running totals
over a period of time.

Regarding the use of the booking type, this would not work either. We
have some of the same resources that are assigned to different tasks.
Some tasks end at different periods in time and thus would need
specific tasks to be removed from their timesheets when these
mini-projects (QA and Infrastructure non-project related) end. I
don't see how an admin plan would work for us.

Is it possible to use a regular plan to capture only actuals for
non-project time? We can do a fixed duration, not effort driven and
put the duration at some period in the future. Though, I would then
need to uncheck "planned work" in the all the user's timesheet.

Thanks,
Scott
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Scott --

Because of the problems that people have with administrative projects, we
have recommended that people use regular projects for the same purpose. The
only thing you would need to do is to teach your team members to increase
the Remaining Work in PWA for any ongoing task in which the Remaining Work
has dropped to 0 hours. They will need to keep a token amount of hours in
the Remaining Work for each admin task, otherwise the task will disappear
from the timesheet if the user has selected the "Current tasks" option in
the sidepane on the View my tasks page. Hope this helps.
 
S

Scott E

Dale, I just read 2 of your books, the PMO admin and the Project
Managers books. They are great and I would highly recommend them!!

I have the following question...We are planning to use a regular
project plan, instead of an admin, to track the hours for unscheduled
work over a long period of time. We can't use the admin plan because
the same resources are assigned to different tasks which will be
completed at different times...and we will need to remove the specific
completed task from the user's timesheet.

What would be your recommended settings for capturing unscheduled work
in a regular project? Would it be...fixed duration and not effort
driven?

Another related, but slightly different question: We will use an
admin plan to capture some non-working and administrative unscheduled
work. Microsoft, I believe, mentions not to change any admin setting.
Though, I hate the annoying message I get everytime a approve an
admin plan..saying that the fixed duration task will be extended
because it is past the finsihed date. We will start a brand new admin
plan. What would be your recommended settings for capturing
unscheduled work in an admin plan?

Thanks for contributing to this newsgroup!!!

Thanks,
Scott E
 
D

Dale Howard [MVP]

Scott E --

Thanks for the kind compliment about the books.

Yes, use Fixed Duration and non-Effort driven, and assign each resource to a
token amount of Work on the task. Teach the team members how to increase
the Remaining Work on the task if it drops to 0 hours. If they don't
increase the Rem. Work when it reaches 0, then the "Current tasks" option in
PWA will temporarily hide the task on their timesheet because a completed
task is no longer current.

I would recommend that you use the default settings in a true administrative
project. Each admin task has a 1-day Duration and 0 hours of Work, so you
can assign each resource at 100% Units. All this does is to create an
"empty bucket" into which you can pour unplanned or planned work hours.

Interestingly enough, you cannot turn off that warning message, even if you
wanted to. You are wise to have learned to live with it. Hope this helps.
 
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