Null value in Task-level custom field in Resource Center AssignmentsView

[anovak]

We have a project level field called "Service Area" that provides the
ability to group projects in Project Center by service area such as
Financials, Programming, Project Mgt Support, etc.

However, since that's a Project level field, I cannot group by that
field within the View Assignments screem within Resource Center.

So....I created a task level field called "Task Service Area" using a
formula which basically populated the field with the contents of the
project level field "Service Area".

I can open the project in Project Pro, insert the Task Service Area
column and can see all the rows have been populated with the value
from the Project custom field.

I proceed to save and publish the project.

However, when I go to the View Assignments screen in the Resource
Center (after adding "Task Service Area" of course), I noticed that
all the Task Service Area field values in the assignment records
pertaining to the project are NULL.

What's the deal? It doesn't appear that I can roll down to the
Assignment Rows in the custom field definition (greyed out).

Thanks,
Andy Novak
UNT

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Andy,

You are correct that when you set a task level custom field to "Formula" you
lose the ability to stipulate that you want the value to roll down to the
assignment level. Why that is, I am not quite sure.

This makes sense then as to why you are only seeing null values when viewing
assignment details. It would be the same as viewing the Task Usage or the
Resource Usage view within Project Pro.

In the past, in MSPS 2003, I have put a macro on the system that copied task
level data into the assignment level data on project save. This was used in
order to show task outline data in the OLAP cubes. You could use this same
macro technique in MSPS 2007 to populate the project "Service Area" value
into the task as well as the assignment level fields.

Jonathan

 

[anovak]

Andy,

You are correct that when you set a task level custom field to "Formula" you
lose the ability to stipulate that you want the value to roll down to the
assignment level.  Why that is, I am not quite sure.

This makes sense then as to why you are only seeing null values when viewing
assignment details.  It would be the same as viewing the Task Usage or the
Resource Usage view within Project Pro.

In the past, in MSPS 2003, I have put a macro on the system that copied task
level data into the assignment level data on project save.  This was used in
order to show task outline data in the OLAP cubes.  You could use this same
macro technique in MSPS 2007 to populate the project "Service Area" value
into the task as well as the assignment level fields.

Jonathan













- Show quoted text -

Yes, thank you. I read about this a little earlier and it explains
the issue. Then, I tried entering Service Area at the Task Level and
thinking I could make a Project level Service Area be equal to the
Task Service Area, but I can't figure out how to roll that text value
up. In the formula at the Project Level, I simply have [Task Service
Area], but although there are several task fields that contain a
value, I receive an #ERROR in the Project level field.

 

[Jonathan Sofer]

Andy,

How would the system know which value to roll up from the task level as you
may have different values for each task?

In order for you to be able to set a [project custom field] = [task custom
field] like you attempted to in your latest posting, the data type must be
something that can be rolled up as a min, max, sum, average, etc.

So only data types like number, date, cost, flag, duration can be rolled up
to summary levels including project summary (level 0). Text fields cannot
so as you can see when you select text type for your custom task field, the
"Rollup:" option is grayed out.

Jonathan

Andy,

You are correct that when you set a task level custom field to "Formula"
you
lose the ability to stipulate that you want the value to roll down to the
assignment level. Why that is, I am not quite sure.

This makes sense then as to why you are only seeing null values when
viewing
assignment details. It would be the same as viewing the Task Usage or the
Resource Usage view within Project Pro.

In the past, in MSPS 2003, I have put a macro on the system that copied
task
level data into the assignment level data on project save. This was used
in
order to show task outline data in the OLAP cubes. You could use this same
macro technique in MSPS 2007 to populate the project "Service Area" value
into the task as well as the assignment level fields.

Jonathan













- Show quoted text -

Yes, thank you. I read about this a little earlier and it explains
the issue. Then, I tried entering Service Area at the Task Level and
thinking I could make a Project level Service Area be equal to the
Task Service Area, but I can't figure out how to roll that text value
up. In the formula at the Project Level, I simply have [Task Service
Area], but although there are several task fields that contain a
value, I receive an #ERROR in the Project level field.

 

[anovak]

Andy,

How would the system know which value to roll up from the task level as you
may have different values for each task?

In order for you to be able to set a [project custom field] = [task custom
field] like you attempted to in your latest posting, the data type must be
something that can be rolled up as a min, max, sum, average, etc.

So only data types like number, date, cost, flag, duration can be rolled up
to summary levels including project summary (level 0). Text fields cannot
so as you can see when you select text type for your custom task field, the
"Rollup:" option is grayed out.

Jonathan

Andy,

You are correct that when you set a task level custom field to "Formula"
you
lose the ability to stipulate that you want the value to roll down to the
assignment level. Why that is, I am not quite sure.

This makes sense then as to why you are only seeing null values when
viewing
assignment details. It would be the same as viewing the Task Usage or the
Resource Usage view within Project Pro.

In the past, in MSPS 2003, I have put a macro on the system that copied
task
level data into the assignment level data on project save. This was used
in
order to show task outline data in the OLAP cubes. You could use this same
macro technique in MSPS 2007 to populate the project "Service Area" value
into the task as well as the assignment level fields.

- Show quoted text -

Yes, thank you. I read about this a little earlier and it explains
the issue. Then, I tried entering Service Area at the Task Level and
thinking I could make a Project level Service Area be equal to the
Task Service Area, but I can't figure out how to roll that text value
up. In the formula at the Project Level, I simply have [Task Service
Area], but although there are several task fields that contain a
value, I receive an #ERROR in the Project level field.

In this case, all the values would be the same at the task level. Now
that you mention it, I can see how text fields don't rollup.