Preventing Automatic Publishing to PWA on the FIRST Save

[bill_murphy]

Can anyone help with preventing the automatic PWA pubishing that occurs
when you first save the project. In my projects the publishing is
manual after BUT I want to decide when the project becomes visible in
PWA.
Please note I know I can set up an outline code and filter on this to
remove them from the views but would prefer not to have to go over all
the views etc

 

[Victor]

Do you have Service Pack 1 installed for Project Server and for Project
Professional?

In the original release of Project Server 2003 (pre SP1), when you
saved a project it also published the project. This was corrected with
SP1 so that if you just save the project and do not specifically
publish the project then the project will not be visible from PWA.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[bill_murphy]

Do you have Service Pack 1 installed for Project Server and for Project
Professional?

In the original release of Project Server 2003 (pre SP1), when you
saved a project it also published the project. This was corrected with
SP1 so that if you just save the project and do not specifically
publish the project then the project will not be visible from PWA.

Thanks,

Victor

Sorry to say but yes SP1 has been applied and the problem still exists.
I am getting a tech from a consultancy group to look at it next week
and will post results
Many Thanks for you response

 

[Victor]

Just wanted to make sure about something - Are your projects published
every time you save or just on the initial save? If it is every time,
look under Tools > Options > Collaborate Tab and deselect the options
under "On every save, publish the following information to Project
Server".

If it is just on the initial save, then I would be interested in what
you find out.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Victor --

I cannot confirm that this issue was eliminated with SP1. I have SP1
installed on my system and I still see the project in PWA on the initial
save of the project. And I do not have the "On every save, publish..."
option selected on the Collaborate page of the Options dialog. I'm not
calling you a liar. I'm saying that I can't duplicate the behavior you
describe on my own system.

 

[Victor]

Interesting. I tried the following:
1. Saved a project plan with one resource.
a. Can't see it through project center views (no filters were
applied)
b. Tasks do not show up on the resource's timesheet
2. Published project plan summary only
a. Can now see through project center views but there is no detail
available.
b. Tasks do not show up on the resource's timesheet
3. Published project plan all information
a. Can see through project center views and there is detail
available.
b. Tasks do show up on the resource's timesheet
4. Added new task and saved project
a. New task is not visible in resource's timesheet or through
project center view
5. Published project plan all information
a. Task is visible in resource's timesheet and through project
center view

I do not have an environment where I can run the same test with service
pack 1 not installed. If it works for me and not for you then I am
definitely interested in what the tech consultant has to say about the
other gentleman's environment.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Victor --

Thanks for your test. The mystery continues...

--
Dale A. Howard [MVP]
Enterprise Project Trainer/Consultant
Denver, Colorado
http://www.msprojectexperts.com
"We wrote the books on Project Server"

 

[jonathan_sofer.....]

Hey guys,

I think this might help. Victor, in your test 1a) you will not see the
project plan in Project Center on the initial save until you exit the
application.

But if you exit Project Professional directly after that, without
publishing the project plan, you will notice that the project plan will
now appear in Project Center. I think that is the missing piece to
your puzzle. And this is with or without.

Basically, after saving a new plan to the project server, exiting the
system will initiate a Colloborate>Publish>Project Plan...

There is no way to prevent this from happening. However, it is
important to note that only the project plan is published to the PWA
and not any resource assignments. This will only be published by doing
a Colloborate>Publish>All Information or one of the other publishing
options.

Jonathan Sofer

 

[Victor]

You are right Jonathan. Good catch. As soon as I exited Project
Professional, my project plan showed up in PWA. Does anyone know if
this has been reported as a bug? I did a quick search and didn't find
anything, but that doesn't mean it isn't there somewhere.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[Victor]

This issue was submitted to Microsoft and they responded that it was by
design. Here is the response:
The behavior you describe is by design with the intent to prevent data
from being 'out of synch' between enterprise projects and their related
PWA views. When connected to the Enterprise Project Management
environment, your projects will automatically be published when closed.
If you do not wish to publish a project plan to the enterprise, then
the project should be saved locally using the Project Professional
File, Save As, Save as File option. This will separate the plan from
the enterprise environment. You cannot use this option to switch a
project back and forth between the enterprise environment and
non-enterprise environment.

I didn't think this was "by design" functionality. I was under the
impression that plans would not be published until we specifically
published them. I guess I was mistaken.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Victor --

Thank you for opening this as an issue with Microsoft and sharing their
response with us.

 

[Victor]

You're welcome.

Do you think a project plan should be visible if a user is not
publishing it? I am just curious what your take on this is as to how
you think it should work. Does it seem like a bug to you?

Maybe I am just missing something, but this seems like a bug or at the
very least poor design in how Project Server does something without
even warning you that it is going to do it.

Thanks,

Victor

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Victor --

I don't think this particular feature is a bug. Frankly, I do believe it is
"by design" to keep the tables in synch. One of the recurring problems with
Project Server 2002 was that project managers neglected to publish their
projects after updating actuals into them through PWA. This resulted in the
data tables being out of synch between the Microsoft Project plan and the
data displayed in the Project Center and detailed Project views in PWA.
This issue was frequently addressed in our newsgroup because there were so
many questions about "out of synch" data. So I don't think it is a bug, but
I can see why you'd be annoyed about it. Hope this helps.

 

[Victor]

Thanks Dale. Your answer does help. I do not have any experience with
Project Server 2002 so I was not aware of the issue as you described
it.

I am a little annoyed with how Project Server handles this, but now
that I know it is "by design", I can work with it or around it as
necessary.

Thanks,

Victor