Removing tasks from Timesheet but keeping data

H

Holly

1. Is is possible to remove tasks or projects from the
timesheet view without deleting it from the database?
We've been keeping the projects so we can use the
Portfolio Analyzer but our users get cranky about seeing
tasks and projects from several months ago.

2. Admin projects - we've used Dale's suggestions with
great results on getting time, but still have trouble
seeing the projects in the Current Tasks section - I've
tried re-setting the project date, task dates with no
consistent results - any thoughts on how to keep them in
the Current Tasks section of the Timesheet view?

Thanks, Holly
 
D

Dale Howard

Holly --

1. Yes. Your team members can remove tasks from their timesheets by select
the task and clicking the Hide button. To make the tasks show up again, the
project manager for the relevant project must republish the assignments by
clicking Collaborate - Publish - Republish Assignments.

2. If you used the methodology of assigning resources at 0% Units in your
administrative project, then the side effect is that team members won't be
able to see their administrative tasks on the View My Tasks page when the
"Current tasks" option is selected in the actions pane. Why is this? The
definition of a "current" task is any task that should have started, has
started, or will start in 10 days. Because each of your administrative
tasks has 0 hours of Remaining Work, the task is considered complete, and
thus, is not considered current. You have several solutions to this
problem. One solution would be to ask all team members to click the "All
tasks" link in the sidepane. If that is not acceptable, then you could
reassign each resource to a small number of Units (such as 1% or 2%) on each
administrative task, and then republish the assignments.

Do know this about administrative tasks: whatever methodology you use for
resource assignments will have consequences. You have experienced the
consequences of the "empty bucket of hours" method of resource assignements
(the tasks do not show as "Current" tasks in PWA). If you assign resources
at a small number of Units on each administrative task, the consequence can
be a whole slew of overallocations which are not worth leveling. No
methdodology is perfect, as each has both strengths and weaknesses.

Hope this helps.
 
H

Holly

Thanks Dale for the ideas. Your answer to 2 was quite
helpful and explains a lot. Regarding 1, we've suggested
this but the problem is that there can be quite a few
tasks left to hide and given you have to do one at a time
it frustrates my developers. I just didn't know if there
was any way us PMs could do this from the project itself
to ease the frustration of the developers.

Thanks again.
 
D

Dale Howard

Holly --

The alternate approach to getting rid of those completed tasks on each
user's timesheet would be to have the Project Server administrator delete
them. Here's how the Administrator can do it:

1. Log into PWA with Administrator permissions
2. Click the Admin menu
3. Click the Clean up Microsoft Project Server Database link
4. Select the Tasks option at the top of the page
5. Make sure to set the Delete option to "Only completed task assignments"
6. Select the drop-down list to the right of the Delete option, then select
"Older than"
7. Set the Older Than option to the length of time, such as 5 Days or 2
Weeks
8. If your PS administrator is especially brave, he/she can select the
"Delete the specified task, resource task change, or status report items for
all users" option at the bottom of the page
9. If you want to take a more cautious approach, select the "Delete the
specified items for only this user" option and then pick a user (aka
"victim")
10. Click the Delete button

Make sure your Project Server administrator DOES NOT select the Projects and
To Do Lists option during this operation, as task assignments cannot be
deleted on a project-by-project basis. Deleting task assignments is a
global event across the portfolio. Good luck!
 
H

Holly

Thanks so much Dale, I'll give that a try. I just wanted
to be sure that it wouldn't delete the time from the
project itself. I saw that option but was afraid that it
would delete tasks and their work from the project itself
and certainly didn't want to lose that! :)

Thanks again,
Holly
 
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