Some observations

J

John Hauck

I thought some readers of this group might find some help in here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Terms
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PWA – Microsoft Project Web Access.
MSP – Microsoft Project Windows Application

-----------------------------------------------------------------
PWA tasks issues
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
get errors if you attempt to accept updates from

within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.

2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are

marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
removed from the project. The only way to remove these

tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA

task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
– if it was not previously hidden.

3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
the bottom. If they make changes to the task and

select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.

4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
task at a time. This is a tedious process as only

one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript

dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
that were previously collapsed are expanded.

5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
opposite of the order in which they were added, and does

not follow the order of the tasks in the project.

6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors

help because you can drag the screen wider.

7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be

fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
and republishing.

8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.

9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
one screen.

10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
adding a task) includes summary tasks that have

been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one

of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
project.

11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct

their mistake.

12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
delegates task list before it is approved. It does,

however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.

13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting

over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
task resource.

14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting

over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
of times the project is published via the collaborate

menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
"Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the

missing assignments will show up.

15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
does not save any filtering criterion.

16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA

user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
show the order in which remaining work should be

accomplished.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
-----------------------------------------------------------------

17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
an .mpp file.
From Microsoft:
PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639

From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U

TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=206

18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
renaming the project to new name. See listing B.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to updates
-----------------------------------------------------------------

19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You

need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
information is not provided.

20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
within the project. See listing A.

21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed

out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
changes.

22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to

compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
under Tips.

23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to

100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
– which is basically impossible. See Updates under

Tips.

24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
the same time. Below are three scenarios and their

results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
No publishing or updating has taken place yet…

a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.

b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.

c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
(X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
Server. Your logon information might not be valid

anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
deleted by another user. [OK].
After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are

only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
your projects to the file system, just like you save

spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp

files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column

called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.

Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
the SQL Server database. For example, publishing

places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,

TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
such as task split data, and all those extra Text &

Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
and update.

Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.

In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a

reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of

the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.

Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
binary data, and storing the entire contents of each

project in an improved set of SQL tables.

The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...roject/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35

45.asp

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to master/sub-projects
-----------------------------------------------------------------

26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will

show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".

You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master

project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no

entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.

27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This

cannot be fixed.

28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
"S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will

continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project

"S2".

29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will

continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project

"S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.

30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:

Master - subproject double counting of work
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT

F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15

Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=85&pre

v=/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3

Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U

TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=160

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------

31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
other project will show up in gray. You can hide

from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
disabling  Show external successors / predecessors.

32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
the PWA user to control the duration of the task

ads they adjust the work amounts.

33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
name for amount of resources. If a task does not have

any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.

34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
the PWA users:
Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or

allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes

the affect of selecting each tracking method:
1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the

Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
page. Team members are only able to enter actual

progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of

the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are

not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side

of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual

progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet

on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right

are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
Timesheet grid.
3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left

side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual

progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the

task sheet on the left.
You can change this for you project by following these steps:
a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
f) Select one of the three options as described above.
g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.

35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to

the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create

at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as

well as one or more of the subtasks".

36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
"Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"

mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or

add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.

37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select

"Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
Although, this is not exactly the same view when

assignments get doubled. See listing B.

38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see

what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".

39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.

This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits

in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
schedule to the bottom.

40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
applying updates to work done and work remaining is

more accurate when you follow this procedure:
a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
date to today's date.
b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
 Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
date.
 And move start of remaining parts back to status date
 Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
status date
 And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
d) Perform the update.
You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
and editing these columns After steps a) and b).

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Links to study
-----------------------------------------------------------------

44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT

F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------------------------------------------

MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
such as automatic task splitting are perfect for

realistic concurrent task progress tracking.

The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive

when compared to a native Windows application.

MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
synchronized between these two repositories. From the

above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.

Except from Microsoft:
Microsoft Project 2002 tables
Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every

version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
tables, along with enterprise resources and the

enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are

additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been

altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work

against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
are a part of this set follow the naming convention

MSP_*.
Microsoft Project Web Access tables
The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New

tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
to increase the scalability, performance, and

functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
project data that is shared with your executives and

resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
high-level project data reported in the Project Center

(formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
updates are also stored in these tables for approval by

the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of

this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.
 
M

Mike Glen

Hi John,

What a star! Thanks for posting all your observations and sharing them with
us all!

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP

John Hauck said:
I thought some readers of this group might find some help in here.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Terms
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PWA – Microsoft Project Web Access.
MSP – Microsoft Project Windows Application

-----------------------------------------------------------------
PWA tasks issues
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
get errors if you attempt to accept updates from

within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.

2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are

marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
removed from the project. The only way to remove these

tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA

task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
– if it was not previously hidden.

3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
the bottom. If they make changes to the task and

select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.

4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
task at a time. This is a tedious process as only

one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript

dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
that were previously collapsed are expanded.

5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
opposite of the order in which they were added, and does

not follow the order of the tasks in the project.

6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors

help because you can drag the screen wider.

7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be

fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
and republishing.

8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.

9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
one screen.

10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
adding a task) includes summary tasks that have

been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one

of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
project.

11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct

their mistake.

12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
delegates task list before it is approved. It does,

however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.

13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting

over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
task resource.

14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
showing double assignments, the solution of starting

over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
of times the project is published via the collaborate

menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
"Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the

missing assignments will show up.

15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
does not save any filtering criterion.

16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA

user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
show the order in which remaining work should be

accomplished.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
-----------------------------------------------------------------

17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
an .mpp file.
From Microsoft:
PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639

From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]
&rnum=206

18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
renaming the project to new name. See listing B.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to updates
-----------------------------------------------------------------

19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You

need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
information is not provided.

20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
within the project. See listing A.

21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed

out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
changes.

22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to

compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
under Tips.

23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to

100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
– which is basically impossible. See Updates under

Tips.

24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
the same time. Below are three scenarios and their

results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
No publishing or updating has taken place yet…

a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.

b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.

c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
(X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
Server. Your logon information might not be valid

anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
deleted by another user. [OK].
After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are

only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
your projects to the file system, just like you save

spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp

files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column

called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.

Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
the SQL Server database. For example, publishing

places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,

TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
such as task split data, and all those extra Text &

Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
and update.

Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.

In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a

reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of

the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.

Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
binary data, and storing the entire contents of each

project in an improved set of SQL tables.

The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...roject/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35

45.asp

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Issues relating to master/sub-projects
-----------------------------------------------------------------

26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will

show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".

You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master

project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no

entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.

27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This

cannot be fixed.

28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
"S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will

continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project

"S2".

29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will

continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project

"S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.

30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:

Master - subproject double counting of work
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT

F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15

Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=e
n&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3

Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=160

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tips
-----------------------------------------------------------------

31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
other project will show up in gray. You can hide

from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
disabling  Show external successors / predecessors.

32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
the PWA user to control the duration of the task

ads they adjust the work amounts.

33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
name for amount of resources. If a task does not have

any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.

34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
the PWA users:
Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or

allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes

the affect of selecting each tracking method:
1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the

Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
page. Team members are only able to enter actual

progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of

the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are

not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side

of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual

progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet

on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right

are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
Timesheet grid.
3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left

side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual

progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the

task sheet on the left.
You can change this for you project by following these steps:
a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
f) Select one of the three options as described above.
g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.

35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to

the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create

at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as

well as one or more of the subtasks".

36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
"Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"

mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or

add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.

37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select

"Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
Although, this is not exactly the same view when

assignments get doubled. See listing B.

38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see

what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".

39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.

This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits

in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
schedule to the bottom.

40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
applying updates to work done and work remaining is

more accurate when you follow this procedure:
a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
date to today's date.
b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
 Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
date.
 And move start of remaining parts back to status date
 Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
status date
 And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
d) Perform the update.
You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
and editing these columns After steps a) and b).

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Links to study
-----------------------------------------------------------------

44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=p...ro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT

F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------------------------------------------

MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
such as automatic task splitting are perfect for

realistic concurrent task progress tracking.

The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive

when compared to a native Windows application.

MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
synchronized between these two repositories. From the

above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.

Except from Microsoft:
Microsoft Project 2002 tables
Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every

version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
tables, along with enterprise resources and the

enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are

additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been

altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work

against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
are a part of this set follow the naming convention

MSP_*.
Microsoft Project Web Access tables
The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New

tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
to increase the scalability, performance, and

functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
project data that is shared with your executives and

resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
high-level project data reported in the Project Center

(formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
updates are also stored in these tables for approval by

the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of

this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.
 
R

Rita Nikas [MSFT]

Hi John.

Mike Glen mentioned this post and asked if Microsoft could possibly try and
provide some perspective on your observations/concerns. So, for Microsoft
response, search for [Microsoft]. There are some mentioned items that we'd
like more information about. So, here goes:

1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will get
errors if you attempt to accept updates from within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and
things should work again.

[Microsoft]By installing Project 4.0, you've set it as the "default"
version of Project. Therefore, when you attempt to do updates from PWA, an
attempt to invoke version 4.0 is made -- and it fails (for good reason).

2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B, the
tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are marked with an "X". The "X"
means that the task assignment has been removed from the project. The only
way to remove these tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web
Access. If you reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA
task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains if
it was not previously hidden.

[Microsoft] Currently, that's the way things are supposed to work. We need
to have a good way to show a user that that tasks they were previously
assigned to have changed in some fashion. Thus, when you remove the
resource, we still need to show it in the user's task list to let them get
the message that they're no longer assigned to it. We'd love to hear ideas
on how to make this better.

3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at the
bottom. If they make changes to the task and select "Update", all outlines
are expanded, and their place is lost.

[Microsoft] Agreed. This isn't nice and could be better. We're aware of
this.

4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one task at
a time. This is a tedious process as only one task can be hidden at a time
using the following process: click on the task, click on "Hide", click
"Yes" to a VBScript dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box.
Afterwards, task lists that were previously collapsed are expanded.

[Microsoft] Agreed. It would be nice to be able to hide multiple tasks in
one stroke.

5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is opposite of
the order in which they were added, and does not follow the order of the
tasks in the project.

6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and difficult
to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors help because you can drag
the screen wider.

[Microsoft] In project 2002, the auto fit functionality could make a mess
of this; In Project 2003 this shouldn't be an issue.

7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent level are
not reflected in the PWA view. This can be fixed by superficially changing
the description of one of the tasks and republishing.

[Microsoft] Which PWA view is being referred to? A timesheet or a Project
view?

8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.

[Microsoft] This is by-design at least in the current versions.

9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond one
screen.

[Microsoft] This is IE dependent (IE 5.01 you can actually do this).
Project Server 2003 also makes this a lot better.

10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
adding a task) includes summary tasks that have been previously deleted
from the project. There probably should be a way to delete them. If a
user adds a task beneath one of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the
task to the end of the project.

[Microsoft] Perhaps this is related to issue 7?

11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary task,
there is no way for the PWA user to correct their mistake.

[Microsoft] Additional info on "steps to repro" would be helpful here.

12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
delegates task list before it is approved. It does, however, have a pop-up
message that says it has not yet, approved.

[Microsoft] From this comment, I'm assuming the user would expect it to
appear only after it's been approved. For the current versions, this is the
design though it's certainly understandable that you may want things to
work differently.

13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts showing
double assignments, the solution of starting over removes the original task
owner, and the delegate is the primary task resource.

[Microsoft] There are several bugs and issues that can cause duplicate
projects and therefore, duplicate assignments. There are several hotfixes
that address these things and as well we'll be releasing a service pack
soon.

14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts showing
double assignments, the solution of starting over causes some tasks not to
show up in PWA regardless of the number of times the project is published
via the collaborate menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the
toolbar, and "Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the missing
assignments will show up.

[Microsoft] Same comment as #13.

15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA does
not save any filtering criterion.

[Microsoft] In Project Server 2003, it does.

16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one long
task. This gives the appearance that the PWA user is over allocated.
Also, sorting by start date does not properly show the order in which
remaining work should be accomplished.

[Microsoft] There have been some minor improvements to this in Project
Server 2003. In this edition, in a project view, you'll see splits.

17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as an
..mpp file. From Microsoft:
PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639

From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U

TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]
&rnum=206

18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
renaming the project to new name. See listing B.

19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that will be
updated from looking at the PWA screen. You need to use description and
dates. Outline level locations information is not provided.

20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations within
the project. See listing A.

[Microsoft] I don't understand this comment. Can you elaborate?

21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no longer
vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed out and marked as
"Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the changes.

[Microsoft] Need more information to understand the concern.

22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved. There
is no way to undo this, or any special tool to compare the impact of those
changes before they are made. See Impact under Tips.

[Microsoft] The only way to do this is to allow the updates to be applied,
but when the message appears telling you the project needs to be saved,
click no. If you should not like the updates, then you can clise the
project without saving and in PWA on the updates the page, the update will
still be there. We realize this needs to be made better.

23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a task
that is scheduled into the future from 0% to 100%, MSP marks that task as
having been completed on that future date – which is basically impossible.
See Updates under Tips.

[Microsoft] This assumes that the date on which an update is made is indeed
a prior date to the future scheduled task. There are times when this sort
of functionality can make sense, but there needs to be away to get the
functionality the user wants (as you can do directly in Project with some
of the Tools - Options - Calculation options.

24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at the
same time. Below are three scenarios and their results. Each scenario
begins with a task that has 3d of work completed (wc) and 3d of work
remaining (wr). The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr),
and the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr). No publishing
or updating has taken place yet…

a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.

b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.

c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
(X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
Server. Your logon information might not be valid anymore,
or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
deleted by another user. [OK].
After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).

25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference between
publishing and saving. First, suppose you are only using MSP as a
stand-alone, file-based program. You would save your projects to the file
system, just like you save spreadsheets and other documents. Now with
Project Server, you can also save your files, but instead of the saving the
..mpp files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column called
RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.

[Microsoft] This is not quite right. Yes, some data gets saved to the
reserved binary column, but look at all of the other tables and the data
that gets populated into them. Take a look at Pjdb.htm for information on
the database schema.

Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in the
SQL Server database. For example, publishing places portions of each task
into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This table contains fields such as
TASK_NAME,

[Microsoft] This is not right. Whether or not you publish a project, data
gets saved to the MSP_TASKS tables, etc. By publishing a project, you're
telling the server a couple of things. First, the project should appear in
the Project Center (a record is made in the MSP_WEB_PROJECTS table).
Second, you're also telling the server to kick off the views service so
that when you drill into a project from the Project Center, you'll see the
detailed tasks. This information gets placed into the
MSP_WEB_VIEW* tables.

TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information such
as task split data, and all those extra Text & Number fields. It is this
non-binary data that the PWA users can view and update.

[Microsoft] Text fields, etc are stored in different tables, but whether or
not it's stored is not dependent on whether or not you publish the project.
This data is always written to the appropriate tables.

Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL tables
into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.

In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project information.
This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a reserved (undocumented)
field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables and fields in the SQL Server
are simply snapshots of the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.

[Microsoft] There's a methodical process for "moving" the tracking
information that's entered in a user's timesheet into the project. Instead
of having an instantaneous update to the a task assignment's work, for
example, the work has to go through the project manager who approves the
work and then updates the project with the information. Yes, the project is
the "master" and if things get out of synch, the project manager can
resynchronize the timesheet with the project (republish assignments, and
update actual work). Another part of the publishing process that hasn't
even been looked at here are enterprise resources. Enterprise resources
have availability data associated with them so that, for example, you can
open a project and see how the resource has been allocated across other
projects. This information is not stored with each project, but is gotten
from the server when a project is opened or saved.

Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved binary
data, and storing the entire contents of each project in an improved set of
SQL tables. The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from
Microsoft at:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechn
ol/project/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_3545.asp

26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will
show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".

[Microsoft] A common complaint. A "Project" in PWA has no context of
whether it's a master project or a subproject. All that's there is a task
that's been published (which is what it got directly from the master
project. Project has the smarts to know there's an underlying link to the
task and how to expand it and pull the information into the master project
to display the data inline. PWA does not.

b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".

You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master
project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no
entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.

27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of subproject
"S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This cannot be fixed.

28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject "S2"
(while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will continue to show up in PWA
under summary task "S2" of project "M". Task "T2" will show up under the
newly visible project "S2".

29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in subproject
"S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will continue to show up in PWA
under summary task "S2" of project "M". Task "T2" will show up under the
newly visible project "S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.

30. Master Projects: Just don't do it. Links from
microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
Master - subproject double counting of work
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=eLns8a9p
(e-mail address removed)&rnum=15

Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=0
[email protected]&rnum=85&prev=/groups?q=problems+2002+g
roup:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3

Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&sel
[email protected]&rnum=160

[Microsoft] Saving master projects to a server is fine. Publishing is a
different story. One of the reasons there are two different settings that
control whether or not you can save master projects and or publish master
projects is so that you can control the behavior over master projects.
Publishing can get you into a situation where you "double-count" in views
such as the project center. Suppose you create a master project with one
task and one assignment for a total of 8h. Now, suppose you also publish
the subproject. When you go to the project center, you'll see both the
master project and the subproject. If you do any reporting where, for
example, you're doing rollups on work, you'll double the amount because the
value is included in both the master and the sub project.

31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
other project will show up in gray. You can hide from the View tab of the
Options dialog under the Tools menu, by disabling  Show external
successors / predecessors.

32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow the
PWA user to control the duration of the task ads they adjust the work
amounts.

33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another name for
amount of resources. If a task does not have any resources assigned, its
work then must be zero.

34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for the
PWA users: Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or allow each
project manager to select the tracking method on a project-by-project
basis. In summary, the following describes
the affect of selecting each tracking method:

1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the Tasks page in PWA, with
a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks page. Team members are only
able to enter actual progress in the % Work Complete field and the
Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet on the left side
of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are
not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.

2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method, each
Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the Tasks page in PWA,
with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks page. Team members are
able to enter only actual progress in the Actual Work field and enter
remaining work in the Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task
sheet on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed
by your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right are locked and
your users are not allowed to make entries in the Timesheet grid.

3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this method,
each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the Tasks page in
PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of the Tasks page. Team members are
able to enter actual progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the
right, along with entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the task
sheet on the left. You can change this for you project by following these
steps:
a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
f) Select one of the three options as described above.
g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.

35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a resource
name to a summary task. Just assign them to the sub tasks. However, if
you create a new summary task and want the PWA user to fill in the details,
you must first create at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the
summary task. Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations
can occur from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as well as one
or more of the subtasks".

36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
"Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?" mark: Reenter the
duration, Select the tasks then click the properties icon and uncheck
"Estimated" in the advanced tab, or add a column called "Estimated" to your
spreadsheet and edit that.

[Microsoft] This is controlled in Project. If you don't want the
functionality, just turn it off. Go to Tools - Options - Schedule tab,
"Show tasks that have estimated durations."

37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of changes
on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select "Resources" then "View
resource assignments", wait, "All assignments". Although, this is not
exactly the same view when assignments get doubled. See listing B.

38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then apply
the updates. Then add variance columns to see what changed. For example
"Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".

39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks sequentially,
use resource leveling to stagger the tasks. This makes sure a resource is
not over allocated. Choose the leveling order "ID only" and check
"Leveling can create splits in remaining work" to ensure a progression of
work from the top of the schedule to the bottom.

40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
applying updates to work done and work remaining is more accurate when you
follow this procedure:
a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
date to today's date.
b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
 Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
date.
 And move start of remaining parts back to status date
 Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
status date  And move end of completed parts forward to status
date.
c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
d) Perform the update.
You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
and editing these columns After steps a) and b).

44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=eSv5QM5o
(e-mail address removed)&rnum=19

MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features such
as automatic task splitting are perfect for realistic concurrent task
progress tracking.
The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third party
(eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive when compared to a native
Windows application. MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This
means data must by synchronized between these two repositories. From the
above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.

Except from Microsoft:
Microsoft Project 2002 tables
Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by Microsoft
Project Professional. All of the data about every version of every project
in your portfolio is stored in this set of tables, along with enterprise
resources and the enterprise global template. These tables are similar to
the database schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are additional
tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names from the Microsoft
Project 2000 database schema have been altered, so any reports or SQL
queries that worked directly against the Microsoft Project 2000 database
schema will work against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All
tables that are a part of this set follow the naming convention

MSP_*.
Microsoft Project Web Access tables
The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database schema
that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New tables have been added and
others have been redesigned or eliminated to increase the scalability,
performance, and functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These
tables store the project data that is shared with your executives and
resources, including each resource's task list as well as the high-level
project data reported in the Project Center (formerly Portfolio View in
Microsoft Project Central). Resource task updates are also stored in these
tables for approval by the project manager. The links between tasks,
issues, and documents are stored here as well. All tables that are a part
of this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.

Rita Nikas
Microsoft MVP Lead
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


--------------------
| Subject: Re: Want to get your opinions
| Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:55:14 -0800
|
| Lots of items, but are they all issues with the tool or just with the
user's
| understanding. It does not seem that he completely understands how the
tools
| work so some of the issues are the result of doing something wrong.
|
| I also think that some of these may have been fixed in Proj2003, but can't
| be certain without further study.
|
| Without going into prioritizing these issues it appears that an approach
of
| making Project more foolproof (and of course anyone can be a fool when
they
| are learning Project and Project server) so that it does not EASILY create
| duplicate projects or does not easily allow people to assign resources to
| tasks and their summary tasks etc. would be a good one. The trick is how
to
| do this without limiting the functionality. Perhaps selecting different
| modes for the main types of usage (duration based, effort based,
| collaborative, etc.) which limit the ability to do the wrong thing might
be
| a good idea. Currently the task bar is supposed to act as a guide, but
| rather than having a map which guides you through complicated territory,
| perhaps it would be better to simply remove the forks in the road (at
least
| the ones which lead over a cliff or into the tarpit).
|
| Those are my thoughts.
|
| Project is more complicated than any other office application due to the
| usage.
|
| -Jack
|
|
|
| | > Hey all.
| >
| > Mike Glen forwarded this message to me and Adrian as a list of potential
| > items to address for next revision.
| >
| > I'd like you to review this list, and let me know if you find these
issues
| > annoying or of concern, to NG customers and to your customers. Can you
| rank
| > these in priority order of which items you'd really like to see
addressed
| > first? I just really want to get your feedback...
| >
| > Rita ;-)
| > Microsoft MVP Lead
| > Microsoft Corporation
| >
| > This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
| rights.
| >
| >
| > ----- Original Message -----
| > From: "John Hauck" <[email protected]>
| > Newsgroups: microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server
| > Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 3:16 PM
| > Subject: Some observations
| >
| >
| > > I thought some readers of this group might find some help in here.
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Terms
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > PWA - Microsoft Project Web Access.
| > > MSP - Microsoft Project Windows Application
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > PWA tasks issues
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > 1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
| > > get errors if you attempt to accept updates from
| > >
| > > within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.
| > >
| > > 2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
| > > the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are
| > >
| > > marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
| > > removed from the project. The only way to remove these
| > >
| > > tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
| > > reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA
| > >
| > > task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
| > > - if it was not previously hidden.
| > >
| > > 3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
| > > the bottom. If they make changes to the task and
| > >
| > > select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.
| > >
| > > 4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
| > > task at a time. This is a tedious process as only
| > >
| > > one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
| > > the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript
| > >
| > > dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
| > > that were previously collapsed are expanded.
| > >
| > > 5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
| > > opposite of the order in which they were added, and does
| > >
| > > not follow the order of the tasks in the project.
| > >
| > > 6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
| > > difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors
| > >
| > > help because you can drag the screen wider.
| > >
| > > 7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
| > > level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be
| > >
| > > fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
| > > and republishing.
| > >
| > > 8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.
| > >
| > > 9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
| > > one screen.
| > >
| > > 10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
| > > adding a task) includes summary tasks that have
| > >
| > > been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
| > > way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one
| > >
| > > of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
| > > project.
| > >
| > > 11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
| > > task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct
| > >
| > > their mistake.
| > >
| > > 12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
| > > delegates task list before it is approved. It does,
| > >
| > > however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.
| > >
| > > 13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
| > > showing double assignments, the solution of starting
| > >
| > > over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
| > > task resource.
| > >
| > > 14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
| > > showing double assignments, the solution of starting
| > >
| > > over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
| > > of times the project is published via the collaborate
| > >
| > > menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
| > > "Prepare to track the progress of your project". the
| > >
| > > missing assignments will show up.
| > >
| > > 15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
| > > does not save any filtering criterion.
| > >
| > > 16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
| > > long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA
| > >
| > > user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
| > > show the order in which remaining work should be
| > >
| > > accomplished.
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > 17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
| > > an .mpp file.
| > > From Microsoft:
| > > PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
| > > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639
| > >
| > > From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
| > > What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
| > >
| >
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
| > ct.pro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
| > >
| > >
| >
|
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]
| > &rnum=206
| > >
| > > 18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
| > > renaming the project to new name. See listing B.
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Issues relating to updates
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > 19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
| > > will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You
| > >
| > > need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
| > > information is not provided.
| > >
| > > 20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
| > > within the project. See listing A.
| > >
| > > 21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
| > > longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed
| > >
| > > out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
| > > changes.
| > >
| > > 22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
| > > There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to
| > >
| > > compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
| > > under Tips.
| > >
| > > 23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
| > > task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to
| > >
| > > 100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
| > > - which is basically impossible. See Updates under
| > >
| > > Tips.
| > >
| > > 24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
| > > the same time. Below are three scenarios and their
| > >
| > > results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
| > > completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
| > > The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
| > > the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
| > > No publishing or updating has taken place yet.
| > >
| > > a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
| > > Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
| > > In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.
| > >
| > > b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
| > > Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
| > > In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
| > > They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
| > > They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.
| > >
| > > c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
| > > Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
| > > VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
| > > (X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
| > > Server. Your logon information might not be valid
| > >
| > > anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
| > > deleted by another user. [OK].
| > > After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
| > > 25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
| > > between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are
| > >
| > > only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
| > > your projects to the file system, just like you save
| > >
| > > spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
| > > also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp
| > >
| > > files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
| > > database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column
| > >
| > > called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.
| > >
| > > Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
| > > the SQL Server database. For example, publishing
| > >
| > > places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
| > > table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,
| > >
| > > TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
| > > such as task split data, and all those extra Text &
| > >
| > > Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
| > > and update.
| > >
| > > Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
| > > tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.
| > >
| > > In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
| > > information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a
| > >
| > > reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
| > > and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of
| > >
| > > the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.
| > >
| > > Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
| > > binary data, and storing the entire contents of each
| > >
| > > project in an improved set of SQL tables.
| > >
| > > The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
| > > at:
| > >
| > >
| >
|
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechn
| > ol/project/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35
| > >
| > > 45.asp
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Issues relating to master/sub-projects
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > 26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
| > > a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
| > > master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will
| > >
| > > show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
| > > b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
| > > not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".
| > >
| > > You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
| > > Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master
| > >
| > > project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
| > > under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no
| > >
| > > entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.
| > >
| > > 27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
| > > subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This
| > >
| > > cannot be fixed.
| > >
| > > 28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
| > > "S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will
| > >
| > > continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
| > > Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
| > >
| > > "S2".
| > >
| > > 29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
| > > subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will
| > >
| > > continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
| > > Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
| > >
| > > "S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.
| > >
| > > 30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
| > > Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
| > >
| > > Master - subproject double counting of work
| > >
| >
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
| > ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
| > >
| > > F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15
| > >
| > > Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
| > >
| >
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=0
| > [email protected]&rnum=85&pre
| > >
| > >
| >
|
v=/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=e
| > n&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3
| > >
| > > Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
| > >
| >
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
| > ct.pro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
| > >
| > >
| >
|
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=160
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Tips
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > 31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
| > > other project will show up in gray. You can hide
| > >
| > > from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
| > > disabling  Show external successors / predecessors.
| > >
| > > 32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
| > > the PWA user to control the duration of the task
| > >
| > > ads they adjust the work amounts.
| > >
| > > 33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
| > > name for amount of resources. If a task does not have
| > >
| > > any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.
| > >
| > > 34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
| > > the PWA users:
| > > Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
| > > methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or
| > >
| > > allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
| > > project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes
| > >
| > > the affect of selecting each tracking method:
| > > 1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
| > > Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the
| > >
| > > Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
| > > page. Team members are only able to enter actual
| > >
| > > progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
| > > both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of
| > >
| > > the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
| > > all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are
| > >
| > > not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
| > > 2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
| > > each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side
| > >
| > > of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
| > > Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual
| > >
| > > progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
| > > Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet
| > >
| > > on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
| > > your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right
| > >
| > > are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
| > > Timesheet grid.
| > > 3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
| > > method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left
| > >
| > > side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
| > > the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual
| > >
| > > progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
| > > entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the
| > >
| > > task sheet on the left.
| > > You can change this for you project by following these steps:
| > > a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
| > > b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
| > > c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
| > > d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
| > > e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
| > > f) Select one of the three options as described above.
| > > g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
| > > h) Click "Customize information." to add columns to the PWA task view.
| > >
| > > 35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
| > > resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to
| > >
| > > the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
| > > PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create
| > >
| > > at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
| > > Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
| > > from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as
| > >
| > > well as one or more of the subtasks".
| > >
| > > 36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
| > > "Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"
| > >
| > > mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
| > > properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or
| > >
| > > add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.
| > >
| > > 37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
| > > changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select
| > >
| > > "Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
| > > Although, this is not exactly the same view when
| > >
| > > assignments get doubled. See listing B.
| > >
| > > 38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
| > > apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see
| > >
| > > what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".
| > >
| > > 39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
| > > sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.
| > >
| > > This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
| > > order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits
| > >
| > > in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
| > > schedule to the bottom.
| > >
| > > 40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
| > > applying updates to work done and work remaining is
| > >
| > > more accurate when you follow this procedure:
| > > a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
| > > date to today's date.
| > > b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
| > >  Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
| > > date.
| > >  And move start of remaining parts back to status date
| > >  Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
| > > status date
| > >  And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
| > > c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
| > > Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
| > > d) Perform the update.
| > > You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
| > > and editing these columns After steps a) and b).
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Links to study
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > 44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
| > >
| >
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
| > ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
| > >
| > > F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19
| > >
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > > Conclusion
| > > -----------------------------------------------------------------
| > >
| > > MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
| > > such as automatic task splitting are perfect for
| > >
| > > realistic concurrent task progress tracking.
| > >
| > > The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
| > > party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive
| > >
| > > when compared to a native Windows application.
| > >
| > > MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
| > > synchronized between these two repositories. From the
| > >
| > > above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.
| > >
| > > Except from Microsoft:
| > > Microsoft Project 2002 tables
| > > Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
| > > Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every
| > >
| > > version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
| > > tables, along with enterprise resources and the
| > >
| > > enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
| > > schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are
| > >
| > > additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
| > > from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been
| > >
| > > altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
| > > the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work
| > >
| > > against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
| > > are a part of this set follow the naming convention
| > >
| > > MSP_*.
| > > Microsoft Project Web Access tables
| > > The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
| > > schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New
| > >
| > > tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
| > > to increase the scalability, performance, and
| > >
| > > functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
| > > project data that is shared with your executives and
| > >
| > > resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
| > > high-level project data reported in the Project Center
| > >
| > > (formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
| > > updates are also stored in these tables for approval by
| > >
| > > the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
| > > are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of
| > >
| > > this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.
| >
| >
|
|
|





Rita Nikas
Microsoft MVP Lead
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


--------------------
| Subject: Some observations
| Date: 16 Jan 2004 07:16:58 -0800
|
| I thought some readers of this group might find some help in here.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Terms
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| PWA – Microsoft Project Web Access.
| MSP – Microsoft Project Windows Application
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| PWA tasks issues
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| 1. Project 4.0: If you install Microsoft Project 4.0, then you will
| get errors if you attempt to accept updates from
|
| within PWA. Uninstall 4.0 and things should work again.
|
| 2. Reassignment: If you reassign tasks from engineer A to engineer B,
| the tasks still remain on A's PWA, but they are
|
| marked with an "X". The "X" means that the task assignment has been
| removed from the project. The only way to remove these
|
| tasks from the PWA is to hide them from within Web Access. If you
| reassign the task back to A, a new entry shows on A's PWA
|
| task list. The original copy of the task (with the "X") still remains
| – if it was not previously hidden.
|
| 3. Collapsing: In PWA, a user may collapse the outline to see tasks at
| the bottom. If they make changes to the task and
|
| select "Update", all outlines are expanded, and their place is lost.
|
| 4. Hiding: In PWA, sometimes it is necessary to hide more than one
| task at a time. This is a tedious process as only
|
| one task can be hidden at a time using the following process: click on
| the task, click on "Hide", click "Yes" to a VBScript
|
| dialog box, Click "OK" on a second dialog box. Afterwards, task lists
| that were previously collapsed are expanded.
|
| 5. Task Order: The unsorted order of concurrent tasks in PWA is
| opposite of the order in which they were added, and does
|
| not follow the order of the tasks in the project.
|
| 6. Column Width: In PWA, the "Task Name" column is too wide and
| difficult to reduce on new installations. Dual monitors
|
| help because you can drag the screen wider.
|
| 7. Indenting: Once you publish tasks, any changes to their indent
| level are not reflected in the PWA view. This can be
|
| fixed by superficially changing the description of one of the tasks
| and republishing.
|
| 8. Task Names: A PWA user cannot change the task names.
|
| 9. Printing: A PWA user cannot print a task list that extends beyond
| one screen.
|
| 10. New Tasks: The list of summary tasks presented to a PWA user (when
| adding a task) includes summary tasks that have
|
| been previously deleted from the project. There probably should be a
| way to delete them. If a user adds a task beneath one
|
| of these phantom summary tasks, MSP adds the task to the end of the
| project.
|
| 11. New Tasks #2: If the PWA user adds the task to the wrong summary
| task, there is no way for the PWA user to correct
|
| their mistake.
|
| 12. Delegation: When a PWA user delegates a task, it shows up on the
| delegates task list before it is approved. It does,
|
| however, have a pop-up message that says it has not yet, approved.
|
| 13. Delegation #2: When the project server is messed up and starts
| showing double assignments, the solution of starting
|
| over removes the original task owner, and the delegate is the primary
| task resource.
|
| 14. Missing tasks: When the project server is messed up and starts
| showing double assignments, the solution of starting
|
| over causes some tasks not to show up in PWA regardless of the number
| of times the project is published via the collaborate
|
| menu. But if you publish by selecting "Track" from the toolbar, and
| "Prepare to track the progress of your project"… the
|
| missing assignments will show up.
|
| 15. Save Link: The "Save Link" in "View resource assignments" in PWA
| does not save any filtering criterion.
|
| 16. Splits: Split tasks are not shown properly. They are shown as one
| long task. This gives the appearance that the PWA
|
| user is over allocated. Also, sorting by start date does not properly
| show the order in which remaining work should be
|
| accomplished.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Issues relating to double (triple, etc.) tasks
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 17. Doubling: A result of auto-publish being enabled when you save as
| an .mpp file.
| From Microsoft:
| PSVR2002: Duplicate Projects Appear in Project Web Access.
| http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;812639
|
| From microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
| What creates duplicate projects and how to clean them up
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&start=200&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
|
|
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]
&rnum=206
|
| 18. Doubling: Happened again after applying the fix. And again after
| renaming the project to new name. See listing B.
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Issues relating to updates
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 19. Before Updating: It is tedious to find the line in project that
| will be updated from looking at the PWA screen. You
|
| need to use description and dates. Outline level locations
| information is not provided.
|
| 20. New Tasks: New tasks are added in apparently random locations
| within the project. See listing A.
|
| 21. Mixed: After accepting only a portion of the updates, they no
| longer vanish when updated. Instead they remain grayed
|
| out and marked as "Accepted". Any subsequent update will re-apply the
| changes.
|
| 22. Impact: When you accept changes, they are blasted in and saved.
| There is no way to undo this, or any special tool to
|
| compare the impact of those changes before they are made. See Impact
| under Tips.
|
| 23. Updates: (in the default configuration) When a PWA user sets a
| task that is scheduled into the future from 0% to
|
| 100%, MSP marks that task as having been completed on that future date
| – which is basically impossible. See Updates under
|
| Tips.
|
| 24. Race: Suppose both the MSP and PWA users update the same task at
| the same time. Below are three scenarios and their
|
| results. Each scenario begins with a task that has 3d of work
| completed (wc) and 3d of work remaining (wr).
| The MSP user changes both fields to 2 days (2dwc & 2dwr), and
| the PWA user changes both fields to 1 day (1dwc & 1dwr).
| No publishing or updating has taken place yet…
|
| a) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Accept".
| Result: PWA shows 1dwc & 1drw and the MSP shows 1dwc & 1drw.
| In other words, the PWA changes win, and the MSP changes are lost.
|
| b) PWA runs "Update", and then MSP runs "Publish".
| Result: The MSP shows 2dwc & 2dwr and the MSP shows 1dwc & 3dwr.
| In other words, the PWA and MSP views are inconsistent!
| They remain inconsistent even if the MSP publishes again.
| They become back in sync when the PWA makes another change.
|
| c) MSP runs "Publish", and then PWA runs "Update".
| Result: The PWA user receives this error message:
| VBScript: Microsoft Project Web Access
| (X) There is a problem with updating you data to the Microsoft Project
| Server. Your logon information might not be valid
|
| anymore, or the data you are trying to access may have been changed or
| deleted by another user. [OK].
| After the message, the results are inconsistent as in b).
| 25. Publish vs. Save: Here is an explanation of the difference
| between publishing and saving. First, suppose you are
|
| only using MSP as a stand-alone, file-based program. You would save
| your projects to the file system, just like you save
|
| spreadsheets and other documents. Now with Project Server, you can
| also save your files, but instead of the saving the .mpp
|
| files to the file system, you save the .mpp files into a SQL Server
| database. Specifically, the.mpp file is stored in column
|
| called RESERVED_BINARY_DATA of the SQL table called MSP_PROJECTS.
|
| Publishing your project saves selected portions in non-binary form in
| the SQL Server database. For example, publishing
|
| places portions of each task into a SQL table called MSP_TASKS. This
| table contains fields such as TASK_NAME,
|
| TASK_START_DATE, and more. It does not contain all task information
| such as task split data, and all those extra Text &
|
| Number fields. It is this non-binary data that the PWA users can view
| and update.
|
| Accepting updates is the process moving PWA updates from the SQL
| tables into the currently open appropriate .mpp file.
|
| In summary, only the .mpp file contains all of the project
| information. This .mpp file is stored in its binary form in a
|
| reserved (undocumented) field in the SQL Server. The remaining tables
| and fields in the SQL Server are simply snapshots of
|
| the selected portions of the .mpp file contents.
|
| Clearly, there would be advantages to dispensing with the reserved
| binary data, and storing the entire contents of each
|
| project in an improved set of SQL tables.
|
| The current schema of the SQL tables can be downloaded from Microsoft
| at:
|
|
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechn
ol/project/project2002/reskit/PRK_tdatabaseref_35
|
| 45.asp
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Issues relating to master/sub-projects
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 26. Subprojects: This is similar to "Indenting".
| a) Create subproject "S1" with task "T", publish it. Insert "S1" into
| master project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will
|
| show up in PWA under project "S". It will not appear in project "M".
| b) Create subproject "S2" by opening "S1" and saving it as "S2", do
| not publish it. Insert "S2" into master project "M".
|
| You will get an error about only linking in one sub-project at a time.
| Remove "S1" from "M". Then insert "S2" into master
|
| project "M". Publish it all. Task "T" will show up in Web Access
| under summary task "S2" of project "M". There will be no
|
| entries for "S2". Unlike "Indenting" this cannot be fixed.
|
| 27. Indenting Subprojects: Changes to the indenting level of
| subproject "S2" are not reflected in the PWA view. This
|
| cannot be fixed.
|
| 28. Renaming Subprojects: Change the name of task "T" in subproject
| "S2" (while editing "S2") to "T2". Task "T" will
|
| continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
| Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
|
| "S2".
|
| 29. Renaming Subprojects #2: Change the name of task "T2" in
| subproject "S2" (while editing "M") to "T3". Task "T" will
|
| continue to show up in PWA under summary task "S2" of project "M".
| Task "T2" will show up under the newly visible project
|
| "S2". Task "T3" will not be visible.
|
| 30. Master Projects: Just don't do it.
| Links from microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server:
|
| Master - subproject double counting of work
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
|
| F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=15
|
| Publish Master Projects to Server 2002
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=0
[email protected]&rnum=85&pre
|
|
v=/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.project.pro_and_server&hl=e
n&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe%3
|
| Cannot publish Sub project info in Master Projects
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&start=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=U
|
|
TF-8&oe=UTF-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=160
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Tips
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 31. Gray: When linking to a task in another project, the task from the
| other project will show up in gray. You can hide
|
| from the View tab of the Options dialog under the Tools menu, by
| disabling  Show external successors / predecessors.
|
| 32. % Work: Ensure tasks are marked as "Fixed Units". This will allow
| the PWA user to control the duration of the task
|
| ads they adjust the work amounts.
|
| 33. Work: Recall that Work = Units * Duration. "Units" is another
| name for amount of resources. If a task does not have
|
| any resources assigned, its work then must be zero.
|
| 34. Different Views: It is possible to configure different views for
| the PWA users:
| Project Server and Project Professional support three tracking
| methods. You can lockdown this selection at the server or
|
| allow each project manager to select the tracking method on a
| project-by-project basis. In summary, the following describes
|
| the affect of selecting each tracking method:
| 1. Percent of work complete -- When you select this method, each Team
| Member sees the task sheet on the left side of the
|
| Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the Tasks
| page. Team members are only able to enter actual
|
| progress in the % Work Complete field and the Remaining Work field,
| both of which are in the task sheet on the left side of
|
| the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by your Team Members,
| all cells in the grid will be locked and your users are
|
| not allowed to enter progress in the Timesheet grid.
| 2. Actual work done and work remaining -- When you select this method,
| each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left side
|
| of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Gantt Chart on the right side of the
| Tasks page. Team members are able to enter only actual
|
| progress in the Actual Work field and enter remaining work in the
| Remaining Work field, both of which are in the task sheet
|
| on the left side of the Tasks page. When the Timesheet is displayed by
| your Team Members, all cells in the grid on the right
|
| are locked and your users are not allowed to make entries in the
| Timesheet grid.
| 3. Hours of work done per day or per week -- When you select this
| method, each Team Member sees the task sheet on the left
|
| side of the Tasks page in PWA, with a Timesheet on the right side of
| the Tasks page. Team members are able to enter actual
|
| progress values in the cells of the Timesheet on the right, along with
| entering a value in the Remaining Work field in the
|
| task sheet on the left.
| You can change this for you project by following these steps:
| a) Click "Track" on the toolbar of MSP.
| b) Click "Prepare to track the progress of your project"
| c) Answer "Yes" to use PWA for tracking.
| d) Click "Save and go to Step 2"
| e) Answer "Use another method" for tracking.
| f) Select one of the three options as described above.
| g) Click "Save and go to Step 3"
| h) Click "Customize information…" to add columns to the PWA task view.
|
| 35. Summary Task Resource Assignment: There is no need to assign a
| resource name to a summary task. Just assign them to
|
| the sub tasks. However, if you create a new summary task and want the
| PWA user to fill in the details, you must first create
|
| at least one (dummy) task so the PWA user can see the summary task.
| Microsoft Project online help states that over allocations can occur
| from "A resource being assigned to a summary task as
|
| well as one or more of the subtasks".
|
| 36. Estimated: When PWA users add tasks, the duration is set to
| "Estimated". There are three ways to remove the "?"
|
| mark: Reenter the duration, Select the tasks then click the
| properties icon and uncheck "Estimated" in the advanced tab, or
|
| add a column called "Estimated" to your spreadsheet and edit that.
|
| 37. Engineer's View: The project manager can preview the result of
| changes on the engineer's PWA view. From PWA, select
|
| "Resources" then "View resource assignments", wait, "All assignments".
| Although, this is not exactly the same view when
|
| assignments get doubled. See listing B.
|
| 38. Impact: Before updating, save the baseline of the project. Then
| apply the updates. Then add variance columns to see
|
| what changed. For example "Work Variance" and "Finish Variance".
|
| 39. Linking/Leveling: Instead of linking a resource's tasks
| sequentially, use resource leveling to stagger the tasks.
|
| This makes sure a resource is not over allocated. Choose the leveling
| order "ID only" and check "Leveling can create splits
|
| in remaining work" to ensure a progression of work from the top of the
| schedule to the bottom.
|
| 40. Updates: Whether the tasks for a resource are linked or leveled,
| applying updates to work done and work remaining is
|
| more accurate when you follow this procedure:
| a) Select Project Information from the Project menu. Set the Status
| date to today's date.
| b) Select Options from the Tools menu. Enable these items:
|  Move end of completed parts after status date back to status
| date.
|  And move start of remaining parts back to status date
|  Move start of remaining parts before status date forward to
| status date
|  And move end of completed parts forward to status date.
| c) Select Tracking/Update Project from the Tools menu. Select
| Reschedule uncompleted work to start after: today's date.
| d) Perform the update.
| You can test this by adding columns "Remaining Work" and "Actual Work"
| and editing these columns After steps a) and b).
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Links to study
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| 44. Projects remain checked-in on the Server
|
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=problems+2002+group:microsoft.public.proje
ct.pro_and_server&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT
|
| F-8&scoring=d&[email protected]&rnum=19
|
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
| Conclusion
| -----------------------------------------------------------------
|
| MSP is an excellent file-based project management program. Features
| such as automatic task splitting are perfect for
|
| realistic concurrent task progress tracking.
|
| The workgroup collaboration called PWA that was adapted from a third
| party (eLabor.com's Enterprise Project) is restrictive
|
| when compared to a native Windows application.
|
| MSP data and PWA data are stored separately. This means data must by
| synchronized between these two repositories. From the
|
| above issues, this synchronization appears to be poorly implemented.
|
| Except from Microsoft:
| Microsoft Project 2002 tables
| Microsoft Project 2002 tables are the data repository used by
| Microsoft Project Professional. All of the data about every
|
| version of every project in your portfolio is stored in this set of
| tables, along with enterprise resources and the
|
| enterprise global template. These tables are similar to the database
| schema used by Microsoft Project 2000; there are
|
| additional tables and fields, but no existing fields or table names
| from the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema have been
|
| altered, so any reports or SQL queries that worked directly against
| the Microsoft Project 2000 database schema will work
|
| against the Microsoft Project 2002 database schema. All tables that
| are a part of this set follow the naming convention
|
| MSP_*.
| Microsoft Project Web Access tables
| The Microsoft Project Web Access tables are based on the database
| schema that was used by Microsoft Project Central. New
|
| tables have been added and others have been redesigned or eliminated
| to increase the scalability, performance, and
|
| functionality of Microsoft Project Web Access. These tables store the
| project data that is shared with your executives and
|
| resources, including each resource's task list as well as the
| high-level project data reported in the Project Center
|
| (formerly Portfolio View in Microsoft Project Central). Resource task
| updates are also stored in these tables for approval by
|
| the project manager. The links between tasks, issues, and documents
| are stored here as well. All tables that are a part of
|
| this set follow the naming convention MSP_WEB_*.
|
 

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