Status Manager in a project created from a template

[Astro Boy]

We are using Enterprise Templates to create most of our project schedules.
Oddly, when a PM (Bob as an example) creates a new schedule from a template,
then temporarily adds the "Status Manager" column in Project Pro, Bob sees
himself as the Status Manager for summary-level tasks, but sees the creator
of the original template as the Status Manager for the subtasks.

Of course, this means that Bob does not get updates from resources on
project tasks, while the template author (our admin) gets hundreds. This is,
needless to say, BAD.

My expectation is that Bob would be the Status Manager for all tasks in the
project once he publishes it, but that's not what's happening.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? If so, how do we fix it?

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Astro Boy --

Sadlly, this is the default behavior of Project Server 2007. The PM (Bob)
needs to specify himself as the Status Manager for each task. A bug in
pre-SP1 does not allow Bob to use the Fill Down functionality in the Status
Manager field, but I am happy to report that Microsoft just released a
Hotfix for this problem, at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936517/en-us

Hope this helps.

 

[Astro Boy]

Dale, thanks, as always, for your reply.

If I'm reading your reply correctly, this is a serious flaw which will make
Enterprise Templates of very questionable use. If the Status Manager for all
subtasks in a project created from a template is always going to be the
creator of the template, rather than the PM who publishes the project, why
would I ever want to schedule a project from a template?

Please let me know if I'm interpreting this correctly.

Thanks!

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Astro Boy --

You are reading the situation correctly. This is one of the many serious
flaws in this software, and one that makes the software very frustrating to
use. I would suggest that in your enterprise project templates, you ALWAYS
include the Status Manager field to the right of the Task Name field. This
way your PM's can select their own name before publishing. Also, Microsoft
pupposedly released a Hotfix for the fill-down bug, but I cannot find it
today. I'm wondering if it got pulled off the Internet temporarily. Hope
this helps.

 

[Astro Boy]

Thank you for your help, Dale. I really appreciate it. While I sure don't
like to hear about flaws in this product, it is nice to know I'm not going
nuts...

 

[Dale Howard [MVP]]

Astro Boy --

You are going nuts. Project Server 2007 has many challenges, including bugs
and poorly designed features, but I hope that the benefits outweigh the
challenges you face. There's an awful lot of power in this tool and once
the bugs are fixed, this tool should really rock!