Syncing Issues with OLAP cube

[Oakwood Jay]

We have been working with the OLAP cube functionality in Project 2007. We
learned that when you add or modify an issue (in the project workspace), you
then have to do one of two things: re-publish the project or synchronize the
project workspace with the Reporting Database in Project Server (from the
Server Settings area of PWA).

We don't want to force project managers to republish projects every day
(currently we build the OLAP cube every day), and manually synchronizing is
tedious. Has anyone run into this problem and worked out a programmatic
solution? One idea is to synchronize all project workspaces with Project
Server as part of the cube build, maybe using the Eventing service.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Rod Gill]

This group is for questions on the Project client, this question on a
project server related matter is better off in the project.server group.
However, to attempt an answer, all updates and changes etc in Project Server
2007 are queued up and processed when the server can get to them. So, if
your installation is slow, or shares resources with another system, then you
may see a time delay before any changes in schedules, requests to publish,
or changes to Issues and Risks get updated in the Reporting database.

I would first confirm with your support team that Server is running as it
should (check error logs etc.) then try editing and saving an Issue and
waiting 30 minutes or so to see if the reporting database does get updated
which is expected behavior.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

NEW!! Project VBA Book, for details visit: http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Oakwood Jay]

Thanks for the fast response! I should have posted this to the Server group.
I can do so if it will get me answers on this question.

Regarding your recommendation on waiting for the Reporting DB to be
updated... I created an Issue on 2/23. Today (3/1) the issue was still not in
the cube. It didn't move into the cube until I republished the project.

So either I have something wrong in my install (like a bad config parameter
somewhere) or Issues and Risks don't work like other Project data.

 

[Sharry Heberer [MSFT]]

The only triggers for WSS items (like issues, risks, etc.) to move to the
reporting database is: a) on publishing the corresponding project, which as
one of its steps performs a WSS-RDB sync, or b) when you go to the Project
Workspaces page (linked from the Server Settings page) and select the
workspace you want to sync and hit the Synchronize button, which causes the
WSS-RDB sync (among other things, like synchronizing PWS users).

So you are right, in that WSS data does not behave like other Project data,
mostly because it isn't truly Project data at all - the items are really WSS
items, stored in WSS itself. The design of synchronizing WSS items to the
RDB was done this way to give project managers more control over when WSS
items can/will get sync'ed to the RDB.

HTH,
Sharry

 

[Rod Gill]

Get your system checked, are there any errors in the Server's error logs,
especially relating to the queuing service? Issues should be reflected in
the reporting db with no intervention provided the project has a working
SharePoint site.

--

Rod Gill
Project MVP

NEW!! Project VBA Book, for details visit: http://www.projectvbabook.com

 

[Sharry Heberer [MSFT]]

Oh - sorry, I missed one of the comments in your original post. There is a
PSI method to synchronize the WSS sites with the RDB, if that would work
better for you and be less tedious. It's called
QueueSynchronizeProjectWorkspace, and is located in the Project PSI.

You could call this method from the Cube event handler to sync WSS items
before building the cubes. Or perhaps there is a WSS event you can listen
to if you need the WSS items to get into the RDB sooner.

 

[Oakwood Jay]

Thanks, Sharry. That's the information I was looking for. Of course, I'd
prefer a simple checkbox in the Project Server settings area to turn on
automatic syncs. Can't have everything.
--
Oakwood Systems Group: http://www.oakwoodsys.com

Oh - sorry, I missed one of the comments in your original post. There is a
PSI method to synchronize the WSS sites with the RDB, if that would work
better for you and be less tedious. It's called
QueueSynchronizeProjectWorkspace, and is located in the Project PSI.

You could call this method from the Cube event handler to sync WSS items
before building the cubes. Or perhaps there is a WSS event you can listen
to if you need the WSS items to get into the RDB sooner.