SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

I am a Project Server and SharePoint consultant but my main focus currently is around Project Server. I have been working with Project Server for nearly five years since 2007 for a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the UK, I have also been awared with the Microsoft Community Contributor Award 2011. I am also a certified Prince2 Practitioner. This article has been cross posted from pwmather.wordpress.com (original article)

This is part 7 of the “Getting started with Project Online” series. If you have been following this series you will hopefully by now have an understanding of how you can configure your new Project Online Project Web App instance to meet your requirements. There are other configuration options that I haven’t covered, but the core or basics have been covered. In the last post we looked at project plan and project site template creation, the link to that post can be seen below:

http://bit.ly/1bPjJWB

Now we have the basic configuration completed we can start to populate data and start making use of the system. Firstly we will look at populating our enterprise resource pool / adding users to the system then an overview on creating projects.

Let’s look at some of the options we have for populating the resource pool. Firstly we will look at the Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronisation option, this is found on the PWA Settings page under the Operational Policies heading:

Clicking this link loads the following page:

Here you can type the name of a security group that contains all of the users you want as resources in Project Web App. For Project Online, the security groups are set up on the Office 365 tenant as are the user accounts. To show you this we will navigate to our Office 365 Admin Center. To get to this site click the Admin menu then click Office 365:

You will need a tenant admin account to access this site. Once the site is loaded click Users and Groups then click Security Groups:

As you can see, I have already created a group on this tenant (and the users already exist, to add users click the active users link then the + button). To create a new group, click the + button then complete the details on the page:

Give the group a name, I have called this “Test Group”, add a description if required then add the users by clicking the + button. Once complete just click save. After few minutes this group will be available to use in the Project Web App. Switching back to the Project Web App Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronisation page we can enter our AD security group information:

As you can see, start typing the name of the group and your group will be available to click without having to type the exact name. Once selected, click the Save and Synchronise now button. After a few moments you will see that the users from the chosen security group will appear in the Resource Center in the Project Web App:

The users above will be available to projects as resources. Currently, even though these resources are users in Office 365, they are not yet users in the Project Web App, they wouldn’t be able to log in to the Project Web App. Before we go on to add a users, I just want to detail the differences between users and resources. So you can have users that can log in to the system but might not necessarily be available to be assigned on a tasks, to be able to be assigned on a task the user needs to also be a resource. Flip that around, you can have resources that can be assigned to tasks but might not be able to log in. To give these users access will varying depending on the permission mode, if your Project Web App instance is using the Project Permission Mode you can just select the resource, click the edit button then check the checkbox “Associate resource with a user account” then enter the User logon account and select the security group. If you are in the SharePoint Permission Mode, which our example Project Web App instance is, you just share the site with those users. Lets look at that, navigate the the Project Web App homepage and click the “Share” button in the top right corner:

The Share button will load the following window:

Add the user name, then click “Show Options”, this will enable you to choose the correct group:

The default is “Team Members for Project Web App [Contribute]” but you can change this to another Project Web App group if required:

The correct group depends on the level of access this user needs. The SharePoint permission group details can be seen here: http://bit.ly/1fG5PKC. Once the correct group has been chosen click the Share button. That is one way to add resources (and users). You can also add resources manually either via the Project Web App or Project Professional. Let’s look at the Project Web App first. In the Project Web App, navigate to the Resource Center (link on the quick launch), click the Resources tab then click the New button:

This will load a new page, complete the required details then click Save. In this example I am going to create a new generic resource:

After clicking save I see the new resource appear in the resource center:

That is it for creating resources in the Project Web App. The other option is to create the resources via Project Professional, from the Resource Center, click the Open button:

You will need to have at least one resource selected for this to work. This will then open the enterprise resource pool in Project Professional (you will also need the account set up in Project Professional 2013 for that Project Web App instance):

You can create resources on this table, or copy and paste from Excel etc. For the purpose of this post I will just create one additional resource:

Now click the Save button and the resource will be created, see the resource center now:

With Project Online it would be recommended to use enterprise resources (we have created enterprise resources above) rather than using local resources. This way you can get good visibility of the resource assignments / demand. That is the intro to creating resources and users for the Project Web App instance. Next we look at the various ways to create projects in the system. Project Professional 2013 can be used, either a blank project, a template project or even an offline mpp file. Projects can also be created from the Project Web App, either from a project idea type list, from a SharePoint task list or from the Project Center. Full details can be seen here. For the purpose of this post we will look at using Project Professional 2013 and the Project Center. Firstly from Project Professional 2013, launch Project Pro and connect to the Project Web App instance, build the schedule:

Now build the team to add the enterprise resources to the project, either the Resource tab > Add Resources > Built Team from Enterprise or just press Ctrl +T:

That will load the Build Team window:

Here add the resources you might need on the project team. If you have access to a large resource pool, there are options to filter / group the list of resources. Select the resource and click the Add button:

Click OK. Now in the Resource Name column you can select the resource or resources for that task:

You can also double click the task name to load the Task Information window. Click the Resources tab and you add your resource here:

Once the project plan is ready, click the Save button then Save under Project Web App and a new window will appear:

Enter the project name, complete the project level fields and click Save. That data will then be sent to Project Online but not visible in the Project Web App. To make this visible in the Project Web App the project will need to be published. To publish the project click File > Publish:

This will load another window to create the associated project site:

Click Publish. Once the jobs complete in Project Online, this project will be visible to users with the correct permissions in Project Web App:

You can also create a project from a template, in Project Professional 2013 click File > New:

Here are several templates available, you can also click the Enterprise link to load the project templates you have created and saved to Project Web App:

Here we can see the project plan template we created in a previous post. Selecting one of the templates will load the template project plan, modify this as required then use the same Save and Publish options. Worth noting, when creating projects from Project Professional the default EPT will be used.

Now we will move the the Project Web App and review some of the options in the Project Center. When you first navigate to the Project Center on a new Project Web App instance you will see the following:

This gives a link to create a new project. We will look at using the EPTs, click the Projects tab then click New:

For this example we will use the Project Design EPT that we created in an earlier post. Click the Project Design EPT and the new project Project Detail Page will appear:

Enter the details and click Save, once complete the schedule PDP will appear:

As this was created from the Project Design EPT, the associated project plan template was used, hence the tasks displayed. Edit the project as required then click Save. Now we can build the team in the Project Web App. Click the Project Tab then Build Team:

Clicking this button loads the following page:

Select the resource you need in the project and click Add and they will appear on the right hand side:

Click the Save & Close button and you will be taken back the the schedule PDP, here you can assign the resources:

Once you have completed the project plan updates, click the Save button. Once the save has completed, click the Publish button to make this project visible. Click the other PDPs on the left hand side to complete the other details required, in this example we click the Project Details PDP:

Complete the details and click Save. When finished Close and check in the project:

Now you will see the project in the Project Center:

That covers the intro for creating projects. Next up we look at where in the system we can see the data (Tasks, Resource Center etc.).