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 blog post will detail the PowerShell commands required to carry out an environment rollover / migration using Windows PowerShell where possible. The steps below use the database approach to rollover the Production environment to the Test / Development environment.

As a prerequisite I would recommend taking full backups of the Test / Dev farm to enable the environment to be rolled back if required. Use your usual farm backup procedures.

Test / Dev environment Prep

Firstly connect to the Test / Dev Application server and launch the SharePoint 2016 Management shell.

Type the following:

Remove-SPSite -Identity ‘<TEST/DEV PWA Site URL>’

You can check in Central admin in the Project Server Service Application to check that the PWA site has been removed.

Using the SharePoint 2016 Management Shell, remove the existing content database from the web application that hosted the PWA site collection that was removed in the previous step.

Type the following:

Dismount-SPContentDatabase ‘<Content database name>’

Test / Dev environment SQL Prep

Take a backup of the PWA Content database from the Production environment and copy this over to the Test / Dev SQL server and restore the database. The database required is:

• Content database that contains the Production PWA site and Project Sites

Make a note of the database name used when this database is restored as it will be required later.

Test / Dev environment configuration

Using the SharePoint Management Shell, mount the restored content database to the web application that will host the PWA site collection.

Type the following:

Mount-SPContentDatabase ‘<content database name restored in previous step>’ -DatabaseServer ‘<Test / DEV SQL Server>’ –WebApplication <web application URL>

Post Provisioning

The Project Server Cube settings will need to be updated – update the SQL AS server / cube name.

Any Excel based reports in PWA will need to be updated to use the ODC files / connection strings from the Test / Dev environment as they will currently point to the Production ODC files / connection strings. This is done by opening the Excel reports in Excel, changing the ODC file / connection strings then saving the file back to the library.

All projects will need to be republished on the test / dev instance so that the project site features such as the issues and risks sync works as expected. There are other ways to fix that but republishing the projects is the easiest / safest option from what i have found.