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)

My first post for 2018, Happy New Year to all! This post is the first of 2 or 3 posts covering HTML formatting in your Power BI reports from Project Online multiline project level custom fields as seen below – screenshot from mock up / demo data:

For those of you that are familiar with the Project Online Reporting API, Microsoft made a change back in May 2016 to remove the HTML from the OData API ({PWAURL}/_api/ProjectData): http://bit.ly/24hh9nb. This was due to requests from customers so that Excel / Power BI reports could contain cleansed data without having to remove the HTML from the strings yourself. As mentioned in the blog post above, the HTML strings for multiline project custom fields are still available from the REST API ({PWAURL}/_api/ProjectServer).

Back in November 2017 a new custom Power BI visual was released to render HTML: http://bit.ly/2CskInt, this now means that you can include the nicely formatted text from Project Online multiline project level custom fields in your Power BI reports. A couple of screen shots below show what your project custom field multiline data probably looks like today in your reports and what it could look like. Ignore the very basic dull looking report, this is purely just to demo the HTML rendering.

Without the HTML formatting from the OData API – it is just a block of text:

With the HTML formatting – it is nicely formatted and readable:

This matches the text on the Project Detail Page (PDP) in the Project Web App for that example demo project:

To be able to include the HTML formatting there are two parts:

• Get the data that includes the HTML
• Add the HTML Viewer custom visual to your Power BI Desktop client

The latter being very simple from the Power BI Desktop client by either clicking the ellipsis in the Visualizations pane:

Or using the button on the Home ribbon:

Then search for the HTML viewer and add it:

In the next 1 or 2 posts I will cover some different options for getting access to the data that includes the HTML.