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)

For organisations that only have one Project Web App (PWA) instance and use /PWA, today using the Project app link on the Office 365 waffle app launcher works as expected. For those organisations that have multiple PWA instances this can be an issue. The link I am talking about can be seen below:

This points to /MyProjects as seen above but when Project Online is present on the tenant it will always redirect to /sites/PWA as seen below:

This can be a problem for those customers that either have multiple PWA instances or do not use the default /PWA instance. Unfortunately the Project link on the waffle app launcher is not configurable so one workaround we have done for clients before is to not use the /PWA instance at all apart from using it as a landing page for the other PWA instances in the organisation. If you are in the planning stage for rolling out Project Online and know that you will have multiple PWA instances on the same Office 365 tenant, this might be a good option for you to consider and explore.

Firstly create the following css file that will be used to remove the PWA quick launch menu:

Save this on the /PWA site somewhere such as the Style Library:

Now edit the PWA homepage and delete the “Track your work” web part and add a content editor web part, in the content editor web part reference the .css file and change the chrome type to None:

Click Apply then click OK and the quick launch will disappear. Add another content editor web part and update the Title to “Project Web App sites” or a more appropriate name as required:

Click the new content editor web part where is states click here to add new content then add in the links to all the PWA instances that you have on the tenant using the content editor web part controls – you have lots of options and can make it look as nice as you like. In this example I have just used a simple table:

Click Stop editing on the Page tab and you will see the following:

Then ensure all users of Project Online have read access to the /PWA site (do not grant higher access as you do not want them incorrectly creating projects here):

This way if a user clicks the “Project” app link on the Office 365 waffle app launcher they can at least then easily navigate onto the correct PWA instance.

You could take this even further and have multiple content editor web parts on the page, one for each PWA instance then use SharePoint’s audience targeting feature to show the correct PWA instance/s for the logged on user.