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 follows on from my earlier blog post on updating Project Online project level custom fields from JavaScript using the REST API: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/using-rest-in-javascript-to-update-projectonline-project-custom-fields-ppm-pmot-jquery-office365/

As mentioned in that post, I have published example code sample / solution starter that demonstrates updating a project level custom field using the REST API. This simple code sample runs from a Project Detail Page in the Project Web App site collection, it enables the user to add related projects to a project level custom field. As mentioned, it is a solution start to demonstrate the use of the Project Online REST APIs from JavaScript, so it wouldn’t be fit for production use as it would need some tweaks to manage things like displaying projects already added to the custom field pre-loaded in the related project list etc. The solution starter functionality can be seen below:

The solution starter code can be downloaded from the Microsoft Gallery here: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Online-Add-Related-e6a69a02

Once downloaded, open the file to edit in your chosen editor (notepad will do if you have nothing else, I use Visual Studio Code or Notepad++). To get the solution starter code to work, you will need to update the custom field internal name for your target project level custom field, the code sample also assumes this target custom field is a text field. If the target field is a different type you will need to update the value type as mentioned in the first post.

Firstly, get the correct internal name for the custom field as seen below in this example:

This information is available using the CustomField API: {PWAUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/CustomFields

Now in the solution starter code, update the projectCFInternalName variable on line 61 as seen below with the correct guid:

Save the file and upload to a library in the PWA Site, for example mine is uploaded to the Site Assets library. Then add a Content Editor Web Part to the target Project Detail Page in PWA, edit that new web part:

In the content link, put a link into the JavaScript file, in my example the link is /sites/pwa/SiteAssets/PWARelatedProject.js. Expand Appearance, give it a title and change the Chrome Type to None. Click Apply then click OK and stop editing the page. Your page will then display the following (assuming you edited the web part from PWA Settings > Project Details Pages:

When accessed from a PDP linked to a project the following will display:

The list of projects are filtered to the list of projects the current user can access. Use the buttons to add the related project/s:

Then click Save:

Once the publish job has been sent to the queue for processing the modal will close. Viewing the custom field in the PDP will show the the projects added:

This is just a simple example to demonstrate updating project level custom fields using the REST API from a Project Detail Page. Update the solution starter to ensure the code is production ready and fully test on a DEV / TEST PWA instance first before using in Production. The script is provided "As is" with no warranties etc.