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 last post in this mini series for the last connect / last logon feature for Project Online, Microsoft’s PPM tool. In this post we will create the Power BI report. For those that missed the previous post see the links below, check these out first:

Firstly, capturing the last logon time: http://bit.ly/2dj9PpV

Secondly, part 1 of the report creation – setting up the dataset queries in preparation for this post: http://bit.ly/2e0BDNU

If you are continuing where we left off after part 1, open the saved Power BI report:

We have the blank canvas ready to add the data and visualisations. In the blog post we I cover creating the report below, Power BI has many options which we don’t cover here but all are intuitive so have a play!

Page 1 – PWAUsage:

Page 2 – PWAUserLastConnectDate:

Before we start, the report example I created uses a custom visual from the gallery for the Browser filter, this can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/2dJJsuP or alternatively just use the default slicer visual like the one used for the Username filter.

Once the custom visual is imported (or choose to use the default slicer), expand the PWAUage dataset, this is the one we will use for this first page:

The first visual we will add is the bottom left pie chart for “Logon by Browser”, from the PWAUsage dataset select Browser and Id:

It defaults to the Table visualisation, change this to the Pie chart in the Visualizations pane:

Drag Id from Details into Values:

Drag the visual to the bottom left corner of the page. In the Visualizations settings pane, click the roller to access the settings, here you can change the settings as needed, for example I turned on the Legend and update the Title:

The next visualisation to add is the PWA Usage Details table, click anywhere on the page so no visualisations are selected then from the PWAUsage dataset select Browser, Logon Data and Username:

By default, the Logon Date will be broken down into the date hierarchy, change this in the visualisation settings, select Logon Date:

Move the visualisation to the bottom center of the page and click the Logon Date column to change the order by so the latest date is in the first row:

With the visualisation selected, click the roller in the visualisations settings pane to update the settings as needed. I updated the title, the grid settings, the text size for the data and changed the column order:

The next visualisation to add is the Hits Per User bar chart, click anywhere on the page so no visualisations are selected then from the PWAUsage dataset select Browser, Id and Username:

Change the visualisations from a table to a Stacked bar chart and move Id to Values and Browser to the Legend:

Move the visualisation to the center of the page and extend it to the right hand side of the page by dragging it:

The same process as before, update the visualisation settings as required by clicking the roller. I updated title, increased the size of the legend text and turned on data labels.

The next visualisation to add is the Last Refresh table, click anywhere on the page so no visualisations are selected then from the PWAUsage dataset select Last Refreshed, resize the visualisation and move it to the top right hand corner of the page:

Update the visualisation settings as required by clicking the roller. I added a title and increased the size of the data text:

Add a text box to the top of the page and enter the report title, change the settings as required:

The next visualisations to add are the cards showing the totals, the process is the same for all so I will only cover adding one in detail. Click anywhere on the page so no visualisations are selected then from the PWAUsage dataset select Id, change the visual from a table to a Card:

Move the visual to the bottom right corner of the page, resize it and update the settings as required, I added a title, removed the category label and increased the size of the data label:

Add 5 more cards, select the one already created then copy and paste it 5 times then place them in the correct location on the page as required:

The 5 additional visualisations need different settings applied as these will show the hits per Browser. To update them, select one so that the settings are visible. Drag Browser from the PWAUsage dataset to the Visual level filters setting:

Select IE:

Now update the title from Total Hits to Total IE Hits:

Repeat this for the other 4 cards but set one for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Other so you end up with this:

The final visualisations to add to this page are the filters, with no visualisation selected, select Username from the PWAUsage dataset, change this from a table to a slicer and change the settings as required. I added a title, turned off the header row, turned of Select all and turned off single select:

Now repeat this but select Browser and change it to the Chiclet Slicer:

Change the settings as required, I added a title, turned off the header row and set it to have 2 columns:

That is the first page set up, rename the page and it is completed:

So here you can see some useful stats around the PWA usage.

Click the + next to the first page to add a new page and rename this to PWAUserLastConnectDate:

Now expand the PWALastLogon dataset and select both fields, change the column order so Resource name is first then change the row order so the Resource Name is alphabetical:

Change the settings as needed, I added a title, turned off the horizontal grid line and increased the text size. Now add a text box to the page to add the report title:

On this page you can quickly see who has logged in and when plus who has never logged in since adding the JavaScript to the Project Web App homepage – unless of course they always by pass the PWA homepage or the pages where you added the JavaScript!

There are lots of options available, have a play and build great dashboards! If you used the Chiclet slicer here is a cool option to add:

It supports Image URLs, for this I updated the PWAUsage dataset and added a new column called Browser URL:

As you can see this is an if statement, based on the Browser a certain URL is set to display the correct logo for each browser, either save the images to a site you have access to or use images from the internet. Then on the report designer I set the Browser URL to be an Image URL on the Modelling tab:

Then update the Chiclet Slicer settings:

Once completed save and publish your report to Power BI or you can just use it from Power BI Desktop if needed.

Power BI offers great report visualisations, this is just a simple example, see what you can come up with!

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)

The Office 2016 October 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2dL3HKL

Project 2016 October 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2e0Bf35

SharePoint Server 2016 October 2016 update – Project Server 2016 fixes:
Nothing for Project Server 2016 at the moment

The Office 2013 October 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2dL3HKL

Project Server 2013 October 2016 CU Server Roll up package:
http://bit.ly/2dL3fMV

Project Server 2013 October 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2cUQoH9

Project 2013 October 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2dL3vLQ

Also worth noting, if you haven’t done so already, install Service Pack 1 http://bit.ly/1uorn2C first if installing the October 2016 CU.

As always, fully test these updates on a replica test environment before deploying to production.

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)

Following on from my last post where I published an option / workaround for the last connected feature that has been removed from Project Online, this post will look at generating a Power BI report for the usage data that is captured. For those of you that missed the last post, see link below before continuing:

http://bit.ly/2dj9PpV

Now that we have some data captured in the list we can generate a report, for this example report I have used Power BI and Power Query but you could do something similar in Excel Power View with Power Query or even JavaScript / HTML if you really wanted to. In this post I will walkthrough all the steps needed to start creating the example report seen below:

Page 1 (PWAUsage):

Page 2 (PWAUserLastConnect):

So firstly we need to two URLs for the data used to generate this report, the first one is from the PWAUsageList, this assumes the list is called PWAUsageList, update the URL as needed:

<PWA URL>/_api/Web/Lists/GetByTitle('PWAUsageList')/Items()?$Select=WhoString,LogonDate,Browser,Id

The next one is from the Project OData Reporting API to return the active users that have an account:

<PWA URL>/_api/ProjectData/Resources()?$Filter=ResourceIsActive eq true and ResourceNTAccount ne null

Now launch Power Bi Desktop and click Get Data > OData Feed:

Enter the URL for the PWAUsageList as seen in the example above and click OK then click the Edit button on the preview window and the Query Editor window will open. Change the Query name from Query1 to something meaningful such as PWAUsage. Now change the LogonDate Column to Date rather than Date/TIme by right clicking on the column heading > Change Type > Date:

Also rename any columns as needed and remove the duplicate ID column, I renamed LogonDate to Logon Date and WhoString to Username:

Now we will add a custom column to this query to get the “Last Refresh” date. To do this click the “Add Column” ribbon then “Add Custom Column” and complete the details:

Click OK and the dataset will update:

Now we need to add the Resources data source, in the query editor click Home > New Source > OData Feed and enter the Resources OData URL as seen in the example above and click OK then click OK on the data preview window. Now click Choose Columns, the only column needed is ResourceName:

Click OK. The ResourceName column was then renamed and the Query renamed too:

Now we need to create a third query table that contains data from the PWAUsage query and the ActivePWAUsers query to show the last logon time for each PWA User. We could keep just the two queries and merge the two without creating a third table but that is up to you, you would just chose the Merge Queries option if you wanted to have just two queries. For this post I will create a third dataset query. In the query editor click the Merge Queries > Merge Queries as New option:

ActivePWAUsers in the top table and PWAUsage is the bottom table, select Resource Name in the top section and Username in the bottom section. The default join kind is fine for this merge:

Click OK. Update the query name to something meaningful such as PWALastLogon.

Click the Expand button next to the NewColumn:

Change the radio button to Aggregate and then click the dropdown next to Logon Date and select Maximum, don’t select anything else:

Uncheck the option “Use original column name as prefix” then click OK:

Rename the new column to remove the “Max of” and call the column “Latest Logon Date”

We now have the three queries ready to load into the report:

Now click Close & Apply > Close & Apply from the Home ribbon menu and the report will show your queries available:

The first thing to do will be to ensure the relationships between the three datasets is correct. Click the relationships button from the left navigation and update as needed:

All I had to change was to join PWAUsage to ActivePWAUsers by dragging Username from PWAUsage to Resource Name in ActivePWAUsers.

Now click back to the report view and we are ready to design the report. Now we have the datasets ready, in part 2 we will look at creating and designing the report, for now ensure you save the Power BI report for later when we look at designing the report.

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)

A quick post to highlight an issue and workaround for opening the Enterprise Resource Pool in Project Pro using the Open button on the Resources tab in the Resource Center:

If you try and click the Open button with no resources selected in the grid you will get the error below:

“This action couldn’t be performed because Office doesn’t recognize the command it was given” :

Select at least one resource in the grid then this command will work fine.

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 a supporting blog post for a new JavaScript file I have published to the Microsoft Gallery, it can be downloaded here:

http://bit.ly/2cGoqxP

Microsoft recently removed the Last Logon details from the Manage Users page in PWA settings for Project Online – Microsoft’s PPM tool. This simple script is an alternative solution that will capture the last logon for the Project Web App users. It wont capture the last logon from Project Professional or if a user accesses the API’s etc., it will only capture the last logon from the page the script is added to. In this example I have added the script to the homepage, so if a user has the Project Center saved as a favourite link and bypasses the PWA homepage then their logon would not be captured. You could add the script to multiple PWA pages if required.

When a user accesses the PWA homepage for the first time that day, an item is created on the SharePoint list in the PWA site, it only captures the logon once per day. See an example on my demo instance:

It captures the user name, the logon data and the browser that was used. This list will need to be created manually with the following details:

List Name: PWAUsageList

Columns:

The LogonDate column setting defaults to Today:

Once the list is set up, upload the JavaScript file to a library on the PWA site then the script can be added to the PWA homepage using a content editor web part:

Reference the location of the PWAUsage.js file – in this example I added the JavaScript file to the Shared Document library in the PWA site, also notice the Chrome Type is set to None so nothing is visible on the PWA homepage.

That is it, it will now capture the users who access the PWA homepage. Once you have the data on the list you can then create a report for that data. I will publish a blog post in the next week or so that details this but for now here is an example report screen shot in Power BI:

Fully test this on a non-production PWA instance before rolling out to Production, the script is provided As Is with no warranties etc. Try it out and let me know what you think.

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)

Yesterday saw the release of the Office 365 Project Time Reporter mobile app for Apple’s iOS, see the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2diXELX

This post gives a walkthrough on getting started and using the app on your iOS device. Firstly download the app for your iOS device from the Apple store:

Once completed locate the Project Time Reporter app:

On first launch you will be required to enter the Project Online PWA URL:

You will then see the login screen:

Enter your Office 365 credentials and click Sign In and you will see the loading screen briefly whilst the data is loaded:

Once completed you will see the Timesheet for this period:

From here you can enter the actuals as needed. Using the green control menu at the bottom of the app you can scroll between timesheet periods using the previous and next buttons, add a row, save the timesheet, send the timesheet or filter the projects. Using the ellipsis in the top right hand corner you can access other timesheet options such as refresh, go to current period, summary, send progress for all tasks or manage timesheets. The app menu in the top left corner enables you to access the app settings, here you can switch to the tasks view or see the app settings. Below you will see screen shots of some of these features.

Firstly the app menu screen, here you can view Timesheet, Tasks or Settings:

On Settings you can view the PWA URL and username and turn on two options:

I turned on the planned time in my app:

To enter time just click in the box for the day you want to add time to:

You can use the Save button on the green menu at the bottom of the app to save the timesheet or send the timesheet using the send button. If you have many projects on the current timesheet you can using the filter option:

If you want to send progress, click the ellipsis in the top right corner:

Here you will also see other options such as Summary:

Manage Timesheets:

On the timesheet view you can add rows using the Add button on the green menu:

We have focused on the Timesheet view here but there is also a Tasks view that is accessible from the app menu > Tasks:

You can change the view by clicking the Current Tasks heading:

You can access the task options to filter and sort the tasks using the ellipsis in the top right hand corner:

Selecting a task will take you to the task details screen:

To edit a task click Edit in the top right hand corner:

Make any changes as needed and click Save or Send.

Download it today and see what you think – it will make the timesheet / task update process so easy when you are on the move!

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)

The Office 2016 September 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2cmIvEV

Project 2016 September 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2cURd2F

SharePoint Server 2016 September 2016 update – Project Server 2016 fixes:
http://bit.ly/2cmImS1 & http://bit.ly/2cURbYB

The Office 2013 September 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2cmIvEV

Project Server 2013 September 2016 CU Server Roll up package:
http://bit.ly/2cmJsgD

Project Server 2013 September 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2cUQoH9

Project 2013 September 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2cmIBMO

Also worth noting, if you haven’t done so already, install Service Pack 1 http://bit.ly/1uorn2C first if installing the September 2016 CU.

The Office 2010 September 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2cmIvEV

Project 2010 September 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2cmIe5b

As always, fully test these updates on a replica test environment before deploying to production.

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)

A quick post, if you are finding that all of a sudden your project sites are failing to create with the error below:

CreateWssSiteContent: Creating project site failed! Project Uid= <site details> Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: The site template requires that the Feature {e995e28b-9ba8-4668-9933-cf5c146d7a9f} be activated in the site collection. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities.SPUtility.ThrowSPExceptionWithTraceTag

Chances are you using a custom site template and this stopped working within the last week or so. The feature ID SharePoint is complaining about is a “MobileExcelWebAccess” feature. This can’t just be enabled.

The fix is straightforward, locate the site which you used to create the site template and save that site as a template again with a different name / version then link this to the Enterprise Project Type/s. Repeat this for all custom site templates.

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 show an option to capture Microsoft’s PPM Project Online data into a SharePoint list on a schedule to enable time driven data capture for snapshot / trend reporting capability. This example makes use of a PowerShell script I created to get the data and write this to a SharePoint list. The PowerShell script will use the Project Reporting OData API to get all of the specified project data in the PWA Site Collection then create a list item on the specified SharePoint list. The user setting up the script will need to update the source PWA instance URL, username, password and list name. The account specified will need access to the OData API in PWA and contribute access to the target SharePoint list. The SharePoint list will also need to be created beforehand with the required columns. The OData query will need to be updated to include the correct project level fields required and the part of the script that creates the list items will need to be updated too. This is covered below.

This script example can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/2bvkCvZ

To get the script to work you will need to reference the DLL as seen in the image below:

This can be installed from the SharePoint Online Client components / management shell. I used the dll from the SharePoint Online Management Shell in this example.

Please note, this has only been tested in PowerShell 3.0 and might not work in other versions. If you have any issues try this in PowerShell 3.0.

Firstly decide what project level fields you want to capture, this will determine the list column requirements. Then create the SharePoint list in the PWA site collection with the required columns, for this example I created a list called ProjectSnapShots with the columns below:

The SnapshotDate column was set to have today as the default value so that when the items are created the date is set automatically.

Update the Project OData query to include the correct fields that you want to capture, in this simple example I have included the following:

$url = $PWAInstanceURL + "/_api/ProjectData/Projects()?`$Filter=ProjectType ne 7&`$Select=ProjectId,ProjectName,ProjectPercentCompleted,ProjectHealth,ROI,RiskRating&`$orderby=ProjectName"

As you can see I have a list column for each project level field. The next part of the script that needs to be updated is the item creation:

This is where you map the project level fields to the correct SharePoint list columns based on the data you are capturing.

Also ensure the variables have been updated correctly, placeholder values seen below:

Save and run the PowerShell script (fully test on a non-production PWA site collection before Production) to ensure the data is captured correctly in the target SharePoint list. You could then set this up to run as a scheduled task on a local server or a scheduled WebJob in Azure to capture the data weekly or monthly etc. For details on a scheduled WebJob see: http://bit.ly/2c26tcj

Once the script is run you will see the data in the SharePoint list, below I have run this 3 times:

You could then create a snapshot / trend report as required from the list data and even join to the live Project OData API if you capture the Project ID as I have in the example script / list.

A simple time driven data capture to enable snapshot / trending reports for Project Online. This script could easily be modified to capture the data into a SQL database, either on-prem or in Azure SQL if required. Also if this was to be run in production the script should be updated for error handling with try / catch blocks etc.

The script is provided "As is" with no warranties etc.

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)

The Office 2016 August 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2aDN4JS

Project 2016 August 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2aPUSvh

SharePoint Server 2016 August 2016 update – Project Server 2016 fixes:  
http://bit.ly/2aDNi3y & http://bit.ly/2aPUWLB

The Office 2013 August 2016 updates and cumulative updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://bit.ly/2aDN4JS

Project Server 2013 August 2016 CU Server Roll up package:
http://bit.ly/2aDNdx1

Project Server 2013 August 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2aPULQv – link not live at time of writing

Project 2013 August 2016 update:
http://bit.ly/2aDMGv3 – link not live at time of writing

Also worth noting, if you haven’t done so already, install Service Pack 1 http://bit.ly/1uorn2C first if installing the August 2016 CU.

As always, fully test these updates on a replica test environment before deploying to production.