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)

Quite often system administrators want a way to automate tasks, creating the Project Server Project Professional  accounts is usually one of these tasks. This blog post shows an example of creating a Project Professional 2010 account.

The script can be downloaded from the Script Center following the link below:

http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Create-Server-2010-dfb0fbba

When creating an account, a registry key is created here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\MS Project\Profiles\<Profile Name>

After running the script, a new registry key will appear:

Script:

Before running the script you will need to update two variables, $accountName and $pwaURL with the correct values.

New Key after executing the script:

As you can see, the script on creates three string values, the rest get created when you launch Project Professional 2010 and connect to the new account:

New account:

Additional string values:

A simple solution for creating Project Professional 2010 accounts.

I recommend that this script is tested thoroughly on a test workstation before using within a production environment.

This script is just an example, use this script at your own risk. Remember to always backup the Registry before making any changes.

This script is probably a better approach to the Registry key export detailed in a post I wrote a while back:

http://pwmather.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/customise-project-professional-2010-installation-projectserver-ps2010-msproject-office2010/

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)

Just a quick post to highlight a product from CPS, Project Server Plus. This is a quick start preconfigured Project Server solution includes best practice fields and lookup tables, Views, RAG calculations and indicators, many great dashboards / reports and an enhanced Project Site template – all out of the box.

For details see:

http://www.cps.co.uk/What-We-Do/Pages/Project-Server-Plus.aspx

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 2010 December 2012 Cumulative Updates are now available, please see the links below:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2789671
 
Project Server 2010 Server Roll up package December 2012 CU (Recommended) – delayed:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2596956
 
Project Server 2010 December 2012 CU (Included in the Server Roll up package):
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553504
 
Project 2010 December 2012 CU:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553188
 
Remember SP1 is a pre-requisite for the December 2012 CUs.
 
For more details please see:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectsupport/archive/2012/12/19/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-server-2007-and-2010-december-2012-cu-announcement.aspx
 
As always, 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 Part 1, this post will look into the SharePoint Task List and Connected SharePoint sites. As mentioned in part 1, I did create a post on this for the Preview release of Project Server 2013.

For those of you that missed Part 1:

http://pwmather.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/creating-and-adding-projects-to-projectserver-2013-ps2013-sp2013-office365-part-1/

This post will revisit the SharePoint Task List and Connected SharePoint site functionality. Similar but simpler SharePoint Task List functionality does exist in Project Server 2010 with the  New > From SharePoint List option in the Project Centre. This functionality has been improved and extended in Project Server 2013.

In Project Server 2010 you had to create the SharePoint task list before adding the project to Project Server, in Project Server 2013 this has changed and improved. Clicking the New > SharePoint Tasks List from the Project Centre button will now prompt you for a project name:

Clicking Create will create the SharePoint site, with a Tasks list and then take you to the newly created tasks list.

As you can see the project now exists in the Project Centre also:

Clicking the project name from the Project Centre view will take you to the tasks list on the SharePoint site, as you can see I have created two tasks:

You can also import other SharePoint sites to Project Server 2013 using the Add SharePoint Sites button on the Project tab in the Project Centre:

Clicking this button will load a new window displaying all SharePoint sites within the PWA site collection that contain a Tasks list:

In this example I am going to add the “Design new theme” site, the tasks can be seen below:

At this point it is worth noting that Paul Mather already exists in the Project Server resource pool but User H doesn’t. Also there are only 5 Apps on this site:

I will now select the “Design new theme” project and click Add, the pop will now advise you that the project is being created:

After a short amount of time you will see the project is in the Project Centre:

Now this project is in Project Server, you will notice any users that were assigned to tasks on the tasks list that didn’t previously exist in the Project Server resource pool now exist as resources in the enterprise resource pool. Also the other thing I highlighted, the Apps on the site. After adding the SharePoint site to Project Server you will see the familiar lists from the Project Site:

This is because the Project Web App Connectivity site feature is activated when the site is added to Project Server.

Using both methods to add SharePoint Task lists to Project Server will sync the task list data with Project Server. At the time you add a SharePoint task list site to Project Server, that data will be synchronised instantly. Additional changes to the tasks on the tasks lists such as adding new tasks, updating % complete etc. is not updated in Project Server instantly. This synchronisation is triggered by a SharePoint Timer Job called “Project Server: Task List Synchronizer for SharePoint Tasks List Projects job for Project Services Application”

Once changes have been made to the connected SharePoint sites and the timer job has run, all data in Project Server will be correct and in sync with the task list. This includes the resource assignments / availability views, Project Centre Gantt charts and the Reporting tables / views in the Project Server database.

The connected SharePoint site task lists can either be updated from the sites using the web browser or using Project Professional 2013. When using Project Professional 2013, connected SharePoint site projects are opened the same way as a full Enterprise Project. When editing a connected SharePoint site in Project Pro you only have the option to save, no publish. Saving this type of project from Project Professional automatically fires off a publish job keeping the data in the system in synch – you don’t have to wait for the Timer Job.

Connected SharePoint sites can become full Enterprise Projects and full Enterprise Projects can become just a SharePoint task list connected site. This is update in Server Settings > Connected SharePoint Sites:

Converting a SharePoint Task list project to an Enterprise Project will disable editing of the tasks list from the SharePoint site, the tasks can only be modified via the Project Web App or Project Professional 2013. Converting an Enterprise Project to a SharePoint Task list project will disable editing of the schedule in PWA and enable tasks to be edited in a SharePoint task list or Project Professional.

Overall a great way to manage simple lightweight projects and gain visibility of these projects in Project Server!

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)

As you are all hopefully aware Project Server 2013 is available to Volume Licensing, TechNet and MSDN accounts. No doubt you have seen may posts already about the great new features, some of which I have also previously blogged about. This post will look at the various options you have for creating and adding projects to Project Server 2013. In this series of posts I won’t cover the options of creating projects programmatically or the options that exist in Project Server 2010 already. These posts will look at the new options in Project Server 2013.

The first option I will cover in this post is creating projects from a list within PWA. For this example I have created a normal SharePoint custom list called Project Ideas with a Title field and Description field as shown below:

As you can see I have already created an example project idea. If I click on the Items tab and select the new project idea,notice the Create Projects button is enabled:

Click the Create Projects button and a new window will appear:

As you can see here I can map my Project Ideas columns with the Project Server fields. As this is an example I have only added a Description to the Project Ideas list and only have the default Project Server fields. These are mapped below:

The next option is to select the Enterprise Project Type. Again, I haven’t created any additional EPTs for this example:

I will set this project to be an Enterprise Project.

On there form there are additional options to create new Project Server custom fields, new EPTs and to reload the form with the new fields. Once the options are completed, click Create Project. The form will refresh to show that the project has been created:

Clicking View Details will display the project name:

Click Close and navigate to the Project Centre, you will see the new project ready to be scheduled:

The Project Details PDP shows the correct description from the Project Ideas list:

A nice and simple approach to transition project ideas to full Enterprise projects.

I will now create another Project Idea but this time select SharePoint Task List, see below.

New Project Idea selected:

Click Create Projects, notice the fields are already mapped:

Update the Enterprise Project Type to SharePoint Task List:

Click Create Project. Navigate to the Project Centre and you will see the new project:

Notice the different icon to indicate it is not an Enterprise Project. Clicking on this project will take you to the SharePoint site Task list:

The project tasks can be created in the task list, this is then synchronised back to Project Server using the “Project Server: Task List Synchronizer for SharePoint Tasks List Projects job for Project Services Application” Timer job.

In the next post I will take a look at the SharePoint Task list and Connected SharePoint sites in more detail. I did write a post on this for the preview version of Project Server 2013, that post can be found here:

http://pwmather.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/sharepoint-sp2013-project-site-visibility-in-projectserver-2013-office365-ps2013/

I will expand on / review this post for the RTM version of Project Server 2013.