Project Server technical bits

Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh694531.aspx There has been an interesting post on Technet recently regarding reporting on timephased actual work with Project Server 2010.  The link is above, but the key phrase is below: When you protect user updates, timesheets always maintain exactly what the user entered for timephased work, and the scalar values between timesheets and the project plan are always consistent. However, the timephased distribution of the scalar value may be slightly different in the project plan, as it is geared toward future work planning and not maintenance of actual work historical values. The scheduling engine may adjust some timephased actual work to keep the plan consistent. So, in English, this basically means that if you want EXACT timephased actual work reporting when using Timesheets and Single Entry Mode, you MUST Report from the Timesheet Subsystem, NOT MS Project assignment-level actual work.    The plan should only be used for t

In a previous post I talked about assumptions and the reality of data access and security when configuring a simple "hands off" timesheet solution in 2010, and some concerns around functionality that is made available to users by default. The other areas of concern for me were: 3 - Limitations of creating projects from templates via PWA  4 - curious behaviour of the auto-publish function when calculating Actual Cost   So here's some more little tidbits of information that I hope may help... Limitations of creating projects from templates via PWA (Project.CreateProjectFromTemplate method) As part of my solution I wanted to allow a two phase project to be created, with Phase 2 tasks disabled when the project is produced to avoid these tasks being available via the Timesheet function without the need to work via MS Project.  Then I wanted the new phase tasks to be activated at a given point in the schedule ideally via PWA. To do this I... - Created a MSP

** UPDATE2:  OK so I didn't reboot before that previous note.  This has now resolved the issue.  Reboot WAS tried prior to June CU * UPDATE:  After installing June CU2011 Server Rollups (SPF & SPS+PS) I am still seeing the same issues as before.  More research to do..... Since my rig had Project Server 2010 SP1 packages installed I have seen PWA provisioning fail when creating a brand new PWA Site with clean DB names etc. Note:  This is NOT a restore scenario: Firstly I see the following, which is what I would expect: 09/19/2011 15:45:59.32 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0C30)                   0x05C4 Project Server                 Provisioning                   6974 Information Provisioning 'zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz': Server versions: Primary 10.50.1600.1, Reporting 10.50.1600.1. 47871661-d3d4-46fa-9c73-f5faf328a37d 09/19/2011 15:45:59.35 OWSTIMER.EXE (0x0C30)                   0x05C4 Project Server                 Provisioning                   69

Sometime over the last couple of weeks - whilst running some BI-focused EPM Demos - I have come to realise that sometimes no manner of demo will get people interested when they just want to jump to the good stuff, the charts and graphs, the decomposition tree, indicators and traffic lights and KPI's etc etc Sometime's they just want the shiny-shiny So with this in mind I've given my blog a spring clean and a spruce up.  Time is pushed at the moment but I intend to attempt to post as much as I can over the coming months.  As ever, there will be some trouble shooting and some how-to's that I hope people can get benefit from.

The other day I was tibnkering on my new demo rig (I love SSD's) and the whole OS Drive locked up on my, causing me to hard-crash the machine. Uh-ho i thought... my VM was running at crash point... better check it over. Lo and behold, my rig was dead on reboot.  Upon review my config_db was suspect - go figure - and I had to try and get it back (as I was going to lose quite a lot of work if i didn't). So after a little trawl around I found the following.  I hope it helps someone else in the future: Run this in SQL:                alter database “Sharepoint_config” set emergency Set DB to single user mode  Run this in SQL to find the SPID for the connection to the Config_DB                 sp_who2 disconnect from SQL ensure SQL Browser service started open SQL Mgt but dont connect to the server New Query                Kill SPID# from SP_WHO2 (where # is the SPID noted previously) use Sharepoint_config dbcc checkdb ("sharepoint_config", r

Timesheet solutions in project server 2010 - #1 Security black holes and foibles This is my first outing into a full blown stand-alone timesheet solution.  Yes, I’ve done the full bottom-up and top-down configurations before but never JUST timesheets. The aim of this solution is to - minimise the administrative overheads associated to running an EPM solution - minimise “Project Owner” involvement in the process and thus minimise MS Project Pro licence needs - Capture historic data (actual work and cost) - A fixed list of “activities” per project, duplicated for work performed pre project and during the project - Allow anyone to work on any project within their particular group/team/dept - provide some insightful BI and reports off the back The entry point in for this solution is the [magical] new option of automated publishing via rules, delivered as part of SP1, without which we would not be moving forward with this. Voyage of discovery: During the first two d

I thought i'd put rogether a quick post on Cube customisation, as this is something that I am constantly asked about. Now I am not an MDX expert at all, but there are some useful results you get from some pretty simple MDX expressions. Firstly, custom measures are done in the OLAP Cube Database Management section of the Project Web App Server Settings page.  Hightlight the cube you want to customise and then click Configure. Once in this section you need to scroll down to the bottom and decide which cube you want to add the measure to in the OLAP database.  Generally in most scenarios, the Portfolio Analyser cube is the best target, depending on the data you wish to interrogate.  Once the cube is selected, click Insert. S-Curves OK, so you've got a decent OLAP report (in excel, PerformancePoint Services or the like) showing data by month, but you been asked for a nice S-curve report showing Baseline, Work and Actual Work on a cumulative curve.  As with all useful things,