Project Server 2013
Project 2013
Project Server 2010
*** Update 2/13 - please also see Knowledgebase article - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2933444 for published details on this issue - including a detection script and a SQL command to correct a stored procedure to avoid this problem - only applicable to Project Server 2013 - Project Online is already patched ***
We have been working on this Project Server 2013 and Project Online ‘Lost Resources’ bug for a little while and we finally have it nailed, and already have the fix deployed to Project Online to ensure it cannot have any further effect there. Now we wanted to share more information – as we have something actionable. The scenario is that you open a plan and find that your resources appear to be gone. Depends where you look, but you either see them as apparent material resources in the resource sheet – with no name, or in the Gantt you see numbers where you expected to see names – and similarly they are material resources in the resource form. So imagine your plan looked like this:
You could open the plan and you find it is looking like this instead – with the resources missing. In this case two look like material resources – just one remains. The numbers (8) in this case is coming from the hours of work.
The resource sheet will look like this:
There are some variations on this theme – if all resources are removed from a task – or if you carry on using the plan, and try to add the resources back through build team, or publish the plan – then the symptoms can change and the resources can show as multiple <unassigned resource> placeholders – so best if you see the original issue to just close and don’t save – and follow the advice below. The unassigned resource condition looks like the following.
If you experience this then we can certainly help you if you open a support incident. We do not charge for support incidents that are bugs – so you will either be refunded if you open a fixed cost incident, or you will not be decremented if this is a Premier incident. Use your normal channels, either Premier or any of the options at http://support.microsoft.com – or in Project Online get one of your Project Online/Office 365 administrators to go to the Office 365 Admin Center, click the Support link in the left navigation (https://portal.microsoftonline.com/Support/SupportOverview.aspx) and then click new service request – middle right on the page.
In Project Server 2013 the easiest recovery is to just restore from the administrative backup (the timing of my recent reminder to make sure it was running was not an accident - Project Server 2013- Check your administrative backups before you need them).
For Project Online one option is to open from the Published store – and then overwrite the working store – assuming you haven’t published. If you are time tracking then this isn’t a good idea as GUIDs change and assignments won’t match the current timesheet. We can help with the recovery if you open an incident.
The good news is that we have a fix to stop this happening again which, as I mentioned, we have already applied to all our Project Online customers. As with most fixes, this addresses the original problem but does not correct the downstream issues. Due to the nature of the issue we can address some of this correction in the database. For on-premises customers we are pushing hard to get this into the next available fix package – but it will certainly be in the April Cumulative update for Project Server 2013. And we are able to assist any customers who open an incident with the means to stop this happening again right now.
There could be some variations in the steps that lead to this issue – but in basic terms saving a plan over another plan after having removed some resources may also remove those resources from other plans they are assigned in. It takes them out of the team – but their assignments still exist. One scenario, and the one used to produce the screenshots above was to create an enterprise project plan that included some of the resources in the plan (Project1), then use save-as to overwrite another server plan that also includes those resources (Project2). You will then find that the removed resources are also removed from other plan too (Project1 in this example).
So to summarize:
Some people may remember a similar sounding issue with 2010 – but this isn’t the same thing or same root cause. This wasn’t and isn’t a problem that could occur in 2007 or 2010. Also this was in Project Server 2013 and Project Online since the release – so don’t be afraid to apply cumulative updates – this wasn’t introduced by any of them.
If you have hit this issue then we are very sorry for the inconvenience and frustration that bugs like this can cause – we have been pushing hard to both get this fixed and make sure we can assist with any clean-up that you need.
I am pleased to announce the release of the February 2013 Cumulative Update (CU) for Project, Project Server and SharePoint for 2007, 2010 and the very first one for 2013. Also you may notice this is earlier in the month, and since December 2012 we are planning to ship the Office Cumulative updates on the 2nd Tuesday (“Patch Tuesday”) of the even months. Feel free to open a support case if you have any questions around this or need assistance getting these patches deployed. Remember that this release for the 2010 products, like the August 2012 Cumulative Update, has a hard requirement on Service Pack 1 – see notes below. In most of the KB articles the term hotfix is used in place of Cumulative Update. They tend to be interchangeable terms – a Cumulative Update is just a hotfix built to a schedule.
There is a slight delay on the SharePoint/Project Server package – more details as soon as I have them.
***Update 3/18 - please see http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectsupport/archive/2013/03/18/project-server-2013-march-public-updates.aspx for the Project Server 2013 update ***
Project 2013 Client Package:
Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2738031
We are working on the specific CU installation options for 2013, but the process hasn’t changed from 2010 – so if you are familiar with 2010 patching or read the 2010 instructions below you should be good to go.
Project and Project Server 2010
This include a number of fixes, so Microsoft strongly recommends that you test this in a test environment based on your production environment before putting this fix live in production.
The article below provides information on how to deploy the Project Server Cumulative Update.
You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server February CUs from the following articles:
Server Rollup Package(Recommended):
Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2767794
Individual Project Server Package:
Only required if you do not install the Server Rollup.
Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760772
The version number is 14.0.6134.5000 *** Update 2/15 *** and you can also expect to see the databases updated to this version number. but there are no database updates - so the DB should upgrade to 14.0.6131.5000 if it wasn't already at that level - sorry for any confusion.
Project 2010 Client Package:
Description of the Project 2010 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): February 12, 2013 (The title may say “Project Server 2010”, and there are some other references to '”server” – just getting this corrected, but this is definitely the client CU.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760778
The version number is 14.0.6134.5000, in case you want to limit the connection of certain patched release to Project Server 2010.
More information on deploying the Cumulative Update:
Updates for Project Server 2010
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/projectserver/gg176680.aspx
As Project Server 2010 is now based on SharePoint Server 2010 we strongly recommend that you install the Project Server 2010 Server Rollup Package as there are a large number of individual server packages for SharePoint Server. The Project Server 2010 Server Rollup Package contains all the patches released in this Cumulative Update for SharePoint Foundation Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010 and Project Server 2010.
As mentioned above, and at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2012/07/18/project-server-2010-from-august-2012-cumulative-update-onwards-you-will-also-need-to-load-sp1.aspx – the August Cumulative Update requires your client and server to already be at the Service Pack 1 (SP1) level – if you get a message saying the patch does not apply to your system then this may be the reason.
SP1 for the Project Server 2010 can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26636
SP1 for the Project Professional 2010 client can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26635 for the 32-bit and http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26627 for the 64-bit.
For those accustomed to Project Server 2007 Cumulative Updates, you should note that the MOSS Server Rollup Package does not contain the Project Server patches. As in Project Server 2007, the Server Rollup Packages are much larger but they will greatly simplify your Project Server patch deployment.
Client Installation:
Installation of the client patch is straightforward and is the same as it was in Project 2007. The instructions for installing the client patch are below.
NOTE: Microsoft strongly recommends testing within a NON-Production environment prior to rollout.
1. Download the hotfix from the link in the KB Article.
2. Extract the patch package by running the .exe file that you downloaded.
3. Run the extracted .exe file to apply the patch to your Project Professional/Standard client.
Project Server 2007
No fixes this month for Project Server 2007 – but listing the WSS and SharePoint patches for reference. This include a number of fixes, so Microsoft strongly recommends that you test this in a test environment based on your production environment before putting this fix live in production.
You can read about the fixes included in the February CU from the following articles:
Server Rollup Packages: Listing the WSS and SharePoint roll-up packages, but as there are no fixes for Project Server these do not include them.
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update server hotfix package (WSS server-package): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760816
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update server hotfix package (MOSS server-package): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760814
Individual Product Packages:
Project 2007 Client Package:
Description of the Project 2007 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): February 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760820
Deploy cumulative updates (Project Server 2007)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239177.aspx
Server Pack 3 for Project and Project Server 2007 has been released. While not required for the August CU, we strongly recommend that you install it as it contains a number of patches to improve performance and reliability. The following blog goes into more detail about SP3.
Office 2007 and SharePoint 2007 Service Pack 3 Availability
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_sustained_engineering/archive/2011/10/25/office-2007-and-sharepoint-2007-service-pack-3-availability.aspx
SP3 may be optional, however, Service Pack 2 for both WSS and Office Servers 2007 are required for this Cumulative Update. The KB articles below provide information on how to download and install SP2 if you have not already done so.
Description of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP2 and of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Language Pack SP2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953338
Description of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Service Pack 2 and of 2007 Microsoft Office servers Language Pack Service Pack 2
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953334
The Server CU is released in two different versions. The first version is in Individual Packages specific to a particular product like WSS and Project Server. These are smaller downloads but they do not include language packs or patches for other products so patches for those products would have to be downloaded and installed separately.
The second version is the Server Rollup Packages. This is a set of two rollup packages which contains all the fixes for WSS, Project Server and MOSS. These packages should be used when MOSS is part of the deployment and/or you have language packs installed. The Server Rollup Packages are much larger but they will greatly simplify MOSS patch deployment.
Client Installation: (For reference – there were no fixes released for Project 2007 client in this cycle)
In order to install this hotfix, you will need to have Microsoft Project 2007 SP2 installed on the client.
Description of Office Project 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of Office Project Language Pack 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953326
Once we know that SP2 is installed, you will install the hotfix by performing the following steps:
1. Download the hotfix from either the KB Article.
3. Run the extracted .exe file to apply the patch to your Project Professional/Standard SP1 client.
Feel free to open a support incident at http://support.microsoft.com if you run into any issues with the installation and we will be happy to help!
This posting came about following an issue spotted my one of our MVP’s, Hans Hoet of Ordina, Belgium. There are a couple of issues that are worth being aware of relating to the automatic provisioning of project sites when you create a new plan from the Project Center in Project Web App (PWA), one relating to the use of Alternate Access Mappings (AAM) in SharePoint Central Administration and the second relating to the use of different looks to your project site templates.
*** Update 3/4/2013 - hopefully a fix for this first issue will get into the April 2013 CU for Project Server 2013 ***
First the issue with AAM. If you have your alternate access mapping configured so that your Default zone uses just your machine name – for example http://project2013, and you then add a mapping for the Internet zone as http://project2013.contoso.com, and you have your PWA site directly under this Url then you will see this problem. It only manifests when sites are created automatically when creating a new plan in PWA, so the steps would be to go to Project Center, create a new pan by selecting New, Enterprise Project (for example), give the new plan a name and then click Save. All appears to be OK and the Schedule web part loads – but if you look at the queue you will see a job, Project Site Update, with a state of Failed But Not Blocking Correlation. The error you will see if clicking on the link will start something like:
General
CreateWssSiteContent: Creating project site failed! Project Uid=bcf03024-4d5b-e211-93f8-00155d74660a, site URL=http://Project2013.contoso.com/PWA/TestProject123, site name=TestProject123. System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x81070907): <nativehr>0x81070907</nativehr><nativestack></nativestack>The folder that would hold URL _/PWA/oso.com/PWA/TestProject123_ does not exist on the server. at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.CreateWeb(
The clue to the problem is the strange URL that it quotes - _/PWA/oso.com/PWA/TestProject123_, and it appears that deep in our code we are doing some substring manipulations and in this specific scenario the two Urls http://Project2013.contoso.com/PWA/TestProject123 and the shorter http://Project2013/PWA/Project2013 are getting crossed and that is where the …oso.com, the end of Contoso.com, is coming from.
There are a couple of easy workarounds, and it could even be considered that these are probably the better way to configure things anyway. The first would be to use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) as the Default zone Url, and then add an Internal Url to the same Default zone for the server name – http://Project2013/. Another option would be to set the FQDN as the Default zone Url and then add the shorter version as the Intranet zone or Custom zone. Either of these would mean that the strings wouldn’t get confused and the site would get created.
On to the second topic – creating and using custom Project Site templates. I’m not specifically covering how you would create a custom template, and this hasn’t really changed much from 2010 – just the place you start from, The Settings ‘Gear’ in the top right, then Site Contents and you can create template site from their. See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2010/03/15/customizing-the-project-site-in-project-server-2010.aspx for the full 2010 details and I’ll probably add a new 2013 version soon. One option for sites in SharePoint 2013 – and this is just as applicable to Project Web App and the Project Sites is to ‘Change the Look’. So for example I can take a new blank (not connected to a project) Project Site – and change the look to one of these delightful samples:
For example I could choose the one in the top right, and also add a new Link to this blog, and then save this as my template.
Then make this the Project Site template that gets used for any new Enterprise Project Type (EPT) of Enterprise Project and create a new plan. What do I get?
Not quite what I was expecting. Well actually I’d done it before and also followed the code in a debug session – so it was what I was expecting… At least this time. When we provision a new site we are also applying the theme of PWA to the site – so this ‘undoes’ some of the customization that you might have expected to see *** update 3/4/2013 (confirmed with the Product Group that this is considered 'by-design' and was a conscious branding decision)***. I do still see my new link – and if I had added content I would still see it (assuming I had checked the option when creating the template to also save the content). I have also seen some issues if you then try to ‘change the look’ of this new site – with the ‘change the look’ page being empty – as if the Gallery contained no options – or in some cases just showing the current version. I think this may be related to the first issue – as in preparing this blog posting and using the workaround for issue 1 of using the FQDN and adding the Internal Url for the machine name all seems to be working OK. Just to prove it I’ve re-applied the same look to this site, which showed as the ‘current’ one anyway (because we had programmatically overwritten some stuff) and got back to:
I still think there is some work to do here both in terms of understanding the themes and the galleries, and for the first issue there is a bug logged, although with the workaround looking OK I’m not sure when this will get fixed. Also I have an ongoing thread with Hans, who brought this to our attention, as in his environment, which includes other AAM settings and is running on Azure VM’s (this technology is in preview, so not currently supported), there are still some provisioning issues. So probably more later perhaps including a posting on the use of Azure virtual machines for Project Server 2013…
I am pleased to announce the arrival of Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Project 2010, Project Server 2010 and of course SharePoint Server 2010. The SharePoint Server 2010 SP2 also Project Server 2010 SP2, so no need to load both if you have a SharePoint + Project farm – just load the SharePoint Server 2010 SP2. *** Update - Looking at the file sizes and descriptions - I suspect the note on the Project Server SP2 KB article is incorrect and should read that 2687452 Includes 2687453 - and not the other way around - so if you have SharePoint and Project Server you just need the Project Server 2010 SP2 - 2687452 ***.
The Service Packs contain all cumulative fixes since SP1, starting with the June 2011 Cumulative Update (CU) and the July 2011 Public Update (PU) all the way through to the April 2013 CU and May 2013 PU. The Service Packs also contain previously unreleased fixes. In addition to general product fixes, these fixes include improvements in stability, performance, and security.The complete list of fixes is available here.
The KB articles and downloads can be found at the following links, and the downloads are also available via the Microsoft Update website.
Project 2010 Service Pack 2 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687457 – with full technical details of the client products at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687523/en-us
Downloads – x86 – x64
Project Server 2010 Service Pack 2 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687452
Download - Download the Microsoft Project Server 2010 Service Pack 2 package now
SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 2 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687453 – with full technical details for the server products at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687524
Download - Download the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 2 package now
For other Office and Sharepoint SP2 packages please visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2687521/
Doing this as a new post – and I will also update the previous one Project Server 2010- Service Pack2 and August 2013 Cumulative Update installation issues. The issue appears to be related to the version stamp of the database version schema (not the usual row we are interested in which is the Project Server DB version) – which SP2 sets at 14.2.151.0 – but ONLY if SP2 actually makes some database updates. In my testing if you apply SP2 and had previously applied the June 2013 cumulative Update (CU) – then there are no more database updates required from SP2 – so the version isn’t touched and stays at 14.1.653.0. If however you were at an earlier CU – or even SP1 – then SP2 will update to 14.2.151.0. The problem is that August CU is set for 14.1.702.0 – and as it sees the ‘newer’ stamp it fails. I’ve repeated the errors down below – for the search engines.
At this stage I’m not sure which is in the wrong – SP2 for setting the ‘2’ – or Aug CU for expecting a ‘1’ – or just the upgrader for not handling it correctly and knowing what to do. But there is a way to resolve this, and it may still be needed for future cumulative Updates too unless we sort it out in the next few weeks. The fix really depends where you are and where you want to be.
1. If you need the August CU for specific fixes and are at SP1+ some other CU already – then just load the August CU – you will not have this issue. 2. If you need a fix that is in SP2, then load the June CU first, and you will not have this issue with the future loading of CUs. 3. If you need both Aug CU and SP2 then you have a couple of choices – either load June CU, SP2 and then Aug CU – or if you want to skip June CU (you will still get all the fixes – but it will not take quite so long) you can use the workaround below after installing SP2 and running the configuration wizard – but before installing and running the config wizard for August.
1. If you need the August CU for specific fixes and are at SP1+ some other CU already – then just load the August CU – you will not have this issue.
2. If you need a fix that is in SP2, then load the June CU first, and you will not have this issue with the future loading of CUs.
3. If you need both Aug CU and SP2 then you have a couple of choices – either load June CU, SP2 and then Aug CU – or if you want to skip June CU (you will still get all the fixes – but it will not take quite so long) you can use the workaround below after installing SP2 and running the configuration wizard – but before installing and running the config wizard for August.
If you are already broken – or you chose the option 3 above then you will need to change the version in the Publish database dbo.Versions table to 14.1.653.0. The easiest way is to open the table in SQL Management Studio for edit and just change the 1 to a 2 (correction 9/19) 14.2.151.0 to 14.1.653.0 – but you can use a SQL statement too - and then run psconfig from the command line with the following syntax – in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\BIN directory.
psconfig -cmd upgrade -inplace b2b -wait -force
Be careful if copying and pasting – the flags use the character next to the 0 on a US keyboard – Word and other editors tend to lengthen it to a –.
Once the command completes then you should see a version in the published DB of 14.1.702.0, and the Project Server DB version showing 14.0.7104.5000.
We have seen some customers hit an issue with duplicate primary keys error on the MSP_TIMESHEET_VIEW_REPORTS_FIELDS table when running the psconfig command – my feeling is this probably occurred as a lower value than 14.1.653.0 was used so it may well have been trying to repeat some SQL updates that had already been applied. Best open a support incident if you hit this problem.
And for the search engines a repeat of the errors…
Configuration Failed – One or more configuration settings failed… Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products. An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.PostSetupConfiguration.TaskException was thrown.
This particular exception can be thrown for many reasons – and the key to the specific failure will be in the upgrade logs, and will read something like this:
One of the symptoms will be that Project Professional can no longer see a list of projects when trying to retrieve the list from PWA – and also if you examine the databases you will see that the version on the Published database has not been upgraded and the number of Views available in the draft database is just 3 – and not the 250 or so you would expect to see.
I am pleased to announce the release of the April 2013 Cumulative Update (CU) for Project, Project Server and SharePoint for 2007, 2010 and 2013. Also for February this is earlier in the month (apart from the delayed shipments – see below), and since December 2012 we are planning to ship the Office Cumulative updates on the 2nd Tuesday (“Patch Tuesday”) of the even months. Feel free to open a support case if you have any questions around this or need assistance getting these patches deployed. Remember that this release for the 2010 products, like all CUs since the August 2012 Cumulative Update, has a hard requirement on Service Pack 1 – see notes below. In most of the KB articles the term hotfix is used in place of Cumulative Update. They tend to be interchangeable terms – a Cumulative Update is just a hotfix built to a schedule.
An important point for Project Server 2013 is the requirement to load the March 2013 Public Update. Another important point to add here is that there was an issue with running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard on a server with Project Server 2013 installed – this is fixed by applying the April CU – so a good practice would be to load the March PU, then the April CU and then run the configuration wizard. I will be adding a separate posting and link back which gives more details on the failure.
You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server April CUs from the following articles:
Project Server 2013 Server Rollup Package
*** Update 5/17 - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2737990 for the rollup package *** There is a slight delay on the SharePoint/Project Server package – more details as soon as I have them, but expectation is for the week of 4/22. Due to the issue with the March PU and running the Configuration Wizard, you could consider loading the individual Project Server patch which does not include the SharePoint updates - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760261 if you need to get the configuration of the March PU completed. If you haven’t yet loaded the March PU then I would suggest waiting for the roll-up package for the April June CU.
Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): April 9, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2768336
Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package): April 9, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2775426
Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): April 9, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2791064
I’ll update with the DB version shortly. *** Update 9/24/2013 - The DB will show 14.0.6136.5000 ***
Description of the Project 2010 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): April 9, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2794664
The client version number is 14.0.6137.5000, in case you want to limit the connection of certain patched release to Project Server 2010.
No fixes this month for Project or Project Server 2007 – but listing the WSS and SharePoint patches for reference. This include a number of fixes, so Microsoft strongly recommends that you test this in a test environment based on your production environment before putting this fix live in production.
*** Update 4/12 - Sorry - there is an update for Project Server 2007 - but no separate CU, it is included in the MOSS server-package listed below. Thanks Adrian for correcting me. ***
You can read about the fixes included in the April CU from the following articles:
Description of the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cumulative update server hotfix package (WSS server-package): April 9, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2799869
Description of the SharePoint Server 2007 cumulative update server hotfix package (MOSS server-package): April 9, 2013
*** Update 4/12 - The MOSS server package includes a fix for Project Server 2007 - The Next and Previous buttons on the review timesheet detail page work in reverse. For example, when you click the Next button, the previous page is displayed. ***
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2799867
In Project Server 2013 we have moved some of the Server Settings options that were familiar to people in Project Server 2010, and in Project Online there are other changes to these server settings due to the nature of the service offering – and the fact that you no longer have to manage the server as we do that for you. From early feedback it is clear there is still some confusion about the changes so thought I’d post some explanation. I’ll do a follow up post for Project Online so as not to get too confusing in the one post (I hope) – but here goes for Project Server 2013.
*** Update 3/19 - MVP Alex Burton did a good comparison during the preview, and a neat tool http://epmsource.com/2012/09/08/project-server-2010-2013-preview-setting-comparison/ - thanks for the reminder Alex***
In Project Server 2010 Server Settings was available in the left navigation for administrators and it looked like this:-
And in Project Server 2013 we now have a few different places so find the same settings, and the first challenge can be that we have a stripped down menu and by default and Server Settings is gone from the left navigation. A couple of solutions to this – either use the EDIT LINKS option to make Server Settings appear on the left – or use the new navigation from the gear icon in the top right and select PWA Settings.
This will bring up the PWA Settings page which may look like this:
I say ‘may look like this’ because some of the options will depend on the permissions mode you are currently using. This is new to Project Server 2013 and is well described in the TechNet article ‘Plan user access in Project Server 2013’ at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161361.aspx. In my screenshot I am in the default, SharePoint Permissions mode – so I am missing a few options compared to the following shot from another instance on my server in Project Permissions mode.
As you can see, with Project Permissions mode comes a new section on Security with the familiar options from the 2010 Security section in the top left of the first screen shot – and a couple of extra options in the Personal Settings – for managing and acting as delegates. Delegation isn’t a feature that is available when you are using SharePoint Permissions. Also this shows that Personal Settings is now a subset of PWA Settings and not its own menu option. The security section isn’t applicable to SharePoint Permissions mode as all control is governed by SharePoint rather than by Project’s groups and categories. This also covers project sites too – so the User Sync section goes away too in SharePoint Permissions mode. Also note that what was called Project Sites is now covered by Connected SharePoint sites.
So what are we still missing? PWA Settings covers the Security, Look and Feel. and Time and Task Management sections but we are missing some options in Workflow and Project Detail Pages, Enterprise Data, Queue and Database Administration and Operational Policies.
Some of these are in the ‘other’ Server Settings page – and there a re a couple of ways to get there and I’m including both just for completeness. They both come from Central Administration and reflect the fact that these settings are not generally items that the PMO should be needing to worry about but are more for the farm administrator. The first route starts at Central Administration, General Application Settings from the left navigation.
Then click Manage under PWA Settings. The other route is via the Service Application , so you would click on Application Management from the left navigation then Manage service application under Service Applications.
Within the Manage Service Applications screen you would click on Project Server Service Application – or just select the row and click Manage
And finally in the Manage Project Web Apps page you would select the Url you wanted to manage and using the drop down menu from that line you would select Manage
The first route is the shortest – but if you already happen to be in the page above then worth knowing about this other route too. Before moving on from that page though, there is one of our missing options! Manage Queue Settings for Project Web App! This is now a farm wide setting rather than a per PWA setting – so it is found on the Manage Project Web Apps page.
This next screenshot is the PWA Settings page and the thing to note is that you are in Central Administration and you can manage settings here for ALL of your PWA sites. If you used the 2nd option through Manage PWA then the right PWA will be selected – but if you arrived via General Application Settings you will need to check and if necessary change the PWA site for which you wish to manage the settings. The place to do that is highlighted.
Here we have the other Queue and Database Administration options, with Manage Queue Jobs also available here – and the Operational Policies that were missing from the menu within PWA – and finally the Project Workflow Settings option. So I think the only things missing are Enterprise Global – and About Project Server. Enterprise Global is now managed from Project Professional 2013 – from the Info tab of the File menu – under Organizer. About Project Server does not have an equivalent option in Project Server 2013.
As mentioned I will follow up with a comparison of options to Project Online – and may also have some posting about individual options if any changes in behavior warrant it. Feel free to post any questions you have!
As we approach the anniversary of Project Online’s release I thought it was worth highlighting a few of the usability changes we have made over the intervening months. Thanks to the product group for making this happen – but thanks also to our customers for some of the great feedback that has led to some of these changes. The latest changes first – and we have made it far easier for users of PWA that also have a license for Project Pro for Office 365 to find the download – now we have it right in the Get Started carousel. This one is rolling out right now – if you don’t see it yet then it should be to your Project Online environment within the next week:
And the hover over tells you what this gets you – richer views and reports!
If you’ve already removed the Get Started carousel and want to take a new look – then just clicking the Gear icon and the Getting Started menu item will show you the same things.
And if you want it back on your home page – it is a Web Part so you can edit the page and find it listed under the Project Web App category.
You may have noticed another recent addition in the Get Started carousel too – just to the left of the Project Pro for Office 365 download link – the ‘New to Project Online?’ link.
This will take you to our TechNet page with plenty more useful information to help your journey with Project Online. If you’ve got this far then you (or someone in your organization) has already carried out step 1 – but steps 2 and 3 will help get people and projects into your new online environment.
What else? Well sometimes a blank page can be daunting – so we added some guidance if you aren’t seeing any projects to your Project Center:
Clicking ‘changing your view’ will bring the ribbon into play and show you the views dropdown:
Or ‘add a project’ will bring up a wizard to get you started with a new project – Or offer some other ways to get projects into your system:
*** Update 1/23 – even I got caught out with the new stuff here and didn’t have the lastest UI – so swapping out the next screenshot for the new ones. This is the same experience you will see if you click on the left hand tile in the Get Started carousel – Create or import projects
Here we see the out of the box SharePoint Task List and Enterprise Project – as well as a couple of extra Enterprise Project Types I have added to my system. I select Enterprise Project and click next:
Then I enter my project name, as well as any other information a different Enterprise Project Type might need in terms of custom fields, then click finish. It will show working on it…, and then Hold on, creating he project and will then take you to the schedule page to begin entering your tasks:
end of updated screen shots ***
(We have also added wizards to the New Project experience in Project Center.)
*** Update 4/16/2014 - All fixed up - the new project wizard will be coming back over the next few days or so ***
*** Update 1/23 - There is a slight issue with the New Project experience from the ribbon in Project Center right now, and users may see the 'Working on it..." dialog just carry on spinning. You should find that if you go to the Project Center it will have actually created your new plan. Sorry for this inconvenience - I understand a timing issue with some required css updates led to this - but it should be resolved soon. ***
More magic to come – if you are creating a SharePoint Task list project then we take you straight to Edit mode – the original experience didn’t make it clear what you needed to do next. So you get this:
rather than this:
Much better I think!
And there’s more… After you add your first task – it will automatically be added it to the timeline – just so you get the idea how it works and where to go to add further tasks to the timeline.
Another very useful addition to the project site is a way to get back to the Project Center – the ‘Projects’ link in the left navigation pane:
And following that link back we can get to one more of our new additions – more call-outs in Project Center. Each project now has a quick way to see status, open or share the plan – or a few more quick links to delete, edit the resource plan, build team or go to the project site.
I hope you are finding all these changes useful and if you think we are still missing some tricks then I’d be more than glad to have comments. Also thinking that we should switch gears and start pre-announcing some of this stuff so you know what is coming. Thoughts?
I’ve run into this “Token contains invalid signature” issue with SharePoint and Project Server 2013 workflows a couple of times, and also referred to in the logs as Invalid JWT token – and the error shows “invalid client” too. The symptom is the workflow starts but then shows as cancelled – and hitting the additional workflow information page for Project Server workflows and the information icon will give the error at the foot of the posting (for search engine consumption…) – and the forums tend to say that just wait a day and it goes away but no one that I could find knew what the overnight change was…. Well today wasn’t a day I wanted to wait – so I had a look around for which daily timer jobs might help things work. I tried a few service restarts first – but finally found the “Refresh Trusted Security Token Services Metadata feed” timer job – clicked the Run Now button – then tried another workflow and all was good!
I hope this helps someone – and I’d also like validation if this does work for you as I am not 100% sure it was what fixed my issue. With these things that can just start working again it could have been something else. Change in the wind perhaps?
*** Update 1/14/2014 - Thanks to Hans Bellen of UMT for validating that this is the timer job - and he also had some other guidance:
- Make sure you run the WF as a non-system account
- If this is a new farm, run the following timer jobs in SharePoint
1.Workflow Auto Cleanup 2.Notification Timer Job c02c63c2-12d8-4ec0-b678-f05c7e00570e 3.Hold Processing and Reporting 4.Bulk workflow task processing5.Refresh Trusted Security Token Services Metadata feed [Farm job – Daily]
*** End Update
Here is the full error information:
RequestorId: ab0ccadd-86a9-592e-40cb-22e59fbbf08d. Details: System.ApplicationException: HTTP 401 {"x-ms-diagnostics":["3000006;reason=\"Token contains invalid signature.\";category=\"invalid_client\""],"SPRequestGuid":["b70e7628-6c00-49b5-a06a-db91bcf2c0ec"],"request-id":["b70e7628-6c00-49b5-a06a-db91bcf2c0ec"],"X-FRAME-OPTIONS":["SAMEORIGIN"],"SPRequestDuration":["114"],"SPIisLatency":["1"],"Server":["Microsoft-IIS\/8.0"],"WWW-Authenticate":["Bearer realm=\"5418e74f-0449-4a4c-a1be-ba58377ac362\",client_id=\"00000003-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000\",trusted_issuers=\"00000005-0000-0000-c000-000000000000@*,00000003-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000@5418e74f-0449-4a4c-a1be-ba58377ac362\"","NTLM"],"X-Powered-By":["ASP.NET"],"MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices":["15.0.0.4535"],"X-Content-Type-Options":["nosniff"],"X-MS-InvokeApp":["1; RequireReadOnly"],"Date":["Mon, 13 Jan 2014 22:15:08 GMT"]} at Microsoft.Activities.Hosting.Runtime.Subroutine.SubroutineChild.Execute(CodeActivityContext context) at System.Activities.CodeActivity.InternalExecute(ActivityInstance instance, ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager) at System.Activities.Runtime.ActivityExecutor.ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation)
and the ULS logs will say something like:
01/13/2014 14:15:09.25 w3wp.exe (0x2FB8) 0x1E88 SharePoint Foundation Application Authentication ajez0 High SPApplicationAuthenticationModule: Invalid token or signature. Exception: System.IdentityModel.Tokens.SecurityTokenException: Invalid JWT token. Could not resolve issuer token. at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadTokenCore(String token, Boolean isActorToken) at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadActor(IDictionary`2 payload) at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadTokenCore(String token, Boolean isActorToken) at Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.SPApplicationAuthenticationModule.TryExtractAndValidateToken(HttpContext httpContext, SPIncomingTokenContext& tokenContext) 529744b4-b81b-4728-b2f7-ddaebb0e6e1e
01/13/2014 14:15:09.27 w3wp.exe (0x2FB8) 0x1E88 SharePoint Foundation Application Authentication ajezq High SPApplicationAuthenticationModule: Error authenticating request, Error details: Header: 3000006;reason="Token contains invalid signature.";category="invalid_client", Body: {"error_description":"Invalid JWT token. Could not resolve issuer token."} 529744b4-b81b-4728-b2f7-ddaebb0e6e1e
01/13/2014 14:15:09.27 w3wp.exe (0x2FB8) 0x1E88 SharePoint Foundation General 8nca Medium Application error when access /PWA/_vti_bin/client.svc, Error=Invalid JWT token. Could not resolve issuer token. at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadTokenCore(String token, Boolean isActorToken) at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadActor(IDictionary`2 payload) at Microsoft.IdentityModel.S2S.Tokens.JsonWebSecurityTokenHandler.ReadTokenCore(String token, Boolean isActorToken) at Microsoft.SharePoint.IdentityModel.SPApplicationAuthenticationModule.TryExtractAndValidateToken(HttpContext httpContext, SPIncomingTokenContext& tokenContext) 529744b4-b81b-4728-b2f7-ddaebb0e6e1e
This is an issue that was found by one of our premier customers when making an annual rate change to their resource rates using a custom application and the Resource PSI web service. They were finding that the updated rates were not present when they opened plans after the rate change – but if they created a new local cache by adding a new profile/account pointing to the same PWA then they would see the new rates.
We tracked the problem down to a bug in the PSI whereby when an update is made using UpdateResources and it only affects the ResourceRatesDataTable, and none of the other data tables in the dataset, then we were not triggering the versioning increment for the resource. This meant that when Project Professional was loaded then if it already had data for the resource then it would not refresh – as it incorrectly thought it already had the right data.
This also applies to Project Server 2007, Project Server 2010 and Project Server 2013. We will be updating the SDK with the following workaround, and it is quite simply. And this isn’t scheduled for a fix in the near future, so if you are using the PSI to update rates then worth reading on.
Just a short snippet of code just at the point where the UpdateResources is called for the dataset
SvcResource.ResourceDataSet changesDS = new SvcResource.ResourceDataSet();
changesDS.Resources.Merge(resDs.Tables[resDs.Resources.TableName], true);
changesDS.ResourceRates.Merge(resDs.Tables[resDs.ResourceRates.TableName], true);
_psi.ResourceClient.UpdateResources(changesDS, false, true);
The workaround would be to add a line to set another part of the dataset as modified
changesDS.Resources.FindByRES_UID(curRes.RES_UID).SetModified();
In this case there is now a .SetModified() for the main Resources data table for our updated resource. This is enough to let ensure the revision counter for the resource gets updated and then Project Professional will know to reload the resource when next it opens.
Sorry for the inconvenience this bug might cause you.
One of our common questions coming in to Microsoft Project Support right now is from customers wanting to add Project Online to their existing Office365 tenants, but finding that Project Online is not yet an option for them. The reason for this is that Project Online is part of the latest release announced on February 27th 2013 - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Feb13/02-27OfficeCommercialGAPR.aspx and as such requires the same underlying SharePoint platform as that release. For existing customers who were running Office365 before this latest release you will unfortunately need to wait for the upgrade of your current tenant before you are able to add Project Online. Details of the upgrade process can be found at the following links:
I know many of you are eager to get up and running with Project Online and certainly we thank you for your enthusiasm and excitement around our new product – but you will need to be patient if you want it within the same tenant (and you probably do!). You should receive e-mail 2 to 3 weeks before your upgrade is due. In the meantime there is plenty of good content on TechNet to get thinking and planning for Project Online, as well as the Office site here and here. Be aware though that as I write this the trial options are over-subscribed so may not be available via some of the inviting links on TechNet and other Microsoft sites.
Thanks to Marc for the original research and posting this item on the French blog - http://blogs.technet.com/b/frenchpjblog/archive/2012/12/24/3542467.aspx and to Jorge for the Spanish version at http://blogs.technet.com/b/elfarodeprojectserver/archive/2012/12/26/project-server-2010-se-paran-y-desactivan-los-servicios-de-eventos-y-cola.aspx.
For those whose English is better than their French or Spanish – read on. This is something we have seen quite a few calls on, and the initial symptom is that Project Server 2010 queue jobs were not getting processed, they were just ‘waiting to be processed’. Nothing appeared to be blocking these queue jobs and no ‘processing’ jobs were seen. One closer examination, even though the Project Application Service was started within Central Administration – if you actually looked in the Services applet in the operating system you would see that the Services "Microsoft Project Server Event Service 2010" and "Microsoft Project Server Queue Service 2010" were not only stopped, but disabled.
And even if you enabled and restarted the service they would get disabled again – and the queue would stop processing.
Marc’s research showed that the disabling of the service occurred when the Hourly Health Analysis job was executed by the SharePoint TImer service;
specifically the rule that checks for services that have started or stopped unexpectedly;
To validate if this is indeed the issue causing your queue problems (as there could be other causes) you can just select the rule and ‘Run now’. You should then see the services stopped and disabled and in the ULS logs the following rows can be found:
OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1A60)
0x0C48
SharePoint Foundation
Health
ag78
Verbose
Checking the Microsoft Project Server Queuing Service windows service instance.
0000
Entered SPAdvApi32.IsServiceRunning(ProjectQueueService14)
ag7d
The service is not disabled, but should be.
8fs1
Finished invoking the Check() method. The rule Failed
8fs4
Medium
Automatic repair is being attempted.
Entered SPAdvApi32.IsServiceRunning(SPAdminV4)
Entered SPAdvApi32.StopService(ProjectQueueService14)
Microsoft.Office.Project.Server (0x1A08)
0x22B0
Project Server
8zdx
High
[SERVICE] ProjectQueueService14: shutting down
The rule is somehow detecting that the service should be disabled and so is making the change. Again, Marc did some great detective work here and discovered that even though the Service Application was ‘Started’ as per the screen shot above, the following PowerShell commands would return ‘Disabled’
((Get-SPFarm).)Services| where {$ _.}Name - match "ProjectQueueService14"}) .instances ((Get-SPFarm).)Services| where {$ _.}Name - match "ProjectEventService14"}) .instances
((Get-SPFarm).)Services| where {$ _.}Name - match "ProjectQueueService14"}) .instances
((Get-SPFarm).)Services| where {$ _.}Name - match "ProjectEventService14"}) .instances
This inconsistency in the state of these services was leading to them being disabled by the Health check.
We still have no good explanation why this situation occurs, but there is a way to stop it happening. Again we use PowerShell and we need to run the following command on all the servers on which the services are installed:
Start-SPServiceInstance - Identity < Id >
where Id is the Id returned by the earlier Get-SPFarm command for the specific services, Sometimes we have seen that this will still not resolve the issue immediately and you may need to clean the configuration cache and then stop and start the service instance:
Stop-SPServiceInstance - Identity < Id > Start-SPServiceInstance - Identity < Id >
Stop-SPServiceInstance - Identity < Id >
As mentioned earlier – there can be other reasons for a slow or stopped queue – see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2012/09/19/when-your-project-server-queue-slows-down.aspx for some examples, but glad that Marc managed to clear this one up. Thanks again Marc, and to Jorge for reposting in Spanish.
*** Update 5/17/2013 - That update was a little too quick and totally wrong... Thanks to Tony Blackburn of QuantumPM for putting me straight. The rollup package was released and is available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2737990. The note below should have been targeted at the April 2013 MSO updates and not SharePoint Server. Sorry for the false alarm and confusion everyone! ***
Quick update – I mentioned in the original April CU release e-mail - http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectsupport/archive/2013/04/11/microsoft-project-server-2007-2010-and-2013-april-2013-cu-announcement.aspx that there was a delay in the rollup package for Project Server 2013 which includes the Sharepoint Server fixes – and delay got to a point where the decision was taken to NOT release the SharePoint package for April (and therefore also not release a rollup) but hold off for the June 2013 Cumulative Update. If you are waiting for a Project Server fix then no problem – we already released the April CU just for Project Server – 2760261, but if you want the rollup then you should wait until June. If you are waiting for a specific SharePoint fix that was due in April then I suggest you talk with your SharePoint support contact about getting these earlier than June.
Interesting question came in from one of our good partners, Campana and Schott, concerning the update of the connection string for Excel reports based on OData when moving the Excel books between different Project Online tenants. This works just fine when just using the normal Excel features such as PivotTables – but you run into issues when you use add-ins such as the PowerPivot add-in for Excel 2013 – ( See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/whats-new-in-powerpivot-in-excel-2013-HA102893837.aspx for details of this interesting add-in ).
I’ll walk through the steps with a few screenshots just so it makes it clear what I’m talking about.
First I open Excel 2013, then on the DATA tab I select the From Other Sources option on the Get External Data section – and choose the OData option. In the dialog I enter a link to my OData feed of “https://blogfodder.sharepoint.com/sites/pwa/_api/ProjectData/Projects”
Then choose my Projects table (the only one showing as my Url was direct to my Projects)
And click Finish on the following dialog:
At this point I could just create a connection but I’ll choose a PivotTable report, as I don’t have much data so it won’t take long.
Selecting Project Name and Project Work gives me my simple list of names and total of work – and show how imaginative I am with my project naming on my test server.
At this point I could save the Excel workblook to the document library of my site – but I’ll just save locally as this step doesn’t really matter.
I now wanted to use this against a different Project Online PWA instance – so I can just open the Connections option on the DATA tab, select the datafeed and click Properties.
Under the Definition tab of the Connection Properties I can then change the Url, both in the Source section, and in the Base Url section and all will be good! I might also want to change the name – as it picks up the name from the original Url – but it doesn’t matter if you leave it the same (it will just confuse you and your users – but not Excel!)
I get a message when I click OK telling me that the connection in this workbook will no longer be identical to the connection defined in the external file located in my …\Documents\My Data Sources\DataFeed_1_blogfodder-sharepoint-com.odc file – and it will be removing the link to the file. I’m ok with that – so click Yes, and then close the Workbook connections dialog (when it has stopped thinking…)
The page refreshes and I see the list of Projects from the new instance I am referencing – though the Project names are just as unimaginative!
So no problem to change the data connection in this simple case. However, lets introduce PowerPivot into the mix.
I’ll follow the same steps – but this time I have activated the PowerPivot add-in for Excel 2013 – through the COM add-ins option in FILE, Options, Add-ins and Manage – selecting COM add-ins from the drop down:
I then have a POWERPIVOT tab and its own ribbon commands.
First I’ll follow the steps above to create the data connection, which I can then use for PowerPivot. I’ll not create the PivotTable this time. Once I have this data connection I can click the Manage option which opens the PowerPivot window, and I can see it has pulled in my data
I am going to make a simple edit – just to simulate some customization of my data – and change the heading EnterpriseProjectTypeDescription to EPTDesc (Right-click column heading – Rename Column) then save my workbook.
If I now want that PowerPivot to point somewhere else I go back to the sheet and the original connection and it has a message for me – Some properties cannot be changed because this connection was modified using PowerPivot add-in – the connection string area is greyed out.
:
And if I try and change in PowerPivot itself then all ways to change either directly in the feed Url or in the Advanced section just gives the same error – Cannot connect to the specified feed. Verify the connection and try again. Reason: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error.
The PowerPivot folks have confirmed this is a limitation when using PowerPivot and are putting together some documentation.
There are possible alternatives – Trutz Stephani at Campana and Schott used a combination of tables and additional calculated columns to make it easier to have a re-deployable workbook. I took a look at Power Query too – part of the latest set of Power BI tools (Find out more at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powerbi/) – but the connection string is not in any form where you’d know what to change to move between instances – so no help there.
Thanks to Trutz from Campana and Schott, and to Jules from our support team for suggesting this might make a useful blog posting.
This also applies to Project Server 2013, but as the biggest impact is probably to Odata and this is likely to be used more in a Project Online environment I’ve tagged the title with Project Online. Thanks to Chris Slowinski for identifying this Odata issue and alerting us via a forum posting.
If you create a project level custom field and use certain terms they can lead to issues with the Odata feed of the Project table, and you can get an error in Excel like the following, reading “We couldn’t get data from the Data Model. Here’s the error message we got: The content of the data feed is not valid for an Atom feed.”
If you looked at the feed in a browser (with a Url something like http://servername/pwa/_api/ProjectData/Projects then the error would be “An error occurred while processing this request”. Be careful – you can also get the same error with simple typos in the Url – so just getting that error may not mean you have used a reserved name in a customer field. The most common custom field we have seen used that hits this issue is Project ID, and as the Odata feed will also remove spaces you will see the same issue with ProjectID. Another known field to run into this is Project Owner ID, or ProjectOwnerID (or other variations). I suspect there could be others, and potentially others at other levels such as task and resource may affect access to tables related to those entities.
There are a few other names that cause the other problem described in the title, but which don’t give the Odata error, and these are:
You will also see the issue with local language versions, such as Descripción del Proyecto in Spanish.
This issue occurs when you are creating projects from list items – so for example you have your list of potential projects in a list, then you select one of the items in the list and click Create Project. In this example I am aiming to create a new project called Project Idea 2. Don’t confuse this scenario with making a project from the full list – here we are only using one list item – this isn’t sync tasks to project..
Usually you would get a dialog to map your list fields to the project fields and instead you get an error:
For Project Online you should click the TECHINCAL DETAILS link and then open a support incident giving us the correlation ID and date and time (or just check if you are using a reserved word in your custom fields – and change it) – and for on-premises installations you could check the ULS logs yourself and would likely see something like the following:
07/24/2013 07:11:52.39 w3wp.exe (0x2494) 0x1914 SharePoint Foundation Runtime tkau Unexpected System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added. at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add) at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Add(TKey key, TValue value) at Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.ApplicationPages.PwaSettings.FillPSFields() at Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.ApplicationPages.PwaSettings.Initialize() at Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.ApplicationPages.PwaSettings..ctor(PwaSettingsDlg dlg) at Microsoft.Office.Project.PWA.ApplicationPages.PwaSettingsDlg.OnInit(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) fb8964fc-6af4-e211-940b-00155d745a02
The fix is pretty straightforward as the custom field name is editable – just make it different from our reserved words and all will be good. We should be updating our documentation to cover these reserved words. Thanks to Sriram and Aik for their work in identifying this issue.
A problem that has been around for a little while has ben when re-opening a PivotTable that was created from the OLAP templates within the Business Intelligence (BI) Center within Project Web App (PWA) you will see an error – We found a problem with some content in ‘NameofSpreadsheet.xlsx’. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes. As much as we could recover was generally nothing – perhaps some text remained but the PivotTable was gone…
Clicking Yes would bring up a second dialog title Repairs to ‘NameofSpreadsheet.xlsx’ containing the text something like:
Removed Part: /xl/pivotCache/pivotCacheDefinition1.xml part with XML error. (PivotTable cache) Load error. Line 2, column 0. Removed Feature: PivotTable report from /xl/pivotTables/pivotTable1.xml part (PivotTable view)
This has been fixed by an Excel update – and as near as I can tell version 15.0.4517.1001 will get you past this issue. This can be found via KB 2817339 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2817339/en-us.
Also please note that the bad stuff appears to happen on save – so if a saved xlsx is already giving this error then a patched Excel won’t recover it – but just allow you to save a new one that won’t get corrupted.
If you use click 2 run then you will likely already have been patched to this level or beyond.
The February Cumulative Update that should have been released last month for Project Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013, was delayed due to some late breaking problems. It was decided that due to the nature of these issues the best resolution was to release the planned fixes, along with the March Public Updates on Patch Tuesday, last week. This applied to both the SharePoint and Project Server 2013 updates and all the associated technologies. This also becomes the new baseline for all future updates – so you will need to install this patch before you could install, for example, the April 2013 CU.
*** Update 4/11 - see http://blogs.technet.com/b/projectsupport/archive/2013/04/11/project-server-2013-march-public-update-problems-running-the-sharepoint-configuration-wizard.aspx for details of an issue running the configuration wizard after applying the March PU ***
The following are the packages for the client and the server. The client was released on time – just listing here again for completeness. You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server February CUs from the following articles:
Project 2013 Client Package: For Project Professional 2013 and Project Standard 2013 Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): February 12, 2013 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2738031 Project Server 2013 Package: Includes all updates for Project Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 Description of the Project Server 2013 update: March 12, 2013 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2768001
Project 2013 Client Package: For Project Professional 2013 and Project Standard 2013
Project Server 2013 Package: Includes all updates for Project Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013
Description of the Project Server 2013 update: March 12, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2768001
The deployment of the Server update is the same as for SharePoint 2013 and previous versions of Project Server. The SharePoint article can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff806331.aspx.
This is a follow up post to the one on Project Server 2013 Server Settings and covers the Server Settings options in Project Online. If you are new to Project Online and never used Project Server 2010 or Project Server 2013 then you probably don’t need to read further. You won’t miss what you never had! This posting is more for the folks transitioning or just wanting to know the differences. In this context I find it much easier to think of Project Online as a new separate product rather than think of it as Project Server 2013 hosted by Microsoft. They might be siblings – but they are not identical twins.
In Project Online there are changes to server settings due to the nature of the service offering – and the fact that you no longer have to manage the server as we do that for you. From early feedback it is clear there is some confusion around some of the apparently missing options so an explanation follows..
And in Project Online we now have a couple of different ways to get to the same settings – either use the EDIT LINKS option to make Server Settings appear on the left – or use the new navigation from the gear icon in the top right and select PWA Settings. A clue here that this really is Project Online – the top left says Office 365 rather than SharePoint – which you would see with Project Server 2013 – and the menu with PWA Settings shows the Office 365 Settings option (preview in my case).
I say ‘may look like this’ because some of the options will depend on the permissions mode you are currently using. This is similar to Project Server 2013 and is well described in the TechNet article ‘Plan user access in Project Server 2013’ at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161361.aspx, but for Project Online there is a way to change permission modes through the UI of the Office 365 Admin page – and you can bring up the following screen by selecting your PWA site then clicking the drop down menu from Project Web App in the ribbon and selecting Settings.
The article at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-project-online-help/change-permission-management-in-project-web-app-for-project-online-HA103433509.aspx titled Change permission management in Project Web App for Project Online gives all the details – please heed the WARNING section. Changing modes loses any existing permissions you may have set and they won’t come back if you reset back again.
In my initial PWA Settings screenshot above I am in the default, SharePoint Permissions mode – so I am missing a few options compared to the following shot from another instance on my server in Project Permissions mode.
For Project Online that is all you get and all you need. If you read the other article on Project Server 2013 you will have realized that some of the server settings were moved to Central Administration and as in the Project Online world we administer the server then all those options are handled for you – or are not applicable to the Project Online product line.
For example the options of OLAP Database Management, Server side event handlers, Alerts and Reminders and Administrative Backup and Restore are not applicable as those features are not present in Project Online. The queue is something you can view your jobs for – but not something you can choose to change control settings for – and likewise you do not need to access the Project Workflow Settings option. For Project Site provisioning the process is more controlled with Project Online – so again this obviates the need for getting at the settings. For existing customers making the transition this last change may need some procedural changes – perhaps creating your project sites first in your location of choice and then linking to a plan – if you are used to the fine control over exactly where you sites gets created.
*** Update 3/20 - I should also clarify that you will always get a site created for a project - there is no ability to turn this off in Project Online - though of course you can always delete them afterwards ***
I’d be glad to answer any questions you may have regarding PWA Settings in Project Online or Project Server 2013.
I am very pleased to announce the release of the October 2013 Cumulative Update (CU) for Project, Project Server and SharePoint for 2010 and 2013. Feel free to open a support case if you have any questions around this or need assistance getting these patches deployed. Remember that this release for the 2010 products, like all CUs since the August 2012 Cumulative Update, has a hard requirement on Service Pack 1 – see notes below. In most of the KB articles the term hotfix is used in place of Cumulative Update. They tend to be interchangeable terms – a Cumulative Update is just a hotfix built to a schedule. I should also point out that the individual Project Server packages are only ‘individual’ in the sense that they do not include the SharePoint patches – they are still cumulative and the October CU will contain all previous CU releases (at least back to the applicable baseline Service Pack (SP1 for 2010 and March PU in the case of Project Server 2013).
An important point for Project Server 2013, as was the case also for the April, June and August CU, is the requirement to load the March 2013 Public Update. Another important point to add here is that there was an issue with running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard on a server with Project Server 2013 installed – this is fixed by applying the April or June CU – so a good practice would be to load the March PU, then the October CU and then run the configuration wizard (if you didn’t already load the April, June or August CU).
Finally, the October 2013 CU for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010, can be installed with Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010 SP2 – and overcomes the issues seen with the August 2013 CU under certain conditions where the database upgrader would fail.
You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server August CUs from the following articles:
Description of the Project Server 2013 cumulative update package (Project server-package): October 2013 – not released just yet – more information later **** Update 12/2/2013 - this package will not be released - you can however load the Project Server package listed below and the SharePoint package http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825647 to achieve the same fixes. ***
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825650
Description of the Project Server 2013 hotfix package (Projectserverwfe-x-none.msp): October 8, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825659
This CU does not update the Project Server database – so no version change unless you are updating from pre- August 2013 CU – in which case you will see the same as you would if loading the August CU - version 15.0.4525.1000 – and in 2013 with just one database the table to look in is dbo.Versions. The Versions tables in the other schemas are empty.
Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): October 8, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825651
The client version number will be 15.0.4551.1001 if you want to restrict the client version that can connect to the server. It would appear the server version is also at this same level if you load the October 2013 CU so no problems controlling versions with this number. See Project Server 2013- Controlling the version of connecting clients–and PWA edits- for more details – this was an issue with the August CU – and could also catch you out if you haven’t patched your server but try and control the client to October 2013 CU.
Also note that Click to Run installations will be automatically patched, usually within a month. Installations in Enterprise Environments that have been modified will be deployed based on the schedule determined by your Administrator.
Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package):October 8, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825793
Individual Project Server Package (Cumulative – but only the Project Server patches):
Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): October 8, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825803
The Project Server databases will be updated to version 14.0.7110.5001
Description of the Project 2010 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): October 8, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2825812
The client version number is 14.0.7109.5000, in case you want to limit the connection of certain patched release to Project Server 2010.
The instructions for installing the client patch are below.
Take 2 – just in case you thought you saw this post coming earlier…
I’ve had a few questions recently around the behavior of timesheets in Project Server 2010 and 2013 (and Project Online) when projects, tasks or assignments are deleted. Some of this relates to bugs – other behavior is expected, and it is different if single entry mode is enabled. Thanks to Shazeb Khan, Michael Wharton, Elli Johnston and Randy Slycord for some of the questions and answers that led to this posting – and skip to the And finally section at the bottom for a timesheet status bug we are looking to fix..
Firstly it is worth reviewing the article on TechNet Best practices for submitting and reporting on actual work, which, although written for 2010 is still applicable for Online and 2013. That suggests using Single Entry Mode – but I will go on to explain what happens if it is enabled or not.
First with Single Entry mode, and I’m looking specifically at Project Server 2013 – I’ll mention where 2010 differs from this behavior... For this example I have just a couple of projects, three timesheets; one approved, one submitted and one saved. Each has lines from each plan – then I delete one of the plans…
What happens next is a little like Schrödinger's cat – the lines in some of the timesheets are still there – as long as you don’t try to observe them (well not a perfect analogy as you can look in the database – but mentioning a cat in the blog must push this up the page ranking!). In the database (reporting schema) we see that the Approved lines are still there (TimesheetLineStatus = 1), the pending lines are still pending (0) and one of the Pending Approval lines is now rejected (2) with a comment of “The timesheet has been rejected because it contained at least one task from a project that has been deleted.”
If I look at the MSP_TimesheetActual table I still see all 30 rows (5 entries for each of the 2 plans for 3 weeks). Now I’ll open my timesheet…
Remember I mentioned a bug? Well here it is. Clicking OK gives ‘An unknown error has occurred’.
This will be fixed in the April 2014 Cumulative Update for Project Server 2013. This will also cause an issue in the Approval Center – giving an error ‘One or more categories of approval could not be loaded’. Thanks Michael Wharton for asking about this message – the term categories is not referring to anything like the Project Server categories – just being used generically.
I can recall my timesheet and then remove the Rejected line and resubmit.
For the timesheet that was just saved I currently see slightly different behavior between 2010 and 2013. In 2013 I still see the line for my assignment to the deleted project. And I can re-save – but if I submit my timesheet then I get an error. This is also related to the April 2014 fix.
In 2010 the database almost looks the same, but I did notice something I hadn’t seen before – and haven’t had a chance to check for any different settings – but I have 42 actual lines rather than 30 – I see line entries for the weekend – zero hours as I might expect – but these aren’t seen in 2013. If I look at the timesheet that was saved and not submitted the assignment to the deleted project no longer shows, but it is not until I save that the line is removed from the database (this is the Schrödinger's cat part). So if you are reporting on the timesheets you may still see lines for plans that have been deleted – if the user has not opened and saved the current timesheet after the plan was deleted. The lines are still there – unless you look at them. Even the pending approval lines can appear to disappear – as the change in status to rejected may also throw out your reports for lines that had not been approved – if you are using the TimesheetLineStatus field. This was a conversation from the Project Conference with Elli Johnston as it appeared from reports that we were deleing lines – but it was just a change in status (and this was not single entry – so I’ll look at that next…).
The main difference in single entry mode (apart obviously that the submission of the timesheet does not send status updates) is how the deleted assignments are handled. First 2010. If I follow the same steps as above then instead of the timeline disappearing it get changed, and in place of the project name I see Personal Tasks. Again, not until I save this do I see any change in the database – which still shows the line as pending…
Once I do save however, I will see the TimesheetLineStatus change to a 3 (Not Applicable). This was the specific change that was occurring in Elli’s scenario making it look like line were disappearing from reports – but it was the status had changed. If the timesheet has been submitted or approved then the project name is kept and the status stays good (1).
In 2013 currently the deleted assignment is still present in the timesheet and has a status of 4 (Pending Approval) – this feels like it is part of the bug mentioned above as I’d expect the same behavior as 2010 – I’ll review once I have the April CU loaded and update this posting.
And finally…
Another condition we have seen with timesheet status (not line status) in Project Server 2013, not related to deletion of projects, is that you can get the wrong timesheet status value in the reporting tables under certain conditions. An approved timesheet should show the status of 3, but this is being reset to 0 when status is accepted against tasks in the timesheet. It is a timing issue, and if the status update is processed before the timesheet approval then all is good – so this could be a workaround if you are hitting this problem. This only happens in Single Entry Mode. This doesn’t affect the display of the timesheet status in Manage Timesheets (which gets its status from the pub schema) – just reporting (coming from the dbo schema). Thanks to Randy and the Sensei team for pointers on this one, and to Shazeb for suggesting the topic worth blogging. This is in the queue for a hotfix but I don’t have a schedule yet.
Cats were neither harmed nor not harmed during the preparation of this blog post.
My colleagues in Europe have already blogged about this topic, Marc on the French blog - http://blogs.technet.com/b/frenchpjblog/archive/2013/12/06/3616538.aspx and Jorge on the Portuguese Spanish (sorry Jorge...) - http://blogs.technet.com/b/elfarodeprojectserver/archive/2013/12/09/project-server-2013-error-al-cargar-las-vistas-despues-de-eliminar-las-vistas-originales-predeterminadas-the-view-failed-to-load.aspx – thanks Guys! And here is an English version too.
Typically this can happen after a 2010 to 2013 upgrade – but there are other scenarios – even with Project Online (more later) – and really any time the default view that is expected is missing then this ‘View Failed to Load” message can be seen.
For the migration scenario this happens if the default views were deleted in 2010 before migration to Project Server 2013. The database table [pub].MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES holds information relating to personal views – such as the last loaded view for particular pages, and other changes you may have made to views (slider position for split views etc.). In a fresh migration this table is empty – and when a user navigates to a page (Project Center or Resource Center) then the default view is being populated to the table. However, in this case the default view no longer exists – hence it fails to load and looks like this:
Clicking OK will then give a misleading error message – You don’t have permissions to view any projects (or resources if you are looking at the Resource Center):
This is being worked on in a future Cumulative Update – and is anticipated to be corrected in the Cumulative Update release in April 2014 for Project Server 2013, but for now the resolution to this one, unfortunately, involves making some changes to the database – something I don’t generally like to get customer to do – but here goes:
IMPORTANT: The following SQL scripts add data to the database so you should first try this on a test environment so you can be sure you are happy with the results.
Step 1: Set the UID of the custom default views for all users in the [pub] table.MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES table
/****** Object: Script to populate User Properties table. Created by Marc Biarnes 07/11/2013 ******/
DECLARE @RESUID UID; DECLARE @P2 DBO.USERPROPERTIES INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'JSGridWidthResourceCenterJSGridControl','827',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourcesResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourceIdsResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidResourceCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'projectcenterjsgridcontrol') DECLARE FIXRESVIEW CURSOR FOR SELECT RES_UID FROM PUB.MSP_RESOURCES; -- OPEN THE CURSOR. OPEN FIXRESVIEW; FETCH NEXT FROM FIXRESVIEW INTO @RESUID -- LOOP THROUGH THE RESOURCES. WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN; EXEC [PUB].MSP_WEB_SP_QRY_SETUSERPROPERTIES @RESID=@RESUID,@PROPERTIES=@P2 FETCH NEXT FROM FIXRESVIEW INTO @RESUID END; -- CLOSE AND DEALLOCATE THE CURSOR. CLOSE FIXRESVIEW; DEALLOCATE FIXRESVIEW;
Step 2: Set the UID of the custom default views for each new user in the [pub] table.MSP_WEB_USERPROPERTIES table
/****** Object: StoredProcedure [pub].[XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID] Script created by Marc Biarnes 07/11/2013 ******/ SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO CREATE PROCEDURE [pub].[XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID] ( @RESUID UniqueIdentifier ) AS BEGIN DECLARE @P2 DBO.USERPROPERTIES INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'JSGridWidthResourceCenterJSGridControl','827',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourcesResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'SelectedResourceIdsResourceCenterJSGridControl','[]',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidResourceCenterJSGridControl','"000010FC-7B06-45A9-9BD2-1CBFC2F64CE4"',NULL,N'resourcecenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectCenterJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,N'projectcenterjsgridcontrol') INSERT INTO @P2 VALUES(N'ViewUidProjectDrillDownJSGridControl','<View_UID of the custom view in [pub].MSP_WEB_VIEW_REPORTS>',NULL,'Nprojectdrilldownjsgridcontrol') EXEC [PUB].MSP_WEB_SP_QRY_SETUSERPROPERTIES @RESID= @RESUID,@PROPERTIES=@P2 END;
Once this stored procedure has been created then simply run the following command to add the custom default views to the user settings:
EXEC [PUB].XMGS_SetDefaultViewByResUID @RESUID= ‘<RES_UID>’
To get the View_UID you can go to Manage views, then select the view you want as the current default (assuming you have deleted the real default – and the Url will contain the UID – for example:
I’m sure several of you are now thinking – “So how does this work with Project Online – we can’t touch the databases?” Also you will not have migrated – so the properties table will not be empty so not so many ways this can get broken. We have seen issues with timesheets where views get changed giving a similar problem – generally if you can get to any timesheet and change the view then things will be good. If you can’t or have another scenario where you see this break in Project Online then open a support incident and we will get you sorted.
I am very pleased to announce the release of the December 2013 Cumulative Update (CU) for Project, Project Server and SharePoint for 2010 and 2013. Feel free to open a support case if you have any questions around this or need assistance getting these patches deployed. Remember that this release for the 2010 products, like all CUs since the August 2012 Cumulative Update, has a hard requirement on Service Pack 1 – see notes below. In most of the KB articles the term hotfix is used in place of Cumulative Update. They tend to be interchangeable terms – a Cumulative Update is just a hotfix built to a schedule. I should also point out that the individual Project Server packages are only ‘individual’ in the sense that they do not include the SharePoint patches – they are still cumulative and the December CU will contain all previous CU releases (at least back to the applicable baseline Service Pack (SP1 for 2010 and March PU in the case of Project Server 2013).
An important point for Project Server 2013, as was the case also for the April, June, August and October CU, is the requirement to load the March 2013 Public Update. Another important point to add here is that there was an issue with running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard on a server with Project Server 2013 installed – this is fixed by applying the April or June CU – so a good practice would be to load the March PU, then the December CU and then run the configuration wizard (if you didn’t already load the April, June, August or October CU).
Finally, the December 2013 CU for Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010, can be installed with Microsoft Project and Project Server 2010 SP2 – and overcomes the issues seen with the August 2013 CU under certain conditions where the database upgrader would fail.
With SP1 for Project Server 2013 (and Office 2013 generally) being due around the 1st Quarter of 2014 there will not be a February 2014 Cumulative Update release. So next CU will be in April 2014.
You can read about the fixes included in the Project and Project Server December CUs from the following articles:
There is no server rollup package this month. For details of the other Office 2013 package that you might want to load if you are running other SharePoint workloads please see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2912738 - Office 2013 cumulative update for December 2013
Description of the Project Server 2013 hotfix package (Projectserverwfe-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837668
Description of the Project 2013 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837665
The client version number will be 15.0.4551.1507 (NOTE: the KB mentions the file version as 15.0.4551.1508 – but the actual Project Professional version is reported as 15.0.4551.1507) if you want to restrict the client version that can connect to the server. However, it would appear the server version for the December 2013 CU is at 15.0.4551.1506 – so if you are using PWA for editing in the schedule web part this should be the controlling version. See Project Server 2013- Controlling the version of connecting clients–and PWA edits- for more details – this was also an issue with the August CU – and could also catch you out if you haven’t patched your server but try and control the client to December 2013 CU. I will be updating that article too – as I realize that although I captured the ULS log entries I could have described the failure and script errors better.
Description of the Project Server 2010 cumulative update package (Project server-package): December 10, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849972
Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): December 10, 2013
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849978
The Project Server databases will be updated to version 14.0.7113.5000
There is one further fix coming that will be delayed another week or so – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849988 which deals with navigation issues between PDPs being slow.
Description of the Office 2010 hotfix package (Project-x-none.msp; Pjintl-<Language-Code>.msp): December 10, 2013 (sic)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2849987
The client version number is 14.0.7113.5000, in case you want to limit the connection of certain patched release to Project Server 2010.
For Project Server 2013 we issued a public update in March, which is a required patch going forward for loading all future Cumulative Updates, such as the April CU. However, there was an issue with the Project Server part of the patch which would lead to an error when running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard. The error in the upgrade logs would be something like the following, with an EventID of ajxnf:
WARNING Project Web Instance 'SharePoint - 80:PWA' can only be upgraded once its database 'ProjectWebApp' has been upgraded ERROR Cannot upgrade [ProjectSite Name=f959de76-c4e9-4fa7-91a5-d9d9e287714b]. 38c20f9c-fdcc-b07a-f785-09836d46c179
WARNING Project Web Instance 'SharePoint - 80:PWA' can only be upgraded once its database 'ProjectWebApp' has been upgraded
ERROR Cannot upgrade [ProjectSite Name=f959de76-c4e9-4fa7-91a5-d9d9e287714b]. 38c20f9c-fdcc-b07a-f785-09836d46c179
and the error at the end of the configuration wizard, or in the PSCDiagnostics logs would be something like:
ERR Task upgrade has failed with a PostSetupConfigurationTaskException An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.PostSetupConfigurationTaskException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products.
ERR Task upgrade has failed with a PostSetupConfigurationTaskException
An exception of type Microsoft.SharePoint.PostSetupConfiguration.PostSetupConfigurationTaskException was thrown. Additional exception information: Failed to upgrade SharePoint Products.
This would be repeated for each PWA site in your farm. The fix for this issue is in the April Cumulative Update for Project Server 2013. The roll-up package including the SharePoint fixes for April has been delayed (at the time of writing expected w/c 4/22) – but if you are in this state currently and want to complete the configuration wizard then loading the individual Project Server 2013 April CU is certainly an option – see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2760261.
If you have yet to install the March Public Update then I would suggest delaying until the full roll-up patch including SharePoint Server 2013 is released and then you can load the March PU, then the April CU and finally run the configuration wizard, which will avoid the failure noted above.
As always, please open a support incident if you need any assistance with any of the above steps.
The release of the December 2012 Cumulative Update (CU) raised a couple of questions around the SharePoint Server 2010 hotfix package and also the Project Server 2010 hotfix package so thought it worth clarifying these.
First thanks to my friends at Accenture for questioning the contents of the SharePoint Server 2010 package. This terminology is used to reference the roll-up package for SharePoint that DOES NOT contain Project Server fixes. However, in our article for KB 2596955 we mistakenly said that it did (we are correcting this). The package does contain the SharePoint Foundation fixes, the PerformancePoint Services fixes and of course the SharePoint Server hotfix package (coreserver-x-none.msp).
Secondly, for Project Server you may come across two references to the December 2012 CU (or three if you include the roll up – KB 2596956). The two are described in the roll-up as:
2553504 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553504/ ) Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): December 11, 2012 2553268 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553268/ ) Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): December 11, 2012
2553504 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553504/ )
Description of the Project Server 2010 hotfix package (Pjsrvwfe-x-none.msp): December 11, 2012
2553268 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553268/ )
If you click through then the first lists around 8 fixes, and the second list just a couple, which are also included and listed in the first.
Digging a bit deeper I found that both 2553504 and 2553268 do actually contain all the fixes for the December CU and the main difference is that the second one also contains the localized MUI (Multilingual User Interface) fixes – which in this case means some updates to SQL tables to take account of new or changed terminology. It doesn’t necessarily mean there are changes in December, as these packages are cumulative these will be updates between SP1 and now.
Best advice – if you have any MUI loaded then use 2553268 – if not then you can get away with 2553504.
We have had a quite a few questions on the topic of using a Mac to run Project Online, so I took myself into uncharted territory (for me), acquired a MacBook Pro from our labs, running OS X 10.8.3 and set to work to see what it could do. First I’ll set the scene – we support access to Project Web App (PWA) both for Project Server 2013 and Project Online using Safari on the Apple Mac, but we do not have a version of Project Professional 2013, or Project Pro for Office 365 that runs natively on OS X. So I knew to be able to run everything I’d either have to load Windows 8 using Boot Camp (which wasn’t the point of the exercise) or find some virtualization software that runs on OS X and allows me to run Windows 8 and the Office 2013 programs. After a quick search I found Parallels Desktop 8 and VMware Fusion 5. I’m making no judgment on either product, and don’t expect a full review – and there are other products too (Oracle’s VirtualBox, is another one), but it didn’t take long to get the trial versions of both these products up and running with Windows 8, Office 2013 and Project Professional 2013 (I could have loaded Project Pro for Office 365 – same thing, virtually..). I also wanted to use Excel on the Mac, and unfortunately the installed trial had expired. No problem – I had a license for Office 365 Home Premium with some spare installs out of the 5, so I could load Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook! Great that you can mix and match the installs of Home Premium across PC and Mac.
I soon mastered Command, Shift, 4 – so on with the blog! PWA, was obviously no issue and felt just like using IE and my PC.
The first expected issue was trying to open a Project in Project Professional:
and as expected, this didn’t work. I didn’t dig deeper, but if anyone knows of a way to re-direct the call to the VM that would be a nice feature.
One interesting addition – which makes me think it should be possible to get Safari talking to Project Pro in the VM, courtesy of Parallels Desktop 8, was an additional icon in Safari, that allowed me to re-open my current session in IE, within the virtual Windows 8 environment.
I hadn’t even opened Parallels Desktop 8 at this point, so it started the VM and took me to the very nice Santa Monica picture to log in to Project Online
So I could open my Project in the copy of Project Professional 2013 within the virtual environment:
Another nice feature was the ability to add my Windows 8 applications to the Launchpad, alongside the native Office applications..
Next I tried the option in Project Center (within Internet Explorer in the Virtual Environment) of exporting to Excel. What happened next surprised me, but pleasantly…
I hadn’t used Excel within Parallels Desktop – and the file association was clever enough to export the Project Center in IE in the VM, to Excel running natively on the Mac.
You can of course update the file associations and use the Excel 2013 version (next screen shot), and you might want to do this to have the best reporting options against OData, which isn’t supported from the Excel for Mac 2011 version – more later…
The OData stuff worked just fine from Excel 2013 in the VM,
From Excel 2011 on the Mac there isn’t the option for OData, and I’m not sure if there are any third party offerings to fill this gap. Excel on the Mac does support ODBC, just not sure if any enterprising souls have developed an ODBC driver for OData.
All in all I was impressed with the Windows 8 experience on the Mac – and at this point switched over from my Parallels Desktop…
to my VMware Fusion one, and tested a few of the same scenarios, with the same success.
And then tried something else – SharePoint Designer 2013 to connect to Project Online for creating workflows. Like Project, SharePoint Designer doesn’t have a Mac version – so this could be another scenario where the virtual environment on the Mac is useful for the SharePoint and Project Online user who prefers to keep with their Mac.
Again, no problems running SharePoint Designer under the virtual environment.
So, to sum up:
If anyone has hit other issues when using a Mac or has any questions then I’d love to hear them!