EPM: ROI of 301% for Organisations deploying Office 365 PPM

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Summary

Microsoft commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Office 365 Project and Portfolio Management. The purpose of this study was to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of Office 365 PPM on their organizations.

 

 

The full article can be found here

Blogged by Gordon Lewis

Drop me a line Contact me to know how your organisation could benefit from implementation of Microsoft’s EPM / PPM Cloud or On Premise Solutions

 

 

Project Server 2013: The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint

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Scenario

When publishing project you might get the following error:

Error: ReportingProjectChangeMessageFailed (24006) – The INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint

The good news is that Microsoft have now released a hotfix for this.

Solution

Preferred Option: This was a known issue which was fixed in the Project Server 2013 August 2014 Hotfix

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2883083

Installing this hotfix or later update to August 2014 should resolve this issue.

 

Non Preferred Option

It was found that this happens when the baseline information somehow gets corrupted.

Step 1: Find out the tasks where the Baseline is corrupted

To find which tasks are corrupted run the following query:

Select bp.ProjectName, mt.TaskName, * from MSP_EpmAssignmentBaseline as ba

Inner join MSP_EpmTask as mt on ba.TaskUID = mt.TaskUID

Inner join MSP_EpmProject as bp on ba.ProjectUID = bp.ProjectUID

Where AssignmentUID not in (select AssignmentUID from MSP_EpmAssignment)

 

Step 2: Re-baseline those tasks by opening the respective projects and re-baselining those tasks

 

Leave a comment if you have any further questions.

Click here Blogged by Gordon Lewis

….Sharing my personal experience not to be used to setup live environments

Project 2013: Project is unable to Access Cache Location

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Scenario:
When you try to save the Project to Project server you are faced with an error “Project is unable to access the cache location”.

 

Error: Project is unable to access the cache location

 


Solution

  1. Check that you have access to the cache location.
  2. To check cache location Start Ms Project Pro Go To File > Options > Save

  1. Click on Cache Status and Check the error tab for Erros
  2. Clean up Cache if needed
  3. Now open your Project and Save

 

Click here Blogged by Gordon Lewis

….Sharing my personal experience not to be used to setup live environments

SharePoint Designer 2013: App Management Shared Service Proxy is not installed

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SharePoint Designer 2013: App Management Shared Service Proxy is not installed

Scenario:
When compiling the workflows in SharePoint Designer 2013 and publishing the workflow I faced the following Errors were found when compiling the workflow.

Further details on the error revealed Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: App Management Shared Service Proxy is not installed.

Approach:

In order to resolve that I did the following:

Go To

  • Central Administration > Manage Services on Server
  • Check if App Manage Service is running
  • Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Service Application.
  • Check the App Management Service application is created, if not then create the App Management Service application.

Ensure: When creating the App Management Service it is important that this is enabled

 

Click here Blogged by Gordon Lewis

Install and Configure Workflow manager for Project Server 2013 and SharePoint 2013

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The following blog is a quick handy guide I use to install and setup workflow manager with project Server 2013 and SharePoint 2013.

In my instance I had to setup up workflow Manager in a SharePoint Farm.

I identified to setup the Workflow Manager on the SharePoint Application Server in the SharePoint Farm.

In my case I am configuring Workflow Manager on https.

 

Pre-requisites:

Please read the following article prior

Planning your Deployment

The Setup The first step is the download the Workflow Manager from the Microsoft Site

Once the binaries have been downloaded you can initiate the installation of the Workflow Manager by double clicking on the Workflow Application setup file Workflow Manager.

Clicked on Install

I clicked on I Accept

Clicked on Continue

I was then presented with the configuration screen. In my case I have chosen to use the default settings

 

 

 

 

 

Post Installation Tasks

 

Step 1: Check the installation

Here go to the Webserver Inetmgr and check to see that the Workflow Management Site has been provisioned. If you do not see the site here, then something is up with the installation.

 

Step 2: Register the Workflow Service on Site Collection

 

This is a very important step, if this is not done correctly the Workflows may not work as expected.

Right-click the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell and choosing Run as administrator.

Run the Register-SPWorkflowService cmdlet

Register- Register-SPWorkflowService –SPSite “<name of site collection>” –WorkflowHostUri “<Workflow host uri>”

Example of script

Register-SPWorkflowService –SPSite “https://ecm.lewis.com/&#8221; –WorkflowHostUri https://ppm2013:12290

Important: Before you run the script ensure you can browse to the site and do not get any errors or certification errors/warnings in case you are configuring on https. If you are then please resolve the issues before proceeding.

Important Check: Browse to registered uri and ensure you do not face any certificate errors.

Resolve any errors prior to building the workflows else the workflows may not work.

 

Step 3: Check Workflow Service Status

 

I now need to check the installation status of the Workflow.

Go to Central Administration > Manage Service Applications > Workflow Service application Proxy

Install Workflow Manger Client on other Farm Servers

I had to ensure I had to Install the Workflow Manager Client on each server in the SharePoint farm.

Error

Register-SPWorkflowService : The root of the certificate chain is not a trusted root authority.

At line:1 char:1

 

Click here Blogged by Gordon Lewis

….Sharing my personal experience not to be used to setup live environments

UMT Project Essentials – Unable to elevate Context

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UMT Project Essentials is a fantastic product developed by UMT that helps integrate Project Server with your financial system.

It is exceedingly well integrated with Project Server 2010. For the newer version of Project Server 2013 the version of the product is termed UMT 360.

Scenario: When browsing to the UMT web parts one is faced with the error message ‘Unable to elevate context’

 

 

Resolution

After further digging, I found that one of the service accounts needed by UMT Project Essentials was removed from the Project Server Administrator group.

After adding this account all worked well.

 

Blogged by Gordon….

Project Online 2013: How to set user other than assigned work resource to update Task Progress?

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Scenario:
I have many of my users of Project Server asking me if it is possible to setup Project Server such that the task updates is done by the resource manager or a resource other than the resource the task is assigned to.

 

Solution

Yes it is possible to do that. It is facilitated through a functionality called the assignment owner.

Edit the Resource you want to set the assignment owner for in ‘Resource Centre’.


 

Update this field to a team member other than the assigned work resource who will be entering status for the assignment update task progress for the assigned resource.

Refer: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/assignment-owner-assignment-field-HA010167479.aspx


 

Project Server 2013: Provisioning Project web App in an Existing Site collection

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Scenario:
I need to host Project Web App on a friendly url like https://projects.lewis.com

Provision PWA on a friendly url or existing Site Collection

Approach:

In order to achieve that I need to do the following:

  • Create a Site collection at desired URL (host site named collection)
  • Create a Project Web App Database
  • Enable Project Web App Features on Site Collection

Step 1: Create a Host Site Named Collection on url

New-SPSite “<Site collection url>” -HostHeaderWebApplication “<Web Application Name>” -Name ‘<Enter Name>’ -Description ‘<Enter Description>’ -OwnerAlias ‘lewis\SPA’ -language 1033 -Template ‘PWA#0’

 

Example

New-SPSite “https://projects.lewis.com&#8221; -HostHeaderWebApplication “https://PPM2013&#8221; -Name ‘Project Server Development’ -Description ‘Project Server Development’ -OwnerAlias ‘lewis\SPA’ -language 1033 -Template ‘PWA#0’

 

Step 2: Create Project Server Service application

This setup is followed only if service application has not been created prior.

 

Step 3 Create a Project Web App database

A Project Web App database is created using the New-SPProjectDatabase SharePoint PowerShell cmdlet.

The new database is associated with the site collection where you want enable the Project Web App site collection features, using the Tag parameter to associate a unique string with this database. That string will be used later when you enable the site collection features, the script is:

 

New-SPProjectDatabase –Name DatabaseName -ServiceApplication “ServiceApplicationName” –DatabaseServer SQLServerInstance -Tag String

 

DatabaseName: Name of Project Server DB to be created

ServiceApplication: Project Server Service Application Name

 

 

Note: You can find the name of the Project Server service application in Central Administration by going to Manage service applications under Application Management and checking the name of the project Service Application configured

 

Run SharePoint management Shell in Admin mode.

Example of Script

New-SPProjectDatabase –Name ProjectServer -ServiceApplication “Project Server Service” -DatabaseServer PPM2013 -Tag “PS2013”

Project Server Service: This is the name of the project server service

Once you have created the new Project Web App database, the next step is to enable the Project Web App site collection features. Doing so will associate the database that you just created with the site collection.

 

 

Step 4: Enable the Project Web App site collection features

The Project Web App site collection features are enabled by using the Enable-SPFeature Windows PowerShell cmdlet. Prior to running this cmdlet, you must set the PWA_TAG parameter of the site collection to match the Tag parameter that you set when you created the database.

$web=Get-SPWeb https://projects.lewis.com

$web.Properties[“PWA_TAG”]=”PS2013″

$web.Properties.Update()

Enable-SPFeature pwasite -URL https://projects.lewis.com

 

Once the Provisioning is complete you can browse to the site

Check Provisioning in Manage Project Web Apps

Go To the following

Application Management > Manage Service applications > Project Server Service

Alternate Scripts that you can use:

 

Click here Blogged by Gordon Lewis

Project Server 2010: IE 10 Error Web part requires at Least Microsoft IE 7.0

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When Browsing to Project Web App on Project Server 2010 on Internet Explorer 10.0

Receive Error Message: # This Web Part requires at least Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0. For more information, contact your Project Server Administrator

Issue:
This is a compatibility issue. Currently in its present format, Project Server 2010 (PWA) is not supported on I.E 10.

Resolution

  • Open Internet Options from Tools menu.
  • Click on Security tab in internet option box.
  • Click on Local Intranet, Then click on Sites button. You will get again a box where you have to click on Advanced button.
  • Put project server url here and then click on Add button.
  • Now close all boxes and Refresh your IE.