Project Server Blog

One thing I always have to search for when creating a new EPT is the appropriate icon to use. I have previously found and used some of the out-of-the-box icons that can be found in any default Project Server 2010 installation and thought that I might share them here.

There is in fact a long list which I have included below (forgive me copyright gods in MS!), to use one of these icons, just update the image URL under Server Settings –> Enterprise Project Types, for example to update the default Sample Proposal with any of the icons below, simply modify the image URL under:

For a Master Project icon (taken from the image below), replace the URL above with the following:

/_layouts/inc/pwa/images/CenterMasterProject.png

 

Full list of icons (16×16 size only):

 

Enjoy!

How to

It seems SharePoint 2010 gives a nice new way to say exactly what versions of the binaries are installed on any given server in your farm, this is a great enhancement from 2007 which effectively required a Windows Explorer properties check at times to be absolutely sure that all the servers had been updated!

Find it in Central Admin by;

1. Open Central Admin go to Upgrade and Migration

1. Select Check product and path installation status

You should see something like the following:

Specifically if you scroll down you will see the project server section under each server in the farm, and in my case you can see the RTM version number plus the KB2394322 (October 2010 CU).

Nice.

 

FYI that SQL method still can come in handy (when migrating for instance) so if you’re not familiar with it here it is:

USE ProjectServer_Reporting

SELECT * FROM dbo.Versions

Not exactly as much detail as the above method, but it does confirm what version server your databases should belong to.

How to, SharePoint, SQL

One of the biggest areas of advancement in Project Server 2010 is reporting, with Project now utilising; Excel Services, SQL Analysis Services, SQL Reporting Services and PerformancePoint the options are almost endless.

However most people I encounter look at that list and say; “What on earth is PerformancePoint?”, so lately I had another opportunity to flex my PPS skills and thought I might share my experience to give you a taste of how powerful yet simple to use this new thing can be.

 

Creating a Dynamic Resource Utilisation Graph using PerformancePoint

I’m going to keep this very simple, as I find PPS to be very often quite mind-boggling, so to give you a taste of it what I’ll describe here is how to create a simple equivalent to the old typical Data Analysis Resource Utilisation view.

So before you begin, make sure you have your Cube setup and built, the PerformancePoint service application setup and running in your SharePoint installation and some data to play with.

First step you need to get to the PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer, this is a nifty little web application (independent from the Office Web Apps) that is automatically installed and made available when you provision a PWA site.

To find it, open up the Business Intelligence site, and from there the quickest way to get to it is by hovering over any of the landing page images (Create Dashboards, etc) and selecting the ‘Start using PerformancePoint Services’ link.

You then have the icon to run Dashboard Designer:

 

This should download and install the designer for you, and assuming that you have all the correct permissions (and that PWA is in your Internet Explorer trusted sites), you will end up with a mostly empty designer window looking something like the image below.

Now you’re ready to start creating those reports, first step setup your Data Connections by selecting the Create tab on the ribbon and selecting Data Source:

Select Analysis Services as the connection type, and populate the connection details and properties as required:

For Analysis Services datasources you should populate the Time tab to ensure that your Time dimensions are correct, something like this;

Finally when you are done, select save from above the ribbon to continue.

Note: This is something you will get used to with the Dashboard Designer, everything is automatically saved to the PWA BI site in their respective locations (dataconnections, reports or dashboards), with just one exception being the ‘Workspace’ which is effectively your configuration of Dashboard Designer (something I don’t usually bother saving).

Now lets move on and create our report, select PerformancePoint Content and then from the Create ribbon lets select ‘Analytic Chart’;

Then select your datasource just created and hit finish, then your report will open in the designer;

Give it a name and then lets start adding content:

• First add some measures to the Series; Work and Actual Work.

• Now add your Resource List dimension to the Bottom Axis.

It should look something like this;

If you want to expand members of a dimension select the chevron (Down arrow next to the X), and select the members in the dialog.

Here for dynamic dimensions like the Resource list you are better off right-clicking and selecting one of the Autoselect Members, such as All Children, like so;

Which now looks like:

Finally we need our Time dimension, add it to the Bottom Axis from the right list and use the chevron to select the desired time periods (I’m selecting months by name here, however you can use something called Named Set’s to do this dynamically for you – another blog article maybe). Finally I think it’s best to move the Resource List to the top of the series Series list and apply some filters to filter out the blanks, to give us something like:

Don’t forget the Edit tab on the Ribbon which has a number of settings that you’ll find handy getting your report right.

Almost there now..

Okay so now we’re ready to save and see this thing for real, so hit the save button, and lets minimise the designer and go back to our BI site in Internet Explorer.

If you open the default ‘PerformancePoint Content’ link, you should see your new report listed, select the drop-down to Display the report:

Final product:

Now this report is ready to add to any where in SharePoint using the PerformancePoint viewer web part, and the best thing is that all of the dynamic functions will be available to all users, so if someone wants to view this report in terms of Cost / Actual Cost, it’s just a few clicks away:

Or maybe you want to see the breakdown of a particular person’s activities using the Decomposition Tree?

I’d say this beats those old Data Analysis views!

That’s it for this how-to, hopefully this scratching of the surface has shown you some of the potential of PPS, keep experimenting and you’ll see very quickly how easy it is to replace those old Data Analysis views that are so 1990!

In the future I might come back and write a Part II to this one on creating your first KPI Scorecard in PPS, stay tuned..

Analysis Services, Cube, How to, PerformancePoint, Reporting

As you’ll quickly find in Project Server 2010, if you want to use the default Business Intelligence Center data connections then in order to include your own custom fields, then you’ll need to update the connectors. Here’s a quick guide on doing that to get to that data for your first Project Status Report.

Before I get into it don’t forget that the OLAP connections are automatically created, so in many cases you can use those, but if you’re like me and prefer direct reporting from the Reporting Database then you’ll have to create your own connections.

Step 1: Start from an existing connection file

For this I am going to use "Project Server – Project and Task Data" from the default location "BC Center\Data Connections – English (…)\", find the existing file and save it somewhere locally using the Send to – Download a Copy option.

Now open that ODC file in Notepad and you’ll see the XML contents and hopefully the important part the section labelled <odc:CommandText> where the SQL "SELECT …" statement is, that’s what we need to change to include our custom fields.

Step 2: Add your Custom Field details using SQL Management Studio

Using SQL Management Studio is the easiest way to confirm that you have the right field names to add to the query, to do that find your ProjectServer_Reporting database and in particular what you will want is the View named dbo.MSP_EpmProject_UserView (or one of the others if you want task or resource fields). Select the view and using the ‘Select Top 1000 Rows’ option to generate a SELECT query returning all data.

 

You’ll end up with something like this:

/****** Script for SelectTopNRows command from SSMS ******/

SELECT TOP 1000 [ProjectUID]

,[ProjectName]

[ .... Snip lots of built in fields....]

,[ProjectBaseline10Duration]

,[Project Departments]

,[Sample Business Need]

,[Sample Areas Impacted]

,[Sample Proposal Cost]

,[Sample Compliance Proposal]

,[Sample Assumptions]

,[Sample Goals]

,[Sample Post Implementation Review Date]

,[Sample Post Implementation Review Notes]

,[Sample Proposed Start Date]

,[Sample Proposed Finish Date]

,[Sample Approved Start Date]

,[Sample Approved Finish Date]

FROM [PWA_ProjectServer_Reporting].[dbo].[MSP_EpmProject_UserView]

The nice thing is in the views all the custom fields are listed last, as you can see from above the out of the box ‘Sample’ fields are all there to see. So next you just have to copy those field names into the ODC file opened earlier and save your changes.

Step 3: Update the ODC file

The only catch with updating the ODC file as you probably noticed is the format includes the view or table name prefix, such as:

MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectBaseline10FinishDate as [ProjectBaseline10FinishDate],
MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectBaseline10Duration as [ProjectBaseline10Duration],

So all you need to know is that unless your changing the name you don’t need the bit after ‘as’, so if you search and replace to prefix each of your custom fields to add the "MSP_EpmProject_UserView." before the "," so you end up with something like:

,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Business Need]
,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Areas Impacted]
,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Proposal Cost]

Now the last step is to paste those lines into the ODC file in Notepad, but note that the commas are at the start not the end, so you just need to make sure that when you paste the new lines that you have just one comma between each line except for the last line before the "FROM". You should end up with something like this:

MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskBaseline10Duration as [TaskBaseline10Duration],
MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskBaseline10DurationString as [TaskBaseline10DurationString],
MSP_EpmTask_UserView.[Health] as [Health]
,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Business Need]
,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Areas Impacted]
,MSP_EpmProject_UserView.[Sample Proposal Cost]
FROM
dbo.MSP_EpmProject_UserView
INNER JOIN dbo.MSP_EpmTask_UserView ON
MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectUID = MSP_EpmTask_UserView.ProjectUID
ORDER BY
MSP_EpmProject_UserView.ProjectName,
MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskIndex,
MSP_EpmTask_UserView.TaskName
</odc:CommandText>

Step 4: Upload the new ODC file to your Data Connection library

Now your just about done, save the file and back in your BI Center upload the file to a new location, make sure that you don’t try to overwrite the default file as those may be replaced by future service packs, I upload them directly into the Data Connections library.

Once uploaded you can now use them in Excel as normal. You might want to update or copy the existing templates and edit the data connection properties to point to this new ODC file, or otherwise just add them in as you normally would and carry on..

How to, Project 2010, Reporting, SQL

[Update: 23/02/10] I have updated this script in a new post here which does not rely on STSADM and therefore does not need to be run as admin.

With all the 2010 lab testing I have been doing lately I’ve been meaning to get around to creating / finding a new WarmUp script to use but this time based on PowerShell.

What I found is fortunately there are loads of examples out there to get you started as with most things PowerShell. See Kirk Hofer’s Blog for the one I started with.

So anyway I have added a little to the script, now in addition to opening each site in the farm it also parses a text file (C:\Tools\Warmup\warmup-extrasites.txt) for additional URL’s, which I use to warm up particular SSRS or Excel reports.

Warmup.ps1

############################################################################
#Assumptions:
#-Running on machine with WSS/MOSS
############################################################################
 
$stsadmexe = 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN\STSADM.exe'
$extrasitelistfile = 'c:\Tools\Warmup\warmup-extrasites.txt'
 
function get-webpage([string]$url,[System.Net.NetworkCredential]$cred=$null)
{
  $wc = new-object net.webclient
  if($cred -eq $null)
  {
    $cred = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;
  }
  $wc.credentials = $cred;
  return $wc.DownloadString($url);
}
 
#This passes in the default credentials needed. If you need specific
#stuff you can use something else to elevate basically the permissions.
#Or run this task as a user that has a Policy above all the Web
#Applications with the correct permissions
 
$cred = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials;
#$cred = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential("username","password","machinename")
 
[xml]$x=&$stsadmexe -o enumzoneurls
foreach ($zone in $x.ZoneUrls.Collection) {
  [xml]$sites=&$stsadmexe -o enumsites -url $zone.Default;
  foreach ($site in $sites.Sites.Site) {
    write-host $site.Url;
    $html=get-webpage -url $site.Url -cred $cred;
  }
}
 
# Warm up other sites specified in warmup-extrasites.txt file (such as SSRS)
 
if (test-path $extrasitelistfile) {
  $extrasites = get-content $extrasitelistfile
  foreach ($site in $extrasites) {
    write-host $site;
    $html=get-webpage -url $site -cred $cred;
  }
}


Warmup-ExtraSites.txt
http://servername/ReportServer

Download both files here.

Take note of the variables at the top of the script with the paths pointing to the 14 hive and the extra sites text file.

Save those files somewhere (default c:\Tools\WarmUp\) then schedule them to run with a command line as follows:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe C:\Tools\Warmup\warmup.ps1

Finally just make sure you select the Run with highest privileges option as stsadm will need that to enumerate the sites.

Enjoy!

How to, PowerShell, Script, SharePoint

Update 31/03/2011: See the following blog about how much simpler this is with SQL Server 2008 R2.

This is one of the most common gripes that I hear about Project Server’s reporting database, the fact that only the default fields in your Project workspace lists, ie Project Risks, Project Issues, etc are available to report on.

Unfortunately I have yet to come across a client who uses (for example) a percentage probability of risk, I’m guessing it’s all that PRINCE2 influence. So as a result you are usually left with two options;

1. Update the default fields to match your requirements, which actually is possible in 90% of the cases with some careful modifications to the workspace template and possibly some custom MDX measures for your cube. The biggest drawback with this one is if you want to report on new lists, such as for example a Change Register it is simply not possible without extending the RDB and cube!
   
2. Secondly you could find and purchase a third-party product that will allow you to report directly on all of the list contents of your workpace, some of these link directly into the sites, others use a staging database.
   

There is of course a third option though, do it yourself, and that is what this blog post is about.

How to access the SharePoint data?

The first question is how, and of course I should be clear as a one-time minion of the capital MS, the question must be how to do it in a supported manner. So that completely rules out direct SQL access to the databases!

Fortunately there is another way: XML.

Let me start by saying that there is a lot of information is out there on this method, so here are some links to some of the most helpful pages; at codeproject, and other blogs here and here. (That last Blog one I probably found most useful!)

Before I get into it it’s worth mentioning that my example involves using Visual Studio 2008 with the SQL Business Intelligence Design Studio (BIDS) installed. Don’t let the VS2008 bit scare you it would be possible to do much of this using Report Builder, at least once you have your data connections created, perhaps I’ll leave that for a future blog?

In summary this is what you need to do:

1. Create a SRS data source pointing to your PWA Reporting database.
   
2. Use the above data source to identify the field named "ProjectWorkspaceInternalHRef" from the "MSP_EpmProject_UserView" table for each project you want to report on.
   
3. Then use the URL indentified to dynamically construct your XML data source query by basically appending "/vti_bin/lists.asmx" to the end of the string.
   
4. Finally using XML pull down the information that you want.
   

Too easy!

Okay show me the details!

Okay so first thing you need to do after firing up Visual Studio is start a new blank Report Server Project, then:

Step 1: Create your Shared Data Source

Create a standard SQL data source pointing to your Project Server Reporting database, such as:

Step 2: Enumerate Workspace URLs and Select your Project

Firstly create a blank report with a simple SQL query to enumerate a list of all projects and their associated workspace URL:

Example query:

Then create a Parameter to prompt the user for a selection:

Name: SelectedProject

Prompt: Select Project

Select Get values from a query for Available Values:

Value field: ProjectWorkspaceInternalHRef

Label field: ProjectName

Step 3: Create your XML Data Source

Now the interesting bit, create a new non-shared datasource (Embedded connection).

Type: XML

Connection String: Expression

Credentials: Do not use credentials

Expression should be as follows:

Step 4: Now create your Dataset using XML

Now you need to create your first Dataset in this XML data source, this is where we reference the actual list item, in this example Project Risks.

Create a new dataset using the following query:

Populate the Parameters with the "listName" (note: this is case sensitive) parameter with the value "Risks":

Step 5: Select your Fields to include in the report

Now the annoying bit, under Fields you must include each field that you want to include in your report, however because we are dynamically generating the data source we cannot automatically populate this.

Note: To automatically populate this list hard code the data source to an actual workspace site then when you create the query for this dataset select Refresh Fields.

Otherwise you can manually populate these, just open the list in question in a workspace and open list settings:

Then use the Column name in the Fields list source by simply prefixing each name with ows_, for example: ows_Title

Resulting in something like this:

Step 6: Finally Create a Test Report to see the Results!

Now add a table to your report and add those columns to preview the data, you should see something like this:

Unfortunately you might notice some fields being blank, there’s actually something we forgot! One of the possible parameters in the dataset above is "viewName", that does exactly what you would think select’s the desired view, so as my example above (using the EPM2007DEMO databases with default column names) Owner, Description and Mitigation Plan are all blank, this is because the Default view configured for that list does not include them.

So you can fix this by changing the default view to include the required fields or by creating your own view and using the viewName parameter. Note though; that parameter requires the GUID of the view not it’s name, so you need to use something like http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/dencoder/ to decode the GUID from the URL of the view. (See the above linked blog by David Wise for additional details on the parameters available)

One that is done, you should now see something more like this:

Looking good! (Almost!)

Just one last thing there, you can see the special characters in the data, for the Description and Mitigation Plan it is an easy matter of changing the ‘Placeholder Properties’ to Markup Type: HTML. However for the Owner and as you’ll find various other fields they contain internal codes used by SharePoint, these have to be removed with code, again David’s blog above has some code to do just that, or if you’re like me and didn’t quite bother to read down that far you can create your own and add it to the Report Properties – Code section:

Then just replace your Owner field name with the following expression:

Now your report should look something like this:

All Done!(Well for me at least)

What’s the catch?

There is actually a big one which you might have guessed: performance.

The above report is effectively generating the report by browsing to each page and pulling down each list item every time the report is generated. For one single project like in the example above, that’s not such an issue, but if you wanted to create a portfolio summary report for example or batch process a single project report for all active projects then performance would quickly become a problem.

Much of that can be addressed through Reporting Services itself, using caching and pre-generation, etc or better yet using SQL Integration Services (SSIS). With that and some much more interesting scripting a DTS job could be created to setup your very own staging database using the same XML methods as above! Definitely something to blog about another time…

But what about??

Yes there are lots of questions left unanswered;

1. What if someone renames the list used above?
   
2. What if someone changes / deletes the view I selected?
   
3. What if …
   

I think you can see some of the limitations here and possible also how they can be overcome (workspace template standards, etc) but I’ll leave that to you.

How to, Project 2007, Reporting, Visual Studio