Changing the image used in EPTs

A question that arises quite regularly on the Project Server configuration courses, is:

Is it possible to change the icon used for the Enterprise Project Types?

These icons are the ones that appear next to the name of each EPT on the New button in Project Center.

The out of the box EPTs have the following image URL:

The folder that stores these images may be accessed by connecting to the server itself, by remote desktop connection, and then navigating to the following address:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\INC\PWA\IMAGES

This folder contains a number of images, three of which begin with the word “Center”:

It is therefore possible to copy one of these images, rename it and edit the image, using something like Paint.

The new image can then be used for existing and new EPTs.

An error occurred. You cannot edit the team at this time

The full text of this message is:

“An error occurred.

You cannot edit the team at this time. Verify that Project is still connected to the server and try again”

We have a training environment set up in the office, running on a separate sub-domain. This means that we can access the training environment easily enough using the training machines, but we need to connect via remote desktop from our own laptops, whether we are working in the office or from home. I was working from home yesterday, connected to the training environment using remote desktop connection.

I could open Microsoft Project Professional 2013, create tasks, link them, save, publish and close the project, all with no problems at all. However, as soon as I tried to build a team of resources the above message appeared. I tried to search on the web for it but with no luck.

In the office today I raised it with our support team, who were able to come up with a solution:

Create another connection to the Project Server from Microsoft Project Professional.

So using my original account, TCPS, I get the message as shown above.

However, by adding another account, using exactly the same details;

It works perfectly:

It is then possible to remove the first account, that was causing the problems, and to change the properties of the second account. For example, deleting TCPS, then renaming TCPS2 to TCPS.

Excel Charts – Trends, targets and highlights

I’ve been reading up on excel charts recently, so I thought I would share a few tips on creating Excel charts. In this post I want to look at three main elements:

• Trends
• Targets
• Highlights

Trends

A large amount of the data that we want to look at is time phased. It is therefore useful to be able to plot the data in ways that make it easy to spot trends over time.

Since we are used to thinking of time as linear, line charts are often the best way of plotting time phased data. For example if we have total work done per day:

Then we can plot this on a chart:

This is a line chart, that shows the full six months worth of data. However, if we apply a filter to the data, by selecting the Data tab and then clicking on the Filter button, we can specify that we only want to view data from, for example, a particular month.

The chart will update to show only the selected data. If your chart continues to show all the data then follow these steps:

1. Select the chart
2. Select the Chart Tools – Design tab
3. In the Data group, click Select Data to display the Select Data Source dialogue box
4. Click the Hidden and Empty cells button to display the Hidden and Empty cells settings dialogue box
5. Ensure the Show data in hidden rows and columns check box is not selected
6. Click OK
7. Click OK

Targets

For a particular set of data we may want to set a target. For example if we look at Resource Utilisation, we may aim for 80% utilisation.

Our initial data and chart may look like this:

If we are using a pivot table as the source then the data may well already be in this nested format. If not then excel is clever enough to plot the chart based on our nested data.

To show the performance against the target of 80% we can add another data series to the chart.

In order to add this additional column to the chart:

1. Select the range E1:E25
2. Do Ctrl+C to copy this data
3. Click on the Chart area to select the chart
4. Do Ctrl+V to paste the data in to the chart

The series can now be formatted as desired.

Highlights

This time we want the chart to automatically pick out the month with the highest, or perhaps lowest, resource utilisation. We can do this by again adding another data series, but this time controlling the value of each data point using a formula.

Essentially the formula says that if the utilisation for the current month is the highest utilisation over the two year period, then show that value, other wise leave it at zero.

When this new series is added to the chart and formatted as a column then only one column is visible:

The lowest point could also be found using a similar formula.

=IF(D2=MIN($D$2:$D$25),D2,0)

This could be combined with the previous data to produce the following:

Project Server Business Intelligence Miscellanea

Introduction

Some miscellaneous thoughts and findings while exploring the business intelligence functionality of Project Server 2013

Excel 2013

In Excel 2010 it was possible to format a series in a chart separately from the other series to create a mixed column and line chart. This option to format each series separately has been removed from Excel 2013. However, it is still possible to replicate this effect by changing the whole chart type to Combo.

To change to a Combo chart type:

1. Select your chart
2. Click on the Design tab and then click on the Change Chart Type button

   

3. This will open the Chart Types dialogue box. At the bottom of the list of options on the left hand side, click on Combo to select it.

   

4. For each series in the chart, use the drop down lists to specify the chart type to use.
5. Check the box on the right to display a secondary axis (for example if there is a big difference between the values for different series).
6. Click OK

 

Creating Reports that use different data sources

I would like to create a report, using excel services that shows top level information about projects within selected programmes. To that end I create a report using the OlapPortfolioAnalyzer template and slice Baseline Work, Actual Work and Remaining Work by Programme and Project. I have also added slicers to enable me to filter by Year and Quarter if required. This works fine.

I can also create a data connection using oData to connect to the Project Web App database directly and pull back data related to calculated project fields, such as RAG indicators. I can add a slice to this to also filter by Programme.

There is a slicer in each case that enables the user to filter by the project level custom field: Programme.

However, presumably because one set of data comes from the OLAP cube and one set comes from oData I have not been able to find a way to link them together, so that both charts can be updated using the same slicer.

I need to investigate whether I can combine the data sources using PowerPivot.

Project Server Plus–a new offering from CPS

The company I work for, CPS, has launched a new product: “Project Server Plus”.

This is a new, low cost, preconfigured solution designed to get an organisation up and running with Project Server as quickly as possible.

The structured, user friendly platform quickly drives greater project visibility, improves efficiency and enhances reporting.

For a low initial investment an organisation gets a short engagement that will result in an environment that provides a fully configured project server environment.

For more information please visit http://www.cps.co.uk

Selecting Multiple Resources

Well, every day is indeed a school day.

As with everything in Project Server you will only see what you have permission to see. This means that as a team member looking at Resource Centre then you will only see yourself. Whereas a Resource Manager will see all the resources that report to them and a Project Server Administrator will see everyone.

Selecting All Resources

For a specific view it is possible to select all the resources by following these steps:

1. For the column on the left of the view, with the check boxes, hover the mouse over the top of the column. A down pointing black triangle will appear.
2. Click on the down pointing black triangle to display a small drop down menu.
3. Click the item to Select All. All the visible resources will be selected.

Selecting a group of resources

The above steps are spot on if you need to select all the resources. But what happens if you only want to select some of all the visible resources?

Note: This only applies to  selecting contiguous resources (i.e. a number of resources next to each other).

To select a number of resources:

1. Click to the left of the check box for the first resource
   

   1 Click to the left of the first resource

2. Hold the Shift key down and click to the left of the check box for the last resource. This will highlight all the resources between the two.
   

   2 Shift click on last resource

3. Click one of the check boxes of the highlighted resources. All the remaining resources will be selected

3 Select one of the tick boxes

 

 

Now that a number of resources have been selected, for example all the resources with the same primary role, it is possible to use the Resource Availability screen to view how much work has been assigned to each resource and what the availability is across this team.