How to add break line and a link in comments field in SSRS “Manage Subscription” page ?

Environment: Project Server 2007/ SSRS component integrated with SharePoint 2007/ iPad

Issue:


There is good news for SSRS developers/Admin using SSRS email subscription in Project Server/SharePoint environment. Sending emails (out of the box feature) using “Comments” field for email body (see Fig “A” below) is always excited but  a few restrictions like not using break line and link made developers very uncomfortable to sell this part. Keep in mind this comments field is a Text field. MS Outlook client was smart and considering any text as URL (if starts with Http://...”) but if you open the same email on Outlook Web App/Mobile/iPad, it shows URL simply like a text with no link (see Fig “B” below)

                                                                                                   Fig “A”

                                                                                               Fig “B”

These restrictions continue till SQL Server 2005 but luckily SQL server 2008 addressed this issue and allowed developers to use HTML tags in the Comment text field.


Solution:

As I mentioned that SQL Server 2008 allows us using HTML tags to put break line and links.  As an example, I will show the changes to achieve this result.

In Comments field on "Manage Subscription” window, enter the following

This week's Flash Reports are available. Please click the following URL to access the documents <a href="http://epmxxx.com/exec/default.aspx"> http://epmxxx.xom/exec/default.aspx</a> <br/> If you have any issue, please contact to Support group.

And you will see the following output on Outlook Web App/Mobile/iPad

 

 I am sure this is very good news to all Admin/Dev who want to use Out of the box features as much as possible and make their clients happy.

I hope it helps!

Unable to connect to Project Server from client (MS Project Professional 2007) - Accounts corruption issue!

Environment: Project Professional 2007 SP2/ Project Server 2007
Issue:

Last week one of PM brought up an issue in accessing his schedule using MS Project Professional 2007 in Project server 2007 environment. When he tries to login to connect with Project Server, he gets the following error

PM was not able to close this window as it freeze the MS Project Pro 2007 application. He first tried to kill MS Project application in Windows Task Manager but could not do that. Eventually, he was able to kill Project 2007 application from “Processes” tab by selecting WinProj.exe (as shown screenshot below)

When I tried to see the exact error, it showed me the following

Note: PM had no issue in opening any schedule as a standalone basis i.e. without connecting to Project server. This was happening only when he picks an account created to cnnect with Project server

Solution:

 After an investigation, we figured out that the account created to connecting to Project Server got corrupted for some reason. Deleting the old account and recreating a new account solved this issue like Bingo…