Installation of MS EPM 2010 application on D drive required

OS: Enterprise Windows Server 2008 R2
Activity:  MS EPM 2010 Installation

Issue:

As per company policy, all the applications should instaIl on D drive rather than on the default C drive. I was installing MS EPM 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2 OS by using auto SP installer. I need to find out a way to configure the server in a way to install all the application on D drive automatically.

Solution:

To set the D drive as a default installation path, you need to update a few registry entries. To automate this,  use the following steps

Steps:

1- Create a batch (.bat) file named "find_iis_root". bat and add the following commands

        echo off
        REM Following script is used to display the values in the registry for IIS Virtual Directory
REM Settings
        reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp" /v PathWWWRoot

     - Save the file. Open a command prompt and run the about batch file, the system will show C drive as the current installtion path.

       
2-  Create a registry file named "IIS_root.reg". This file will actually update the registry entries to set the default path in Windows server 2008 R2. Add the following command in the file and save it with the extension 

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\InetStp
PathWWWRoot = D:\Data\vroots

     (In my case, I set "D:\Data\vroots" path)

3- Create a new batch file that will be used to run the above registry file. Name the file as the same of registery file i.e. "IIS_root.bat" and add the following commands

      echo off
REM Following command is used to update the registry for changing IIS
REM default virtual directory settings. Open iis_root.reg file in Notepad
REM to see while key are being changed. Refer URL
      REM http://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2008/06/10/add-this-to-your-image.aspx
     regini iis_root.reg
     echo Registry Updated

 - Save the batch file and run this batch file. This batch file will run the registry file and update the entries in the Registry file. Once you run this file, you will see the following output in the command prompt

               

Now it the time to test the default path. Run the "find_iis_root.bat" batch created in step 1 and see the following path i.e. D:\Data\vroots

                 

Note: Run the "IIS_root" batch file on the other servers (if you have more then one server in the farm) to keep the consistency in the path selection.

Not anymore User Name and Password fields available in Login profile to connect to Project Server in MS Project Professional 2010

Environment: Project Professional 2010
Issue:

In the new version of MS Project Professional 2010, the User Name and Password fields have been removed what we had in MS Project Professional 2007 version in the login screen to connect to Project Server (see Fig –A).

                                                              (Fig –A)  - MS Project Professional 2007

                                                           (Fig –A)  - MS Project Professional 2010

If a user needs to connect to server on different user id, he will have to log off first from the windows and re- login with the other user id. Sometimes this feature is very useful if a user is working in two different departments with two different roles and had two different accounts setup. In other scenario, if we need to test security on different roles, we login on different workflow ids to test specific MS Project professional functionalities right away by using those fields.

Solution:

There is no out of the box settings in MS Project Professional 2010 to get it back but no worries -  we can create a batch file (.bat file) with few commands to open MS Project Pro 2010 without windows login off. Please follow the below steps to create a batch file and open MS Project Professional 2010.

Steps:

1- Open a note pad and enter the following commands

@echo off

set /p UN="Username?   "

set /p DM="Domain?   "

RUNAS /USER:%DM%\%UN% "W:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINPROJ.exe"

2-   Save this file as “OpenProjectPro-2010.bat” on your desktop. A new batch is now being created as below

3-   Click the batch file to run from the desktop. Enter the asked information i.e. User name, Domain  and Password and in result, it will open MS Project Professional 2010  based on the provided credentials as shown in the following screen shot.

Jscript error in adding two Project Server 2010 web parts in a single page.

Environment: PWA 2010

Issue:

I had a client requirement to add an additional Project Center web part in Tasks page. I used the following steps to perform this task

1.      Go to PWA and open Tasks page

2.      Click Site Actions >>Edit Page

3.      Click “Add a Web Part”

4.      Select “Project Web App” from Categories option. Select Project Center web part and click “Add” to the page

5.      Adjust your web parts location as required

6.      Click “Page” tab >> “Stop Editing” from ribbon.

7.      You get the following Jscript error “Object Required”

8.      If you try to send your progress using “My Tasks” web part, you can see all the commands within the ribbon of “Tasks” tab are grayed out because of the JS script error.

Solution:

To fix the issue (work around), you need to follow the five steps (i.e. 1 – 5) as mentioned above and rather than clicking “Stop Editing”, click any available link (e.g. click Project Center link) to get the page out from the Edit mode. Now the web parts within this page is working all set without any JScript error. For some unknown reason, clicking “Stop Editing” button is causing the Jscript error.

Accessing Issue in opening the SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site from the User computer other than the Server itself

Issue: 

Server OS: Windows Server 2008 R2 –Enterprise version
Environment: MS EPM 2010

After the installation of SharePoint/Project Server 2010 software, when I tried to access SharePoint Central Administration site from my computer, the IE browser displayed the blank screen (see Fig-A). However, I had no problem in accessing the Central Admin site on the server. Keep in mind, I am using port # 999 not default port # i.e. 80.

                                                               (Fig - A)

Solution:
In Windows Server 2008 operating system, Microsoft introduced more security and restricted in accessing any SharePoint site which is not on port# 80 (Default port), by default. In Windows server 2003, you can access any sites hosted on different ports number without any issue as there were no restrictions.

Here are the following steps to access Central admin from any user computer



Steps:

1. Login to your server.
2. Click Start>> Administration Tools >> Server Manager
3. Expand Configuration option available under Server Manager on the left pane (see Fig – B)

(Fig -B)
4. Select “Inbound Rules” available under “Windows Firewalls with Advanced Security” (an option of Configuration) – See Fig C
                         
                                                    ( Fig – C )
 Create a new Inbound rule by clicking “New Rule”. You can see this option on the top of the right site (See Fig – D)

                                                                    (Fig - D)
    6.    Under “Rule Type” step, select  “Port “option and click Next (See Fig –E)

( Fig – E )
    7.     Under  “Protocol and Port” step, select “TCP” &“Specific local ports” option and enter port number 999 as an example (See Fig – F) and click Next

(Fig – F)
8-      Under “Action” step, choose “Allow the connection” option and click Next (see Fig –G)

                                                                     (  Fig – G )
9-           9. Under “Profile” step, select all the available options and click Next (See Fig –H)

                                                                       ( Fig - H )
 10.    In the last “Action” step, enter any desired name (e.g. Microsoft Project Server 2010 Central Administration) of the rule and click Finish (See Fig –I)

                                                                    (See Fig – I)
After following all the mentioned steps, you would be able to open Central Administration site without any issue. Thanks to my good buddy and colleague “Somesh Janjirala” who rightly informed me about this.

Accessing Issues in opening the project details page in PWA 2010 for Team Members group:

Issue: 

Team Members get “access denied” error (see error screenshot below) and are not able to open Project details page (PDP) or Schedule of a selected project from Project Center.

Resolution:

There is a restriction in 2010 version. In PWA 2007, team members were able to see the project detailed schedule after clicking the project link in Project Center without any issue. In PWA 2010, we use Enterprise project templates (EPT) during creation of a new project. That EPT can consist of multiple PDPs. Here in this default EPT, we have 2 PDPs (Project Details & Schedule). This Project Detail PDP shows the custom project level fields information and it is the same what we had  “Edit Project Properties”  button in PWA 2007 project center  to view or edit project custom level  fields by Project managers. In 2010, the Project schedule PDP is a part of default ETP, so TM needs to have at least “Open Project” permission to access the page.

Steps:

1-      Go to PWA main site and click Server Settings

2-      Click Manager group and select Team Members Group

3-      Click “My Tasks” category and turn on “Open Project” permission (see screenshot below)

Note:

A team member can open a schedule in MS Project Professional if TM has this “Open Project” permission. If your organization does not want TM group to have access the schedule in Project Pro, you can easily disallowed  “Log on to Project Server via Project Professional" permission for Team Member group so no one can access schedule via MS Project at all.

JScript error in My Tasks page in PWA 2010

Environment: Project Server 2010 (Tasks page)

Issue:

After successfully migration of Project Server 2007 data into the Project Server 2010 version, I got a JS error when I try to enter date in Actual Finish Date field or any other date field (see attached screen shot) and in result, I was not able to enter any information.




Solution:

For some unknown reason, the "Tasks" page generated this error after migration 2007 version data. Following steps need to follow to fix this error

1. Go to Central Administration
2. Click Manage Service Applications >>Project Server Service Application
3. Delete the specific PWA instance
4. Create again with same "Project Web App Path" name and use the same existing four Project Server databases
5. After Provisioned, go to Tasks page , you will not get any more the sepcific error mentioned above.

Cheers!

Issues in line and Bar chart in SSRS report (Project Server 2007) after migration from 2005 to 2008 version

Issue:

After converting my reports (created in 2005 version) to SSRS 2008, one of my reports had an issue on X- axis with line and bar charts disappearing values on randomly basis (see screen shot). This report shows MS Project schedule tasks information with time line showing in Gantt chart. Initially, I thought that it will be resolved after updating height adjustments but no luck. I realized that the Chart control's configuration/properties in SSRS 2008 have been changed what I had in 2005 version.

Solution:

After a couple of hours investigation, I found a solution that helped me to fix this issue as follows

1-    Right click on X-axis and click “Axis Properties”

2-     In the "Category Axis Properties", do the following

·         Under the "Set Axis Scale and Style" section, there is a check box named "Enable variable interval” displaying underneath “Interval” field, enable this check box

·         Enter “1” in the “Interval Type” drop down values.  “1” means "default" setting. Click OK.

(See the attached screen shot below)

3-      Run the report and it will fix the missing gap on X-axis and show the correct field as below

Note: Bar chart offers now dynamic height and width changes properties in the SSRS 2008 version which was not available in version 2005. You can create expressions to adjust height and width dynamically (i.e. on run time) based on the number of available data...I liked the new flexible Bar chart in SQL Reporting services 2008 BI.

Hope it helps!