Read Project Server Custom Fields value from the database

There is a standard method of accessing Project Server data and Custom Fields information. That is create web service reference with PSI. Recently I have created a report of Projects with custom field values with some business requirements. Now, the the loading time of the report is very high and that is causing huge dissatisfaction.

After some searching I found a Project Server database view, which contains all the project information with custom fields values. The name of the view is  MSP_EpmProject_UserView  and it is present in Reporting DB. 

Once you are able to find the view, then you can write query according to your needs.

Cheers,

Somu

Fixing issue "Your queue job CreateWssSite failed. Please contact your administrator for assistance"

While working on the Microsoft Project Server 2007, you might encounter an issue "Your queue job CreateWssSite failed. Please contact your administrator for assistance" This error shows in an email and normally sent to the Administrator. 


The root cause of this error is, when you are publishing a Project from the Microsoft Project Professional, the Project Workspace URL is asked. There are several validation associated with this workspace URL, like Total length, invalid characters etc. Now, when you are trying to publish your project programmatically, the above mention error showed.


On the Project Server you can view the project workspace URL the following way:

Please use the following setting in the "Project Workspace Provisioning Settings". This setting will stop creating project workspace as soon as you published a project. Now user create the project workspace site manually if he got the permission. 

Project Server Backup and Restore

Backup:

Step 1: Create the Backup location

 

Step 2: From the “Central Administration” click on “Perform a backup”

 

Step 3: Select “Farm” option and click on “Continue to Backup option”

Step 4: Specify the backup location and type as “Full”

Step 5: Wait for the entire “In Progress” task to be completed

Step 6: Check the creation of backup file.

 

Restore Process:

Step 1: From the Central Administration, Operations, and click on “Restore from backup”

Step 2: Specify the backup location

 

  Step 3: Select the backup and click on “Continue Restore Process”

Step 4: Next, select “NetappSharedService” from the selection, as we are restoring only the Project Server specific data. Click on “Continue Restore Process”

Step 5: Select “Same configuration” and ignore the warning message

 

Step 6: Provide the password for database access

 Step 7: Please wait for “In progress” and “Not started” tasks to be finished.

Step 8: verify the PWA site for all the data and configuration restored or not.

Project Server Site (PWA) cannot be edited using SharePoint Designer

While developing on the Project Server (PWA) , I got a requirement to change some design (UI) of the site. Therefor I tried opening the site with the SharePoint Designer (SPD). But to my surprise I got the following message.

After doing some research I learnt that, on the site definition level, Microsoft disabled the editing in SPD. On the "ONET.xml" file the following key does the disabling act.







Now,the tricky part is if you remove this key on the site definition file, there is a huge possibility that your site might break and Microsoft does not recommend this modification on the ONET.xml file.

DisableWebDesignFeatures="wdfopensite"

This discussion thread has some more details.