Project Server Tasks in Outlook: Part 2

The following is the second in a series of two posts from Jon Kaufthal, a program manager from the Project team. Click here to see the first post. 

- Melissa

For those of you new to Project and Project Server, see my first post before reading on. What follows is what tasks from Project Web Access (PWA) look like in Outlook.

When you double-click to open a Project task in Outlook, you’ll notice some differences. Here’s what a task item from Project Web Access looks like:

Some things to notice here:

· Existing “standard” Outlook task fields—like Subject, Start (start date), Finish (due date)

· Existing “advanced” Outlook task fields—like Actual work and Total work

· Project Server-specific fields—like Project name, Task hierarchy, remaining work

· The project name is set as the task’s category. You already know about the great categories improvements in Outlook 2007, so this allows you to create some powerful views by category/project in Outlook.

· The “inner tabs” to switch between task management and timesheet. Task management is for updates going to the project manager—and might be in the form of, for example, percent complete, while the timesheet is likely going to some kind of accounting/billing process, and will be in the form of hours per day. Besides task status, PWA provides a complete timesheet where you would also track things like vacation time and sick time.

Clicking on the inner “Timesheet” tab, that section changes to look like this:

In this example, you might update your percent complete, remaining work, and some timesheet values. Once you’ve updated status in Outlook, you can:

· Immediately update via the buttons on the form

· Save for later (save locally to Outlook, don’t tell Project Server just yet)

· Update this and any other changed tasks to PWA via the toolbar button

· Cancel

You’ll only connect to PWA when importing or updating, but you can make local changes and save them for later even when disconnected. Once you’ve updated back to PWA, your status flows back through the system as if you had been logged into the PWA site—it will be incorporated back into the project plan and your organization’s reports.

So if you can do this all through PWA, what’s the point of the Project Server add-in for Outlook?

· Lower overhead for you, the team member—use the tools you already use

· Give you a single view of all your work—personal tasks and Project Server-based tasks

· Management gets better reports, because they have more buy-in from team members—which leads to better data

I’ve had to gloss over some subtle points and leave out a bunch of detail to keep this high-level, but we’ll keep an eye on comments to see if there’s interest in future posts on this topic. Thanks for reading!

-Jon

Some related info:

· Project Server blogs and books

· Project Server 2007 home page

· Overview of Project Server 2003 Outlook integration

· If you’re interested in Project Server but don’t want to set up your own server, some of our partners offer hosting

Comments

• Anonymous
  October 16, 2006
  The Program Manager in Outlook (Melissa) and one of our Program Managers here in Project (Jon) collaborated

• Anonymous
  October 19, 2006
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 15, 2007
  Is it to further customised for input data and Can we integrate it with Outlook Task instead of Calendar for reminder option PWA task should not appear in Caledar it should only be appeared in Outlook Task only

• Anonymous
  May 07, 2007
  Is there any way you can report the actual start date for a task? This is a big blocker for one of our clients.

• Anonymous
  May 08, 2007
  Hi, The integration looks nice, but I wonder is it just as nice when combining Project Server 2007 with Outlook 2003?

• Anonymous
  June 22, 2007
  I've been having trouble for a while now trying to consistently get Outlook tasks to update via the timesheet hours.  When I try to update the Project Web Access from the task I get the following error: "Updates were not accepted by the server (Exception 999)"  Additionally, it many times hangs Outlook 2003 and I have to restart outlook.  I've tried this on a completely fresh, updated install of Outlook 2003 as well as an updated, fresh install of Outlook 2007 with no success.  It definitly has something to do with the server but I do not know what.  Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

• Anonymous
  August 01, 2007
  We are having 2 main areas of issues.  We use Project & Server 2007, published on SharePoint, going into Outlook Calendar.

1. Project task duration to allow for extra time so resources are not booked 100% each day. No matter how I try to setup the task type, duration, work, lag etc, the calendar is always updated to book all day each day of the duration. example, 20 hours of actual work scheduled over 5 days duration.  Assign to Resource, it books 8 - 5 all5 days on the Resource calendar. we want to see only 4 hours per day booked.
2. Resource opens Outlook calander appointment and needs to change the date. change the outlook date, but is not able to be uploaded to Project.  Even if they set one of the project server fields to trigger to send an update, the date change is not sent. Do you have any suggestions on how to resolve or work with these issues?

• Anonymous
  August 09, 2007
  I am trying to use Outlook PWA Add-in (MOPS and Outlook 2007). I went throughout the install process with no problem, imported all my assignments which are showing just fine in Outlook. I tried both methods Tasks and Calendar and they worked fine. Now, when I open any Project Task within Outlook I see that many of the fields are grayed out. In fact the only fields I am able to modify are the Taks Health and Remaining Work. I can't enter any time into the grid, and the Copy from Planned button is disabled. Al the buttons in the bottom part of the form are enabled and working as expected. I have reviewed the security templates in PWA 2007 and I am not able to see anything like the old 2003 setting "allow the user to use Outlook to update projects"; just a setting allowing users to download the Add-in. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

• Anonymous
  August 27, 2007
  Does anyone use a 3rd party application to track time and integrate with Project? We are looking at Pacific Timesheet (http://www.pacifictimesheet.com), but any other suggestions?

• Anonymous
  January 17, 2008
  Hi Tina, Did you figure out that problem ? We have the same here :-( If you do, please post it somewhere or send me e-mail to mkovac@wbi.sk Thanks

• Anonymous
  January 18, 2008
  My problem is that when I enter my hours for a task in PWA, they don't show up properly in Outlook (I'm using Outlook 2003). When I click on Import New Assignments and then open a task, the hours I entered in PWA populate the Planned Work fields, not the Actual work fields. If I change the Actual work fields to match what's in PWA and then save it to PWA, I get conflict emails. Am I doing something wrong? Any help is greatly appreciated!

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  Tina (and Martin): Sorry, but what you describe in your comments is not possible/supported. Re #1--you CAN change the free/busy settings, via Tools | Options | PWA inside Outlook. I don't know if that helps your issue, but wanted to be sure you were aware.

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  Jill, when you make conflicting edits to your data in the Outlook add-in and in PWA, the add-in does its best--but with ambiguous situations, the last one in "wins", and then we show you the conflict messages you describe, in case that wasn't what you intended. I'm not totally clear on what order you're doing things, but you might want to try JUST changing things in Outlook (or just in PWA), and then going to PWA to submit your timesheet.

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  M. Iannini--does your server have reporting periods defined (from PWA server settings)? Are you able to submit a timesheet through the PWA interface?

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  Kalpesh, there is an option in Outlook (Tools | Options | PWA) that allows you to choose whether your PWA assignments get imported as Tasks or as Calendar items. I'm not sure I followed the rest of your requests/feedback--if you're still stuck, please clarify...

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  eOffice - the experience is virtually identical between Outlook 2007 and 2003, except of course to changes in Outlook itself such as the ribbon user interface on the detail forms, and the ability to show tasks on the calendar.

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  Alex--sorry, this is currently not possible.

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 01, 2008
  For more ideas/workarounds/tips, take a look at this discussion: http://msdn.microsoft.com/newsgroups/default.aspx?&guid=&sloc=en-us&dg=microsoft.public.project.server&p=1&tid=71bb85ac-8480-4184-b92f-2b31d367abc0&mid=e15447c1-1a77-4a99-ab62-2e0bcfe47a8f

• Anonymous
  March 27, 2008
  Will it be possible in the future to update a startfinish time for a task through the outlook addin?  (I see that the answer to Alex s question was ~ not at this time) Thanks

• Anonymous
  May 24, 2008
  Melissa, I have searched for an international version of the Outlook add-in (French). I'm getting the famous message: "The language of the Project Add-In for Outlook must match the language of Outlook.  Uninstall the add-in and reinstall a matching language version" I read about changing the default Office language to US English and editing the registry so the language is set to 1033 decimal or 409 hex, but I still get the message. Is an international version of the Add-in scheduled some day? Or do I find it in some pack? Thanks for your help! Pierre Le Gallo Paris, FRANCE