Known issues and workarounds to support TFS-Project Server integration

This topic describes known issues with the integration between Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Microsoft Project Server. To support this integration, you must have installed Team Foundation Server Extensions for Project Server on the App Tiers for Project Server. For more information, see System and setup requirements to support TFS-Project Server integration.

You can resolve most issues by performing the recommended actions.

Summary tasks with mapped child tasks are not updated in the project plan

By design, Team Foundation Server (TFS) does not update the Project fields for summary tasks, that is, tasks that have subtasks that are mapped to work items in TFS. The synchronization process skips updates of summary tasks because the project plan calculates the work on summary tasks. Changes to non-work fields, such as Title, are also not updated for summary tasks. This behavior is a known limitation of the integration of the two server products.

Remaining Work Field Must Be Empty

When you update a task in Project whose state has been set to Done or Removed in TFS, you might receive the following validation error message:

The value for field 'Remaining Work' must be empty.

This message indicates that the <EMPTY /> workflow statements have not been removed from the task type definition for the team project. Project sets the field to 0, while TFS expects the field to contain a null value. To resolve this issue, see Required Changes to Make When Mapping to a Team Project That Was Created From the Scrum Process Template.

Resolving Specific Error Conditions

The following table provides corrective actions to specific errors that can occur when you integrate the two server products:

<defaultProxy>
   <proxy autoDetect="false" />
</defaultProxy>

Resource names cannot contain special characters

Several characters, such as square brackets or corner brackets, can cause problems when you synchronize user names between Active Directory and Project Server. For more information, see Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronization (Project Server 2013).

Work item type field lists all work item types

Text30 is the default Project field that is associated with the Work Item Type column that is used in synchronizing tasks with work items. If you ever connect the project plan to Team Foundation Server by using the Choose Team Project option on the Team ribbon menu, an additional Project field, which is labeled Work Item Type, becomes available. This field, with a default Project field of Text24, supports mapping of project plans that are bound to Team Foundation but does not support synchronizing plans. The Text24-based field contains the full list of work item types for the team project. You can verify that you have the correct field by pointing to it and verifying that Text30 appears.

Error messages for administration commands do not identify the missing permission

When you run the TfsAdmin command-line tool, the following error message might appear:

The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

The message does not indicate which permission is required on which server. You must review the required permissions for the specific command that you tried to run. For more information, see Assign permissions to support TFS-Project Server integration.

Defining queries that specify null or empty field values

You can find undefined work item fields in Team Foundation by creating a work item query where the Value is left undefined. Corresponding Project Server fields that are mapped may contain a value of 0. For example, you can specifying the following clauses in a query to exclude work items that contain undefined or zero work:

• And Completed Work <> (leave Value undefined)

• Or Project Server Completed Work <> 0

• And Remaining Work < > (leave Value undefined)

• Or Project Server Remaining Work <> 0

For more information, see Monitor work item submissions and resolve rejections.

Changing the Name of a Mapped Enterprise Project Plan Requires You to Refresh the Mapped Team Project

If you save a mapped enterprise project under a different name and then publish the project to Project Server, you must refresh the mapped team project. Otherwise, the new name will not appear in the Enterprise Project field on the Project Server tab. For more information, see Refresh your Team Foundation client.

Multiple errors and deadlock conditions may be reported under stress conditions

Under certain load conditions, multiple errors and deadlock conditions may be reported in the Windows event log and in the synchronization messages. For example, these messages might appear if multiple team project collections are mapped to a single instance of PWA. No user action is required.

The following types of errors may appear:

Error_GeneralServerErrorSql|Transaction (Process ID 156) was deadlocked on lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction.

Error_GeneralServerErrorSql|Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

Access Denied issues occur with a network load balancing configuration

If you have administrative permissions on Project Server, a 401 Access denied message might appear after you configure the integration of the two server products. This message can appear when the deployment of Project Server contains the following components:

• Two or more web front ends.

• Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) to balance them.

• A single static IP as the NLB front end with a name that is registered with the Domain Name Service (DNS).

To work around this problem, you must set one of two registry keys. For more information, see the following page on the Microsoft website: You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or a later version.

Multiple errors might occur when updating subprojects with the master project open

You can synchronize data between a team project and an enterprise project plan that is a subproject. You cannot manage or update any data from a master project that contains mapped subprojects. You can have a master plan that includes subprojects that are mapped to Team Foundation Server, but the Team Foundation client add-in for Project Professional blocks editing of mapped subprojects from a master plan. Specifically, the add-in prevents you from modifying or deleting a task that is scheduled to synchronize with Team Foundation from the master plan

Several errors can appear if you open a subproject and its master project at the same time. For example, one or more of the following error messages may appear:

• The view Team Foundation Gantt (Project Server) does not exist in this version of Project. Please choose a different view.

• The following field that you selected for tracking the Work Item Type is already in use by the project: pjTaskText30. If you continue, the existing data would be overwritten.

  Choose 'Cancel' to prevent data from being overwritten or deleted, and then copy the data in pjTaskText30 to unused fields in the project, or contact the Administrator to change the local field.

  Do you want to proceed?

• TF82041: Team Foundation does not support editing tasks in a subproject from within the master project. Open the subproject to edit, publish, or refresh tasks.

• TF80069: Team Foundation encountered an error while updating data in the application.

To resolve these errors, close the master project whenever you are modifying a mapped subproject.

See Also

Concepts

Synchronization process overview for TFS-Project Server integration

Remove a component from participating in data synchronization

Change your deployment configuration

Administrate the integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server