Cost Assignments and PSI

Hi again,
After some days trying to work arround to create cost assignments through PSI without luck I found this post: http://projectserverblogs.com/?p=1540
If you look this post you will find the next lines:
Further compounding this concern is item three under User scenarios to avoid, which states that tasks with Cost Resources assigned to them should not have any assignments (meaning assignments to Cost, Material, or Work Resources) updated on that task through PWA or the PSI. This means that if you choose to disregard item one in Best practice use cases, you may only perform task updates from within Project Professional. However, it is possible to configure the system so that it will only accept Task Updates through PWA. This essentially eliminates Cost Resources as a tool for organizations who’ve chosen this configuration.
As soon as I have read this lines I started to find a work arround to create and modify cost assignments through PSI.
We couldn't find any solution yet, but in out project we use Reporting Services to make our reports and only PSI to modify tasks from Projects so we can create a new table assignments in Reporting database wich has the same structuree than MSP_ASSIGNMENTS.
Now our client can modify It's cost assignments of his tasks and get his reports through Reporting Services. Of course, if you open your project with Project Professional or use costs views you will not be able to see anything.
So we still wait for a solution for this problem wich seems that only Microsoft can solve.

Creating a cost assignment

Hi,
I've been working this days on creating cost assignments from PSI. I've found something strange in Project Server behaviour. When you create a new AssignmentRow and you select RES_TYPE = 25 (cost resource) and try to update the project, Project Server automaticaly cancell the job in the queue. I don't know why Project Server does that and the only workarround I found (and I know that is not the better workarround) was create costs assignments as work assignments and indicate in assignment Group that resource is from cost Group. If you do this there is another problem...You can't assign a cost to the resource (ASSN_COST) becouse is not a cost resource, so you have to work with ASSN_UNITS field. The problem here is that if you modify resource's units and TASK_TYPE is in mode Fixed Units (as default) will modify task duration too, so you need to set the TASK_TYPE as Fixed Duration before you assign the resource.

Project actuals error when modifying TASK_PCT_WORK_COMP through PSI

I've been working a few hours trying to modify the percent work complete on a task. I've been working with TASK_PCT_WORK, TASK_WORK (read only), TASK_ACT_WORK and TASK_REM_WORK.
As you will know the percent complete of a task can be modifyed directly (using PSI) from TASK_PCT_WORK_COMP column but today, in a new installation of Project Server, I receive an error from the queue saying ProjectActualsAreBlocked. After a few hours trying to find what does that error means I have found modifying the project from Project Professional that I couldn't modify the percent of task completed saying the same error. Project Professional gave me the clue saying that task work could only be modifyed through Project Web Access. So if you acces server setting in PWA will find that under task settings and display there is an option (which is maked as default) called "Restrict updates to Project Web Access". When I uncheked this option I could modify TASK_PCT_WORK_COMP from PSI.

Error in outlook add-in when user assignment is Proposed

If you have an assignamet which has got its booking type as Proposed you will find that outlook add in gives you a message like this "You have not any assignments to upload" when you try to import new assignments. This hapens becouse resource hours are not reserved, as the user is just proposed for the project.
To solve this change user's booking type from Proposed to Commited. This can be done editing the resource from the resources pages.

Error synchronizing Project Server and Active Directory resources

I have find some resources which cannot be sync with Active Directory and makes that Published database gets in an inconsistent state. For these resources you will get an "Unknown Error" when you try to modify them and if you try to remove them you will find that resources are cheked-out. As you can see in "force check-in enterprise objects" these resources are not listened as cheked-out.
Another sympthom of this is that users which are in an inconsistent state have it's status as innactive, so they can't get in Project Web Access.
How to monitor the error?
If you take a look to the Published database you will find in the MSP_RESOURCES table that users which are in an inconsistent state have his RES_CHEKEDUOT_BY filed to a empty GUID.
Of course it is not correct that value since this is what is causing the error.
How do we solve it?
1. Open an issue with Microsoft or install its hotfixes.
2. Run a sql squery wich will get the user in a consistent state:
update MSP_RESOURCES
set RES_CHECKOUTBY=Null
Where RES_NAME='Name_Of_The_User'
Of course the second option is not supported by Microsoft so you will loose Microsoft's support if you modify the databases and you don't reurn them to its original state.
After doing that you will be able to modify user's state from the Project Web Access site.

Timer job definitions for SSP

I have been working in an enviroment wich was working well unill last week. We found that the queue was not working at all. All the projects were getting enqueued but all of them were in state Waiting... After trying restarting all the services and see that was not a good solution we try to find the error.
Wen we create a new Shared Services Provider this will create two timer job definitions wich are needed for Projecct Server:
Shared Services timer job.
Project Server Synchronizing job for "SharedServicesprovidername".
If there is one of these Timer Jobs Definitions wich doesn't exists then project server sites will not work properly.
What's the solution? there are more than solution for this problem but the most easy is to create another Shared Services Provider, change the associations for the web applications to the new Shared Services Provider and delete the old one.
If you have properties defined in old Shared Services Provider (profiles, excel services, BDC, search....) you will need to configure it again in the new SSP.

Bug in eventHandler on itemAdded --> ListItem is null

I will continue posting things about sharepoint.
When you implement an ItemAdded event handler you will notify that SPItemEventProperties.ListItem is null. This is becouse a bug in sharepoint.
To work around this you should use the method spList.getItemByUniqueId() passing the memeber SPItemEventProperties.Listitemid wich would be correct.