Service Pack 2 for Project Professional & Project Server 2007

The key changes/updates for Project Professional and Project Server 2007 are detailed below.

Key Updates for Project professional;

Enhancements/DCR;

For those who have struggled with issue of ordering of Enterprise Project Templates, you will be pleased to hear that this is now fixed with SP2.

Also refer to previous post regarding this. http://microsoftepmsolution.com/2009/04/ordering-enterprise-project-templates.html

Summary of Issues Fixed;

There are a number of changes to improve stability and reliability. Summary is shown below;

1. Language packs - Fields that were inaccessible from within Project pro are available
   
2. Active Cache checkin pending issues
   
3. Saving to previous versions of mpp file formats
   
4. scheduling engine fixes, VBA issues and Gantt Chart Problems

See below for full list of changes to Project Standard/Professional 2007;

1	Consider the scenario in which a project has been edited and saved by one user and then while that user has the project open, it is force checked in. Then, a second user opens the project and clicks Cancel on the message telling them that the project has been modified by another user. The second user opens it again and instead of seeing the message again, the project opens, and the edits of the first user are lost.
2	Custom code that uses the Project object model to update custom field lookup tables did not perform quickly. For instance, code that updates 1000 lookup table records that used to take about two minutes now takes a few seconds.
3	For Project Professional languages that support phonetics, the custom field "Add Field to Enterprise" functionality does not work if a custom field has a lookup table and if any of the phonetic values are blank.
4	If changes are made and saved to a checked-out offline project and then the project is published immediately after Project Professional is connected back to the server, Project may not actually publish the information.
5	If the Active Cache size limit is exceeded when you save an already-open project, you receive a warning message telling you the cache size has been exceeded. However, the project is not saved.
6	If you assign a cost resource to a task using the resource initials field, Project crashes.
7	If you have a Fixed Units task with a Must Finish On constraint, when you edit timephased actual overtime work, the task behaves like a Fixed Work task instead. This means that when you change the task's duration, the assignment's units change instead of the work value.
8	If you have nested subprojects and you open the top level master projects as read-only, the nested subprojects may get opened with read-write access instead of being opened read-only.
9	If you save a project to the XML file format, and you have a resource where the maximum units are less than 100 percent, the maximum units change to 0 percent or to 100 percent when the XML file is opened.
10	If you save to the 2003 MPP format, you may find that tasks you deleted reappear as blank rows. For example, you have three tasks, T1, T2, and T3, with IDs 1, 2, and 3. You delete T2. Instead of T3 becoming task ID 2, it is still task ID 3, and a blank row is where T2 used to belong.
11	If you use the Gantt Chart Wizard, the Gantt bar names as seen in the Bar Styles dialog box are changed to unrecognizable characters.
12	In Project 2007, you open a Project 2003 MPP file that contains a large lookup table. This may take a very long time.
13	In some cases, when a project is saved to the server and the save process fails, the next time you try to save the project, not all changes are saved.
14	In some situations, a project's data can get damaged in the local cache. After this happens, Project may still attempt to save the bad data to the Project server and may fail in the process. Then, you receive error messages that resemble the following: <error id="12005" name="ActiveCacheQueuedMessageExecutionError" Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK_MSP_PROJECT_CALENDARS'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'MSP_PROJECT_CALENDARS'. Violation of PRIMARY KEY constraint 'PK_MSP_PROJECT_CALENDARS'. Now, Project goes through a process to fix the data before saving.
15	In the French, Portuguese, Polish and Hungarian language versions of Project Professional, when you insert a field into a task or resource views you see an error message stating that the field does not exist.
16	Because of password encoding/decoding changes in Project 2007, when you add and remove passwords from the same project file by using the "Save As" function, the passwords may become damaged, and you cannot open the files. As an example, you have a password associated with a project, and you Save As to remove the password. Later, you open the file, but you are prompted for a password. No matter what you enter, you cannot open the file
17	On some projects, when you attempt to level them on a day-by-day basis, Project hangs.
18	Password protection is removed from an MPP file, and during the process, you Save As the file to a new name. When you open the file a subsequent time, you are prompted to enter a password, and you are unable to open the project.
19	Project Professional may crash if you set a task to use a dependency on a deliverable. This occurs if the deliverable has been deleted from the SharePoint list but the project hasn't yet been updated to reflect this change.
20	Project Professional may crash in the following scenario. While connected to a server, you create, save, and close a project. Later, you delete the project from your local cache, and then while working offline, you create and save a project with the same name. Later, when Project Professional goes back online, it crashes.
21	Some formulas don't work correctly when the system list separator is a semicolon. As an example, the following formula works correctly when the list separator is a comma but fails when it is a semicolon: Switch(([duration]=1 or [duration]=3)=true;"one";([duration]=2 or [duration]=4)=true;"two";[duration]>4;"more")
22	The ProjectBeforeSave event may not work correctly if a project is being closed as a part of the save process. The error "Run-time error '1004': An unexpected error occurred with this method." is seen.
23	The results of sorting and renumbering a task or resource list are not saved. For example, a task's ID equals 5, and after sorting and renumbering, the ID equals 2. After saving and reopening the project, you find that the ID equals 5 instead of 2.
24	When additional work is added to assignments that are on fixed duration tasks, the new work is spread incorrectly over a longer duration than expected. For instance, if you have an assignment that has 24h of actual work and then you increase the work to 32h, instead of the work being spread over an additional day, it is spread over three additional days.
25	When fixed costs are assigned to summary tasks, the accrual may not be correct. Instead of the cost getting spread across the task's duration, it gets spread to the earliest finish date of any of the summary task's subtasks.
26	When you enter a time-phased zero (0) Actual Overtime Work value at the beginning of an assignment, the assignment remaining work does not get rescheduled properly. Instead, the zero Actual Overtime Work entry is ignored and the work is not rescheduled.
27	When you save from Project Professional or from Project Standard to the XML file format, a resource's Maximum Units value is not saved correctly. For example, if a resource's Maximum Units value is set to 50 percent, the value changes to 100 percent when you save it to the XML file format.
28	You cannot set a task dependency predecessor or successor lag time by using VBA. For example, you run the following code: ActiveSelection.Tasks(1).TaskDependencies.Add From:=ActiveProject.Tasks(1), Type:=pjStartToStart, Lag:="2d" When you do this, you receive the following error message: Run-time error '1101'; The argument value is not valid.
29	You have a resource with multiple cost rate tables defined. You are working in the Resource Usage view, where you see the timephased cost both at the assignment and resource level. Next, you change the assignment to use a different cost rate table. After this change, you see the new cost on the assignment, but it has not rolled up to the resource. Changing the view and coming back shows the correct value.
30	You start Project Professional, and you connect to a server profile in the offline mode. Later in Project Professional, you select the Work Offline command to go back online. But, Project Professional still says offline.
31	Your project has task durations that are less than one day, and you save to the XML format. When you open the XML file, these durations are changed to one day (1d).

Key Updates for Project Server 2007;

There are a number of changes to improve security, stability and performance. Summary is shown below;

Enhancements/DCR;

None.

Summary of Issues Fixed;

1. Queue Service – modified to prevent consumption of large amounts of memory
   
2. Database indexes have changed to improve performance
   
3. fixes to Cost resource issues. Proper handling off tasks that have other resource types assigned to same task
   
4. Fixes to resource plan, build team and scheduling engine

See below for full list of changes to Project Server 2007;

1	The cost on assignments increases unexpectedly. This occurs if all the following conditions are true: the cost resources accrual method is set to Start or to End, there is a work type resource assigned to the same task, and you update the work in the My Tasks view.
2	When you have a cost and work resource that is assigned to a task, and you update the work resource in the My Tasks view, the cost contour of the cost resource may be incorrectly changed.
3	You may be unable to see a user's RBS value on the Manage User's page if your browser's primary language preference is different from the Project Server's primary language.
4	Under some conditions, when you edit and then save a custom field on the Project Properties page, the process fails, and an error similar to the following is found in the Universal Logging Service (ULS) logs: System.ArgumentException: Value was either too large or too small for a Decimal.Couldn't store <NaN> in NUM_VALUE Column. Expected type is Decimal. ---> System.OverflowException: Value was either too large or too small for a Decimal.
5	In the My Tasks view, if you display work in day units and your project's calendar is set to less or more than eight hours per day, the work value you see in the My Tasks view is displayed incorrectly. For instance, your project is set where one day equals 7 hours, and in My Tasks you enter 7 hours on a given day. After recalculation, the work appears as .875d instead of as 1d.
6	When certain projects that have invalid baseline data are saved to Project Server, the process fails, and you see an error message with details similar to the following: "An unhandled exception occurred in WinProj.SaveProject."><error id="42"
7	You add the local StartX and FinishX custom fields to your project and publish. Then, you set dates to these fields in the My Tasks view. Later, you submit a change, and your manager accepts and then publishes the project. When you look at these fields in the My Tasks view, the dates you entered are missing.
8	When you provision a Project Web Access site, you are able to specify an instance of SQL Server for the Reporting database that is different from the database for the Archive, Draft, and Publish databases. If you edit the site properties, you can change the location of the Reporting database only one time. The next time you try, the option to do so is disabled.
9	You create a material resource with a cost value, assign it to a task with units greater than one, and then publish the task. You perform a query against the Project Server reporting database. When you compare the returned results from the TPAssignmentByDay table, you find that the value is different from the assignment cost seen in Project Professional.
10	You created an enterprise custom field and applied a formula to it. You selected the option to have summary tasks use the formula. Later, in the Project Details view, you look at the values on the summary task and find that the summary level does not have the correct value.
11	Consider the case in which you have an enterprise custom task field that you populate in Project Professional and then publish. You go to the My Tasks view, change the value for the custom field, and then submit the change to your manager. Once the manager accepts the update, you look at the task in your My Tasks view, and you notice that the value for the custom field reverted back to the previous value.
12	Project Center views that filter on enterprise custom fields and that use the "Does Not Equals" operator do not work correctly. Instead of seeing a list of filtered projects, you see no projects.
13	When there are around 5000 status updates waiting to be processed, performance degrades and the Project Server database shows a substantial increase in deadlocks.
14	If your timesheet title includes extended characters, when you import a timesheet into the My Tasks view, these extended characters do not appear correctly.
15	A formula is associated with an enterprise custom field. Later, the formula is invalidated, such as can happen when a field the formula relies on is deleted. As expected, the formula fails. However, other valid field formulas may also stop calculating. Now, the failure of one formula does not affect the calculation of other unrelated formulas.
16	When you work on the timesheet approval page and you approve a timesheet, a dialog box prompts you to choose the next approver. Certain extended characters in the approver's name may not appear correctly. For example, the letter "ø" appears as "�".
17	When you create a Resource Center view, there's an RBS filtering option that says "Filter Resources to user's RBS branch." This option does not work. Therefore, when a Resource Center view that has this option enabled is applied, instead of seeing only those resources that are in your RBS branch, you may see all resources.
18	Timesheets are created by team members to report time they have worked on tasks as well as nonproject administrative-type tasks. Once a timesheet is created, however, the project tasks are not updated to reflect the addition of tasks by a project manager
19	When you restore a project using the Administrative restore process, if a different project with the same name exists in the draft database, a conflict can arise with a resulting failure.
20	Loading the Build Team page in Project Web Access may take a long time depending on how many resources there are. For instance, previously it may have taken a couple of minutes to load, and now it takes a matter of seconds.
21	You work in the My Tasks view, and you create a new task. On the New Task page, you enter a start date, and you set work equal to zero because you are trying to create a milestone task. When you click submit, you see a message similar to the following: Value must equal or exceed minimum value.
22	If a task with a cost resource assigned to it is published, the e-mail notification associated with the published task fails.
23	You install a hotfix or a cumulative update that includes new client Project Web Access controls (Pjclient.cab or Pjcintl.cab). You go to PWA to a location, such as the Project Center, and you are prompted to update the controls, and so you do this. However, after the process finishes, you find that the fix that you expect to see does not seem to be working. Under certain conditions, the new controls are not installed correctly. Therefore, even though you have installed the hotfix or update correctly, you are still using the old controls.
24	Several Project Server database performance fixes have been made, as well as performance fixes on various Project Web Access pages. For the database, it was found, for instance, that some tables and stored procedures that needed indexes were missing them, or in other cases, the indexes were not correct. As a result, a number of queries that used to take 30-40 seconds now run in 1-2 seconds. Additionally, a page like the Add or Edit Group page now takes seconds to populate the Available Users list instead of taking several minutes.
25	The Project Web Access resource plan page may not show the correct date format in the From and To fields or on the timescaled grid. For instance, if your regional settings are set such that dates are in the dd/mm/yy format, the dates in the resource plan always appear in the mm/dd/yy format.
26	Fixed-duration tasks that are scheduled on the server may cause resource assignments to get additional work when the tasks' duration is increased. For example, you have a fixed-duration task scheduled for today and tomorrow, but the assignment only works today. When the duration is increased, the assignment incorrectly gets additional work added to it.
27	Consider this scenario. Your manager creates a period status report, and you submit a report. Later, your manager deletes the status report request. However, you continue to see the periodic request for the status report. If you try to open one of the requests, you see the message "You do not have sufficient permissions to view the specified page. Please contact your administrator for permissions to view this page."
28	Under certain conditions and especially on farms where there are lots of workspaces and sites, the Project Queue service can leak memory leading to memory starvation on the server. Once the memory is leaked, the Queue service has to be restarted in order to free up the memory.
29	In rare cases, the Project Details Web part can be removed from the Project Details page. Once this happens, there's no user interface within Project Web Access to add it back.
30	You enter your work on the My Tasks view and you have the Timesphased view enabled. You also have tasks that are tracked on a Percent of Work and Actual and Remaining Work basis. In this case, you are incorrectly able to enter timephased work for these types of tasks.
31	When you compare the cost resource actual cost values in Project Professional with those in the Project Server reporting database MSP_EpmAssignmentByDay table, you see various rounding differences.
32	In some cases, database changes that are shipped as a part of an update are not applied correctly. This can happen most often if you provision a new empty Project Web Site on a server that has had database updates applied to it.
33	If you have a fixed-duration task where the assignment begins after the task's start date and if you enter a new start date for the assignment in the My Tasks view that is later than the assignment's start date, you may see progress and actual duration applied when they should not be.
34	On a fixed-duration task, if you enter time-phased actual work in the My Tasks view where the you complete all work earlier than the task's finish date, the remaining duration may be calculated incorrectly.
35	If you report and submit time from your My Tasks view but then your manager rejects the update, if your manager included comments with the rejection, the notification e-mail that is sent to you does not contain your manager's comments.
36	When you use the Korean version of Project Server 2007, you may see an error message similar to the following when you save changes on the Edit Project Properties page: The following cost custom field has erroneous data: CF_Cost The following date custom field has erroneous data: CF_Date The value for the custom field is not a valid date, or it is outside the range for dates, which is January 1, 1984 through December 31, 2049. This may occur for any enterprise project level date or cost field.
37	When you search for users on the Manage Users administrative page by using extended characters such as ä, ü, and ö, no users are found.
38	When projects are renamed, the summary resource assignment associated with the project may not get updated properly. Therefore, you end up with duplicate records in the reporting database. For instance, for a given assignment, you may see one record associated with the old project name and one for the new project name.
39	When the server queue service calls business processes that cause resource calendars to be loaded, the calendars may not get unloaded. Therefore, after time, the queue service may consume large amounts of memory.
40	Some Fixed Duration tasks that get scheduled on the server may lose progress. As an example, a task that was 100% complete becomes 99% complete because the task's finish date gets increased by a minute.
41	Consider the case in which you have two fixed duration tasks that have dependencies between them and they have resources assigned. Additionally, the dependent task has progress applied to it. These tasks are published to Project Server. In Project Web Access, you add actual work to the already partially completed assignment. But, upon recalculation, you find that actual work has actually decreased.
42	You have a fixed duration task that has a dependency to another ask. The task has progress applied to it. On the server, the progress on the task is reduced, but the change is ignored.
43	When an update is installed on Project Server, the Project Server Queue and Event services are not stopped while the update occurs.
44	When you try to provision a new Project Web access site, the process may fail. However, when you edit the failed site and try to correct the errors, you receive an error message that resembles the following: “The Project Web Access site specified can not be created because a site by that name already exists. Enter another Project Web Access path and try again.”
45	The Project Web Access Timesheet "Replace Actual with Planned" feature does not work. Instead of copying the planned work into the actual work fields, nothing happens. This feature worked correctly prior to the Infrastructure Update release.
46	You use the Active Directory Enterprise Resource Pool Synchronization function in Project Server. You try to troubleshoot some errors that you find in the Universal Logging Service (ULS) log. But, you cannot do this because the messages aren't correct and are missing some parameters necessary to understand the problem.
47	When provisioning a new Project Web Access site, databases that are versioned newer than the Farm could be used. Now, this scenario is blocked. You can provision a new PWA site using existing databases if database versions are older or equal to the Farm version.
48	When you work on the Project Web Access Resource Plan page, if you sort the grid of resources, the resource plan gets inadvertently checked back in and prevents you from saving the changes you made.
49	When more than one task in a project gets marked as the project summary task, the project and its tasks are not viewable in Project Web Access.
50	On long running Project Server Interface (PSI) calls involving timesheets, a process lock may expire and may cause problems. Hotfix 21266 that was previously released addresses this issue. However, there has never been a Universal Logging Service (ULS) entry to alert you to such problems. Now, if similar write lock timeout problems occur, the ULS log will contain an entry with details similar to the following: "ProjectHasWriteLock:TimeOut Exceeded; Ignoring Write Lock"
51	You install Project Server 2007 into a farm on a Windows Server 2008-based computer where User Account Control (UAC) is enabled. Additionally, the SharePoint timer service and the Shared Service Provider (SSP) service accounts are different. In this case, the Project Queue service may fail to start. Therefore, no jobs are processed in the queue.
52	When status updates are accepted and applied on the server, the time to process them may be very long. For instance, an update that used to take 30 minutes now takes just a few minutes.
53	A number of functions in Project Web Access (PWA), such as the Project Center "Edit Project Properties" and "Resource Plan" functions, are disabled if the PWA site's regional locale settings are set to locations such as German (Switzerland).
54	When you save a resource plan that has been applied to a Proposals or Activities project, you may see a message similar to: General error: An invalid value was passed to Project Server (Use this error information along with other errors to find out the cause of the problem.) General error: Work value used is invalid. (Use this error information along with other errors to find out the cause of the problem.) This problem occurs if you enter a value and then you later clear the value and attempt to save the resource plan.
55	If Project Server contains a formula that has a graphical indicator, and this graphical indicator contains a reference to another field, or the graphical indicator contains a Date or Duration constant value like "10d" or "5/1/08," the graphical indicator does not calculate.
56	If the Create New Proposal or Activity global permission has been denied, you still see the Proposals and Activities link in the global quick launch pane. Additionally you can click the Proposal and Activity menu options on the New menu in the Project Center view. Clicking any of these items produces an Error page which says you don't have sufficient permissions to the specified page.
57	The My Tasks view shows deleted tasks with a strikethrough font adornment. When you export these tasks to Excel, they do not properly show the strikethrough.
58	When the duration of a fixed-duration task is changed and calculated on Project Server, the work on assignments behaves like a Fixed Work task instead of like a Fixed Duration task. For instance, a 5d fixed-duration task with 40h of work on an assignment gets changed to 10d. Instead of the work increasing the 80h, it remains at 40h.

Contact me if you want to learn about WSS and SharePoint fixes/changes.