How to have task ID assigned to tasks that are imported from MS Project

[Nadine Taillefer]

When saving a project task list from MS Project to Clarity, the Task ID is blank in Clarity.  Is there a solution that can assign a Task ID in Clarity for all tasks that the ID is blank?  

[Legacy User]

No I do not think there is. The Auto-numbering also, I guess, won't work when you are creating Tasks in MSP for a project. 

[Nadine Taillefer]

That is correct auto numbering of task ID is not working for tasks created from MSP.

[Kristin Schroer]

Hi Nadine,

You could enter the Task ID in MSP in the Text1 field. Text1 maps to the Task ID field in PPM. If you did want to use this option, add the Text1 column to your view, and then you can add Task IDs there. (Just make sure there aren't any duplicate IDs as the project won't save back)

 

Regards,

Kristin Schroer

[Simon Meadows]

That is consistent with my experience. Tasks created within PPM get allocated an ID by autonumber but when tasks are added in MSP then the ID is not populated, resulting in a NULL value which cannot be edited in PPM when saved. Re-opening in MSP does allow the ID to be updated but the sync will fail if there is a duplicate.

 

Has anyone been able to get an autonumber in a consistent format in MSP? 

 

Regards,

Simon Meadows

[Legacy User]

Hey Simon

I've done this on a VERY small scale (i.e. just for me, with Admin rights, and just in a non-Prod environment). I can't claim that it will work in Production, on any kind of scale, with standard PM users.

 

You can add some VBA magic into the Clarity_SavePrecheck procedure (which lives within the CA_IntegrationHooks code module, in the Global.mpt file), which cycles through each task. Where are task doesn't have an ID, it makes a webservice call to PPM to run the query to get the next auto-number ID, and puts the ID into the Task ID field.

 

Again, it's hacky and I've never tried it in a Prod environment. Test, test, test!

 

Also, to roll it out you'll need to get friendly with your MOE team to push an update out to every user's Global.mpt file.

Cheers, and good luck!

Alistair

[Roland Parrotte]

This also happens in Open Work Bench in at least V15.3.  It means that any task with null task ID can not be updated by XOG.  There is/was an Idea for this one Task XOG should not use non-mandatory field

[Nadine Taillefer]

Roland the idea link is not working.  Thanks for your input.

[Roland Parrotte]

Technically, the idea link does work, we just don't have the security to access it.  Shame, as a Community, we can't see what was previously posted on the Idea, as well as who voted on it.

[Legacy User]

I raised that idea Roland, but there were many other discussions on the same topic and (if I recall correctly) other very similar ideas.

 

The idea I raised was that Task XOG should not use prexternalid as its key, since prexternalid is not mandatory in the data model.  I suggested the Task XOG should be updated to use the internal database id field instead.

 

I found that when I was trying to XOG-update tasks that don't have a prexternalid, the XOG was creating a new task each time, even when I supplied the internal ID, the order id, the outline level, etc.

 

At one point someone (I think it was urmas) said you can actually XOG tasks without a prexternalid but I can't now find his comment so I assume it was within the idea.

[Roland Parrotte]

Hi Alistair, you can't XOG a task, unless it has PREXTERNALID set - previously attempted it, and it is a required attribute for the XOG.  It is slightly off topic, but it is disappointing that we can't access these previous Ideas.  It is a large chunk of previously knowledge that we have now lost as a Community.