Project Professional 2010 - Baseline BUG

Seems like it's a BUG finding season!

But this time it's much more severe and the impact is not acceptable. But the good thing is, or may be bad not sure really, that it seems more like a client side issue, i.e. Project Professional 2010. One of my Blog reader has drawn my attention towards this, after briefly discussing with few of the Project Forums active members, i thought of documenting the Issue here to spread the word.

Details:

Consider the organization setup where the PMO or some other governing body is responsible to set the baseline of the Project and restrict the users to not to change the baseline values by utilizing the Project Server permissions. What if I tell you that user can still be able to change baseline values even in the presence of DENY BASELINE PERMISSION. how its sounds – Scary!

This is exactly the case with the Project Professional 2010, that the user is able to change the baseline values of the certain fields and can save and publish the project, even when he is not allowed to do so.

Environment:

Project Professional 2010 connected to the Project Server 2010 PWA instance.

Server	Client	Patch Level
Project Server 2010	Project Professional 2010	Dec CU(both client and server)
	Project Professional 2007

 

Steps to Produce the BUG:

Lets make sure first that the Project Server Group save baseline permission is Denied for the group users

1. Login as Administrator to the PWA
   
2. Go to the Server Settings, Manage Group Permission
   
3. Click the Project Manager Group
   
4. Select the category associated with the Group, scroll down to the Project Permissions and DENY the SAVE PROTECTED BASELINE permission
   

All set, lets move further. Assuming that there is already a Project exist for the Project manager with the Baseline values set by the PMO. Now let's retrieve the Project plan from the server and verify if change in baseline values are REALLY DENIED for the user.

1. Open the Project Professional
   
2. Connect to the server using the appropriate Profile
   
3. Retrieve the Project Plan from the server
   
4. Insert the baseline columns to the Project Plan, such as Baseline Duration, Baseline Work, Baseline Cost, Baseline Start/Finish.
   

Try Set the Baseline:

1. Select the Project tab from the ribbon
   
2. Click Set Baseline, and select Set baseline from the drop down
   
3. Check the Set Baseline radio button, select the Baseline0 and click OK
   
4. The message will appear to inform you that you do not have the sufficient permission
   

Try Clear the Baseline:

1. Select the Project tab from the ribbon
   
2. Click Clear Baseline
   
3. Check the Clear Baseline Plan radio button, select the Baseline0 and click OK
   
4. The message will appear to inform you that you do not have the sufficient permission
   

Now back to the Project Plan where we have inserted the Baseline columns:

• Select the BASELINE WORK field, and its READ-ONLY

• Select the BASELINE DURATION field, and its EDIT-ABLE

• Select the BASELINE START field, and its EDIT-ABLE

• Select the BASELINE FINISH field, and its EDIT-ABLE

• Select the BASELINE COST field, and its EDIT-ABLE

Workaround:

The only alternate solution is to use the Project Profession 2007 until the FIX release. But Project 2007 can only be use with Project Server 2010 if the server is configured to be use in BCM state. So this further narrows this  option to be opt by the organizations who migrated or upgraded from Project Server 2007 OR earlier planned to use Project 2007 along with the Project 2010.

 

To any effected user out there, open the ticket with Microsoft support to sort this out if its urgently required or wait until the FIX releases. Although I don't think if you can compromise on this even for a short while, but since it's not fixed in the DEC CU – so you better log a call now.

Any feedback, comments are most welcome.

 

Posted in: Project Professional 2010 - Known ISSUE