Project Server 2010 integration with SAP

Recently Microsoft partner company, Adviscon, has published white paper "Project Server 2010 integration with SAP". There is not enough information available related to the integration of  Project Server and SAP and its benefits, and this white paper indeed is a valueable material. Below is the executive summary from the white paper to give you an overview, and the link to download the white paper: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh770392.aspx

This white paper outlines the benefits and scenarios for integrating Microsoft Project Server 2010 with SAP’s ERP; in particular integrating the actual time reporting from SAP with the time-phased planning and resource forecasting power of Project Server 2010. 

This integration is cost-effective and enables the source of record Actuals (both Cost and Time reporting) to bring actuals to the planning activities that Project/Program Offices or Scheduling groups use Project Server 2010 for. 

This connection and process enables a large national company to drastically reduce the time spent in planning and trying to map the actuals directly with the way that the organization schedules work. Further, it enables the feature rich reporting capabilities of Microsoft Project Professional, Project Server and SharePoint Server and puts that planning and reporting directly in the hands of the end users.

This white paper is not a Detailed Technical Systems or programming write-up, but a customer solutions case study focusing on the value of systems integration of a Project and Resource Planning Organization.

 Happy reading.

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Project Server Databases Restore Failure - 3203 Error

Phew ..... wasnt really sure that i was able to overcome this and thought that all my efforts are lost now. But finally managed to fix it, and decided to put all bits and pieces in blog to help others.

I took the backup of my PWA i.e. 5db set, and when i tried to restore it to SQL so that i provision it on my VM environment, the following error has been thrown by SQL restore dialog box:

I am pasting the additional error information from the screen shot so that google can find it out for you:
______________________________________________________________________________________

an exception occurred while executing a transact-sql statement or batch. ( Microsoft.sqlserver.connectioninfo)

Additional Information :

Read on "C:\ProjectServer_Published" failed : 38(Reached the end of the file.) ( Microsoft sql server, error : 3203)

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Problem was that the source server database path was not found in destination server, so now you manually need to restore databases using sqlcmd with replace option. You can follow the steps to resolve this:

1. open command prompt using adminsitrator.
2. Type sqlcmd to connect to the default instance of SQL Server on the local computer, and the contents of the Command Prompt window will be:

   C:\>sqlcmd

   1> _
3. This means you have connected to the default instance of SQL Server and sqlcmd is now ready to accept Transact-SQL statements and sqlcmd commands. The flashing underscore after the 1> is the sqlcmd prompt that marks the location at which the statements and commands you type will be displayed.
4. Type the following script to get the Physical and Logical file name and its path of your database :
1. RESTORE FILELISTONLY FROM DISK = N'D:\<file_name>'
2. Go
3. 

   
   
5. Using the information you will get after running the above script, type the following script to restore your databases:
1. RESTORE DATABASE <file_name_New>
   FROM DISK = N'D:\<file_name>'
   WITH REPLACE ,
   MOVE '<Source physical file name returned by prev command>'
   TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\<file_name_New>.mdf',
   MOVE '<Source Logical file name returned by prev command>'
   TO 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\DATA\<file_name_New>_log.ldf'
2. go
6. This will now take some time depending upon the size of your database, you will see the cursor blink while its processing in the back. After a while output lines will start appearing indicating that status, and if it all goes smooth than the last line should be like this:
1. RESTORE DATABASE successfully processed 16668 pages in 8.765 seconds <size mb/sec>

Repeat the same above steps to restore all your databases, once all your database will restore successfully provision the PWA using the restored dbs.

Until next time, happy and prosperous new year ahead.

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Year 2011 in review

A year 2011 is been a roller-coaster ride for me through out in terms of personal and professional activities. Professionally, being a Project Management specialist using Ms EPM solution, it was year of lot of new learnings and achivements. Since the release of SharePoint 2010 and than later Project Server 2010 during mid of last year 2010, there were so much to catch up to grasp the early release of the product and than to demonstrate and implement to the real world scenarios. And without any doubt the Project Server 2010 is the most mature product from any of its predecessor, and this claims the Microsoft the highest rating for Project and Portfolio solution out in market.

Inspired by the idea of reviewing my blog at the year end, here are my top 5 blogs of year 2011 based on the number of hits:

1. Project Server 2010 - Task and Timesheet workflow
2. Project Server 2010/2007 Permission Settings
3. Project Professional 2010 - Baseline BUG
4. Project Server 2010 - Resource Picker on PDP
5. Project Server - Project Progress Tracking Methods

All your comments and feedback motivates me to write more and serve the community and readers out there to know more about Project and Project Server 2010. So folks keep visiting and sending your feedback, have a great year ahead.

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