Microsoft Project Workspace Sites “Custom Commands” tab that allows users to link issues, risks, and documents to Project Tasks is missing

After SharePoint Project Server 2010 upgrade with SharePoint in August 2010, we found Microsoft Project Server (MPS) Workspace Sites “Custom Commands” tab that allows users to link issues, risks, and documents to Project Tasks is missing for ALL MPS workspace sites. We tried different ways to fix this without success and finally this has been identified as feature conflict issue with Microsoft. Here is the information and workaround in case you run into the same issue.

1.    Symptom:
After 2010 upgrade, SharePoint Microsoft Project Server users could not see “Custom Commands” tab on their workspace sites. As a result, users could not link issues, risks, and documents to project tasks. Here are the two screen shots show correct workspace site with “Custom Commands” tab and another on without the tab.

 

2.    Root cause:
After debugging this issue with Microsoft Project Server engineers, we finally identified there are a whole set of conflicts as the Microsoft Fab 40 appears to be just a slightly stripped down Project Workspace template (not sure how it ever got into the Fab 40…). The Fab 40 template impacting Project Workspace template is Project Tracking Workspace template that seems to have the identical feature IDs and GUIDs and “overwrite” the Project Server Project Workspace. Here is the information about this template name = projchange, language = 1033, template id = 75818. I did not verify the ID or GUIDs and you could check yourself if you have spare time. This is another Fab 40 issue added to our Fab 40 issue list with Microsoft lately.



3.    Workaround:
Since missing “Custom Commands” tab issue is caused by conflicting templates, we have tried the following way to work around the issues. The procedure is to uninstall the Fab 40 Project Tracking Workspace template and then repair Microsoft Project Server (MPS). We could not find a automate way and here are the manual procedures.

• Retract the current ProjectTrackingWorkspace solution

           stsadm -o retractsolution -name ProjectTrackingWorkspace.wsp –immediate

• Delete the current ProjectTrackingWorkspace solution

           stsadm -o deletesolution -name ProjectTrackingWorkspace.wsp

• IISRESET

• Run a repair on Project Server 2010

           Control Panel
           Programs
           Programs and Features
           Select Microsoft® Project Server 2010 (® symbols pushes it down the list a bit)
           Click Change and then leave Repair selected on the dialog that appears and click Continue
           Wait for this to finish

• At this point all the right files are returned to their right locations – but the features need to be installed and activated

•  Install all the Project site features for 2010

           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWS
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSCommitments
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSCtypes
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSDocLibs
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSFields
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSIssues
           stsadm –o installfeature –name PWSRisks

•   IISRESET

At this point the Project Sites Collaboration Lists feature should show as active on all Project sites, and the Custom Commands should be visible and linking to tasks should be working and active.



4.    Remaining potential issues:
Now the Custom Commands is visible and linking to tasks should be working and active. We verified the existing sites created from Fab 40 Project Tracking Workspace template are also working fine without any issues. You would be able to use the default Microsoft Project Site template in place of the Fab 40 one you had used before for any new sites you require (and these needn’t be connected to projects).
However, there are two potential issues introduced by this workaround. The one is users would not be able to create Fab 40 Project Tracking Workspace template since it has been retracted. The second one is more serious since the existing sites created from Fab 40 Project Tracking Workspace template may not be upgraded since the template site definition has been removed. We are in the process to upgrade our SharePoint 2010 to latest CU and hopefully is April CU that has fixed many our MPS issues. We believe the worst case is we may need to reinstall the Fab 40 Project Tracking Workspace template before the upgrade and execute the same procedures as we described above to retract it again. What a wonderful Fab 40 Microsoft provided!