MSP plugin (PPM 7.1) - does it preserve external predecessors?

[Alexei Malinovs]

Dear Community,

I have 2 questions:

Q1. If I configured project to have "Control is shared" in MSP integration what happens to external predecessors? So, actuals are collected by Mercury and workplan WBS is controled by MSP.

Q2: I have a number of projects previously controlled by Mercury that were transferred 6.0-->7.1 during upgrade. Those project has external predecessors to each other. However, if I make WBS to be controlled by MSP and Actuals by PPM I cannot synchronise them anymore. It always complains that I deleted some tasks from MSP even though I have not done any modifications in there 🙂

Summary:
It looks like it is not possible to use external predecessors in case WBS is controlled by MSP?

[Gary Rubinstein · Accepted solution]

Hi Alexei,

There are a number of things you need to consider when integrating work plans with MSP. I would recommend you review the attached white paper: "Integrating HP Project and Portfolio Management with Microsoft Project". This white paper outlines what can/cannot be done including working with external predecessors for which links are not maintained when integrating with MSP.

Regards,
Gary

[Alexei Malinovs]

Gary,
Thank you for very useful document! Where did you get it? I guess it is not part of normal PPM dosucmentaiton.

I briefly verified it and start wodering how usable MSP pluging at all when MSP controls the planning.

- Resource calendars not synchronised
- Actual start/finnish works differently in MSP
- Tasks start end date may differ in MSP and PPM.
- Task duration can some time differ in MSP and PPM.
- Cutting and pasting tasks in MSP is actually deleting and if task has actuals = problem on synchronisation.
- Many more other exceptins and incompatibilities betwen MSP and PPM.

I just can imaging Project managers, who has a tough time to understand all features of MS prject also to study all features of PPM scheduling and then to study all incompatibilities and restrictions during synchronisation.

I'm wondering do anyone have a succesfull implementation of MSP pluging in shared mode in big organisations?

[shijub]

When MSP plans are uploaded to PPM they typically have predecessors at the task level.  When those predecessors are added to PPM they restrict tasks from opening for time tracking and require a high level of PPM task maintenance from the project manager, which is often neglected.  Can we  set up PPM to not record predecessors when project schedules are uploaded from MSP to avoid this issue.

[Etienne_Canaud]

Hi,

There's no such feature currently, so you might want to open an Enhancement Request for it.