While investigating a solution for a customer who has a pretty common problem I came across another new feature to be included in Project Server 2010 Service Pack 1.

The problem comes about from the requirement to regularly publish project schedules to ensure that reporting data is kept up to date, this is particularly important when using Project Server timesheets which effectively demands that every active project be published at least once per period.

Normally this is okay, but when managing small projects some PM’s may have dozens or more active projects resulting in a significant administrative burden.

What’s new in SP1?

It seems that one of the unannounced new features is the inclusion of an option to “Automatically Publish” Task Updates approved by a rule, apparently the Status Approvals rule configuration will include this to make many of our lives easier!

I look forward to seeing it, and will update this post post release.

Update:

Looks like a few others a confirming this, see Christophe’s blog for some screenshots:

• One Small Check Box, One Giant Leap for Project Server – Gary Chefetz
• Automatically Publish Updates thanks to Project Server 2010 SP1 – Christophe Fiessinger