by Martin Laukkanen | Jan 31, 2014 | Apps, Project Online
7/02 
Updated this post to become an index of my session posts:
At Project conference 2014 in Anaheim I will be presenting a session on extending Project Online & on-premises functionality using JavaScript in the new world of 2013 Apps, if you can’t be there to see it or just want to learn more I’m going to do a full write-up here over the next couple of weeks including posting the full source of the of my demo app: the Project Server Holiday Sync app!
In my session I’m going to dive deep into a practical example of extending out-of-the-box functionality with Apps specifically when using SharePoint hosted apps written completely in JavaScript. What I really want to share is how it is possible to solve common challenges with minimal effort once you get the basic scaffolding you need in place.
Here I’ll break this full write-up down into three parts so make sure to check back here over the coming week(s) as they are posted:
For those of you who will be at Project Conf next week, add #PC403 to your calendar on Wednesday (http://www.msprojectconference.com/SessionDetail.aspx?id=12821) and make sure to come say hello!
by Martin Laukkanen | Jan 14, 2014 | Apps, Project Online
This is an issue I have come across deploying Apps in non-English PWA site collections, while the App page loads clearly something is wrong, see a screenshot:
If you press F12 in IE or Chrome and open the console you will see errors like the following:
Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (NOT FOUND) https://*****-1edc3a4f15d104.sharepoint.com/sites/testfi/_catalogs/theme/Themed/634341C6/corev15app-DDE41C8D.themedcss?ctag=0
From my testing this issue only came up in the last few months but fortunately there is a fix.
The problem appears to be caused by the provisioning job not deploying certain resources, fortunately this can be fixed by modifying the Alternate Language settings of the site collection. Simply selecting English as an alternate language will install the required components, and better yet when you then proceed to un-select English from the alternate language options the required resources remain and the issue is fixed for good.
Steps to correct issue
- Open Site Settings in your PWA or other site collection where the App is deployed.
- Open Alternate Languages, and select English as an alternate language.
- Save the settings and wait for the changes to apply.
- Now opening the App should work without display issues.
- Finally if required repeat step 1 and 2 and de-select English to restore the previous setup (while keeping the fix).
HTH,
by Martin Laukkanen | Dec 26, 2013 | Apps, How to, Project Online
I’ve been recently moving the last few components of my setup into the cloud and the last piece is decommissioning my development server, however not having full PowerShell access does place some limits on what can be done on Project Online so this particular error initially had me stumped:
Error occurred in deployment step ‘Install App for SharePoint’: Sideloading of apps is not enabled on this site.
On-premise that can be fixed as easily as:
Enable-SPFeature e374875e-06b6-11e0-b0fa-57f5dfd72085 –url http://server/PWA
(Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/josrod)
However as Tobias Lekman points out to do this on Office 365 or Project Online you need to use another method. Unfortunately the script you need: http://lekman.codeplex.com/releases/view/98505 appears to have an old GUID, so a slight modification is needed.
Steps to setup Project Online for App development
- First provision your PWA instance from the SharePoint Admin site, I’m going to use /sites/devpwa for this example.
- Download the Sideload.ps1 script.
- Open the script and replace the following line:
$sideLoadingGuid = new-object System.Guid "AE3A1339-61F5-4f8f-81A7-ABD2DA956A7D"
#Replace above line with:
$sideLoadingGuid = new-object System.Guid "e374875e-06b6-11e0-b0fa-57f5dfd72085"
- Now run the modified script and follow the prompts, for example:
Now your PWA site should look quite different:
Now you can deploy from Visual Studio without errors and debug as you would on-premise.
Note: Obviously you don’t want to do this on a Production PWA instance, for Production sites only ever use an App Catalog to deploy manually.
Office 365 developer subscription limit
Lastly, one thing that irritates me is that the O365 MSDN Dev subscription does not include Project Online! So please join me every opportunity you get to speak to your contacts in MS about fixing this serious omission!
by Martin Laukkanen | Dec 21, 2013 | Apps, BulkEdit
A new version of Bulk Edit has been published just in time for the holidays, check your site settings for the upgrade link now to install it.
New Features
- Mulit-select custom field Lookup Table values supported
- SharePoint Task list mode Project custom field support
- Support for updating the built-in Description field
Plus some bug fixes.
Happy holidays!
by Martin Laukkanen | Dec 1, 2013 | Apps, ConfigTool
I’m excited to announce that Config Tool has now been approved for the App store and v1.0.0.1 is available to install now!
Check it out: http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/store/config-tool-WA104165158.aspx
The trial version of Config Tool supports a limited set of functionality (5 custom fields imported at most), but should give you a good feel for the tool.
Either way if you like Config Tool then rate it and feel free to leave some feedback here or in the Support page.
by Martin Laukkanen | Nov 14, 2013 | Apps, ConfigTool
I’ve been a bit quiet over here the last couple of months while I’ve been working on my next App for Project Server, I’m just putting the final touches on it now so I thought it’s worth a post with some preliminary information!
One of the great challenges when working in the Cloud is the lack of full access to the back-end, i.e. databases, that along with fact that Administrative Backup and Restore has been disabled on Project Online, leaves us poor Admins and Consultants with few options when it comes to the normal day-to-day configuration, change management and deployment.
There is one company out there with a solution to this (which I quite like actually), but I found myself wanting something much simpler as 90% all I want to do is copy or restore a bunch of fields to a new customer instance (and don’t want to have to go through IT to get some software installed locally, etc etc).
So, here’s my solution to this problem;
Config Tool
Config Tool is a configuration management tool for Project Server enabling the backup, migration and restoration of PWA configurations between farms or project instances.
Config Tool is designed to be simple to use and easy to install on any Project Server deployment with the App Store, to enable the quick and easy backup, restore and migration of configuration between instances.
In the same vein keeping things simple means that the initial version will support only; Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables, Workflow Stages and Phases and EPTs. With more features to come in the future including PDPs, resources and so on.
Release Information
Config Tool will be available through the SharePoint App store in the coming days / weeks so keep watch this blog for the release announcement.
For now you can see some screenshots and read some more about the full features of Config Tool here on the draft product info page.
