by Martin Laukkanen | Jan 26, 2010 | Project 2007, Reporting, Troubleshooting
On a number of occasions I have had problems with this particular file, worse still there doesn’t seem to be much official information on it available. The file is MSOLAP.UPD located in the root folder of the drive on which SQL Analysis Services (SSAS) is installed, the file does not exist usually and is not created during setup, however when a cube is built the file will be temporarily created and then removed. If you run a ProcMon you will see this everytime.
The problem occurs with Windows 2008 in which new security features restrict access to files in the root folders such as C: or D: which results in errors in the cube build.
Specifically:
“Error: Your permissions on the server computer do not allow you to administer this Analysis server.”
Typically this will occur when the Windows 2008 SSAS server is different to the Project Application Server, as you may imagine a remote process initiated from the App server accessing files in the root folder on the Windows 2008 drive.
The problem is exacerbated in large deployments when best practice security is used and the Project Server service account is different from both the SSP account and the MOSS Project Web Application Pool identity.
The solution I have found is a rather simple hack, basically pre-create the MSOLAP.UPD file in the root folder of the server drive where SSAS is installed, and ensure that the following three accounts have full permissions:
- MOSS PWA Web Site Application Pool identity
- Project Server Service Account (the account that runs the Queue Windows service)
- SSP Service account
AFAIK the first is the one used by the ProjectServerOlapCubeGenerator.exe to touch the MSOLAP.UPD file, so start with that if you need to.
Otherwise with that error message above the following should be taken into account:
The accounts used for building Cube include the SSP IIS Application Pool Account and the SSP service account.
- SSP Service account is used to connect to Analysis Services and trigger the cube build work, requiring access to the Repository, etc
- App Pool account is used to launch the ProjectServerOlapCubeGenerator.exe process which runs on the app server but also appears to remotely connect to the SSAS server. (need to confirm this)
- Finally the Project Server Service Account needs to be an SSAS admin.
Hope this post helps someone out there as I have often had this issue in large deployments and for a long time have done the above steps without even thinking twice about it!
by Martin Laukkanen | Nov 25, 2009 | Project Pro 2007, Troubleshooting
If you have configured any client to restrict permission to save a protected baseline then you might be unlucky enough to see this one, basically restricting this permission causes the next save to completely delete any previously saved baseline!
Not exactly what you meant when you tried to ‘protect’ that baseline is it?
Anyway I just noticed while researching another issue, that this has now been fixed!
“On the Edit User page in Project Web Access (PWA), you select the Deny check box for Save Unprotected Baseline. When you try to save a existing project file to a new file, baseline 0 through 10 are removed.”
by Martin Laukkanen | Nov 3, 2009 | Project 2007, Project Pro 2007, Troubleshooting
I came across this problem while working with a customer and trying to use the very useful Budget Cost Resource feature, basically when using Budget Cost Resources and also restricting the ‘Save Protected Baseline’ permission (as many companies do) the Budget Cost values appear to be restricted with the baseline values! I.e. The values cannot be edited in the Task Usage view.
It definitely looks like a bug (ahem “code – defect”) to me, however it’s not one I have had a chance (or need) to log with MS.
Here are some reproduction notes I made while working on this one with a customer, needless to say we opted for the workaround as opposed to attempting to get a resolution.
These steps are tested with the October 2009 CU package for both Project Server and Project Professional (Build 12.0.6520.5000).
Issue:
Budget Cost entry not working when Save Protected Baseline permission restricted.
Scenario:
Our organisation process requires that in Project Server Baselines can only be saved by the PMO department and not by project managers as such we have removed the default permission to ‘Save Protected Baseline’ from the ‘Project Managers’ project server group. Additionally for our project status reporting we need to track Budget expenditure compared to baseline, unfortunately we have found that when the ‘save protected baseline’ permission is removed from the PM’s they are no longer able to enter any budget costs into a project unless they were the original creator of the project (ie not someone who the ‘Owner’ was changed to). As our PMO is responsible for creating all projects with set templates and then assigning the PM this issue results in PM’s never being able to update Budget Cost’s.
Environment:
MOSS & Project farm deployment:
– 1 x WFE with MOSS and Project Server 2007 (SERVICE PACK 2)
– 1 x Project Application Server (SP2)
– 1 x SQL 2008 database server (SP1)
All servers running Windows 2008 SP1, all clients running Project Professional 2007 SP2.
Reproduction Steps:
- As administrator in PWA open the ‘Project Managers’ group and remove the ‘Save Protected Baseline’ permission from all categories.
- As administrator create a new Project in project professional, create a local cost resource and from the resource properties, select “Budget” resource as the type.
- Assign the budget resource to the project summary task; first from Tools – options enable the option to show the project summary task, then assign the resource to that task in the normal way.
- From Task Usage view, add the ‘Budget Cost’ to the right hand side of the window, then enter some cost values.
- Save and Publish the project.
- From PWA – Project Centre, edit project properties and change the owner to a member of the Project Managers group (not an administrator).
- Open the project from Project Professional as the PM user then open the Task Usage view and add ‘Budget Cost’ (if required)
RESULT:
Unable to add further budget costs to any item, HOWEVER the PM is able to delete exiting costs!
EXPECTED RESULT:
PM is able to edit all items in the ‘Budget Cost’ line.
Workaround:
If the procedure is changed so that the PM creates the Project in step 2 above then the PM is always able to edit the Budget Costs, however this requires that internal business process be changed and does not account for future changes in the assigned PM needing to make updates.
(Hope this helps someone out there…)
PS. Ten points to anyone who recognizes where my issue subjective template comes from!
