Cannot edit Budget Cost values?

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:

1. As administrator in PWA open the ‘Project Managers’ group and remove the ‘Save Protected Baseline’ permission from all categories.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. From Task Usage view, add the ‘Budget Cost’ to the right hand side of the window, then enter some cost values.
5. Save and Publish the project.
6. From PWA – Project Centre, edit project properties and change the owner to a member of the Project Managers group (not an administrator).
7. 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!