Project status color coding in reports and lists

[chrisn_]

Hello,

I am trying to dig down to understand the exact mechanics behind the project status color coding. I am aware of what green, yellow and red mean and I am familiar with what should be make them show what they show, but I am trying to figure out why some projects show without colors. The ones without tasks make sense, but there are some where there are tasks associated with the project and it shows nothing. This is causing confusion for some of our business users who think we have changed something but as far as I know this color coding has been in SN for more than a year if not 2 correct? If someone out there has experience or knows of a resource that can help me identify why/how/when colors are calculated and displayed that would be a great help. These inconsistencies are also showing in list reports.

[Miguel Donayre]

Hello,

 When you mean the "status" colors do you mean the color on the "status" field in the list view or the color next to the "project number" column?

IF its the project status - is set both manually and automatically. If the project has Project Status Reports, it will take the latest overall health score and set that as the Project status. You can also set that manually. Those are both OOTB functionality.

IF you mean the status color next to the number - that has to do with a rollup project task -

[Miguel Donayre]

Do you have a screenshot of an example of the colors not showing up when they should? 

[chrisn_]

Yes, I am referring to the status color dots you pointed out in the first screen shot.

Primarily they are looking at published reports they are receiving in scheduled emails. So this is an example of what they are getting. There is one color coded, but the rest have nothing. When I look at these reports now I see the status colors there both in SN and in pdf's I have exported. I can't recreate the lack of status unless it is a project without any tasks, but projects on that pdf with only 2 exceptions all have tasks under them.

[Miguel Donayre]

I think I figure it out. The style code is looking for a filed on the Project table to be true.OOTB you have to add the field to the Project form to see it (it is not needed, but if you want to test this out you will have to add it ) OOTB this field is set by a business rule called - "Update parent rollup field"

Just because a Project has a Child Project task does not mean it will make the green button appear in next to the number. The rollup field as to be set to true. I would check to see if the ones missing the green dot have the rollup set to false. 

The one way I got it to set it to true is by "rolling up" the date field. If a Planned end date on a Project task is further out than the Project Planned date is will update it to match the latest Planned start date from the Project task. Because it does that SN considers that a rollup and marks that field true. There is a project setting that turns off the rollup function. If you have that turned on you will probably not get that rollup state to be true.