Switching to Manual Calculation mid-stream - how?

Shane J · ‎03-31-2017

I need to pump the brakes on how we're using Project, and in order to do so I believe I need to start defaulting the Calculation from Automatic to Manual. That's easy enough, but doing so causes issues for Automatic Projects that are already created and have child Project Tasks. If I switch the default to 'manual' (for Planned Task - Calculation), and attempt to add a new Project Task to an Automatic Project I get an error that says that isn't allowed and the insert fails (I assume a BR is causing this, which I don't want to mess with as I'm sure it's there for a good reason).

So what can I do so that new Project tasks on an Automatic Project can be created?

kellykaufmann · ‎04-02-2017

Hello jued0001

Would you like to take a step back and talk about the issues making you want to switch calculation types? There may be some other settings that could help with some things you are concerned about.

Otherwise... can you try (A) creating a project template from the existing project and creating a new project from that template (with 'Manual' schedule type the default already set)? Or (B) exporting the tasks and importing them into a new project that has Manual calculations set, and running the project from that new PRJ?

Shane J · ‎04-03-2017

I thought it might be easier to just show how my HI Inc went to give you an idea of where I am at (I apologize for the length). I have looked at many of the posts you've made in the past on this subject and about the only thing I haven't done at this point is replace the OOB Planned Date fields with my own. Since I posted this, I do have an Update Set going where I have switched Planned Task to 'manual' by default, and have a BR that checks if the parent Project is automatic or not - if it is, it switches it to match. That seems to have taken care of what I originally posted about at least.

What it comes down to really is that the dependency of Planned dates within a Project tasks, and then up to the parent Project, was having unintended consequences. Things like the Project task always reverting to a Planned End date 1 day into the future after being saved.

*******:

Short description: PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these issues as a stop-gap until we can get some

Click here to view: INT3183949

Comments:

2017-03-13 10:12:48 PDT - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

Hi Shane,

I'm just following up on this INT to see if you have any further questions. If not kindly click on "accept solution" to close out this INT.

Thank you,

Derrick Ho

2017-03-06 12:46:03 PST - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

Hi Shane,

Yes, as you mentioned in your initial description below "until we can get someone in to help us with a proper PPM implementation". This workaround will be only for project moving forward. You are correct "A project created as automatic with one or more tasks cannot be converted to manual."

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/helsinki-it-business-management/page/product/project-management/c...

The change will be overwritten for these projects. However you can go back and change these dates accordingly after the roll up has changed these values. Please let me know if you have any further questions and i'll be happy to assist you further.

Thank you,

Derrick Ho

2017-03-06 08:37:22 PST - Shane Juedes^{Additional comments}

reply from: shane.juedes@spectrumbrands.com

Derrick, I need guidance with this:

Lastly as you mentioned "until we get someone to assist with PPM implementation", it maybe best to have projects set to manual calculations and open ACL access to allow edits to fields such as "planned start, planned end, actual start, actual end" so you can manually set these values yourself. Since these fields are automatically calculated and rolled up.

I can take care of the ACLs easy enough, but from what I've read I can't go back and change Projects to be manually calculated once they've been entered. So if I change these ACLs, and someone updates one of those fields, what would stop the change from being overwritten?

From: Service-now.com Internal Server [mailto:internal@service-now.com]

Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2017 5:56 PM

To: Juedes, Shane

Subject: INT3183949 Spectrum Brands Inc -- commented -- PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these

Short description: PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these issues as a stop-gap until we can get some

Click here to view: INT3183949<https://hi.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do%3Fsys_id=67c205eedb0536c04816f3231f9619a9%26sys...>

2017-03-02 15:55:10 PST - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

Solution proposed by Derrick Ho (NOW)

Hi Shane,

I have took each of your questions an answered them below:

Project Tasks are being reopened when the Project is reopened
4.4 Project State Rollups and Roll Downs

"Project or parent changed from closed to Pending or Open: child tasks change to Open.": http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Project_State...

This process is handled by business rules called: Process State Change

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=8b631e3ebf20010032a0854b3f0739e2

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project_task: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=03de4950ef21010032a05ad595c0fb48

Actual End Date isn't filling in when a Project is closed

When a Project is closed at the top level with child task. Actual end date is not filled. This is a known PRB717195, this issue has been resolved in our latest release Istanbul.

Another issue is when custom states are introduced and closing projects with these custom states. This can cause business rules that rely on state change to fill in actual end date.

3.4 Time Constraints in Parent-Child Relationships: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Time_Constrai...

"Child precedence also applies to end dates. If the child task's estimated end date is later than the parent task's end date, the parent task's estimated end date extends to cover the child. For actual values, a parent has the same start date as the earliest start date of its children and the latest actual end date as the latest end date of its children, assuming the child tasks are Closed Complete. If the child tasks are not in the Closed Complete state, the actual end date of the parent is empty."

"For the planned end date of the parent task, the latest planned end date or actual end date of the child tasks determines the parent's planned end date."

Planned Task Start Dates change to alternate dates after being saved (this may be due to 'Duration' but not entirely sure)
4.1 Planned Start Date:http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Planned_Start_Date

Client script "Populate Task Start Date": "Populates the start date of a project task based on the task's dependencies and relationships."

https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script_client.do?sys_id=24826b60eb23300060bbafcef106...

Project Tasks are affecting the parent Project State when their State is changed
4.4 Project State Rollups and Roll Downs

"Project or parent changed from closed to Pending or Open: child tasks change to Open.": http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Project_State...

This process is handled by business rules called: Process State Change

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=8b631e3ebf20010032a0854b3f0739e2

5.We seem to be having issues with the State in general, though everything I have read said that is fixed in Helsinki, I think our custom States are still having unintended consequences

I would highly recommend that you revert your custom states back to out of box. When having custom states in project and project task you are introducing complications to OOB business rules and OOB client scripts that depend on these states being OOB. Making these changes will not be fixed in any release. If you alternate these states you need to alternate the scripts that rely on these state changes.

6.There seems to be dual-dependency between the Parent Project and the children Project Tasks Planned Start and End Date fields, so at this point it seem nearly impossible to set it correctly in either place.

"The planned end date of a project or a task can be modified if the project or the task does not have any children. If a project or a task has children, the latest planned end date of the children is set as the planned end date of the project or the task."

4.1 Planned Start Date: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Planned_Start_Date

Time Constraints can affect planned start date: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Time_Constraints

That being said if you need to alternate script please take a look at this wiki which covers all business rules, client scripts, ui polices with descriptions with what they do:

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Installed_with_Project_Management#gsc.tab=0

Lastly as you mentioned "until we get someone to assist with PPM implementation", it maybe best to have projects set to manual calculations and open ACL access to allow edits to fields such as "planned start, planned end, actual start, actual end" so you can manually set these values yourself. Since these fields are automatically calculated and rolled up.

If you dont have any further questions kindly click on "accept solution" to close out this INT.

Thank you,

Derrick Ho

2017-03-02 15:53:57 PST - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

No Problem Shane, I will go ahead and move this INT over to solution propose with the write up I proveded where I answered your questions. I have also answered you question below as well.

!current.rollup // rollup is an actual property and its checking if the record is not a rollup

current.sys_id == current.top_task.toString() // "toString()" converts the top_task into a sys_ID and checks if it's the current sys_ID/

Thank you,

Derrick Ho

2017-03-02 10:58:34 PST - Shane Juedes^{Additional comments}

reply from: shane.juedes@spectrumbrands.com

Derrick, this is great and I'll try to make some time to parse all of it. In the mean time, one issue still occurring is some weirdness with the State on Project Tasks. There is an ACL that is the culprit, but I'm not sure what the condition means:

!current.rollup || current.sys_id == current.top_task.toString()

Can you tell me what each side of the 'OR' is doing here?

From: Service-now.com Internal Server [mailto:internal@service-now.com]

Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2017 11:47 AM

To: Juedes, Shane

Subject: INT3183949 Spectrum Brands Inc -- commented -- PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these

Short description: PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these issues as a stop-gap until we can get some

Click here to view: INT3183949<https://hi.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do%3Fsys_id=67c205eedb0536c04816f3231f9619a9%26sys...>

2017-03-02 09:46:59 PST - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

Hi Shane,

I have took each of your questions an answered them below:

Project Tasks are being reopened when the Project is reopened
4.4 Project State Rollups and Roll Downs

"Project or parent changed from closed to Pending or Open: child tasks change to Open.": http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Project_State...

This process is handled by business rules called: Process State Change

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=8b631e3ebf20010032a0854b3f0739e2

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project_task: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=03de4950ef21010032a05ad595c0fb48

Actual End Date isn't filling in when a Project is closed

When a Project is closed at the top level with child task. Actual end date is not filled. This is a known PRB717195, this issue has been resolved in our latest release Istanbul.

Another issue is when custom states are introduced and closing projects with these custom states. This can cause business rules that rely on state change to fill in actual end date.

3.4 Time Constraints in Parent-Child Relationships: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Time_Constrai...

"Child precedence also applies to end dates. If the child task's estimated end date is later than the parent task's end date, the parent task's estimated end date extends to cover the child. For actual values, a parent has the same start date as the earliest start date of its children and the latest actual end date as the latest end date of its children, assuming the child tasks are Closed Complete. If the child tasks are not in the Closed Complete state, the actual end date of the parent is empty."

"For the planned end date of the parent task, the latest planned end date or actual end date of the child tasks determines the parent's planned end date."

Planned Task Start Dates change to alternate dates after being saved (this may be due to 'Duration' but not entirely sure)
4.1 Planned Start Date:http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Planned_Start_Date

Client script "Populate Task Start Date": "Populates the start date of a project task based on the task's dependencies and relationships."

https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script_client.do?sys_id=24826b60eb23300060bbafcef106...

Project Tasks are affecting the parent Project State when their State is changed
4.4 Project State Rollups and Roll Downs

"Project or parent changed from closed to Pending or Open: child tasks change to Open.": http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Task_Relationships_and_Dependencies#Project_State...

This process is handled by business rules called: Process State Change

Here is the Process State Change for pm_project: https://sbdev.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=sys_script.do?sys_id=8b631e3ebf20010032a0854b3f0739e2

5.We seem to be having issues with the State in general, though everything I have read said that is fixed in Helsinki, I think our custom States are still having unintended consequences

I would highly recommend that you revert your custom states back to out of box. When having custom states in project and project task you are introducing complications to OOB business rules and OOB client scripts that depend on these states being OOB. Making these changes will not be fixed in any release. If you alternate these states you need to alternate the scripts that rely on these state changes.

6.There seems to be dual-dependency between the Parent Project and the children Project Tasks Planned Start and End Date fields, so at this point it seem nearly impossible to set it correctly in either place.

"The planned end date of a project or a task can be modified if the project or the task does not have any children. If a project or a task has children, the latest planned end date of the children is set as the planned end date of the project or the task."

4.1 Planned Start Date: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Planned_Start_Date

Time Constraints can affect planned start date: http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Project_Scheduling_Engine#Time_Constraints

That being said if you need to alternate script please take a look at this wiki which covers all business rules, client scripts, ui polices with descriptions with what they do:

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Installed_with_Project_Management#gsc.tab=0

Lastly as you mentioned "until we get someone to assist with PPM implementation", it maybe best to have projects set to manual calculations and open ACL access to allow edits to fields such as "planned start, planned end, actual start, actual end" so you can manually set these values yourself. Since these fields are automatically calculated and rolled up.

Thank you,

Derrick Ho

2017-02-23 05:46:44 PST - Shane Juedes^{Additional comments}

reply from: shane.juedes@spectrumbrands.com

Yes, it was immediately after. I couldn't say which specifically though, as I did quite a few in succession.

I'm not sure that matters however. From what I'm reading this is how PPM was supposed to be working OOB the entire time, but we're not ready to work in this way.

From: Service-now.com Internal Server [mailto:internal@service-now.com]

Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 1:18 AM

To: Juedes, Shane

Subject: INT3183949 Spectrum Brands Inc -- commented -- PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these

Short description: PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these issues as a stop-gap until we can get some

Click here to view: INT3183949<https://hi.service-now.com/nav_to.do?uri=incident.do%3Fsys_id=67c205eedb0536c04816f3231f9619a9%26sys...>

2017-02-22 23:17:42 PST - Derrick Ho (NOW)^{Additional comments}

Hi Shane,

My name is Derrick Ho and I will be assisting you with this issue. When you enabled the Performance Analytics plugin. Did you start to notice these issue immediately after?

As part of the troubleshooting process, ServiceNow personnel may need to access your instance(s) in order to review the service impact to your instance and determine root cause. It may also be necessary to make some changes on a sub-production instance in order to troubleshoot the issue or to test a probable solution. These changes, if any, will be reverted back to the original state. If any change is not reverted a reason will be provided for the same.

If you need to speak to someone, please use one of the contact numbers from our Support contact page:

http://www.servicenow.com/support/contact-support.html You will then be able to enter your Incident or Change number over the phone to have your call routed to the engineer that owns that Incident or Change.

I am working in the PST time zone. Please note my working hours are 8:00AM-5:00PM. If you need assistance outside of this, you can call the Support contact number and another engineer will assist you. I will update the INC as soon as I have an update for you.

Best regards,

Derrick Ho

2017-02-22 14:30:24 PST - Shane Juedes^{Additional comments}

Details: PPM - I enabled the plug-ins for PA and seemed to have inadvertently triggered some PPM functionality that I am told was not occurring before. I need assistance in the best plan of action to remediate these issues as a stop-gap until we can get someone in to help us with a proper PPM implementation. I have checked the Community for answers, but PPM posts are not terribly plentiful to date, and the help I could find wasn't enough to resolve these issues. I believe there are BRs that need to be modified, but I'm not sure what the best course of action to take is.

• Project Tasks are being reopened when the Project is reopened

• Actual End Date isn't filling in when a Project is closed

• Planned Task Start Dates change to alternate dates after being saved (this may be due to 'Duration' but not entirely sure)

• Project Tasks are affecting the parent Project State when their State is changed

• We seem to be having issues with the State in general, though everything I have read said that is fixed in Helsinki, I think our custom States are still having unintended consequences

• There seems to be dual-dependency between the Parent Project and the children Project Tasks Planned Start and End Date fields, so at this point it seem nearly impossible to set it correctly in either place.

Business Critical: Significant Impact

Affected Users: Most Users

Start Date: 2017-02-15 12:00:00

End Date:

Ref:MSG72575456