Durations appear with Question Marks (?) in MSP when opened from Clarity PPM

Products

• CLARITY PPM FOR ITG
• CLARITY PPM FEDERAL
• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

When the Microsoft Project (MSP) Schedule is opened through the Clarity PPM MSP Interface, all the durations show up with a Question Mark (?) at the end. 

 

Cause

This is due to having one or both of the following MSP Settings checked:

• New scheduled tasks have estimated durations
• Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations

Environment

Release: All Supported Releases
Component: MSP

Resolution

It's recommended to have these fields unchecked, unless you are using estimated durations.  See below for the steps to uncheck these options.

For existing projects: 1. Open the project in MSP 2. Go to File->Options-Schedule in MSP 3. Under 'Scheduling options for this project', uncheck the check boxes for the below fields:

• New scheduled tasks have estimated durations
• Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations

4. Click OK 5. Save the project back to PPM 6. Open the project and verify that the project opens correctly without the setting rechecked. To make this the default for all projects going forward: 1. Close out all open projects in MSP

2. Go to File->Options-Schedule in MSP 3. Under 'Scheduling options for this project', uncheck the check boxes for the below fields:

• New scheduled tasks have estimated durations
• Show that scheduled tasks have estimated durations

4. Click OK

Additional Information

Link to Microsoft Forum topic on this issue: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-project/summary-tasks-show-question-mark-in-duration/342af792-949e-4449-b7ea-e1f4e1d4fbbd 

Reference 71385 - CA PPM and MSP integration - List of Knowledge Documents

Reference 15956 - CA PPM and MSP integration known defects - Support Technical Document Index