In the MSP New driver, highlighting of tasks is no longer saved

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise

Issue/Introduction

Microsoft Project New driver, highlighting (adding background color to tasks) is no longer saved. After you save the project back to PPM then export the project back to MSP, the highlighting is gone

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Export a project from PPM to MSP
2. Create a task in the project.
3. Highlight one or more fields on the task.
4. Click the Background color button at the Task tab
5. Save the project back to PPM
6. From PPM, export the project to MSP again

Expected Result:  Task(s) highlighted prior to save back to PPM are still highlighted.

Actual Result: Tasks are no longer highlighted.  

 

Cause

This is due to a Microsoft Project limitation with use of XML. 

Environment

Clarity 16.x and 15.x

Resolution

This is working as expected due to the behavior of Microsoft Project. This can be reproduced in Microsoft Project standalone by saving the project as an XML locally on the machine instead of saving back to PPM. When you open the XML file in MSP, the highlighting is lost.

Workaround:

You can create a highlight view to workaround the behavior, but this is only available for use with yellow highlighting. There is no workaround to include other format changes such as blue highlighting, or green font.

Step 1: Create the Highlight View 

1. Launch the project from PPM to MSP
2. Click on the View tab
3. From the Highlight drop down select 'New Highlight Filter'
4. Change the Filter name to the desired name
5. Click on the Field Name drop down and select 'Flag1' (If you are not using that field currently, otherwise, select another unused Flag field)
6. From the Test drop down select 'equals'
7. From the Value(s) drop down select 'Yes'
8. Click Save
9. You can also save this to your Default View by going to View->Select the view->Save View. This will enable the highlighting automatically when you launch the project from PPM to MSP.

Step 2: Designate with tasks you want to add to the Highlight View 

1. Add the Flag1 column (or whichever Flag you created as your Field Name in the step above) to the view
2. Whenever you want to highlight a task, change the Flag 1 value to 'Yes'
3. To see the filter change reflected immediately, click the View tab, then reselect the Highlight you created to refresh the page. 

When you save the Changes back to PPM, if you saved the highlight filter to your default view in MSP, when you relaunch the project from PPM to MSP, the tasks will show up highlighted. Otherwise, you can click on the View you added the highlight to, and then you will see your highlighted tasks. 

 

Additional Information

• Reference : In the new MSP Driver, custom views are not Saved
• Reference : In the MSP New Driver, Tasks/Milestones added to Timeline view are not Preserved
• Reference : Can Custom Field Names in MSP be exported as column names for projects exported from PPM?
• Click here to view information on other differences between the MSP Legacy and MSP New driver from the PPM Project Management User Guide