When saving back a project from Microsoft Project (MSP) to Clarity using the MSP Plugin / Interface, receive error: 'Project Save Failed' due to one or more tasks missing Start or Finish dates
In the app-ca.logs, you see the following Warning message 'ImportTaskProcessor.doProcess(): Illegal Task Start and/or Finish dates' related to schedulers.postProject.
Tip: To get to the app-ca.logs, see the following KB that will walk both On Premise and SaaS customers on steps to retrieve the log: Access the app-ca.log or other Clarity Logs
Expected Results: Project Saves successfully and the project imports successfully to Clarity
Actual Results: Receive error message 'Project Save Failed' and project does not save back to Clarity
Release: All
Component: Clarity Microsoft Project
This is working as designed as Start and Finish Dates are required fields for Clarity. A blank Start/Finish Dates happen if a task is are created in MSP with Task Mode of Manually Scheduled. If the Start / Finish dates haven't been manually entered, the project will not save back to Clarity as Clarity requires Start and Finish Dates for all tasks. The value entered must be in a date format, so placeholder values such as TBD or N/A are not allowed as well.
To check if a task is set to Manually Scheduled, view the Task Mode icon for the task. A blue thumb tack indicates it's a manually scheduled task. Screen shot below that shows a task that is manually scheduled with Blank Start and Finish Dates
If any tasks are found with this issue enter the missing dates for the task(s) in MSP (or change the Task Mode to of the task to Auto Scheduled which will automatically populate a Start and Finish date for the task)
Note: To prevent this issue going forward, ensure that the following Required setting is made for the existing project and all new projects in MSP:
Note: Change Scheduling options for this project from the existing project to All New Projects to then make this the default for new projects going forward. Screen shot below:
After initial task creation, the task can then be changed to Manually Scheduled. For more details including steps to change this, see: MSP Manually Scheduled Tasks / Milestones
For another known issue related to illegal start/finish date error, see:
Reference: Auto Scheduled versus Manually Scheduled tasks in MSP - What are the recommendations for Auto Scheduled versus Manually Scheduled tasks working in Microsoft Project
For other causes of the Project Save failed error see: MSP Error: 'Project Save Failed' - master KB
Clarity MSP Support Document Indexes: