MSP Error: "Invalid Name for field prexternal ID"

Products

• Clarity PPM On Premise
• Clarity PPM SaaS

Issue/Introduction

When attempting to import/save a Microsoft Project (MSP) project to Clarity, receive the below pop-up error:

Invalid value for field prExternalID [Project Manager, Development Manager].

Note: You may see this error multiple times on the save back to Clarity when clicking OK. 

Cause

This error is due to the character length in Text1 for one or more tasks being greater than 16 characters. Text1 is mapped to the Task ID field in Clarity and this attribute is is limited to 16 characters. 

Resolution

To resolve this error, reduce the character length of the Text1 field for all tasks in MSP to be less than 16 characters:

1. Open the project in MSP in a Task / Gantt view
2. Add the Text1 column to the view
3. Update all Text1 values to ensure all are less than or equal to 16 characters (and ensure there are no duplicate values in Text1 fields as this can cause a separate error noted in MSP: Duplicate Task ID found error )
   
   Tips:

• If this field contains data being used for the project that is not ID related, you can move any data from Text1 to another Text field not currently in use for mapping (Text1, Text2, and Text3 are Clarity reserved fields used in mapping).
• Look for the text1 field with a value of that references the value with the text/id in brackets in the error message above, and reduce that to 16 or less characters. 
• If the error then occurs on a new ID after correcting the value for this one, proceed with the steps 1-3 above until all are corrected.
• If you do see any tasks with "~dtp" referenced in the ID, this ~dtp signifies this was a task that was attempted to be deleted with actuals (this may also cause character length of Text1 to exceed the allowed amount).
  • The task remains on the project in MSP with the “~dtp” in the front to show it was an attempted deleted task.