Test database administration settings in Project Server 2010

 

Applies to: Project Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-11-10

Summary:  The fourth article in a series of nine articles about how to test a Microsoft Project Server 2010 deployment as an enterprise project management system administrator or solution tester. Use the series as a guide to test the functionality of a newly deployed Project Server 2010 instance. The articles in this series discuss the functionalities that are on the Server Settings page, and some initial tests that you can run to connect and check server communications by using the Project Professional 2010 client application.

Contents

• Delete Enterprise Objects

• Force check-in Enterprise Objects

• Daily backup schedule

• Administrative backup

• Administrative Restore

• OLAP database build settings

• Next steps

Delete Enterprise Objects

This page enables the administrator to delete the following items:

• Projects, proposals, and activities

• Resources and users

• Status Report responses

• Timesheets

Project Server 2010 has the following databases:

• Draft. You open and save projects from Project Professional 2010 to and from the Draft database.

• Published. When you select the publish option in Project Professional 2010, the data is saved in the Published database.

• Reporting. When you publish data, a copy of the data is stored in the Reporting database. All reports run from the Reporting database.

• Archive. When you archive projects, they are stored in the Archive database.

In this scenario, you delete a project From the Draft database and its associated SharePoint site.

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Microsoft Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click Delete enterprise objects.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The Delete Enterprise Objects page appears.
4. Click Projects.	A list of projects appears in the grid.
5. Check: Delete the associated SharePoint Foundation Sites option.
6. Select the projects to delete from the grid.     Note that you can select multiple projects to delete.
7. Click the Delete button.	The list of projects is deleted.

Force check-in Enterprise Objects

Sometimes enterprise objects do not get checked back into the system. This feature enables administrators to perform a force check-in operation on the object.

You can check in the following objects:

• Enterprise Projects

• Enterprise Resources

• Enterprise Custom Fields

• Enterprise Calendars

• Lookup Tables for Enterprise Custom Fields

• Resource plans

Important

You must have Security App to use Check-in Enterprise Objects.

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click Force Check-in Enterprise Objects.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The Force Check-in Enterprise Objects page appears.
4. Select the kind of object that you want to check in.	A list of the selected kind of object appears.
5. Click the Check-in button.	The object is checked back in to Project Server.

Daily backup schedule

Use this page to define your daily backup schedule to support item-level restoration. Increasing the project retention policy affects your archive database. The more versions that you keep, the more space is required. Item-level backup is designed to work with, not instead of, SQL Server database backups.

You can back up the following items:

• Projects

• Enterprise Resource Pool and Calendars

• Enterprise Custom Fields

• Enterprise Global

• View Definitions

• System Settings

• Category and Group Settings

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click Schedule Backup.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The Schedule Backup web page appears.
4. Set the Project Retention Policy (versions).
5. Next to the projects item, set the option drop-down to Schedule.
6. Specify a time.
7. Click Save.	Project Server creates a backup of the selected item at the specified time.

Administrative backup

Item-level backup is designed to work with, not instead of, SQL Server database backups.

You can back up the following items:

• Projects

• Enterprise Resource Pool and Calendars

• Enterprise Custom Fields

• Enterprise Global

• View Definitions

• System Settings

• Category and Group Settings

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click Administrative Backup.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The Backup web page appears.
4. Select the object to back up. For this example, select Projects.
5. Click Backup.	The request is sent to the queue for processing.
6. Open the queue: Server settings/queue.	The queue displays details about the backup request.

Administrative Restore

Use this page to restore individual item-level objects that are stored in your archive database.

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click Administrative Restore.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The Restore Web Page appears.
4. Select the item type that you want to restore.	The list of objects refreshes based on the item type that you select.
5. Click the item and then click Restore.	The system sends the item to the queue to be restored.

OLAP database build settings

The cube build setting page enables the administrator to schedule when to build the cube and what date ranges to use when building. The date ranges are important because they affect the following:

• The time that the cube takes to build.

• The amount of data that can be analyzed. For example, you might only want to build a cube for 2009 data only. By using the data range options, you can select to run it from 1/1/2009 to 12/31/2009.

In this scenario, you create a new build.

Test Step	Expected / Desired Results	Actual Results (if deviation)
1. Open Project Web App.	The Project Web App loads.
2. Click Server Settings.	The Server Settings page appears.
3. Click OLAP Database Build Settings.     (Located in the Database Administration section.)	The OLAP Database Management page appears.
4. Click New.	The OLAP Database Build Settings page appears.
5. Specify the Analysis Services Server and the Analysis Services database to be created.
6. Specify the Project Department for the OLAP database.
7. Specify the Resource Department to use for the OLAP database.
8. In Database Date Range settings select the Use the fixed date range specified below.     Specify 1/1/2009 as the start date.     Specify 12/31/2009 as the end date.
9. In the OLAP Database Update Frequency section, do not choose update periodically.     Because you want to build the 2009 OLAP database only one time for this example, you do not have to rebuild it periodically because it is in the past.     Immediately retry the cube update if scheduled time fails because of queue downtime.
10. Click Save.	You return to the OLAP Database Management page that has the newly created OLAP Database name.
11. Click Build Now.	The OLAP database is built.

Next steps

The following are the remaining articles in this series:

• Testing Project Server 2010 deployments

• Test security settings in Project Server 2010

• Test enterprise data settings in Project Server 2010

• Test look and feel settings in Project Server 2010

• Test time and task management settings in Project Server 2010

• Test queue settings in Project Server 2010

• Test operational policy settings in Project Server 2010

• Test workflow and project detail pages in Project Server 2010