Adding Windows SharePoint Services Data for Risk Analysis

This OLAP extension adds task issues and risks to the Portfolio Analyzer cube. Team members enter the issue and risk data into a Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services template for Microsoft Office Project Web Access. Portfolio Analyzer uses the customized breakout functions to update the extended staging tables for the OLAP cube.

Before you begin to implement the OLAP extension for task issues and risks, it helps to review the structure of the Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 database, as described in the topic Architecture of Portfolio Analyzer.

Installing the Windows SharePoint Template

The default Project Web Access view includes pages for entry of project issues and risks once you have installed Project Server to integrate with SharePoint Services. The solution starter includes a template that modifies the default issues and risks pages to ensure that users fill in the required fields, such as probability and cost. The modified template also helps to establish a uniform process when users create new issues and risks. Before extending the staging tables to store the project issues and risks data, you first need to add the issues and risks page template to the SharePoint Services site for Project Server.

To add the issues and risks page template to SharePoint Services:

After you install the solution starter download file, your installation directory will contain ...\Solution Starters\Portfolio Analyzer OLAP Extensions\TaskIssuesRisks. For a list and description of all files in the download, see Solution Starter Files.

• The TaskIssuesRisks directory contains the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 projects to build the breakout DLL and a test application. These projects are explained in the topics that follow.

• The Utils subdirectory includes the Windows SharePoint Services template for issues and risks and a script to install it: PromoteTemplate.bat. Following are two of the key lines in the script:

  set SHAREPOINTPATH="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN"
  %SHAREPOINTPATH%\stsadm -o addtemplate -f solutionstarter.stp -title "Solution Starter Template"
  

  The script uses the SharePoint administration console application stsadm.exe to install the template named solutionstarter.stp. You need to make sure the SHAREPOINTPATH variable points to the location of the stsadm.exe utility on the SharePoint Services server you use for Project Server.

  For example, if you are running SharePoint Services on Windows Server 2003, the ...\60\BIN directory contains the Web server extensions for Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0.

  The script also lets you choose whether to reset IIS with the script or manually do it yourself later. To manually reset IIS, on the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. In the IIS Manager, click the name of the computer, click All Tasks on the Action menu, and then click Restart IIS. Or, in a Command Prompt window, enter iisreset.

Implementing the OLAP Extension for Issues and Risks

The following topics explain how to implement the task issues and risks OLAP extension.

• Step 1: Extending the Staging Tables describes the process of adding tables for task issues and risks to the MSP_CUBE staging tables.
• Step 2: Updating the Cube with UserStagingTablesUpdate explains how to programmatically update staging tables and the cube using the UserStagingTablesUpdate breakout function.
• Step 3: Adding Issues and Risks with UserOLAPCubeUpdate explains how to programmatically add the new dimensions to the virtual cube using DSO methods in the UserOLAPCubeUpdate breakout function.
• Step 4: Building the Cube for Task Issues and Risks explains how to register the breakout functions and add the task issues and risks view to Portfolio Analyzer so the cube is automatically updated every time it is built.