Welcome to the new Project – getting started Part 2 #MSProject #PPM #Office365 #PowerPlatform #ProjectMangement #ModernWorkManagement #CDS #PMOT #PMO

Following on from yesterday’s blog post: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/welcome-to-the-new-project-getting-started-part-1-msproject-ppm-office365-powerplatform-projectmangement-modernworkmanagement-cds-pmot-pmo/ walking through the new Project, here is part 2. In the post we will look at the backend to the new Project and look at two Power BI report packs I released yesterday. Links were in the part 1 but for completeness here they are again:

Power BI report for Project:  https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Power-BI-Report-Pack-4506f183

Power BI report to combine Project and Project Online data (1 PWA instance): https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/and-Online-Power-BI-Report-d1fbca1b

Project is built on the Power Platform’s Common Data Service for Apps (CDS), the data is stored in Entities in the CDS – the same as Roadmap – lots of links about Roadmap here: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/project-roadmap-cds-app-overview-ppm-projectmanagement-msproject-projectonline-office365-powerplatfom-dynamics365/ Let’s take a look at the solutions deployed for Project, to do this I’ve accessed the Dynamics 365 Admin Center from the Office 365 Admin centers which loads this:

D365Admin
Admin Center

Project is deployed to the default organisation, on this tenant I only have 1 organisation – click the Open arrow on the Default org. This loads the PowerApps interface, from here click the Settings cog > Advanced Settings:

PApps
PowerApps

This takes you to the Dynamics 365 Settings:

D356Admin
Dynamics 365

Click the Settings > Solutions:

D365Settings
Business Management

This then loads the solutions deployed to this instance:

D365Solutions
Settings

You can also see the solutions from the familiar PowerApps interface:

PAppsSolutions
Solutions

Sticking with the Dynamics 365 Admin interface for the moment, let’s have a quick look at the msdyn_ProjectServiceCore solution:

ProjectSolInfo
Information

We can then view the components that form this solution, I wont go into them all but here are a few. Looking at the Entities we can see the Entities used in this solution, here I’ve drilled down to the fields in the Project entity:

ProjEntity
Fields

I will go into more details on the fields via the PowerApps interface. Looking at the Model-driven Apps we can see Project:

ModelApp
PowerApps

Now lets switch to the PowerApps interface (make.powerapps.com) and view some of the entity fields. Click Data > Entities from the left navigation menu:

PAppsEntities
Project

Change the view from Default to Managed in the top right corner and scroll down to Project:

ProjectEntity
Project

Click Project to view the Project entity details:

ProjEntityDetails
Project

Here we can see the fields, relationships, rules, views etc. We can also view the current data stored in that entity:

PEntityData
Project

The current main entities used by Project are:

  • Bookable Resource
  • Project
  • Project Bucket
  • Project Task
  • Project Task Dependency
  • Project Team Member
  • Resource Assignment
  • User

There are others such as Replay Log Section, Work template etc. but those above are where the core data is stored that you see in the UI. Some of these entities are new for Project but some have just been extended or updated to add new components, for example, adding new views or fields to existing entities to support Project. More on the entities later on when we explore the Power BI report pack I created as that is a good way to visualise the data model and the relationships between the entities. Let’s click Apps from the left navigation menu, select Project and click edit:

ModelDrivenProject
Project

This then loads the app designer displaying the new Project app – this is what you see when you are in the Dynamics interface that we looked at yesterday. This shows the components that make up the model-driven Project app – more on this in future blogs posts.

Now lets go back to looking at the entities / data model for Project, for this I will use the Power BI template I published yesterday https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Power-BI-Report-Pack-4506f183 Once downloaded and opened in Power BI desktop you will need to provide the CDSUrl for the parameter. There are several ways to get the correct URL for your default CDS instance. Your Office 365 Administrator can access the PowerApps Admin Center, click Environments, click the default environment which loads this:

CDSEnvDetails
Admin Center

Then click See all:

CDSURL
Admin Center

Copy the Environment URL. Or you can get it from the browser when accessing project.microsoft.com. When accessing that page, open the browser dev tools and access the Network tab then reload the page, look for GetModProdCdsEndpoint then click the Response tab and find the cdsUrl property value:

CDSURLDEVTOOLS
Project

Once you have the correct CDS URL, enter that into the CDSUrl parameter input – minus the trailing slash:

CDSURLPowerBI
Report Pack

Click Load and sign in when prompted. To access all data, the account used here will need Read access at the business unit level to the Project CDS entities used plus the other default roles a normal user is assigned to. If the user account doesn’t have the correct access the connections will fail. You could create a new “project report access” role in the Dynamics 365 instance where Project is deployed if needed. To do that, access the Dynamics 365 admin center from the Office 365 Admin center using the Global Admin account. Open the default Dynamics 365 instance (this is where Project is deployed to) then click the Settings Cog > Advanced Settings. Then click Settings > Security > Security Roles > New. Give the new role Read access at the business unit level to the 8 entities used in the report:

  • Bookable Resource
  • Project
  • Project Bucket
  • Project Task
  • Project Task Dependency
  • Project Team Member
  • Resource Assignment
  • User

Then access the user account that will be used for the report from the Dynamics Security admin in the Users page then assigned the new role to this account using the Manage Roles option. Other roles and role assignments are as per the default settings. I covered this for the Roadmap report pack I released at the start of the year: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/01/30/project-roadmap-powerbi-report-pack-ppm-projectmanagement-msproject-projectonline-office365-powerplatform-dynamics365/ – for Project the role needs access to different entities. Once the data has loaded in the Power BI report, click on the Model button on the left navigation menu to view the data model:

DataModel
Data model

Click the Manage Relationships button to view the relationship table:

RelationshipTable
Manage relationships

Here you can see how the different entities / tables are related.

I also published a report yesterday that combines the Project (CDS) data with the Project Online data (1 PWA instance) https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/and-Online-Power-BI-Report-d1fbca1b This report uses the slightly less CDS entities:

  • Bookable Resource
  • Project
  • Project Task
  • Resource Assignment
  • User

It also uses the following tables in the Project Reporting API:

  • Assignments
  • Projects
  • Resources
  • Tasks

This reporting combines the following tables:

  • Assignments and Resource Assignments
  • Projects and Project
  • Project Task and Tasks
  • Resources and Bookable Resource
  • Resources (Filtered to users) and Users

I will create separate blogs post dedicated to these Power BI Reports in the next week or two but download them and see what you think, hopefully they either give you want you need for reporting or help you build the reports you do need.

Look out for more blog posts and videos on Project in the future!


About the Author:

Paul Mather is Microsoft PPM consultant and Microsoft Project MVP based in the UK working for Corporate Project Solutions (CPS). Paul has been involved in successful Project Server / Project Online and SharePoint deployments since 2007 working with all Project Server versions and other supporting Microsoft technologies in Office 365 and Azure. Paul regularly blogs at https://pwmather.wordpress.com and can be found on Twitter here https://twitter.com/pwmather

Reference:

Mather, P. (2019). Welcome to the new Project – getting started Part 2 #MSProject #PPM #Office365 #PowerPlatform #ProjectMangement #ModernWorkManagement #CDS #PMOT #PMO. Available at: https://pwmather.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/welcome-to-the-new-project-getting-started-part-2-msproject-ppm-office365-powerplatform-projectmangement-modernworkmanagement-cds-pmot-pmo/ [Accessed 2nd January 2020].

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