Sync PM Compass with Microsoft Project

When progress has been submitted and approved in PM Compass, you can see the changes in the Schedule Analysis view. PM Compass performs several steps to include the changes in the MSP file/project.

Check for progress

Related Topics

When the nightly schedule process runs, it checks to see if there is any new progress that must be added to the MSP file. If there is no new progress, then this step is skipped. If there is progress, PM Compass exports the progress and updates the fields in the MSP file.

The Expected Finish date (displayed on the General Tab of the Schedule Analysis View and the Enter Schedule Progress Form) is not available in MSP and is therefore not exported back into the MSP project.

The process runs as a scheduled process or when you click Run Now on the Schedule Integration tab. The system uses the MSP Unique ID field to find the activity to update in MSP. Only the status fields are updated in the schedule. The MSP status fields that are updated are as follows:

  • Actual Start Date

  • Actual Finish Date

  • Percent Complete

  • Physical % Complete

  • The activity status note (mapped field defined at the system level)

  • The activity status last updated date (mapped field defined at the project level)

  • Actual Duration

  • Remaining Duration — The original duration is edited if you change the Remaining Duration.

  • Remaining Work (or Remaining Cost if the Resource Type is not Work) — This is only updated if Allow Resource Percent Complete is deselected on the System Settings Progress tab or the Projects Progress tab. See Verify your Microsoft Project Settings in Related Topics for other settings that may affect the update of this field.

    • This field is labeled Remaining Quantity in PM Compass.

  • Work % Complete (or % Complete if the Resource Type is not Work) — This is only updated if Allow Resource Percent Complete is selected on the System Settings Progress tab or the Projects Progress tab. See Verify your Microsoft Project Settings in Related Topics for other settings that may affect the update of this field.

    • This field is labeled Physical % Complete in PM Compass.

  • Any Date field that you added to User-Defined Data.

In addition to the status fields, if the fields in the Last Progress Submission Date Fields group on the Projects Form Progress tab in PM Compass are populated, that information is also updated in MSP.

If the process fails, an email is sent to the person who scheduled the process to let them know that an error occurred. They can do one of the following:

  • Click Run Now to try the process again.

  • Wait for the scheduled process to run again.

If the process completes with nonfatal errors, an email is sent to the person who scheduled the process, letting them know about the error and providing a hyperlink to the process log. The progress entry that caused the error is skipped and all other progress entries are exported.

View the Data that was Exported to MSP

If you have a copy of Open Plan and you want to review the data that was exported to Microsoft Project Professional or Server, you can add a setting (_KEEP_MSP_OUTPUT_FILES) to the Open Plan System Preferences dialog box so that Open Plan creates .csv integration files. For more information and steps, see View Data that was Exported to MSP in Related Topics.

How to...

Add an Entry on the Links Tab to the MSP Process Logs

View Data that was Exported to MSP

 

Learn more about...

Primavera P6 to PM Compass Field Mapping

General Tab of the Schedule Analysis View

Enter Schedule Progress Form

Progress Tab of the System Settings Form

Progress Tab of the Projects Form

Verify your Microsoft Project Settings

Reschedule work

After progress has been updated in the MSP file/project, the MSP Update Project process reschedules the uncompleted work to begin after Period End Date. This allows the subsequent import into PM Compass to display the new dates calculated by MSP.

Load the MSP file/project into PM Compass

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After the MSP file has been updated and the MSP Update Project process has run and there are no errors (if any part of the export fails, then the import won’t start), the updated MSP file/project is loaded into PM Compass.

  • The existing project (activities, resources, relationships, and so on) is updated.

  • The MSP data is loaded into the PM Compass fields.

  • All of the fields defined in User-Defined Data are populated from the schedule.

  • The Schedule Note Category and the Last Progress Submitted Date are loaded.

Since MSP doesn't retain a progress type, when the file/project is imported from MSP into PM Compass, the progress type changes to Percent Complete for all in-progress activities that have a percent complete greater than zero. When a progress type of Remaining Duration is exported, Microsoft Project does not calculate a percent complete. It changes the duration to equal remaining duration. When this is imported back into PM Compass, the progress type is set to As Planned. The only exception is when an activity has an actual finish date. This is imported with a progress type of Complete.

If the process fails, an email is sent to the person who scheduled the process, letting them know about the error and providing a hyperlink to the process log. You can get the error code by accessing the termination message in the Process Queue Manager.

No email is sent if the process was scheduled and no errors occur.

Log Files

After the MSP file/project has been loaded into PM Compass, log files are generated to indicate any errors or warnings that were encountered during the process.

Learn more about...

MSP Integration Error Codes

Log File Location

How PM Compass Calculates % Complete to Export to MSP