In part 5 of the getting started series we will look at Enterprise Project Types (EPTs) and Project Detail Pages (PDPs). The last post, in case you missed it was looking at PWA Views:
Firstly we will look at PDPs and create a new PDP, we will then look at EPTs and create an EPT.
Project Detail Pages, known as PDPs are used use either display details or capture details for projects.There are several PDPs out of the box, lets look at creating a new one. As a PWA Admin navigate to PWA Settings and click Project Detail Pages under the Workflow and Project Details Pages heading:
Here you will see the PDPs that are included out of the box:
To create a new PDP click the Files tab > New Document > New Document:
Enter a name for the new PDP, choose the layout required and click Create:
You will then see a SharePoint web part page:
Click Add a Web Part and you will see the web part categories appear:
Scroll down to the Project Web App Category and you will see all of the Project Web App web parts. You can add any type of web part of these pages, it doesn’t have to be a Project Web App web part but for the purpose of this post I am going to add a Project Web App web part. The type of web part you add will depend on the purpose of the PDP, this example PDP is used for editing multiline project level custom fields so I will add the Basic Info web part. PDPs are the only place you can edit and view multiline project level fields in PWA. After selecting the required web part click Add and you will see the web part appear:
I have created two example multiline project level fields called “Project Status Summary” and “Project Actions”. These fields will be added to my example PDP. To add the fields, click the Edit Web Part option on the Basic Info web part:
Click the Modify button:
Add the fields that you want to see on the PDP, for the example I have added to the multiline custom fields I had created:
Click OK. Edit other web part properties as required, I have updated the title and the chrome then click Apply on the web part properties then click OK.
Click Stop Editing in the top left corner. Now click Edit Properties and enter a description:
The other properties can remain the same. The key property for PDPs is the Page Type, there are three options:
- New Project – this is used for creating a project
- Workflow Status – this is used to display the stage and status information
- Project – this is used for editing a project
Click Save. Now click the cog > PWA Settings:
Then click the Project Details Pages link and you will see the new PDP:
Now we have created a new PDP we need to be able to view this page, by default the users wont be able to use it or see it. This is where the Enterprise Project Types come into play.
Enterprise Project Types, known as EPTs are used as a container or wrapper if you like. The different project components are associated to the EPTs, for example any workflows, project plan templates, PDPs, project site templates. EPTs are used to create different types of projects, for example you might have a requirement for HR type projects and R&D projects, both of which have different requirements. HR projects might be required to capture different information for the project and project site compared to the R&D projects. R&D projects might require a project lifecycle workflow but the HR projects might not. All of this is possible using EPTs.
You get two EPTs out of the box, the SharePoint Task List and the Enterprise Project. The Enterprise Project EPT would be the default to use for full Project Online functionality. Lets look at creating a new EPT. As a PWA Admin navigate to PWA Settings and click Enterprise Project Types under the Workflow and Project Details Pages heading and you will see the table below:
You can see the two default EPTs. Click the New Enterprise Project Type button and you will see the new EPT form:
Enter a name, for this example we are going to create a Product Design EPT, so the name will be Product Design. Enter a description if required. Leave the other options as default and scroll down to the New Project/Project Detail Pages section and change the New Project Page to the Project Information PDP then add the other PDPs you wish to see for the type of project. For this example I have added the Schedule, Project Status Information and the Project Information PDPs. Project Status Information PDP was the PDP I created in the post:
Scroll down past the other settings until you get to the Image section, the others will be default. The Image setting allows you to set an image for the EPT, this can be seen when the user clicks the New button in the Project Center. For this example we will just use the default EPT image:
You have the option to change the order of the EPTs, for this example we will place this new EPT at the end. Scroll down to the Project Plan Template and Project Site Template sections:
This is where you can specify a plan template and a project site template. For now we are going to leave these as default because we do not have any plan templates in the environment or any custom project site templates. Click Save to create the new EPT. You will now see the new EPT:
That is it for the intro to EPTs until the next post. The next post in the series will look at project plan and project site templates, this will also touch on EPTs as we add our new templates to the Project Design EPT.
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