Using #REST in #JavaScript to update #ProjectOnline project custom fields #PPM #PMOT #jQuery #Office365

This blog post provides example code for updating Project Online project level custom fields using the REST API ({PWASite}/_api/ProjectServer) in JavaScript on a PWA page. Following this blog post later this week will be a full working code sample that will be available for download.

When updating a project programmatically you will still need to following the same steps you do when updating a project manually, check out, update, publish and check in. The code snippets below demonstrate these actions using the REST API in JavaScript for updating a project level custom field.

Firstly check out the project:

Here we are passing in the project GUID into the URL that we will call to check out the project using the jQuery ajax HTTP request. The check out method is detailed here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/project/api/publishedproject#CheckOut__ If successful we then call the updateProjectCF function:

Again, in here we are passing in the same project GUID into the URL to update the custom fields using the jQuery ajax HTTP request. This call is slightly more involved as we have to inform the API call what is being changed. This is done by passing that data to the API in the HTTP call. To update custom fields you have to specify the key, the value and value type. The key is the internal custom field name, an example seen below:

This information is available using the CustomField API: {PWAUrl}/_api/ProjectServer/CustomFields

The value is the data you want to add to the custom field, this example is just updating a free text (single line of text) field. The value type specifies the custom field data type that you are updating. These are all prefixed with Edm (Entity Data Model) then the the type such as String, Int32 or DataTime etc. The update custom field method is detailed here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/project/api/draftproject#UpdateCustomFields_Collection_SP.KeyValue__customFieldDictionary_ If successful we then call the publishcheckInProject function:

Similar to the first API call, we just pass in the same project GUID to the URL used then call to publish and check in the project using the jQuery ajax HTTP call. Specifying true with the publish call will check in the project. The publish method is detailed here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/project/api/draftproject#Publish_Boolean_checkIn_

As mentioned earlier on in the post, there will be a full working example / solution started published later this week.