• Article

Create a PWA site (Project Server 2010)

 

Applies to: Project Server 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2015-03-09

Creating a Microsoft Project Web App (PWA) site creates the four Microsoft Project Server 2010 databases on the specified instance of Microsoft SQL Server.

Note

If your organization requires databases to be created manually by a database administrator, have your database administrator see Manually create Project Server databases and create the four Project Server databases and the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 content database before you proceed with the procedures in this article.

Note

If the servers in your farm are not connected to the Internet, some PWA and SharePoint Server pages may load slowly. This occurs because the SharePoint Server certificates attempt to contact Microsoft download servers to obtain the latest root chain. You can work around this issue by configuring the Certificate Path validation settings Group Policy setting on the servers in your SharePoint Server farm so that the servers do not attempt to automatically update certificates. For more information, see Project Server 2010: Slow load times of PWA and SharePoint pages (https://blogs.msdn.com/b/brismith/archive/2012/03/05/project-server-2010-slow-load-times-of-pwa-and-sharepoint-pages.aspx).
If, in the future, you connect the servers in your farm to the Internet, we recommend that you reconfigure the Certificate Path validation settings Group Policy setting on the servers in your SharePoint Server farm to automatically update certificates.

Video demonstration

This video shows the sequence of events involved in creating a PWA site and configuring time reporting periods and the workflow proxy account.

Screenshot of video

Watch the video (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=169130). To download a copy of the file, right-click the link, and then click Save Target As.

Create a PWA site

The Project Web App site requires a Web application to host it. You can use an existing Web application or create a new one for PWA. For more information about how to create a Web application, see Create a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010).

Important

We highly recommend that you use a separate SharePoint Server 2010 content database for each PWA site and its associated project workspaces. To correctly isolate the PWA site in its own content database, you must deploy PWA at a time when other administrators are not creating new sites on the Web application where you are deploying PWA.

By putting PWA and its associated project workspaces in a separate content database, you greatly simplify site migration and backup and restore procedures.

Creating a PWA site takes five basic steps:

  1. Create a content database to host the PWA site and its associated project workspaces.

  2. Temporarily lock down existing content databases.

  3. Create the PWA site itself.

  4. Lock down the PWA content database to prevent additional site collections being added.

  5. Unlock existing content databases.

SharePoint Server 2010 uses a round-robin algorithm to determine the distribution of site collections across content databases. In order to deploy the PWA site to a specific content database, you have to lock down any existing content databases in the web application where you plan to deploy PWA. The process does not affect user access; it only affects the distribution of new site collections.

Note

If you are deploying PWA to a new web application that will be dedicated to PWA, you can use the default content database created with that web application for PWA. In this case, there is no need to follow the following lockdown procedures. However, we do recommend that you set the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database setting to 1 for that content database after you deploy PWA. This will help avoid additional site collections beyond PWA being created in that database in the future.

To lock down your content databases, follow these steps for each content database associated with the Web application where you plan to deploy your PWA site.

Important

Ensure that no other administrators are adding site collections to the Web application where you plan to deploy PWA while you are performing the procedures in this section.

To lock down a content database

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.

  2. In the Current Number of Site Collections column, note the number of site collections for the database that you plan to lock down.

  3. In the Database Name column, click the link for the content database that you want to lock down.

  4. In the Database Capacity Settings section:

    1. In the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database box, type the existing number of site collection for this database (as noted in the Current Number of Site Collections column, earlier in this procedure).

      Note

      Take note of the current value for this parameter; you will have to change it back to this value after the PWA site has been created.

    2. In the Number of sites before a Warning event is generated box, type a lower number than the value that is used for Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database.

      Note

      Take note of the current value for this parameter; you will have to change it back to this value after the PWA site has been created.

  5. Click OK.

To create a content database

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.

  2. Click Add a content database.

  3. In the Web Application section, choose the Web application where you plan to deploy the PWA site.

  4. In the Database Name and Authentication section, type the database server name where you plan to deploy your PWA databases, and type a name for the database.

  5. Click OK.

Once the content database has been created and configured, the next step is to create the PWA site itself.

To create a PWA site

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  2. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Project Server Service Application.

  3. On the Manage Project Web App Sites page, click Create Project Web App Site.

  4. Complete the Create Project Web App Site page as designated in the following table:

    Option Description

    SharePoint Web Application to Host Project Web App

    The Web application for the PWA site.

    Project Web App path

    The path from the root site for this PWA site.

    Select a language

    The user interface language for this PWA site.

    Use Project Web App path as host header

    Use this option if you want to host PWA on a root URL (for example, https://www.contoso.com).

    Administrator Account

    The user account that will be added to the Project Server Administrators security group in this instance of PWA. You must use this account the first time that you access PWA.

    Primary database server

    The instance of SQL Server where you want to host the Project Server databases. If your database administrator has already created Project Web App databases, specify the names of those databases in the appropriate text boxes. If the databases were not previously created, they will be created automatically.

    Published database name

    The name of the Project Server Published database for this instance of PWA.

    Draft database name

    The name of the Project Server Draft database for this instance of PWA.

    Archive database name

    The name of the Project Server Archive database for this instance of PWA.

    Reporting database server

    The instance of SQL Server where you want to deploy the Reporting database (if different from the primary database server).

    Use primary database server

    Select the check box to deploy the Reporting database to the primary database server specified earlier. Clear the check box to deploy the Reporting database to a different database server, and specify the instance of SQL Server that you want to use in the Reporting database server box.

    Reporting database name

    The name of the Project Server Reporting database for this instance of PWA.

    Quota for SharePoint content in this site

    The maximum site storage, in megabytes, for the PWA site.

    Quota Warning for SharePoint content in this site

    The site storage level, in megabytes, at which a warning e-mail message will be sent to the site administrator.

  5. Click OK.

Project Server starts the PWA site creation process. This may take some time. When the site creation process is complete, the status shown on the PWA site list is Provisioned.

Once the PWA site has been provisioned, verify that it was created in the content database that you created. Use the Get-SPSite Windows PowerShell command, passing the new content database as a parameter:

To verify the PWA site location

  1. Verify that you meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin.

  2. On the Start menu, click All Programs.

  3. Click Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products.

  4. Click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell.

  5. From the Windows PowerShell command prompt (that is, PS C:\>), type the following command and then press ENTER:

    Get-SPSite -ContentDatabase <ContentDatabaseName>

    The command should return the URL for your PWA site and no other URLs.

    Note

    If additional URLs beyond that of the PWA site are listed in the content database, delete the PWA site and restart the procedure with a new content database.

Once the PWA site is in the desired content database, you must lock down the database to prevent SharePoint Server 2010 from adding additional site collections to the database. This is performed by configuring the maximum number of sites for the content database to one.

Note

Configuring this setting does not prevent new project workspace sites from being created.

To lock down the content database

  1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.

  2. In the Database Name column, click the link for the content database that you created.

  3. In the Database Capacity Settings section:

    1. In the Number of sites before a Warning event is generated box, type 0.

    2. In the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database box, type 1.

  4. Click OK.

Once you have locked down your PWA content database, you can return any other content databases to their original values for Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database and Number of sites before a Warning event is generated.

You can now access the new PWA site.

Note

The first invocation of the Internet Information Services (IIS) application pool that contains the Project Web App application can be slow because the .NET Framework application is being compiled and loaded.

Configure time reporting periods

Configuring time reporting periods is required for Team Member use of Time Tracking and Task Statusing within Project Server 2010. We recommend that you create at least a year of time reporting periods. Use the following procedure to create time reporting periods.

To create time reporting periods

  1. In PWA, click Server Settings.

  2. In the Time and Task Management section, click Time Reporting Periods.

  3. On the Time Reporting Periods page:

    1. Click the calendar button next to Date the first period starts and select a start date for the first time reporting period.

      Important

      If you choose a length of seven days for a standard reporting period, all periods will begin on the day of the week you select for the first period start date. Choose a day of the week that conforms with the needs of your organization.

      Important

      If you want to create variable-length periods, for example when you use a period per calendar month, you must do these individually on the Time Reporting Periods page or programmatically through custom code.

    2. Click Create Bulk.

    3. Click Save.

Configure the workflow proxy account

The final step before you start to use the PWA site is to set the workflow proxy user account. By default, this account is set to the account that you used to create the PWA site. Although you can keep the default, we recommend that you create an Active Directory account for this purpose.

Important

You must change the account before you start any workflows or else in-progress workflows will break.

There are two steps that you must follow to set up the workflow proxy account:

  • Create a Project Server 2010 user account for the workflow proxy Active Directory account.

  • Configure this account as the workflow proxy user.

Perform the following procedure to create a Project Server 2010 for the workflow proxy account.

To create a user

  1. In Project Web App, click Server Settings.

  2. In the Security section, click Manage Users.

  3. On the Manage Users page, click New User.

  4. On the New User page:

    1. Clear the User can be assigned as a resource check box.

    2. In the Display Name box, type the name that you want to use for the user account (for example, Workflow Proxy User).

    3. In the User Authentication section, type the Active Directory account that you created for the workflow proxy user in the User logon account box.

    4. Select the Prevent Active Directory synchronization for this user check box.

    5. In the Security Categories area, select My Organization in Available Categories, and then click Add.

    6. Under Permissions for My Organization, select Allow for the following permissions:

      • Open Project

      • Save Project to Project Server

      • View Enterprise Resource Data

    7. Under Global Permissions, select Allow for the following permissions:

      • Log On

      • Manage Users and Groups

      • Manage Workflow and Project Detail Pages

  5. Click Save.

Once the user account is created, you can set the workflow proxy user account. Perform the following procedure to configure the workflow proxy user account.

To set the workflow proxy user account

  1. In PWA, click Server Settings.

  2. On the Server Settings page, in the Workflow and Project Detail Pages section, click Project Workflow Settings.

  3. On the Project Workflow Settings page, in the Workflow Proxy User account box, type the Active Directory account that you created for the workflow proxy user, and then click Save.

You are now ready to start using the Project Web App site. The next step is to configure reporting to enable the Project Server reporting and business intelligence features. Proceed to the next article, Configure reporting for Project Server 2010.