Change to My Work view is not showing for users

[Teresa Gardner]

I’m on PWA 2016 and through Server Settings/Manage Views I added a few fields to the My Work view. It appeared to save and when I look at the view in Server Settings the new fields are there. However, my edits are not showing for the users when they go to their timeseheet. As a user, I go to the timesheet, select the My Work view, click to configure the columns and the new fields are not listed. I waited a good 30 mins and I still don’t see the new fields. Ideas?

[Daryl Deffler]

Teresa;
It’s been a long time since I’ve worked with views, but since you’re getting no responses, I’ll try to point you in a direction. I don’t know that I can identify a specific answer, but maybe an understanding of views will assist you in debugging your scenario.
First, a bit of background. Views are complicated based on Projects design and evolution. Project started as a standalone Excel based tool. At this point views were stored in the schedule file or globally (for your single user) in a global schedule (MPS) file. Project then evolved into an enterprise tool and views needed to be made available for all users. Since the “Global” file was already in use from the standalone versions, MS added the Enterprise Global MPS to store these views. So views can be located in 3 places.

Local, global, and enterprise global form the search hierarchy structure. Local being the lowest level, is stored within the project schedule. One level above that is the individual user’s global views, sometimes also referred to as local global. And finally, the highest level is the enterprise global.

If I create View1 within my schedule, Project1, that view only exists locally within the Project1.MPS file. If I make it global (for me), I can now see that view in all MY schedules because it’s in MY global views (Global.MPS). If I want to make it accessible to every user, I need to have admin authority and create that view in the enterprise global area (Enterprise Global.MPS) and now it would be visible/usable by every user in the enterprise.

So lets say the Administrator creates View2 in the Enterprise Global area. That’s the only place this view now exists. As a user, I open my schedule, Project1, and I open View2. Project looks for views across the hierarchy from the bottom up. Since View2 doesn’t exist in Project1 and it is not in my Global, project opens the view from the enterprise global. If I modify View2 (resize a column, add a column, etc.) a copy of that modified View2 is now stored within the Project1.MPS file. Next time I open View2 in that Project1, project finds that view name stored within the Project1 schedule file and I see my modified version. If you as the administrator change the enterprise global definition of View2, and I open Project1 containing my modified version of the original View2, I’ll see my modified version of the original View2. Interestingly, if I open a new schedule, like Project35, and open View2, I’ll see the current enterprise global version and not my modified version which is only stored locally in Project1.

So, a long example, but it helps illustrate how View2 for example, could look different across users and across schedules within the same user.
Bottom line, What the users see depends on
a) where the modified view is stored (locally, global, enterprise global). Bob may see a view across all his projects, but Sue doesn’t see that view because it only exists in Bob’s global.
B) if the user already has a stored version of that same view name lower in the search hierarchy. Meaning in their schedule or their global.

If memory serves, PWA views work similarly, but they are not stored within the schedule file itself. Meaning, if a user modifies a PWA view such as MY Work, their modified version is opened before the enterprise version. Remember that “modified” can mean column width, hiding a column, etc. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where PWA stores my modified PWA views.

But if that’s not complicated enough. When a user starts Project or connects to PWA, the contents of the users global, enterprise global, and/or PWA enterprise views are loaded onto their local machine (for performance reasons). For that session, Project only looks at the locally stored contents and will not see any enterprise level modifications. So, for example, when I start project on my local machine, the contents of the Enterprise global are stored locally. I can now see, for example, Enterprise Views 1-10. If you, the administrator, create a new enterprise global “View 11”, I will not be able to see View 11 until I shutdown and restart Project on my local machine (and get a new copy of enterprise global loaded). In this scenario, users already using project should also get an information/error message from Project letting them know that something in the enterprise views has changed. Note that I hit this scenario when I found users who left PWA/Project loaded and simply put their machines into “sleep” mode when the left for the day.

Like I said, I don’t know that I can pinpoint your issue, but hopefully this bit of insight might help you understand what’s going on in the background and why views may or may not be visible to all users or look the same on all users machines.
Hope this helps.

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