[Updated 21-02-2016]
It has been mentioned on the Office365 roadmap, that Microsoft was planning on the release of a default “number generator” for Project Online customers. This functionality has been a standard request for almost all Project Online/Server customers as it ensures you can easily connect to e.g. the numbers used in the ERP system or elsewhere. The new feature is now enabled and ready for Project Online customers to use.
The approach to use it is simple.
Navigate to your PWA Server Settings and go to the Enterprise Project Types
Notice the area “Project Id”
This is where you configure how the number string should be generated. It can obviously be set differently for each of your EPTs “Enterprise Project Types”.
Add the new field to your Project Detail Page
Notice that the field is actually editable. In order for this field to be in read-only mode, use the workflow to control that behaviour.
Reporting on the ID using (…PWA path/_api/ProjectData/Projects)
Use the new Custom Field “ProjectIdentifier” found in the Projects OData feed:
This is a fabulous update, thanks for sharing it Peter 🙂
how can I reference the “Project ID” pwa field in an ECF? I want to basically say my ECF Project_ID (a display only field) = the pwa Project ID. We don’t want our users changing the Project ID.
Hi Paul,
Its a bit unclear what you are after or as Simon Sinek would put it “the why” behind doing this. The Project (U)ID is always read-only and generated during the create process. Given a project a customer defined prefix, number and suffix is another process. If its the latter you want to make read-only, then I would not show it at all on the PDPs or I would “worst case” inject a little Javascript to control the field behavior.
thank you for the response. Our Project ID is generated *with prefix and suffix” added by 3rd party Beacon tool from Sensei. But the field is left editable and we don’t like PMs being able to change it.