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Preview Updates – Grayed Out in Ribbon – Project Server 2010

By Collin Quiring

In Project Server 2010, part of the process of the Update Cycle from Team Members to the Project Manager is for the Project Manager to use the Approval Center and Accept or Reject that tasks.  One of the options for the Approval Center is to view the effects of the update prior to deciding whether to Accept or Reject the update(s).

PreviewUpdate

However, sometimes the Preview Updates field is grayed out, regardless of the permissions for the Project Manager.  There is one ole’ standby issue that might be affecting this – like, the site not being trusted in IE.  But, if the site is Trusted, then what?

Well, based on our research, (Thanks Pete!) this occurs when Timesheets are turned on and users are updating via there Timesheet screen only.  So, to correct this and make Preview Updates a valid choice, you must have the Project Administrator check the box for Single Entry Mode in the Timesheet Settings and Defaults.

The reasoning behind this is that the Timesheet is submitted as a whole entity – which may be across many schedules, so a “Preview” isn’t really correct.  What would you be preview-ing?  There are potentially many schedules and some of the timesheet might not even have hours or other updates on a specific task.  You can drill down into the Timesheet but that still doesn’t allow for the preview on specific tasks.

Turning on Single Entry Mode “splits” the Timesheet up into the tasks and now the tasks appear individually in the Approval Center for the Project Manager to approve IN ADDITION to the ability to select and Approve the entire timesheet.

The way around turning on the Single Entry option is that you will have to require the users to update their task(s) in the Tasks screen (and the Timesheet).  That workaround will probably upset the users as they now have to do double entry but it is an option.

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