#292 Microsoft Project 2016 : Need to set 'Stop' and 'Resume' properties for net.sf.mpxj.ResourceAssignment

[Deepak Phalke]

Hi Jon,

'Stop' and 'Resume' setters for Resource assignment object to track assignment progress.

Microsoft Project 2016 requires 'Stop' and 'Resume' property set for object net.sf.mpxj.ResourceAssignment. Otherwise it does not show '%Work complete' for an assignment and Task. In this case, even we set Stop and Resume properties of Task, it does not show proper '%Work complete' in MSP 2016. We need to set those values for net.sf.mpxj.ResourceAssignment.

E.g. We have a Task with resource1 and Duration is 10 days. If we complete resource assignment say 30% and do not set 'Stop' and 'Resume' for Assignment, it shows 7 days duration in MSP2016.

NOTE: This issue is NOT observed with earlier Microsoft Project, e.g. MSP2013, MSP 2010 etc.

Are these setters available in any latest MPXJ version?
Is there any other way to accomplish this in 5.1.17 version of MPXJ?

[Deepak Phalke]

Hi Jon,

Could you please take a look and provide your valuable inputs?

Thanks,
Deepak

[Jon Iles]

Hi,

I think stop and resume are actually task attributes, which I think MPXJ reads already. I can't see anywhere is display or edit the stop and resume attributes for a resource assignment. If you can provide an MPP file which demonstrates this I'd be happy to take a look.

Jon

[Deepak Phalke]

Hi Jon,

Even if we explicitly set 'stop' and 'resume' attributes to task object the issue is still observed when we open the project with MSP2016.
Please note this issue is not observed with MSP 2013 and MSP 2010 and there is no need to set these attributes even on task object. This appears to be a regression with MSP 2016 unless there is a need for additional code changes to get around this issue which we are unaware of.

PFA sample xml file 'MyProject.xml. '
Actual data in XML is : 'Task1' has duration 10 days and 'Demo User' resource assigned. PercentWorkComplete of the resource assignment is 30%.

Could you please import this XML with MSP 2013 and 2016 to observe the differences for the columns Duration, % Work complete , Actual finish , Remaining work & Work?

I have manually updated <assignment> tag with 'stop' and 'resume' attributes in xml File: 'MyProject - AssignmentWithStopResume.xml', PFA(line 585).</assignment>

If we open this file in MS2016, above columns value are shown correctly hence we are looking for :

1. Way to get around this issue in MPXJ 5.1.17 itself with MSP 2016
2. If the solution is to set these attributes for MSP 2016 then setters for the object net.sf.mpxj.ResourceAssignment

I would appreciate your attention on this issue as we have an upcoming product release and are blocked with support for MSP 2016 unless this issue gets resolved.

Thanks,

Deepak

[Jon Iles]

Thanks for the sample files.

When I generate the MSDI file, if I automatically populate the stop and resume values for each resource assignment from the values held in the parent task, will that work for you? Would these values ever be different for individual resource assignments?

[Deepak Phalke]

Hi Jon,

Thank you for your quick attention to the issue.

We do not use MSDI file in our code, so not sure what you mean by “When I generate the MSDI file….”. Can you please elaborate?

Also We are not clear about your proposed solution but in any case when there are more than one resource assignments for particular task and each assignment has different ‘% Work-Complete’( hence different stop and resume values), we can not populate the stop and resume values for each resource assignment from the values held in the parent task.

Could you please let me know if there is any way to get around this issue in 5.1.17 for MSP 2016? If there is no way to get this resolved in 5.1.17, then please advise on the next steps.

Thanks,
Deepak

[Jon Iles]

Hi Deepak,

Sorry, that was my typo. I meant MSPDI. Anyay, you've given me the information I need, I'm going to investigate today.

Jon

[Jon Iles]

The code to read and write the Stop and Resume attributes for resource assignments in MSPDI files is now in Git. I'm just testing the code to read the same attributes from MPP files. Once I've done that I'll make a new release.

[Deepak Phalke]

Thank you Jon for your help on this issue.