ProjectPartner: Common support issues

Common Support Issues

For detailed help, see the context-sensitive Help files within the ProjectPartner application.

Click on a problem at left to see the solution.

Read me first

ProjectPartner is a very complex piece of software, developed by a team of extraordinarily gifted programmers, and each version is rigorously tested prior to release.

While we can’t entirely discount the possibility of an error in programming, we’ve learned from experience that the most common cause of customers’ problems while using ProjectPartner is that their browser has an out-of-date version of the Adobe Flash Player plugin installed.

If you experience any unexpected behaviour with ProjectPartner, we recommend that you ensure that you’re using the latest version of Flash Player:

Right click anywhere in the ProjectPartner application and choose “About Flash Player”; your browser will open a new tab or window showing the version you have installed, the latest version available for your operating system, and a link to download and install the latest version (if necessary).

Once you’ve installed the latest Flash Player, log out of ProjectPartner, refresh your browser* and log in to ProjectPartner again. This resolves most issues immediately.

* This is usually the F5 key on your keyboard, a Refresh/Reload button in your browser’s toolbar, or a Refresh/Reload command in your browser’s menus.

ProjectPartner is slow to respond and eventually reports “Server Timeout” errors

Some proxy configurations delay all Internet connections, which usually won’t have a noticeable effect on your browsing experience. However, heavy network use or other latent conditions can exacerbate these delays.

The outgoing requests made from the ProjectPartner application (in your web browser) get “trapped” in the proxy, and are either delayed or never make it to the ProjectPartner servers. Similarly, the incoming responses sent from the servers may be caught up in the proxy and delayed in reaching the user’s browser. Certain configurations of additional software or hardware security measures can also contribute to these delays and eventual failures.

With the permission and assistance of your network administrator, attempt to bypass the proxy to confirm that its configuration is indeed the cause of the delays.

Because customers’ networks differ so widely, and because your network’s security measures are put in place for good reason, it is not possible or appropriate for ProjectPartner.com to suggest measures to permanently circumvent your proxy. Your network administrator will be able to take the necessary steps to allow the ProjectPartner application running in your browser to access your data on ProjectPartner.com’s servers over secure Internet connections.

Reports requesting large amounts of data are slow to generate, and may eventually report “Server Timeout” errors

When generating Reports that span a wide timeframe with narrow granularity (e.g. an entire Financial Year summarized by day) which also requests data for a very large number of data points (Clients, Portfolios, Projects, etc.), the Report may fail to complete. It may also be accompanied by a “Server Timeout” error message.

This is caused by a known limitation to the volume of data that ProjectPartner’s underlying data-handling technology can process in a single request.

Any Reports which produce this error should be re-run as multiple smaller Reports, each requesting a narrower timeframe and/or fewer data points.

This issue will be rectified no later than version 6.1.

How are Cost and Charge Rates determined? There seem to be many options – which applies to each transaction?

Because ProjectPartner has been designed for maximum flexibility in applying cost and charge rates to Resources’ time, remembering how each Task is costed and charged can be confusing.

We’ve prepared this interactive flowchart in an effort to explain how Rate Cards, Role Rates, Budgets, Resource Rates and the various inheritance options work.

But first, a note about “inheritance”…

Throughout ProjectPartner, many settings offer a “Use Default” checkbox, to inherit the value or setting from the level above it in the inheritance hierachy:

Entity
Client, including the “Internal Activities” pseudo-Client
Portfolio
Project
Task Group
Task

Clients and Portfolios both inherit values directly from their parent Entity. “Portfolio” appears under “Client” in the list above to demonstrate a Project’s inheritance prioritization. While a Project will normally inherit settings from its parent Portfolio, there are several exceptions:

If the Project is not part of any Portfolio, settings will be inherited from the Client.
When a Project is a member of multiple Portfolios, settings will be inherited from the Client.
Projects which belong to multiple Clients – but are not members of any Portfolio – will inherit settings from the Entity.
Projects belonging to both multiple Portfolios and multiple Clients will inherit their settings from the Entity.

An Entity obviously cannot inherit settings as there is no higher item in the hierachy. There is, however, a “System Default Value” applied to every setting throughout ProjectPartner, and it is this value which is applied when you check “Use Default” for any Entity’s setting.

The Cost & Charge Rate structure(All blue text is clickable to show more detail.)

Well, all blue text except that blue text. // OK

Why can’t I upload documents using the Document Manager?

Firstly, make sure that you have the latest version of Flash Player installed as a plug-in for your browser. The easiest way to do this is to right click anywhere in the ProjectPartner application and choose “About Flash Player”; your browser will open a new tab or window showing the version you have installed, the latest version available for your operating system, and a link to download and install the latest version (if necessary).

Adobe acknowledges that Flash Player does not currently support the file upload functionality of ProjectPartner in the following situations:

Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”)
Flash Player 9 running within Firefox on SSL
Flash Player 9 running on Linux systems

If so, we’re glad we were able to help. Thanks for using ProjectPartner!

If not, look for similar problem descriptions in the list at left, and see if one of them has a solution that helps you.

If you’re still stuck, please email a description of the problem to our Support desk. One of our representatives will be in touch with you within 24 hours.