Problem Description
A question arises frequently in the Project Server newsgroup,
asking “Is there any way for the Project Server administrator to specify default
e-mail subscriptions for Notifications and Reminders in Project Server
2007?” This question arises because of an unfixed bug in Project Server 2007.
This bug causes the system to send an e-mail message to every team member every
time the project manager publishes an enterprise project. Because Project Server
2007 sends so many e-mail messages, team members quickly feel that the system is
“spamming” them, causing team members to ignore the messages entirely (and
causing them to write Rules to send Project Server 2007 e-mails to their Recycle
Bin).
In a large organization, asking every team member to specify
a single e-mail subscription option in Project Web Access is a huge undertaking.
A better solution is to manually change a single setting in the Project Server
2007 database.
Solution
Warning:
Microsoft does not recommend or support manually editing the
SQL Server databases for Project Server 2007, and msProjectExperts
does not guarantee the outcome for your organization. However, after testing
the following steps to specify a default e-mail subscription, the solution
appears to work very well with no ill effects. Therefore, complete the following
steps at your own risk.
To change the default e-mail subscription for Alerts in
Project Server 2007, the Project Server administrator should complete the
following steps:
1. Launch the
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio application for SQL Server 2005 (the
Enterprise Manager for SQL Server 2000).
2. Connect to the
database server that contains the Project Server 2007 databases.
3. Expand the
Databases folder.
4. Expand the
Published database for your Project Server instance, such as Litware_Published.
5. Select the Tables
folder for the Published database.
6. Open the
MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION table for editing.
In the MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION table, you will see the default
e-mail subscriptions for Alerts for both team members and project managers in
Project Server 2007. These e-mail subscriptions include the following types of
Alerts:
-
AssignmentDeleted
-
ManagerRejectsNewTask
-
ResourceUpdatesAssignment
-
EnterpriseResourceDeleted
-
ManagerRejectsNewAssignment
-
QueueJobFailed
-
ResourceSubmitsNewTask
-
AssignmentCreated
-
StatusReportRequestChanged
-
ResourceSubmitsStatusReport
-
ManagerRejectsUpdateToAssignment
-
AssignmentModified
-
ResourceSubmitsAdminTime
-
ManagerRequestsTaskUpdate
-
TaskDelegationRequest
Notice that all of the e-mail subscriptions for Alerts are enabled by
default, indicated by a True value (a 1 value in SQL Server 2000) in the
ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT field.
7. Set the
ALERT_ENABLED_BY_DEFAULT value to False for the AssignmentModified
e-mail subscription (set a 0 value in SQL Server 2000).
8. Close the
MSP_ALERT_DEFINITION table.
From this point forward, when users navigate to the Personal
Settings page in Project Web Access and click the Manage My Alerts and Reminders
link, they will see that the “My project tasks are modified” option checkbox is
deselected.