Forum Discussion
Project Server Error when exporting to a Pivot Table using Visual Reports
Since migrating all our schedules to on-premises Project Server last year, we are getting an error message when trying to export a schedule to a pivot table using Viusal Reports. The error reads: "An error occurred and the requested action could not be completed at this time." This doesn't happen on 100% of our schedules, but the vast majority of them. What causes this error and how do we fix the issue?
2 Replies
Brett_Phifer_SCI,
As Dale says, sometimes you can just keep "hitting it" and it eventually works but for me that is a real "not ready for prime time". My go to solution is a transfer of data from Project to Excel with VBA. Not only does it always work, but I can customize the export in any way I need.
John
Brett --
If I had a dollar for every time I have seen that error dialog, I would be retired by now. I even got that error dialog during a live webinar where I was presenting how to use the Excel Visual Reports feature in Microsoft Project. Totally embarassing! In that webinar, I tried a second time, and got the error dialog again. Fortunately, I had saved a copy of the Excel file with the exported Excel Visual Report, so I simply opened the Excel file and continued with the webinar.
The truth is that the error message you are seeing is quite common in Microsoft Project. I suspect there is some kind of bug that causes the message to appear intermittently, but Microsoft has never admitted this is a bug, and thus, has never fixed it.
So, you and your PMs are not doing anything wrong. What I have done in the past is to keep exporting the Excel Visual Report until I get no error message. That's the only workaround I have discovered with this annoying "feature" in Microsoft Project. Hope this helps.
