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Understanding Project SharePoint Integration

Brass Contributor

We use Office 365 with SharePoint Online. No on-prem SharePoint whatsoever. I am trying to understand how Project Online is integrated with SharePoint. Where exactly are the "projects" created with Project Online Professional stored? Are they stored inside the PWA site collection? If so, is there maintenance required for the site collection where these projects are stored? Should users who are assigned a Project Online Professional license be given some level of access to the PWA site collection by the SharePoint administrators in the organization? Thank you for your help.

6 Replies
best response confirmed by JeremySRITS (Brass Contributor)
Solution

Hello,

 

Project Online is a feature built in SharePoint Online, Project Online consists of 2 features for end users to interact with the data, Project Online Desktop and Project Web App (PWA). Project Online Desktop works with Project Online and is the desktop tool for creating and editing projects. PWA is the web interface for Project Online that also enables users to create / edit projects etc., this is the SharePoint site collection. It's a special SharePoint Online site collection that whilst it is SharePoint it has it's own access model. There are two options, the default SharePoint permission mode or the Project permission mode. Here is a really quick getting started guide: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/projectonline/get-started-with-project-online 

Data created in Project Online such as Projects are stored in the Project Online tables inside the SharePoint Online content database.

Hope that helps

Paul

 

Paul,

 

Thanks for your response and for the link to those docs. I looked them over, and compared to what I see in the default PWA in my environment. It's starting to make sense. One additional question I have: Do the group memberships given in the PWA site collection apply to all projects in the site? So, if I add a user as a "Team Member", do they have visibility across all projects or just to specific projects they are involved in? If I want to lock down some projects, do I need to set those up in a new PWA site?

 

Thanks again!

Hi Jeremy,

What permission mode is you PWA site using? SharePoint permission mode or Project permission mode? You can check in PWA Settings > Additional Server Settings > Permission Management. In SharePoint permission mode you can't configure the permission mode, all you do is add users the the predefined SharePoint groups PWA uses - Team Members should only see projects they are involved in - where they are on the projects team. The Project permission mode, which all of our customers use, is configurable. The default Team Member group in the Project Permission mode also only shows users project where they are in the projects team. To lock down sensitive projects to a certain group of users, you can easily do this in the Project Permission mode with a new Security Category and Security Group. Be aware, switching between project permission modes will drop the users access and they will need to be added again.

Paul

Thanks for your response, Paul. I checked and the default PWA is using SharePoint Permissions mode. I know how to see the members in the Sharepoint site collection groups, but is there a way as a Sharepoint admin to see which users are "on the projects team" for a given Project stored in the PWA?

Hello,

Yes, the PWA admin (or users that have access to the project) can either check this is in PWA or Project Online Desktop client. 

  • In PWA, access the Project Center, select the project row, then on the Projects tab click "Build Team". On the right hand side of the grid it will show you the resources that are on the Project Team
  • In Project Online Desktop Client, open the project then Press Ctrl+T (short cut for build team), then on the right hand side of the pop up you will see the Project Resources

Repeat for each project you need to check.

Paul

Paul,

 

Thanks for all your responses. This has been helpful to me!

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by JeremySRITS (Brass Contributor)
Solution

Hello,

 

Project Online is a feature built in SharePoint Online, Project Online consists of 2 features for end users to interact with the data, Project Online Desktop and Project Web App (PWA). Project Online Desktop works with Project Online and is the desktop tool for creating and editing projects. PWA is the web interface for Project Online that also enables users to create / edit projects etc., this is the SharePoint site collection. It's a special SharePoint Online site collection that whilst it is SharePoint it has it's own access model. There are two options, the default SharePoint permission mode or the Project permission mode. Here is a really quick getting started guide: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/projectonline/get-started-with-project-online 

Data created in Project Online such as Projects are stored in the Project Online tables inside the SharePoint Online content database.

Hope that helps

Paul

 

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