project online default assignment owner

Using the Assignment Owner Field with Project Online

Background information.

A couple of weeks ago, there was an interesting question in the Project user forum on the Internet. My answer to that question revealed why and how to use the Assignment Owner field in the Microsoft Project desktop application, when used with either Project Online or Project Server. Following is a summary of the user’s problem:

• In the Microsoft Project schedule, the project manager needs to assign resources to tasks, but these resources do not have access to a computer. These resources include people in skilled trades such as electricians, pipe fitters, etc.
• These resources report to a supervisor, who is responsible for collecting task progress from them, and then entering their progress in Project Online.
• On the Tasks page in Project Web App, the supervisor needs to be able to enter progress on the tasks assigned to the resources who report to him.

The solution to this problem is for the project manager to use the Assignment Owner field in the Microsoft Project schedule. However, before the project manager can use this field, he/she must complete a couple of preliminary steps. The first step is to build the project team and to include the supervisor as a part of the team. This step is mandatory and is vitally important to the process.

In Figure 1, notice the project team members shown on the right side of the Build Team dialog in Microsoft Project. In this project team, Dale Howard is the supervisor to whom Cindy McNair, Larry Barnes, and Mickey Cobb need to report their task progress. Even though Dale Howard will not be assigned to any tasks in the project, he must be a part of the project team. This is so that he can be designated as the Assignment Owner for the tasks assigned to Cindy, Larry, and Mickey.

Figure 1: Project team includes the supervisor

The second step in the process is to assign the team members to the tasks on which they will work in the project. Notice in Figure 2 that the project manager has assigned resources to all the detailed tasks in the project schedule. Notice that Dale Howard (the supervisor) is not assigned to any tasks in the project. Remember that he merely serves as the supervisor of Cindy, Larry, and Mickey.

Figure 2: Team members assigned to all detailed tasks

The third step is to assign Dale Howard (the supervisor) as the Assignment Owner for Cindy, Larry, and Mickey. By the way, the Assignment Owner field determines who sees the tasks on the Tasks page in Project Web App. Since Cindy, Larry, and Mickey do not have computers and do not use Project Web App, they should not be the Assignment Owner for their tasks. Instead, Dale Howard needs to be specified as the Assignment Owner for their tasks, so that he can see their tasks on his Tasks page in PWA and enter the task progress that they report to him.

To designate a supervisor as the Assignment Owner for one or more resources, apply the Resource Usage view. Click the column header in the Add New Column virtual column and select the Assignment Owner field in the pick list of available resource fields. Finally, the widen each column in the view, as needed. Notice in Figure 3 that the Assignment Owner value for every task assignment is the same as the name of the resource assigned to the task. This means that Cindy is the Assignment Owner for her tasks, Larry is the Assignment Owner for his tasks, and Mickey is the Assignment Owner for her tasks.

Figure 3: Current Assignment Owners for each task

To change the Assignment Owner value for a task assignment, click the pick list in the Assignment Owner column for the task, and then select the name of the supervisor in the pick list. For example, notice in Figure 4 that the project manager is selecting Dale Howard in the Assignment Owner pick list for the first task assigned to Cindy McNair.

Figure 4: Select the new Assignment Owner for a task assignment

Continue selecting the supervisor as the Assignment Owner for the tasks assigned to each of the resources who report to that supervisor. To speed up this process, you can use the Fill Handle (like the Fill Handle feature found in Microsoft Excel) to fill the Assignment Owner value into successive cells. You can also use Copy & Paste to speed up the process as well. Notice in Figure 5 that the project manager specified Dale Howard as the Assignment Owner for every task assigned to Cindy, Larry, and Mickey.

Figure 5: Assignment Owner specified for each task assignment

When the project manager finishes the process of specifying Dale Howard (the supervisor) as the Assignment Owner for the tasks assigned to Cindy, Larry, and Mickey, the project manager then needs to save and publish the latest changes to the project. The act of publishing the project will force the tasks assigned to Cindy, Larry, and Mickey to display on the Tasks page for Dale Howard.

Figure 6 shows the Tasks page in PWA for Dale Howard. The Project Online application administrator set up this “best practice” layout of the Tasks page to support the organization’s default method for reporting progress (% of Work Complete) and to support the needs of supervisors like Dale Howard in the organization. By the way, notice that the Resource Name column displays the name of the resource who is assigned to each task.

Figure: Tasks page in PWA

Setting Up the Default Assignment Owner

Using the process described previously in this article, project managers would need to manually specify the Assignment Owner values in every project they manage. To eliminate this manual process, the app admin for Project Online or Project Server should specify the Default Assignment Owner value for resources in the Enterprise Resource Pool, wherever needed. In the example used in this article, the app admin would need to specify Dale Howard as the Default Assignment Owner for Cindy McNair, Larry Barnes, and Mickey Cobb.

To begin this process, the app admin should log into Project Web App with Administrator permissions, and then navigate to the Resource Center page in PWA. The app admin should select the checkboxes for names of the resources who need to have their Default Assignment Owner values changed. With the resource names selected, the app admin should click the Bulk Edit button. Figure 7 shows the top half of the Bulk Edit page with the names of Cindy, Larry, and Mickey selected in the Resource Center page.

Figure 7: Build Edit Page in PWA

On the Bulk Edit page, the app admin should click the Browse button to the right of the Default Assignment Owner field. Project Web App displays the Pick Resource dialog. In this dialog, the app admin should select the name of the supervisor, which in this case would be Dale Howard, such as shown in Figure 8. After selecting the name, the app admin should click the OK button.

Figure 8: Pick Resource dialog

After the app admin selects a name in the Pick Resource dialog and clicks the OK button, Project Web App updates the Bulk Edit page, such as shown in Figure 9. To finish this process, the app admin must select the Apply Changes checkbox for the Default Assignment Owner field (Project Web App does not select this checkbox automatically), and then click the Save button.

Figure 9: Updated Bulk Edit page

Once the app admin completes the preceding steps, project managers should not need to specify a value in the Assignment Owner field for any of the resources in their project teams for all future projects, thus saving them a lot of time and manual labor.

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PWA Default Assignment Owner Show all tasks in My Tasks

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The person designated as the Assignment Owner for a task is the person who will see the tasks on his/her own Tasks page in PWA.  If your example above, if Jack is the Assignment Owner for Peter, Paul, Jane, and John, Jack would see all of their tasks on his Tasks page in PWA, and the other four would see NO TASKS.

Beyond this, you need to be aware that there are two fields that control this behavior.  The first is the Default Assignment Owner field which is set for each resource in the Enterprise Resource Pool.  The second is the Assignment Owner field, which is set for each task assignment in every Microsoft Project schedule.  If a new project is created AFTER the Default Assignment Owner has been set for every resource, the Assignment Owner for every task assignment in that project will be set according to the Default Assignment Owner value for each resource in the project.  If a project was created BEFORE changing the Default Assignment Owner value for every resource, then the Assignment Owner value for every task assignment will be the name of the assigned resource.

I suspect the latter is the situation you have.  To correct this, the PM would need to open the project in question, apply the Resource Usage view, temporarily insert the Assignment Owner column, and change the value to the new assignment owner.  The PM would need to save and publish the project as well.

Hope this helps.

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Using the assignment owner and status manager in MS Project Online

Setting the default assignment owner for a resource in ms project online.

Steps to set the default assignment owner for a resource in MS Project Online:

• Open MS Project Online.
• Click the " Resources " item in the left menu.
• Click the " RESURCES " item in the top menu.
• Select the resource, click the box near the resource name.
• Click the " Edit " button in the " Resources " block.
• Click the " Browse ... " button in the " Default Assignment Owner: " field,
• Click the user name in the " Pick Resource " window. You can find the first three characters of the username by clicking the " Search " button.
• Click the " OK " button in the " Pick Resource " window.
• To save click the " Save " button.

Steps to set the default assignment owner for resources in MS Project Online:

• Select resources, Click the boxs near the resource name.
• Click the " RESOURCES " item in the top menu.
• Click the " Bulk Edit " button in the " Resources " block.
• Click the " Browse ... " button in the " Default Assignment Owner: " field,
• Click the user name in the " Pick Resource " window. You can find the first three characters of the username by clicking the " Search " button.
• Click the " OK " button in the " Pick Resource " window.

Using the assignment owner and status manager in MS Project Pro

You can set up a resource assignment owner on each project task. The assignment owner can report on task completion and resource usage. The state manager can receive the results of the execution of project tasks. By default, the state manager is the project manager.

Steps to set the assignment owner and status manager for resources in MS Project Pro:

• Open MS Project Pro.
• Open the " Task Usage " view.
• Add the " Assigment Owner " column and the " Status Manager " column and.
• Choose the username in these columns.
• Publish your project.

Step to set the assignment owner for the resource in MS Project Pro:

• Open the " Gantt Chart " view.
• Click the task twice the mouse.
• Choose the tub " Resources " in the window " Task Information "
• Choose the assignment owner in the field " Assignment Owner ".
• Set the units for each resources in the field " Units ".
• Click the button " Ok "

2023-05-14 16:47:34

Ivan Oberemok

[email protected]

Author: Ivan Oberemok

Ph.D., trainer-consultant for project management

• Candidate of technical sciences in the field of "Project management and production development", associate professor of KNUSA
• Certified Project Manager Level B International project management association
• Certified Project Manager Level C Japanese project management association

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August 23, 2019

The difference between status manager and assignment owner in project online.

Two important roles when it comes to scheduling with Project Online are Status Manager and Default Assignment Owner . In this blog, we'll walk through the difference between the two.

Status Manager

Status Manager refers to the user who will receive task updates as Team Members update their tasks.

By default, the Status Manager is the Owner of the project when it was created. If the Owner of the project changes at any point during the project, the Status Manager field for existing tasks will also need to change. The new Owner or Project Manager will need to manually update this field. Status Manager is available as an editable field when you have the project opened in Microsoft Project Professional.

I found that in most cases, the Status Manager can only  be updated by the user (with proper permissions) who has the schedule open.

When tasks are updated, the task status is sent to the appropriate Project Owner for each project. The task updates can be reviewed by the Project Manager in the Approvals Center in Project Online and Accept or Reject the time.

Default Assignment Owner

Default Assignment Owner is the user whose Tasks page or Timesheet the tasks will display. By default, the Default Assignment Owner is the resource themselves. The Assignment Owner field is available as a Read Only field in Microsoft Project Professional.

Here is a scenario when the Default Assignment Owner will be someone other than themselves:

• Resource A will have tasks assigned to them. However, they will not have access to log into the system to report actual time. In this case, their Default Assignment Owner can be updated to another user, possibly a manager or team lead.
• When tasks are assigned to Resource A, the tasks will display on the Tasks page or Timesheet of the Default Assignment Owner. The Default Assignment Owner's tasks will be displayed on their own as well. They can then update task status for both their tasks and Resource A’s tasks.
• For this approach, I recommend updating the view for Tasks or Timesheets to include the Resource Name field. This will allow the Default Assignment Owner to see which tasks belong to which resource.

The Default Assignment Owner field is set and can be updated at the Enterprise Resource level.

When scheduling, pay attention to these roles! They play an important role in the Project Update cycle.

Related Links

• Can not sync Active Directory Group for Project Server 2007 Project Web Access Site
• The Status Manager Field is Now Available in Microsoft Project Online!
• Microsoft Project Training Webinar Series - Module 05: Assignment Planning with Microsoft Project
• Load Summary Resource Assignments
• The Status Date Functionality in MS Project

What is Default Assignment Owner field?

The Default Assignment Owner field contains the name of the enterprise user who is responsible for entering status on a given assignment.

Add resources to the enterprise resource pool

The enterprise resource pool is used to manage and assign resources to plans within Project Server. In Microsoft Project Professional, you can add resources to the list of enterprise resources that are contained within Project Server.

Note:  You must have appropriate permissions to add resources to the enterprise resource pool.

What do you want to do?

Add individual resources to the enterprise resource pool, add multiple resources from project to the enterprise resource pool, add more resources from the enterprise resource pool in microsoft project professional.

Adding resources within Microsoft Project requires that Microsoft Project Professional be connected to Project Server with an account that has permissions to add resources to the enterprise.

Project Web Access is displayed within your Web browser  

Note:  The Web browser may have opened up behind Project. Check the Windows task bar to see if a new Web browser has opened.

Specify the following items about the new resource:

Resource Type      To change the resource type, in the Type list, select work resource , cost resource , or material resource . You also can choose whether the resource is a budget resource or a generic resource by selecting the Budget check box or Generic check box.

Note:  Clear the Resource can logon to Project Server check box if you don't want to collect information on tasks that the resource works on, or if you don't want the resource to log on to Microsoft Project Server.

Resource Name and other identifying information      This includes the actual name of the resource, as well as the e-mail address and Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) value.

If this resource maintains a team Web site, type the hyperlink name and the URL address in the Hyperlink Name box and Hyperlink URL box respectively.

Leveling      To exclude this resource from the leveling process, clear the Can Level check box.

Timesheet manager and default assignment owner      If the resource has a Timesheet Manager or Default Assignment owner, other than himself, type or search for the manager’s name.

To specify the assignment owner, in the Default Assignment Owner box, type or search for the assignment owner's name. Typically, the assignment owner is the work resource who was initially assigned to the task, but the assignment owner could also be a manager or anyone else on a team.

To specify the project calendar that should be applied to the resource, in the Base Calendar list, select the calendar.

You can choose whether the resource is committed or proposed to work on a project by choosing the Default Booking Type box.

Team details      If the resource name represents a Team of resources, then check the box Team Assignment Pool and browse for the team name.

Cost and group codes      If your organization created codes for grouping and costing purposes, select these codes in the Group box, Code box, Cost Center box, and Cost Type box.

Your organization may require additional information about your resources. Under Resource Custom Fields , enter the information that your organization requires for each resource. This section won't appear if your organization has not defined custom resource fields.

Choose Save .

If you want an enterprise resource to work on a task within your project, you need to use the feature Build Team from Enterprise in your project. Learn how to add resources to your project .

Before you can add multiple resources to the enterprise resource pool, you need to add them to the Resource Sheet view, or start with a plan that already has resources.

Enter the resource you want to import into the enterprise resource pool. If you already have resources in your project that aren't part of the enterprise resource pool, these existing resources will be imported.

On the Resources tab, select Add Resources , and then select Import Resources to Enterprise . The Import Resources wizard is displayed on the left, with the Resource Sheet view on the right that contains the resources in the current project.

To map any customized fields you have in your project with enterprise custom fields that are defined by your organization, select Map Resource Fields . After mapping resource fields, select OK in the Map Custom Fields dialog box.

Select Continue to Step 2 for each resource that you want to add to the enterprise resource pool.

Note:  The Resource Sheet view will have an Errors column to give you warnings of any mistakes made in importing resources.

In the Import Resources wizard, select Yes in the corresponding Import column. This step will insure that no errors are created when resources are imported into the enterprise resource pool. Any errors will appear next to the resource name in the Errors column to the right.

Select Save and Finish . The resources have now been imported to the enterprise resource pool.

You can select a Project plan from an earlier version of Project to import resources. This is useful if you have resources in .mpp files from earlier versions of Project or resource lists in other file formats.

If you want to add resources that already exist in a database or a list in Microsoft Office Excel, use the Import Wizard that appears when you open a file that is not a Microsoft Project Plan (MPP) or Microsoft Project Template (MPT) file, or when you select ODBC in the Open dialog box. Learn how to add or update enterprise resources using an external data file .

Multiple resources can also be added from Project Server.

Note:  You have to select at least one resource in order to open Enterprise Resource Pool in Project Professional.

In Project, add resources to the Resource Sheet view.

Close and save Project.

Note:  Your organization may require additional information about your resources. Under Resource Custom Fields , enter the information that your organization requires for each resource. This section will appear only if your organization has custom resource fields.

The resources that you added to the project will be added to the enterprise resource pool.

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Plan SharePoint groups in Project Online

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In Project Online, SharePoint Permission Mode creates SharePoint groups that directly correspond to the default security groups found in Project Permission Mode.

Need to switch between security modes? Take a look at Change permission management in Project Online .

What groups are available?

The following list describes the SharePoint groups and what they'll allow users to do in Project Online.

Administrators Users have all global permissions as well as category permissions through the My Organization category. This allows them complete access to everything in Project Online.

Portfolio Viewers Users have permissions to view Project Online data. This group is intended for high-level users who need visibility into projects but are not themselves assigned project tasks.

Project Managers Users have permissions to create and manage projects. This group is intended for project owners who assign tasks to resources.

Portfolio Managers Users have assorted project-creation and team-building permissions. This group is intended for high-level managers of groups of projects.

Resource Managers Users have most global and category-level resource permissions. This group is intended for users who manage and assign resources and edit resource data.

Team Leads Users have limited permissions around task creation and status reports. This group is intended for persons in a lead capacity that do not have regular assignments on a project.

Team Members Users have general permissions for using Project Online, but limited project-level permissions. This group is intended to give everyone basic access to Project Online.

These SharePoint groups have the same global and category permissions that are assigned to them in Project Permission Mode. In SharePoint Permission Mode, you cannot create additional custom groups, categories, Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) nodes, or edit the default permissions assigned to any of these objects.

There are two methods of adding users to the SharePoint groups: adding individual users, or using Active Directory groups to add users. You can use one or both of these methods for each group.

Adding individual users to SharePoint groups

When you add individual users to one of the SharePoint groups, that user is synchronized to Project Online automatically. User synchronization runs every ten minutes.

Using Active Directory groups to add users to SharePoint groups

When you add Active Directory groups to one of the SharePoint security groups, the users are not automatically added to the list of users in Project Online. Each user is individually added the first time she or he accesses Project Online.

Because users in Active Directory groups do not appear on the list of resources until they have accessed Project Online, we recommend that you configure Active Directory synchronization in Project Online to prepopulate your resource list. This allows you to have a complete resource list and to assign work to resources before they have accessed Project Online.

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