Warning About Logging into Project Server when Creating or Updating a OnePager Chart

If you have Microsoft Project open and are updating one of your existing OnePager charts, you may receive a warning like this:

This warning message means that you are attempting to import Project Server data into a OnePager chart, but that Microsoft Project either isn't currently connected to the server at all, or it's connected to the wrong environment. There are four ways to fix this:

Connect OnePager Directly to Project Server

OnePager has the ability to log into Project Server directly, or to utilize Microsoft Project's existing Project Server connection. Obviously, if there are issues with Microsoft Project's connection to Project Server, the latter won't work, so it's best to let OnePager do the connection itself. To do this:

1. Open your OnePager report by going to Add-Ins > OnePager, clicking the OPEN button, and browsing to the report that you want to update. Don't update it yet. Just open it.

2. Once the report is open, go to Home > Chart Properties > Advanced. Locate the Server Method settting and change it from "Use MS Project Professional" to "Connect directly to server":

   

3. Now, click OK, go to the Data tab of OnePager and run the update to your report as you normally would.

Re-Establish Microsoft Project's Connection to Project Server

If you want OnePager to continue to rely on Microsoft Project to connect to Project Server, it's important to ensure that Project's connection is trouble-free. To do this:

1. Completely close Microsoft Project (and OnePager if it's open)
2. Re-launch Microsoft Project and make sure that you log into Project Server as a part of the startup process.
3. Once logged into Project Server, we recommend opening at least one of the project plans that you are using to run your OnePager update. You do not need to check the plan out; just open it.
4. Update your OnePager report by going to Add-Ins > OnePager, clicking the UPDATE button, and browsing to the report that you want to update.
5. With Project logged into Project Server and one of your plans open, you should be able to update your OnePager chart normally.

Make Sure that All Project Plans are from the Same Project Server Environment

If you are importing multiple plans from Project Server into OnePager, all of those plans need to be coming from the same Project Server environment. For example, you cannot build a chart with two projects from your production environment and three projects from your separate staging environment. OnePager needs all plans to come from the same server.

To prevent this, avoid using the recent files list in Microsoft Project and in OnePager. These can cause confusion if you have several environments with plans of the same name, and it's not uncommon to accidentally import some plans from one environment and some from another. Instead of the recent files list, actually navigate to the desired projects in OnePager's Browse Project Online/Server list and explicitly import it when you know which server you're logged into. This will ensure that all plans are coming from the same place.

Double-Check your Microsoft Project Local Cache Size Limit

When OnePager accesses Project Server plans through Microsoft Project, these plans are temporarily downloaded to your local cache. By default, Microsoft sets this to 50MB, which is usually enough, but if you are importing multiple, very large plans from Project Server all at once, it's possible that their aggregate size will exceed your cache limit. When this happens, Project drops its connection to Project Server and stops downloading plans.

To see if you are experiencing an issue with your server cache, you can try opening all of the plans you intend to use in your report at the same time. Instead of opening them in OnePager, just open them in Project. If you hit the cache limit, you'll get a message like this from Microsoft Project:

To clean your cache in Microsoft Project, go to File > Options > Save and then click the Clean Up Cache button. This will remove many files from your cache:

IMPORTANT: In some cases, the Clean Up Cache button fails to show all of the projects that are still in your cache. This can cause your cache to look empty when there may be several stranded files in the cache that are still taking up space. When this happens, Microsoft can even report that the cache is empty until you try to open a lot of plans, at which point it tells you that the cache is full. The only way to truly empty your cache is to click on the Browse button, physically navigate to the cache folder in Windows Explorer and actually delete the stranded cache files.

Cleaning the cache can help, but if your files are really big, even a completely cleaned cache may not be enough, and you should adjust the Cache Size Limit instead. We recommend a limit of 500MB, which is ten times the default Microsoft Project setting. This seems large, but will allow Microsoft Project to send OnePager the data it needs without performance issues.

Related Items

This issue can also appear with a different warning message when you are pushing your OnePager update from Microsoft Project instead of from pulling it with OnePager already open. In this other case, it will warn you about not being able to add a source file while you are trying to run your update.

Last Updated: December 30, 2022