I know I am way, did I mention way behind the curve here but my company is in the process of upgrading from Microsoft Project Server 2003, which we use mainly for timesheets, to Microsoft Project Server 2007. We were looking for ways to restore server settings since we are doing a lot of prototyping. We wanted to be able to restore the settings back to what they were before we starting changing things. Luckily since we are SOO far behind the curve the Project Server 2007 Project Resource Kit (PRK) which contains the “Server Settings Backup/Restore Tool”, nice eh.
So, here is my quick steps to backup and restore server settings for Project Server 2007. Oh, wait I found out if you are going to run this on your desktop and not the server you need to copy the Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Library.dll from the Project Server (\Program Files\Microsoft Servers\12.0\Bin) to the same directory you put the PRK in. in this case it was C:\Project 2007\Admin Tools\.
Once I figured that out it was cake. Let see how we do it.
You start the backup tool by going to the folder where you extracted the PRK, for me this is C:\Project 2007\Admin Tools and run the Playbooks.exe. After a few seconds the following dialog is shown.
Enter the URL to your Project Server Project Web Access (PWA) install. I was wanting to migrate settings from test so I entered http://project-test.example.com. A new form will be displayed showing all of the settings you can back or restore.
To Backup The Settings
To backup the current settings enter a meaningful name in the File Name: textbox. I choose to use a simple naming scheme (env-yyyy-mm-dd.xml) so I could remember where and when the settings were backed up. Then naming scheme was environment so I would know where the settings where from, Local, Dev, Test, or Production, and then just the European date code, well because it sorts nicely.
I should also note that if you do not supply a path the file is written in the same directory as the playbooks.exe.
Ok, now that we have entered a meaningful name and selected the settings, all of course, we hit the backup button and let the tool do its work. The result is a nice little piece of XML that contains all of the setting we exported.
To Restore the Settings
Restoring the settings is almost as easy. Swap to the Restore tab, click the Open File button, navigate to where you exported the settings, select the settings file you want to restore.
The settings will be loaded and you can choose to import all settings or you can be selective.
One option that merits looking into further is the “Strategy” section located at the bottom. By default it is set to Replace, but another option is Merge. Replace does exactly what you would expect replace any existing settings. But think of what you can do with the Merge option, create specific Settings files that just merge the settings you want. Now I am starting to see why they called the exe playbooks. These small settings files can be used to make incremental changes to the server settings in a very controlled way.
This is a great tool and I am sure I will be using it a lot.