G.A. Suite can be used for archiving Project Online data - PWA Configuration, Projects, and Site Collection Settings and SharePoint Sites content.
This functionality may be helpful when it is required to keep production Project Online instance clear from historical data (closed and completed Projects). The recommended approach is to move and save the historical data on a separate, new PWA environment which can be done using G.A. Suite.
The scheduled profiles can be used to ensure automatically scheduled copy of completed or closed projects from production instance to either dedicated ‘archive’ instance, or any other one, which is used for storing such projects.
I. Limitations for archiving using G.A. Suite
There are certain limitations - the sets of data or settings that are not supported for archiving using G.A. Suite. This means that the entities listed below need to be either re-created or transferred to the target PWA manually.
⛔ PWA (Server) Settings:
- Enterprise Global
- Active Directory Resource Pool Synchronization settings
- Workflows developed in Visual Studio
- Regional Settings
- Status Reports
- Approvals
- Invalid Delegations
- Security Groups vs AD Groups association
⛔ Projects:
- Timeline
- Tasks Status Manager setting
- Driver Impacts
- Resource Engagements of the proposed type
- Resource Engagements of draft type
- Project Owners for Master Projects
- Status Managers for Master Projects
- Assignment level custom field project data
⛔ SharePoint Sites:
- Managed Copies of files in Document Libraries
- Document Libraries Document Version History
- All kinds of reports that use a database connection (reports that use OData will be copied)
- Custom SharePoint solutions and/or web parts
- Site/Site Collection Features
- Document Libraries Files which have no checked-in version
- Migration of custom security to SharePoint Libraries/Lists and their documents/items
- SharePoint workflows created not in SharePoint Designer
- “Microfeed” ('Newsfeed') List
- "Preservation Hold library" List
II. Archiving Prerequisites
1. Provision a new PWA instance that will be used for archived data only.
2. Users with the same Display Names and Usernames (@domain.com part may be different) must be created in the target Project Online Tenant.
In such a way, G.A. Suite will be able to map the source and target User Accounts and also map the Resources during the Project copy.
Please note: If it is necessary, it is possible to rename the Resources as needed. Note, that this should be done AFTER migration is fully completed!
If Resources have different Display Names in source and target, the discrepancies will occur in migration of PWA Configuration, Projects (Assignments, Custom Fields of 'User' type, etc.), and SharePoint Content ('Assigned to', 'Created By', 'Modified By' and other fields in Document Libraries and SharePoint Lists will be missing values; User Account will fail to be added to SharePoint Groups in Project Sites, etc.).
III. Archiving Flow
To archive the PWA data using G.A. Suite it is required to take all the steps described below.
1. Define the Projects to be archived. the best approach is to create a Project center view ‘Projects for Archiving’. We will further review several possible ways of such view creation.
2. Replicate the Production root PWA site settings and content to the PWA provisioned for archiving purposes. This step is needed to prepare the Site Collection for further Projects and Sites copy – Site Templates, Webparts, Content Types, Features, etc.
3. Then, prior to creating and launching the Projects and Sites copy, it is required to create a Publishing schedule. This step is needed because G.A. Suite is designed in a way to copy the latest Draft version of a Project, not a Published one. If upon closing the Project, your users haven’t published the last changes, they will not be copied by G.A. Suite. Moreover, during the Publish operation, G.A. Suite also performs recalculation of Projects. This will help to make sure the data integrity is preserved.
4. The next step is to create a scheduled copy action for a regular copy of selected PWA Configuration elements, closed Projects, and Sites. Run the Profile manually for the first archive and visually inspect the archived data. If everything looks good, you can remove the copied entities for Production.
5. In the future, it is required to keep an eye on notifications from G.A. Suite about the ‘archive’ schedule and proceed to remove the closed Projects with Projects Sites from the production instance.
Each step is described in detail in the G.A. Suite for Archiving section. Please follow the steps one by one to successfully complete the archiving of your PWA data.
IV. Key Recommendations
Perform thorough verification after each “copy” step.
Make sure, that the migration account does not have an active delegation session during any “copy” operation!
Find how to add an environment to your G.A. Suite by the following link - Add Environment to your G.A. Suite.