Bulk update custom fields and create project sites from a workflow in Project Online

To help customers get the most out of Project Online and improve our service extensibility and flexibility, we've added two methods to the client-side object model that you can use in Project Online apps and workflows.

Value
UpdateCustomFields
Bulk updates project custom fields. For Project Online only. Available only in the REST API.
CreateProjectSite
Creates a Project site. For Project Online only. Available in the REST API, managed client object model, and JavaScript client object model.

In addition to providing more flexibility, these methods also offer significant performance improvements when saving and publishing projects in a workflow. This article describes how to use the methods in the REST API and provides instructions for creating a workflow that bulk updates custom fields and a workflow that creates a Project site.

Note

To learn more about calling REST APIs from SharePoint 2013 workflows, see Understanding and Using the SharePoint 2013 REST Interface and Calling the SharePoint 2013 Rest API from a SharePoint Designer Workflow.

Bulk update project custom fields from a workflow

Previously, workflows could only update one custom field at a time. Updating project custom fields one at a time can result in a poor end-user experience when users transition between Project Detail Pages. Each update required a separate server request using the Set Project Field action, and updating multiple custom fields on a high-latency, low-bandwidth network resulted in a non-trivial overhead. To resolve this issue, we added the UpdateCustomFields method to the REST API that lets you bulk update custom fields. To use UpdateCustomFields, you pass in a dictionary that contains the names and values of all the custom fields you want to update.

The REST method can be found at the following endpoint:

https://<site-url>/_api/ProjectServer/Projects('<guid>')/Draft/UpdateCustomFields()

Note

Replace the <site-url> placeholder in the examples with the URL of your Project Web App (PWA) site and the <guid> placeholder with your project UID.

This section describes how to create a workflow that bulk updates custom fields for a project. The workflow follows these high-level steps:

  • Wait for the project that you want to update to get checked in.

  • Build a data set that defines all your custom field updates for the project.

  • Check out the project.

  • Call UpdateCustomFields to apply the custom field updates to the project.

  • Log relevant information to the workflow history list (if required).

  • Publish the project.

  • Check in the project.

The final, end-to-end workflow looks like this:

End-to-end workflow

To create a workflow that bulk updates custom fields

  1. Optional. Store the full URL of your project in a variable that you can use throughout the workflow.

    Store the URL of the project in a variable

  2. Add the Wait for Project Event action to the workflow and choose the When a project is checked in event.

    Wait for the project to be checked in

  3. Create a requestHeader dictionary using the Build dictionary action. You'll use the same request header for all the web service calls in this workflow.

    Build the requestHeader dictionary

  4. Add the following two items to the dictionary.

    Name Type Value
    Accept
    String
    application/json; odata=verbose
    Content-Type
    String
    application/json; odata=verbose

    Adding an Accept header

  5. Create a requestBody dictionary using the Build dictionary action. This dictionary stores all the field updates that you want to apply.

    Each custom field update requires four rows: the field's (1) metadata type, (2) key, (3) value, and (4) value type.

    • __metadata/type The field's metadata type. This record is always the same and uses the following values:

      • Name: customFieldDictionary(i)/__metadata/type (where i is the index of each custom field in the dictionary, starting with 0)

      • Type: String

      • Value: SP.KeyValue

      Defining a custom field update

    • Key The internal name of the custom field, in the format: Custom_ce23fbf43fa0e411941000155d3c8201

      You can find the internal name of a custom field by navigating to it's InternalName endpoint: https://<site-url>/_api/ProjectServer/CustomFields('<guid>')/InternalName

      If you created your custom fields manually, the values will differ from site to site. If you plan to reuse the workflow across multiple sites, make sure the custom field IDs are correct.

    • Value The value to assign to the custom field. For custom fields that are linked to lookup tables, you need to use the internal names of the lookup table entries instead of the actual lookup table values.

      You can find the internal name of the lookup table entry at the following endpoint: https://<site-url>/_api/ProjectServer/CustomFields('<guid>')/LookupEntries('<guid>')/InternalName

      If you have a lookup table custom field set up to accept multiple values, use ;# to concatenate values (as shown in the example dictionary below).

    • ValueType The type of the custom field you are updating.

      • For Text, Duration, Flag, and LookupTable fields, use Edm.String

      • For Number fields, use Edm.Int32, Edm.Double, or any other OData-accepted number type

      • For Date fields, use Edm.DateTime

      The example dictionary below defines updates for three custom fields. The first is for a multiple value lookup table custom field, the second is for a number field, and the third is for a date field. Note how the customFieldDictionary index increments.

      Note

      These values are for illustration purposes only. The key-value pairs you'll use depend on your PWA data.

      Name Type Value
      customFieldDictionary(0)/__metadata/type
      String
      SP.KeyValue
      customFieldDictionary(0)/Key
      String
      Custom_ce23fbf43fa0e411941000155d3c8201
      customFieldDictionary(0)/Value
      String
      Entry_b9a2fd69279de411940f00155d3c8201;#Entry_baa2fd69279de411940f00155d3c8201
      customFieldDictionary(0)/ValueType
      String
      Edm.String
      customFieldDictionary(1)/__metadata/type
      String
      SP.KeyValue
      customFieldDictionary(1)/Key
      String
      Custom_c7f114c97098e411940f00155d3c8201
      customFieldDictionary(1)/Value
      String
      90.5
      customFieldDictionary(1)/ValueType
      String
      Edm.Double
      customFieldDictionary(2)/__metadata/type
      String
      SP.KeyValue
      customFieldDictionary(2)/Key
      String
      Custom_c6fb67e0b9a1e411941000155d3c8201
      customFieldDictionary(2)/Value
      String
      2015-04-01T00:00:00.0000000
      customFieldDictionary(2)/ValueType
      String
      Edm.DateTime

      Dictionary that defines custom field updates

  6. Add a Call HTTP Web Service action to check the project out.

    Call the Checkout method

  7. Edit the properties of the web service call to specify the request header. To open the Properties dialog box, right-click the action and choose Properties.

    Specify the request header in web service call properties

  8. Add a Call HTTP Web Service action to call the UpdateCustomFields method.

    Create a Call HTTP Web Service action

    Note the /Draft/ segment in the web service URL. The full URL should look like this: https://<site-url>/_api/ProjectServer/Projects('<guid>')/Draft/UpdateCustomFields()

    Call the UpdateCustomFields method

  9. Edit the properties of the web service call to bind the RequestHeader and RequestContent parameters to the dictionaries you created. You can also create a new variable to store the ResponseContent.

    Bind the dictionaries to the request header and content

  10. Optional. Read from the response dictionary to check the state of the queue job and log the information in the workflow history list.

    Setting up logging

  11. Add a web service call to the Publish endpoint to publish the project. Always use the same request header.

    Call the Publish method

    Properties for the Publish web service call

  12. Add a final web service call to the Checkin endpoint to check the project in.

    Call the Checkin method

    Properties for the Checkin web service call

Create a Project site from a workflow

Every project can have its own dedicated SharePoint sites where team members can collaborate, share documents, raise issues, and so on. Previously, sites could only be created automatically on first publish or manually by the project manager in Project Professional or by the administrator in PWA settings, or they could be disabled.

We've added the CreateProjectSite method so you can choose when to create project sites. This is particularly useful for organizations who want to create their sites automatically when a project proposal reaches a specific stage in a pre-defined workflow, rather than on first publish. Postponing project site creation significantly improves the performance of creating a project.

Prerequisite: Before you can use CreateProjectSite, the Allow users to choose setting must be set for project site creation in PWA Settings > Connected SharePoint Sites > Settings.

Setting "Allow users to choose" in PWA settings

To create a workflow that creates a Project site

  1. Create or edit an existing workflow and select the step where you want to create your Project sites.

  2. Create a requestHeader dictionary using the Build dictionary action.

    Build the requestHeader dictionary

  3. Add the following two items to the dictionary.

    Name Type Value
    Accept
    String
    application/json; odata=verbose
    Content-Type
    String
    application/json; odata=verbose

    Adding an Accept header

  4. Add the Call HTTP Web Service action. Change the request type to use POST, and set the URL using the following format:

    https://<site-url>/_api/ProjectServer/Projects('<guid>')/CreateProjectSite('New web name')

    Building the CreateProjectSite endpoint URI

    Pass the name of the Project site to the CreateProjectSite method as a string. To use the project name as the site name, pass an empty string. Be sure to use unique names so the next project site you create will work.

  5. Edit the properties of the web service call to bind the RequestHeader parameter to the dictionary you created.

    Binding the dictionary to the request

See also