Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation: Fixing the issue of missing Time Entries

Edited on January 29th 2018:

This blog post has been edited on January 29th 2018. The workflow was discovered to have been the cause of an error preventing substituting resources on the Schedule Board. A Business Rule can be used to set the Project Approver field to "Yes".

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Tested on:
Dynamics 365 version 9.0
Project Service Automation solution versions 2.0.0.273 and 2.1.0.30

When using Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation in version 9.0, I have had a critical issue of Time Entries not flowing to Project Approvals on many occasions. This issue has always occurred when I have done some testing on Projects and have deleted a previously created Project Team from the Project Team Member View.

The issue has traveled past a significant number of eyes trying to find a fix to the issue and today I finally received a solution from the PSA Product Group at Microsoft. The solution to the issue turned out to be extremely simple: When a Project Team is deleted as a whole, all Project Approvers are deleted as well. When a Project Team is recreated (by clicking on Generate Project Team on the Work Breakdown Structure) a Project Approver is not automatically set.

So what is this Project Approver and how is she/he originally set? Quite simple actually. When creating a Project and choosing a Project Manager on the Project form the chosen User is set as a Project Approver. Ever wondered what that one single record on the Project Team Member View is after creating a new project? That's the Project Manager you just chose and that User will also be a Project Approver by default. Remove this record and you're in trouble: No Project Approver means submitted Time Entries for the respective project will not show under Project Approvals.

Prohibiting deletion of a record that has a Project Approver set is also quite simple: Create a real-time workflow that checks if the Project Approver field is set to "Yes". If it is, end the workflow as "Canceled" and specify an error message by clicking on "Set Properties". I always recommend adding a description under the "Administration" tab as well.

Alternative solution (edited on Jan 29th 2018)

An alternative solution is to create a Business Rule that automatically sets the Project Approver field to "Yes" based on a specified Role being selected. This way all Project Team Members that have a certain Role can be set as Project Approvers when they are booked. Remember to set the scope of the Business Rule as "Entity" so that the Project Approver field automatically changes when a record is created.

A very big thanks to all the Support Engineers, PTCs and PSA Product Group members at Microsoft and my colleagues Sara Lagerquist and Katja Salonen for the help in diagnosing and solving the issue!

Disclaimer: 
All my blog posts reflect my personal opinions and findings unless otherwise stated.