Moving Customized Project Workspace Templates Between Instances

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Until recently, because I had never actually tried it, I thought that moving customized project workspace templates from Project Server 2007 to Project Server 2010 was simply a matter of saving a customized project workspace site as a template, then importing that template into Project Server 2010. I decided to actually work through the steps and found I was missing a key piece of information - the template files have different extensions when you save them. In 2007, you get a .stp file and in 2010, you get a .wsp file. So for a customer who is moving from Project Server 2007 to Project Server 2010, how do you get your project workspace templates into your new system, especially if you AREN'T migrating/upgrading your data? 

The trick to this situation is that you have to upgrade your Project Server 2007 databases, preferably in a test environment in order to preserve your 2007 production environment, using the Database-attach full upgrade to Project Server 2010 instructions found here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee662500.aspx.

Once you have a Project Server 2010 version of your databases, you can proceed with the steps below...

­From the PWA home page, go to Site Actions > Server Settings.

In the Galleries section, click Solutions.

In the Solution Gallery, click the name of the template you want to move to the production instance of Project Server 2010.

You will be prompted to save the file.

Save the file to the hard drive or network share, or copy it to your Central Admin server on the target environment.

On the Central Admin server of the target environment, open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and type this command where –LiteralPath is the path to your .wsp file. In my testing, I used wt20.wsp, but you will want to use a filename that’s more easily identifiable, especially if you use different templates for different enterprise project types.

Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath c:\temp\wt20.wsp

Next, use the instructions below which I copied from the "Deploy a solution package" article on TechNet to deploy the solution to your target instance of PWA.  (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262995.aspx)

To deploy a solution by using Central Administration

    1. On the Central Administration Home page, click System Settings.
    1. In the Farm Management section, click Manage farm solutions.
    1. On the Solution Management page, click the solution that you want to deploy.
    1. On the Solution Properties page, click Deploy Solution.
    1. On the Deploy Solution page, in the Deploy When section, select one of the following:
      • Now
      • At a specified time. If you select this option, specify a time by using the date and time boxes. We recommend that you select a time when the load on the destination servers is low.
    1. In the Deploy To? section, in the A specific web application list, click either All web applications or select a specific Web application. (Note: In my test server, the option to deploy to a specific web application did not exist; I could only deploy globally.)
    1. Click OK.

If you want to use the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, the syntax is below:

 Install-SPSolution -Identity <SolutionName> -WebApplication <URLname>

  

Back in PWA’s home page, go to Server Settings > Project Site Provisioning Settings.

In the Default Site Properties section, select the dropdown for the Default Project Site Template and click the workspace template you would like to use every time a project workspace is created.

Lastly, and this step is key, go to Server Settings > Enterprise Project Type.

Click on the EPT that shows Yes in the Default column.

Scroll to the bottom and change the Project Site template to your customized template.

Create a new project plan and when you publish, the new template will be used.