Project Client 2007 2010 semicolon separator issue

I have encounterd some issue when regional settings is set to german, for the Project Client.

Basically the list separator for the german language is ";" (could be for other languages as well) instead of "," and when someone tries to add ressources for a task he must enter usually "firstname ; lastname"

Here is were the problem arises, the clent will take firstname and lastname as 2 different ressources, instead of one, and will separate the names, and when trying to save the project on the Project Server the Ressouce won't be recognized.

Changing the separator in the Regional settings wouln't be a good idea for Excel Users and not only as it could interfere with formulas and other excel costumizations.

Background : When doing an AD Sync, the username separator for Project is by default ";" as per following KB Article:
The following KB article applies to all Project Server versions including 2007 and 2010:
How to troubleshoot Active Directory synchronization issues in Project Server 2003
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/887025

List separator character

  • If the list separator character is a comma, the comma is replaced by a semicolon.
  • If the list separator character is anything other than a comma, the list separator character is replaced by a comma.

 

To solve this issue there are 2 Options:

Option 1: Change display name in AD

Option 2: Using following query with the Project Server Published database we are able to replace the display name separator character

Check for your Separator with the following query on the Published Database:

select wadmin_ad_sync_replace_char from msp_web_admin

=============================================

USE ProjectServer_Published
exec MSP_ADMIN_SetADSyncReplacementCharacter @replacementCharacter = ', '  (you can replace it with comma or other characters but make sure you don't interfere with your regional settings characters)

=============================================

Restart the server and trigger a AD Sync and after that the PWA user name should be in the format "lastname, firstname" when checking under manager users.

Additional Info:
(https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197402.aspx)