How to Integrate Project Server 2013 with SharePoint Server 2013

You may have noticed that i’ve been working hard on the new 2013 templates.  The latest is SharePoint 2013 with Project Server 2013.  This post is about how to tie them together.

If you already installed and configured SharePoint Server 2013 and you would like to try out Project Server 2013 features there’s no need to install another SharePoint server. You can simply integrate between Project Server 2013and SharePoint Server 2013 using an existing site collection.

Project Server 2013 runs as a service application under SharePoint Server 2013. In order to integrate between those products, Project Server 2013must be installed on each application server in your SharePoint farm. This blog post will explain the configuration process of Project Server 2013.

As usual, to save you some time I’ve already done the configuration for you.Access SharePoint Server 2013 with Project Server 2013 now!

• First thing that has to be done after installing Project Server 2013 is to run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard. The wizard has to run on all application servers in your farm before you can start using Project Server.
• Start the Project Server Application Service. Open SharePoint 2013 Central Administration -> System Settings -> Manage services on server.
• Start the Project Server Application Service. 
• Create a Project Server service application. Open SharePoint 2013 Central Administration -> Application Management -> Manage service applications -> New -> Project Server Service Application.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
• Specify a name for the service application and choose an application pool.                                                                                                                            
• Create a Project Web App database. Open the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell and 
• Use the following PowerShell cmdlet: New-SPProjectDatabase –Name DatabaseName -ServiceApplication “ServiceApplicationName” -DatabaseServer SQLServerInstance -Tag String.  
• For example: New-SPProjectDatabase –Name ProjectWebApp1 -ServiceApplication “ProjectServiceApp ” -DatabaseServer sp2013srv -Tag “ProjectWebApp1DB” 
• In order to make sure that the previous step worked you can open SQL Server management studio and check if the DB ProjectWebApp1 exists.                                                                      
• After you have created a new Project Web App database, the next step is to enable the Project Web App site collection features. Enabling these features will associate the database that you just created with the site collection.
• Use the following PowerShell cmdlets using the same parameters you used :$web=Get-SPWeb SiteCollectionURL 
  $web.Properties["PWA_TAG"]=”String”
  $web.Properties.Update()
  Enable-SPFeature pwasite -URL SiteCollectionURL                                                                                                         
• For example: 
• Add a Project Web App(PWA) site to the site collection. Use the following PowerShell cmdlets: New-SPweb -URL SiteCollectionURL/PWASiteName -Template pwa#0Upgrade-SPProjectWebInstance -Identity SiteCollectionURL –Confirm:$False
• For example: New-SPweb -URL http://sp2013srv/PWA -Template pwa#0
  Upgrade-SPProjectWebInstance -Identity http://sp2013srv -Confirm:$False                                                                                         

That’s it! Project Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2013 are integrated and configured.

Manage lists and libraries with many items

When the number of items in a SharePoint List or SharePoint Document Library increases gradually the performance of the list or library may begin to slow down or adversely affect other areas of the SharePoint site. Such issues can be caused by user actions such as sorting or filtering or retrieving a large number of items at the same time. However, you can save millions of items in lists and libraries as long as you plan and configure the list or library correctly.

List View Threshold:

SharePoint has a List View Threshold of 5,000 items. The purpose of this threshold is to ensure SharePoint servers can run reliably and not get overwhelmed, so performance is not affected.

Creating indexed columns:

To improve the performance of a large list or library, you can index a column. An index on a column enables Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to quickly analyze the data in that column, even when working with thousands or millions of items. For a view to quickly filter through a large number of items, the filter must be applied to a column that is indexed.

It is important to consider the following when you create and use indexed columns:

• Each additional column index consumes extra resources in the database. Therefore, you should add indexes only to columns that will be used actively in views on the list or library.
• When you define a view in a list or library with lots of items, it is important to use a filter that will return no more than two thousand items. 
• Only one indexed column can be used in a view filter. You can filter on many different columns, but it is important that the first column that you use to filter the view has an index and that it sufficiently reduces the total number of items returned.
• Defining a view that uses an OR filter does not have any benefits of an indexed column.
• Defining an item limit in a view does not have the same benefits as filtering by an indexed column. 

To Create an Indexed Column :

1. Click on List/Library Settings.
2. Under Columns, click Indexed columns.
3. Select the check box next to each column that you want to index.
4. Click OK.

 
Important: Please note that a Lookup column that has been set to “Allow multiple values” cannot be indexed and will not appear on the Indexed Columns page.