Syncing fields from Project Pro to SharePoint Online

Something that started as a quite simple requirement turned out into a more hefty task, so I decided to share it here.

So the requirement: Be able to sync fields from Project Pro to a SharePoint Task List in SharePoint Online. All great, works out of the box, with the exception of 2 things:

- If the column in SharePoint is of type "Multiple lines of text" and the type of text to allow is "Enhanced rich text (Rich text with pictures, tables, and hyperlinks)" that doesn't work correctly.

- If the column is of type "Person/Group" then this doesn't work as expected. Some resources are missing on consecutive synchronizations from Project Pro to SharePoint Online. I've taken this with MS to see what's going wrong, but for now if it happens to you - configure your resource or "Assigned To" (named by default) column to be of type "Single line of text" or think of it as just a string.

You will loose the functionality to check the person's status in Skype for Business (if you use that) and to click on the user profile and go to their Delve page (in Office 365). But you'll still be able to sort and filter on that column if you want to view a particular person's tasks.

I'll describe the steps needed to match the requirement to sync Task Descriptions to SharePoint Online. 

By default, the Description column in the Task Lists (coming with the default Task Content Type) is of type Multiple lines of text and has the "Enhanced rich text (Rich text with pictures, tables, and hyperlinks)" as the allowed type of text. I've just renamed the column in this example:

Fill in some tasks if you're the PM (or just one if you're a lazy blogger like myself):

Then open the Task List with Project Pro (provided you do have the license assigned and the software installed from the Office 365 Portal):

You won't see your description column:

When you go to File -> Info -> Map Fields, you won't be able to map anything to it:

Now, part of the solution is to change your column allowed text type to Plain Text in SharePoint.

But even then, you won't see it in Project Pro the next time you open your project plan.

The key is in the mappings. Add a new column in Project Pro. You can choose some of the predefined text columns, e.g. Text1:

Name it whatever you want, let's do Task Description to avoid any confusion. Hint: the columns in Project Pro and SharePoint Online don't really have to be using the same naming convention, as long as they're mapped. Right click on your newly created column and go to Field Settings (and no, double clicking on the column doesn't do what double-clicking on a row does, sorry):

Tile field - self explanatory:

Now, when you go back to the Map Fields you can definitely map your newly created column in Project Pro (although its name is not reflected in the mapping list - dunno why) to your SharePoint Online column which appears nicely as Task Description:

Once you're done with all your mappings, just click the huge Save button.

If you've tried to break things like me and inserted different values in the field in SharePoint Online and Project Pro, then you'll get this good warning. Skip this if you're a good user and didn't do that :)

The warning basically is quite liberal - it gives you the option to choose whether you like your Project Pro or your SharePoint Online value better and it's even displaying them and color-coding them for you. I'll keep the Project Pro value which says "Sync this description":

Boom! It's done.

(Optional) If you want to break things even further, you can go back to your column in the SharePoint Online Task List and change it to allow Enhanced Rich Text again and then open the Task List with Project Pro. You'll see this (and believe me, it gets even uglier when you include some links, etc.)

Hope that's helpful if you stumble upon it, I'll keep another post once I sort out the issue with syncing resources without using the string field workaround with MS (if at all).