Understanding the Local Project Cache feature

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Topic Last Modified: 2015-03-09

Whenever you open or save projects that are on Office Project Server 2007, the operations go through the local project cache. The local project cache is a new feature that is always turned on. The main advantages of the local project cache are improved reliability (all changes are always saved to the cache first and then to the server) and better performance (once opened, projects are always loaded from the cache, and only changes are downloaded from the server).

In Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003, opening or saving a project plan from Project Server is very sensitive to network bandwidth, latency, and the size of the project plan. Each time a file is opened from or saved to Project Server 2003, the entire project file is downloaded to the client application or saved to Project Server.

In Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007, the local project cache feature enables efficient client-server connectivity. Whenever you use Office Project Professional 2007 to open a project from Microsoft Office Project Server 2007, the profile is saved as part of the local project cache. When the project is opened again from the server, the project is opened quickly, because only the changes made to the project (rather than the entire project) are downloaded from the server. Similarly, when you save a project to Office Project Server 2007, the project is first saved to the local cache and control is returned to the user. The local project cache then asynchronously saves the changes (rather than the entire project) to the server.

Local project cache architecture

The diagram below explains how simple Project Open and Project Save operations work with the local project cache:

(1a) User opens a project for the first time.

(1b) Project is cached.

(2a) User opens the project for the second time. Project is opened from the cache.

(2b) Project changes (if any) are downloaded from Project Server.

(3a) User saves the project. Project is saved to the cache. User gets control back with minimal delay.

(3b) Project Professional saves the cached project to the server.

Local project cache settings

Local project cache settings can be specified in Project Professional 2007. These include the local project cache location and the cache size limit. For more information, see Configure the Local Project Cache settings.

Local project cache file hierarchy

The local project cache consists of a set of files that are unique to each project and that are opened and saved under a specific Project Professional user account.

The first level of subfolders under the Cache folder is for every Project Server account name that has logged in through Project Professional on the local computer.

Note

These are the accounts you set up in Office Project Professional 2007 on the Microsoft Office Project Server Accounts page. You can access this page by clicking the Tools menu and then clicking Enterprise Options.

Each folder name is titled based on the following naming convention:

<Project Server Account GUID>.<Project Server Account>.<user name>

For example, the Project Server account folder in the local project cache for Eva Corets could be:

{CB23031D-19CD-4FFC-B6D2-0A2843A20173}.2007PWA.evac

It is important to note that a Project Server user can log on to a Project Server account using multiple login names. For example, Eva Corets typically logs on to Project Server using her Windows-authenticated login (for example, contoso\evac). Occasionally, Eva also logs on to the same Project Server account using a higher-privileged forms-authenticated user login named EGlobal Admin to edit the Enterprise Global Template file. In this scenario, Eva would have the following two Project Server account subfolders under the Cache folder:

{43C6A643-08AF-466E-81EE-646FF8095A9F}.2007 PWA.evac

{A9D93E0E-CE18-4662-A877-CD70AF4420C0}.2007 PWA. EGlobal Admin

Each Project Server Account cache subfolder contains the following files:

File	Description
Cache.dat	Internal file
<GUID>.hash	Internal file
global<Internal Numbering>.mpc	Enterprise Global cache file
<Project Name><Internal Numbering>.mpc	Project Cache file

None of these files should be externally modified, moved, copied, or deleted. Tampering with these cache files may result in data loss or undefined behavior in Office Project Professional 2007.

See Also

Concepts

Configure the Local Project Cache settings
Troubleshooting Project Professional 2007 in a Terminal Services environment