The end of the year saw another Deltek release of Cobra 5.1, this version being hotfix 9. This hotfix loads build number 5.01.336 and solves a few more glitches that may have had you holding off on updates. Interestingly my last blog covering hotfix 8, build 5.01.313 was rendered out of date before the ink had time to dry. It appears that hotfix 8 quickly vanished from the list and in its place appeared hotfix 8.1.
Unfortunately its replacement, hotfix 8.1, build 5.01.314 had an issue with the Export/Import Assignments feature. Apparently it wasn’t exporting anything other than the control account rows. So you may want to avoid hotfix 8.1 altogether: or if you did install it, update with hotfix 9 in which the Export/Import Assignments issue is resolved.
P6 Integration API
I’ve been using hotfix 9 for a few days now and really thrashing the P6 version 6.2.1 to Cobra integration feature via the Integration API. It turns out that some of the fixes listed in December’s release included some corrections with P6 integration. Although my problem wasn’t specifically mentioned, namely a vague message in the log that the API couldn’t access time-phased data, it actually started working properly again after I installed hotfix 9. They also fixed another issue with the P6 integration where selecting the setting ‘Delete items from Cobra that are no longer in the schedule’ would cause the log to report “Variable ‘LCCLASSSEEK’ is not found.”.
Other Noteworthy Fixes
For batch processing, Deltek have added support for two new settings in the [Settings] section.
ProjectLockLevel=<Control Account or Process>
ProjectLockIntervalToWait=<Integer greater than 0>
For code file creation, there was an issue if you cancelled the process during creation and then tried to create the same file again. If you did this, the Type dropdown field would be empty and you couldn’t close the dialog with anything other than the X button.
A filtering issue with the integration wizard meant you couldn’t filter on work packages during a project data process. They’ve also fixed an issue where milestones did not status properly and earned value didn’t calculate correctly during integration.
As always, I recommend you login to Deltek’s Customer Care site and download the latest hotfix and release notes to see a full list of the fixes and enhancements.