Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 – Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013

This is the Fourth part for Step by Step: Install, configure, and Deploy Project Server 2013 Article,

Article Content’s Index:

1. Part 1: Overview and Prepare for a deployment of Project Server 2013
2. Part 2: Install and Configure Project Server 2013
3. Part 3: Configure Project Server 2013 Application Service
4. Part 4: Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection – Project Server 2013
5. Part 5: Deploy Project Web App in an existing site collection – Project Server 2013

Deploy Project Web App with a new site collection

In this part, we will deploy an instance of Project Web App along with a Project Web App site in a new site collection.

Not all steps in this post are required, such as create Web Application, and/or create Top-Level site collection, but I covered these steps in post for more usability and as a general reference.

Create Web Application

This Web Application will host Top-Level site collection and PWA site. Use the following procedure to create a web application if needed:

1. On the Application Management page, in the Web Applications section, click Manage web applications.
   

• In the Contribute group of the ribbon, click New.
  
• On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section:
  • Click Create a new IIS web site, and then type the name of the web site in the Name box.
    If you have an existing IIS web site. You can click Use an existing IIS web site, and then select the web site on which to install your new web application
  • In the Port box, type the port number you want to use to access the web application. If you are using an existing web site, this field contains the current port number.
    Note: The default port number for HTTP access is 80, and the default port number for HTTPS access is 443.
    
    
  • Optional: In the IIS Web Site section, in the Host Header box, type the host name (for example, http://www.CompanyName.com) that you want to use to access the web application.
    Note: You do not need to populate this field unless you want to configure two or more IIS web sites that share the same port number on the same server, and DNS has been configured to route requests to the same server.
  • In the Path box, type the path to the IIS web site home directory on the server. If you are creating a new web site, this field contains a suggested path. If you are using an existing web site, this field contains the current path of that web site.
• In the Security Configuration section, click No for the Allow Anonymous options. If you choose to Yes, visitors can use the computer-specific anonymous access account (that is, IIS_IUSRS) to access the web site.
• In the Security Configuration section, click No for the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) options. If you choose Yes, you must request and install an SSL certificate to configure SSL.
• In the Claims Authentication Types section, select the authentication method that you want to use for the web application. In this example, we use Integrated Windows authentication
• If you want users’ credentials to be sent over a network in a non encrypted form, select Basic authentication (credentials are sent in clear text).
• In the Sign In Page URL section, Select Default Sign In Page URL to redirect users to a default sign-in web site for claims-based authentication
• In the Public URL section, type the URL for the domain name for all sites that users will access in this web application.
  Note: The default URL is the current server name and port, and it is automatically updated to reflect the current SSL, host header, and port number settings on the page. If you deploy SharePoint 2013 behind a load balancer or proxy server, then this URL may need to be different than the SSL, host header, and port settings on this page.
• In the Application Pool section, Click Create a new application pool, and then type the name of the new application pool, or keep the default name.
• Click Configurable to specify a new security account to be used for an existing application pool. click on Register new managed account link if did not register web app pool account in SharePoint Managed Accounts
  
  
• In the Database Name and Authentication section, choose the database server, database name, and authentication method for your new web application
• In the Service Application Connections section, select the service application connections that will be available to the web application. In the drop-down menu, click default
• In the Customer Experience Improvement Program section, click No.
  
• Click OK to create the new web application, then click OK in Application Created page
  
• Create a top-level web site

  If a top-level web site does not exist for the web application where you want to create a Project Web App site, you must first create one. Use the following procedure to create a top-level web site if needed:

  1. In Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Create site collections.
  2. Choose a Web application from the Web Application drop-down menu.
     
  3. Type a title for the site collection in the Title box.
     
  4. In URL Drop-Down list, make sure you select the root web managed path (/)
  5. In the Template Selection section, choose a template for the site. here we choose team site
     Note: Project Server 2013 does not require a specific template.
  6. In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, type the name of the account that you want to use for the site administrator.
  7. In the Secondary Site Collection Administrator section, type the name of the account that you want to use for the site administrator.
  8. Click OK, and wait until site collection is created successfully.
     
  9. Click on Site URL to open the top-level site to complete the next step. 

  Set Read permissions on the top-level Web site

  After you have created the top-level web site, you must grant users access to the site. Use the following procedure to grant read access to the top-level site.

  1. Navigate to the root site (that is, http://<servername&gt;:<port>).
  2. At the top of the page, click Share.
     
  3. On the Share dialog box, click Show Options.
  4. From the Select a group or permission level, choose <siteName> Visitors [Read].
  5. In the Enter names or email addresses text box, type Everyone.
     
  6. Click Share.

  Create a Project Web App site

  When you create a new Project Web App site in conjunction with a new site collection, Microsoft recommend that, you use a separate SharePoint Server 2013 content database for the Project Web App site and its associated project workspaces. To correctly isolate the Project Web App site in its own content database, you must deploy Project Web App at a time when other administrators are not creating new sites on the Web application where you are deploying Project Web App.

  Creating a Project Web App site takes five basic steps:

  1. Temporarily lock down existing content databases:
     1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.
        
     2. In the Current Number of Site Collections column, note the number of site collections for the database that you plan to lock down. (we only have one site collection for web application, the one we created in previous step : Create Top-Level Site Collection )
        
     3. In the Database Name column, click the link for the content database that you want to lock down.
     4. In the Database Capacity Settings section:
        • In the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database box, type the existing number of site collections for this database (as noted in the Current Number of Site Collections column, earlier in this procedure, which is value 1 ).
          Note:Take note of the current value for this parameter. You will have to change it back to this value after the Project Web App site has been created.
          
        • In the Number of sites before a Warning event is generated box, type a lower number than the value that is used for Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database. The value will be 0.
          Note:Take note of the current value for this parameter. You will have to change it back to this value after the Project Web App site has been created.
     5. Another way to lock down the Content database, is to set the Database Status value to Offline, and that’s mean No new site collections can be added to this Content Database.
     6. Click OK.
        
     7. If you have more than one for current web application, repeat the steps for other content databases to lock down them. 
  2. Create a content database to host the Project Web App site and its associated project workspaces:
     1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.
        
     2. Click Add a content database.
        
     3. In the Web Application section, choose the Web application where you plan to deploy the Project Web App site.
        
     4. In the Database Name and Authentication section, type the database server name where you plan to deploy your Project Web App databases, and type a name for the database.
     5. Keep the remaining values as default and Click OK.
        
  3. Create the Project Web App site itself:
     
     After the content database has been created and configured, the next step is to create the Project Web App site itself.
     1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.
        
     2. On the Manage Service Applications page, click the Project Server Service Application Name.
        
     3. On the Manage Project Web App Sites page, click Create Project Web App Instance.
        
     4. Complete the Create Project Web App Instance page as following:
        • Select The Web application for the Project Web App site
        • Enter The path from the root site for this Project Web App site
        • Enter The user interface language for this Project Web App site
          
        • Enter the user account that will be added to the Administrators for Project Web App security group in this instance of Project Web App.
          Note: You must use this account the first time that you access the Project Web App site, usually it is the Farm admin account
           
        • Enter The Database Information, The instance of SQL Server where you want to host the Project Web App database. If your database administrator has already created a Project Web App database, specify the names of that database in the Project Web App database name text box. If the database was not previously created, it will be created automatically.
          
        • Enter The Quota for SharePoint content in this site settings
          
     5. Click OK. and until PWA provisioned.
        
     6. Project Server starts the Project Web App site creation process. This may take some time. When the site creation process is complete, the status shown on the Project Web App site list is Provisioned.
        
     7. To Verify that it was created in the content database that we created. Use the Get-SPSite Windows PowerShell command, passing the new content database as a parameter:
        Get-SPSite -ContentDatabase <ContentDatabaseName>
  4. Lock down the Project Web App content database to prevent additional site collections being added:
     
     1. In SharePoint Central Administration, in the Application Management section, click Manage content databases.
        
     2. In the Database Name column, click the link for the content database that you created.
     3. In the Database Capacity Settings section:
        1. In the Number of sites before a Warning event is generated box, type 0.
        2. In the Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database box, type 1.
     4. Click OK.
  5. Unlock existing content databases:
     After you have locked down your Project Web App content database, you can return any other content databases to their original values for Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database and Number of sites before a Warning event is generated.

     Set the Database Status to Ready (if you chose Offline option)
     

     Set Maximum number of sites that can be created in this database and Number of sites before a Warning event is generated to previous values
     

  You can now access the new Project Web App site.
  

  I hope this was useful for You