Problem

The customer is experiencing consistent issues with the synchronizing of project status updates into Project Status Reports. Expectations were set for the data to synch at the designated times (e.g., 11 a.m. Eastern Time), but updates are not appearing in the reports for hours or even until the following day. This malfunction impacts the team's ability to send timely status reports to stakeholders, particularly on Fridays when they aim to send project updates in the afternoon. Numerous complaints have been made about the lag in synchronization times, and there is frustration over possibly having to change long-established workflows due to the suggestion to switch to External Reports and acquire Power BI licenses, which wasn't accounted for in the organization's infrastructure roadmap for the upcoming year.

Solution

The PPM Express Support Team responded to the synchronization issues as follows:

1. The team acknowledged the problem and assured the customer that they were looking into the reports' performance and considering ways to improve the synchronization process.
2. The support team noted that actions are queued on the Shared Server where the customer's PPM Express account is located, potentially taking more than three hours for synchronization to complete.
3. The Product Team is working on reducing the data hosted on those shared servers which may lead to delays in the Power BI embedded reports refreshing. They also plan to improve the performance of the embedded reports.
4. Eventually, the Support Team mentioned disabling the Embedded Reports functionality and suggested that customers switch to External Reports. Power BI licenses would be required for accessing reports from the Power BI system rather than PPM Express.
5. A help article was provided for configuring External Power BI Reports: External Power BI Reports Configuration.
6. Anton from PPM Express was expected to contact the customer to schedule a call to discuss the issue further.
7. Finally, the ticket was closed after the meeting was scheduled, but the support team left an open door for the customer to reach out if the issue persists or if further assistance is needed.

Moving forward, the customer should consider the Product Team's suggestion to switch to External Reports for more reliable synchronization and to meet the need for timely reporting. However, the organization's concerns regarding infrastructure upgrades and the product originally purchased for its capabilities need to be addressed during the scheduled meeting with an executive from PPM Express.