Ok, lets start-off 2015 blogging with a quick tip.

While it is not a strict “Must-Do”, it is common practice for us Project Server Consultants to try and avoid special characters in various part of the system. Read this blog for more details on why it is advisable to stay away from special Characters.

This recommendation also applies to Task Names, just to be on the safe side. Especially characters like &, ; etc., are good to avoid, as they ‘could’ cause corruption in your schedule. However, as you can imagine, this recommendation is generally not received (or) followed by the Project Managers well. Even if they wanted to follow it, it would be natural for them to use a & in place of the word and.

So, in order to mitigate this risk, you could use Auto Correct settings within Project 2013 to change the characters to words or phrases.

To do this:

• Open Project Professional 2013
• Navigate to File >> Options >> Proofing
• Click on Auto Correct Options

• Now under the Auto Correct Options, type the special character and type the Replace with word, and click Add. As an example, below in my screenshot, I replace & with the word “and”.

• Now click OK to close the window.

Now every time this special character is typed in Project Task Names, the special character is replaced with the word/phrase you selected, giving you some mitigation for the risk that may be caused by using special characters.

I am not sure if this could be enforced by a Group Policy across all installs of Project Pro within the organization, I would leave that for our Windows Admin friends to figure out.