A minor irritation in the Project Web App (PWA) user interface in Project Server 2010 is the lack of a Home link at the top of the Quick Launch menu. For example, if you navigate to the Project Center page and then want to return to the Home page, notice the lack of a Home link at the top of the Quick Launch menu, as shown in the following figure.
No Home link in the Quick Launch menu
To return to the Home page in PWA, you must click the Browse tab in the upper left corner of the page and then click either the Project Web App link or the Home link, as shown in the following figure.
Click the Browse tab to return to the Home page in PWA
To make it a little easier to navigate in PWA user interface, consider using a trick taught to me by my colleague, Tony Zink. The trick involves adding a PWA Home link at the top of the Quick Launch menu, and then adding a spacing line between the PWA Home link and the Projects section heading immediately below it. To create the PWA Home link in the Quick Launch menu, complete the following steps:
1. Log into Project Web App with administrator permissions.
2. In your Internet Explorer application window, highlight (select) the URL for your organization's PWA Home page and then press Control + C to copy the URL to your Windows clipboard.
3. Click Server Settings > Quick Launch. Project Server 2010 displays the Quick Launch page shown in the following figure.
Quick Launch page in PWA
4. On the Quick Launch page in PWA, click the New Link button on the toolbar in the Set Menu Item Details section of the page. Project Server 2010 displays the Add or Edit Link page shown in the following figure.
Add or Edit Link page in PWA
5. Enter the name PWA Home in the Custom Link Name field.
6. Delete the contents of the Custom Web Address field, press Control + V to paste the URL of the PWA Home page into this field, and then delete the "/default.aspx" text at the end of the URL.
7. Leave all other options set to their default values and then click the OK button.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and notice that Project Server 2010 created the new link at the bottom of the Quick Launch menu, as shown in the following figure. You must move this PWA Home link to the top of the menu to make it useful.
PWA Home link at bottom of Quick Launch menu
8. Click anywhere in the second column of the PWA Home link (on the words, PWA Home, for example) and then click the Move Up button.
9. Continue selecting the PWA Home link and then clicking the Move Up button until the PWA Home link appears at the top of the Quick Launch menu. Warning: It takes a lot of mouse clicks to move it to the top.
10. Click the Save button and then refresh your Home page in PWA to see the PWA Home link at the top of the Quick Launch menu, as shown in the following figure.
PWA Home link at top of Quick Launch menu
Notice in the preceding figure how the PWA Home link has no extra spacing between it and the next section, the way that the Projects, My Work, and Resources sections have extra spacing below them and their following sections. To add extra spacing after the PWA Home link requires a subtle little trick that involves using the Character Map program. To add spacing after the PWA Home link, complete the following additional steps:
1. Click Server Settings > Quick Launch again.
2. On the Quick Launch page, click the New Link button.
3. On the Add or Edit Link page, paste the URL of the PWA Home page into the Custom Web Address field, as you did in step #6 in the previous set of steps.
4. Click the Start button in the lower left corner of your Windows user interface, and then enter the words "character map" (without the quotation marks) in the Search field. The Character Map program should appear at the top of the search results, as shown in the following figure.
Search for the Character Map program
5. In the search results list, click the Character Map program to run this application.
6. In the Character Map dialog, click the No-Break Space character (blank cell on the 5th row of characters), as shown in the following figure, click the Select button, and then click the Copy button.
Character Map application
7. Close the Character Map dialog.
8. Select the Custom Link Name field and then press Control + V on your computer keyboard to paste the No-Break Space character into the field.
9. Leave all other options set to their default values and then click the OK button.
10. Scroll to the bottom of the page, then click anywhere in the second column of the new blank link and then click the Move Up button.
11. Continue selecting the blank link and then clicking the Move Up button until the blank link appears at the top of the Quick Launch menu.
Note: As you move up the blank spacing link, you will probably notice the blank spacing link that Microsoft added intentionally between the Business Intelligence section heading and the Settings section heading. Incidentally, you cannot delete the blank spacing link that Microsoft created.
10. Click the Save button and then refresh your Home page in PWA to see the blank spacing line below the PWA Home link at the top of the Quick Launch menu, as shown in the following figure.
PWA Home link with blank spacing line below it