Working with Extended Attributes of a Project

Microsoft Project has an extensive XML data interchange schema that exchanging information between applications - and programming with project files - easier. The schema allows you to add extended attributes to tasks, resources and assignments. This article shows how to assign an extended attribute to a resource assignment with Aspose.Tasks.

Setting Extended Attributes The ExtendedAttribute property exposed by the ResourceAssignment class can be used to manage the extended attributes of an assignment. This property reads or writes a List of the ExtendedAttribute objects to deal with a resource’s extended attributes. The ExtendedAttribute object further exposes the relevant properties.

The following example shows setting the extended attributes of a resource.

// The path to the documents directory.
String dataDir = Utils.getDataDir(ExtendedAttributes.class);

Project prj = new Project(dataDir + "project5.mpp");
ExtendedAttributeDefinitionCollection eads = prj.getExtendedAttributes();

// Create extended attribute definition
ExtendedAttributeDefinition attributeDefinition = ExtendedAttributeDefinition
        .createTaskDefinition(CustomFieldType.Start, ExtendedAttributeTask.Start7, "Start 7");
prj.getExtendedAttributes().add(attributeDefinition);

eads.add(attributeDefinition);

// Get zero index task
Task tsk = prj.getRootTask().getChildren().getById(1);
ExtendedAttributeCollection eas = tsk.getExtendedAttributes();

// Add extended attribute
ExtendedAttribute ea = attributeDefinition.createExtendedAttribute();
ea.setFieldId(attributeDefinition.getFieldId());

Date date = new Date();
ea.setDateValue(date);

eas.add(ea);

prj.save(dataDir + "Project5.xml", SaveFileFormat.XML);

// Display result of conversion.
System.out.println("Process completed Successfully");