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Allocation Details - Requestor, Approver and Creator - Issue

  • October 24, 2025
  • 13 replies
  • 109 views

mserafinowski
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Dear Community, 

Has anyone else noticed anything strange when it comes to allocation details? Last year, one of our users reported that their name appeared in an allocation they couldn’t have created, they had no access to the resource or the project. After some analysis, we found out that the user wasn’t even logged into the system that day!

We immediately opened a case with Customer Care, but so far, despite many attempts to prove that the issue is not on our side, we still don’t have a resolution and the data has been unreliable for more than a year!

We even built a dataset from the allocation table to check for discrepancies between the created_by, requested_by, and approved_by columns. It turns out that in the requested_by column, there are cases where a person without the proper profile somehow managed to create a request for an allocation. They simply don’t have the right grants or role feature to perform the action.

Customer Care suggested this might be related to copying project plans but we’ve ruled that out for the specific cases we’ve analysed. We also excluded user error since in many cases those users weren’t even logged into the system on that day.

Additionally, we’ve noticed anomalies where the creation_date is later than the requested_date which obviously shouldn’t be possible.

I can share the sql query we’re using so you can check if you see the same issue in your own database. At this point, the only thing we can really do is see if other customers are experiencing the same problem, maybe then Planview will finally take it seriously.

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ UNCOMMITTED;
SELECT  
    alloc.planning_code,  
    alloc.resource_code,  
    res.description AS resource_name,  
    alloc.user_name,  
    creator.full_name AS created_by, 
    crole.description AS creator_role,
    alloc.date_created,  
    alloc.request_date,  
    alloc.requester_name,  
    requester.full_name AS requested_by,
    role.description AS role_name,
    alloc.approve_date,
    alloc.approver_name, 
    approver.full_name AS approved_by
FROM ip.allocation AS alloc  
JOIN ip_user AS creator 
    ON alloc.user_name = creator.user_name  
JOIN ip.structure AS crole
    ON creator.role_code = crole.structure_code
JOIN ip_user AS requester 
    ON alloc.requester_name = requester.user_name  
JOIN ip.structure AS res 
    ON alloc.resource_code = res.structure_code  
JOIN ip.structure AS role
    ON requester.role_code = role.structure_code
LEFT JOIN ip_user AS approver
   ON alloc.approver_name = approver.user_name
WHERE alloc.requester_name <> alloc.user_name  
ORDER BY alloc.date_created DESC;
 

13 replies

pamela.sargent
Bronze Knowledge Guru
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  • Bronze Knowledge Guru
  • October 24, 2025

@mserafinowski - I will be honest I have never been a fan of this screen in the 15 years of being an admin because the information has only been about 50% accurate.  I did utilize your query and now my concerns are even higher as the query does pull in completely different information than what we see in the screen. We will use this to do some more research and open up a case from our side as well.  Maybe that will help in identifying it is a system issue and not just a one off issue of copy/paste within your environment.  Thank you for sharing. 

 

Pam Sargent

NASCO


mserafinowski
Platinum Top Contributor
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  • Platinum Top Contributor
  • October 27, 2025

Hi Pam, 

I really appreciate the effort you’ve put into analysing this from your side. It seems we’ve had a similar experience with that screen. I remember working with several clients in the past who raised similar concerns about this screen. It’s a shame there isn’t a straightforward audit trail for each allocation. I’m glad to hear you’ll be raising it with Planview. Hopefully, they’ll finally address this issue at the system or database level rather than treating it as a one off.

Thanks, 
Michal 


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  • Bronze Active Participant
  • October 27, 2025

Yes, we opened a ticket and it is now in development. I’m not convinced they are doing much with it, but at least we showed them the bug. It’s been open since Sep 12, 2024. Have them look at case 00814794.


pamela.sargent
Bronze Knowledge Guru
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  • Bronze Knowledge Guru
  • October 27, 2025

@mserafinowski - Have you received information on who is represented by “Creator”?  In your query you have creator and requester but when I look at the UI it only reflect requested by.  Have you clarified at all with Planview of who is supposed to be represented in the screen and where the creator comes into play?

I’ve been doing more analysis today and the Requested By has been matching between the query & UI. I’m continuing to review/research. 

 

Thanks,

Pam


mserafinowski
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  • October 28, 2025

@pamela.sargent 
 

The Creator is the user who created the allocation (had the appropriate grants and role features) but Planview has not confirmed exactly who this is. The definition of this field in the database is as follows: “User who created the allocation” It’s a bit mysterious given we also have a Requestor field. By definition a Requestor is a user who doesn’t have the grants or the right profile to create an allocation.

This all seems poorly explained and to me, it looks like a legacy element that the current support team doesn’t seem to understand.

@bstrong  Thank you, I really appreciate it. We raised our case in October 2024 and haven’t made much progress since, so I’ll let them know we’re not the only ones experiencing this issue.

Thanks, 
Michal 


 


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  • Gold Innovator
  • November 10, 2025

Michal,  Thanks for flagging this.

I came across this last year when we were actively trying to pin down who was allocating resources outside the date constraints of a task (a bug which I’m glad to say has finally been fixed).  I came across several users who, when challenged, insisted it couldn’t have been them who’d made any changes to the allocation despite what the records said.  At the time we were trusting this data to undertake some user interventions & retraining.  I’m now thinking that there may need to be some apologies to make…

We’ve had several conversations with the Portfolios Product Owners over the past 18 months on enhanced audit trails - it seems like these have gone very quiet over the past few months as priorities shift to more shiny new features like AI, but if we can’t trust the limited audit data we have, that’s really quite concerning.

Thanks, James


pamela.sargent
Bronze Knowledge Guru
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  • Bronze Knowledge Guru
  • November 10, 2025

@James Bonfield - when we do our upgrades we comparing the schema as well so we know what has changed in the tables in the database, as it could impact the web services we use. Recently we compared June to the July/Aug/Sept releases and it appears that PV may in fact be working on setting the foundation needed to provide more audit abilities as my tech team stated “most changes are for added logging and setting Updated By and sometimes Updated On”.  This is very promising of what may come in the future.  Don’t give up hope on them yet. 😉


mserafinowski
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  • November 10, 2025

@James Bonfield Thanks for letting me know. I’ll update my case and inform them that other clients may be struggling with the same issue. It has been a long journey, I must admit. And I understand that Planview can’t log absolutely everything, yet the audit trail for changes that are crucial to the project plan and project financials should never be this limited. ​@pamela.sargent, I’ve noticed something similar when working with the data sets. It’s interesting that you compare the schema with each release, that sounds like a good practice to make sure all web services remain up and running. We also have a few scripts based on web services but I haven’t noticed any major impact on them due to the database changes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this issue will be addressed and fixed soon. We need the data to be fully reliable especially when it affects project plan health and financials.

Thank you!

Michal 


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  • Gold Innovator
  • November 11, 2025

@James Bonfield - when we do our upgrades we comparing the schema as well so we know what has changed in the tables in the database, as it could impact the web services we use. Recently we compared June to the July/Aug/Sept releases and it appears that PV may in fact be working on setting the foundation needed to provide more audit abilities as my tech team stated “most changes are for added logging and setting Updated By and sometimes Updated On”.  This is very promising of what may come in the future.  Don’t give up hope on them yet. 😉

Thanks ​@pamela.sargent .  This is really good to know.  I have to admit that if that’s the case and these things are progressing in the background, Planview aren’t doing themselves any favours.  Enhanced data auditing is one of a number of initiatives which was kicked off, had active engagement and positive stakeholder feedback, then complete radio silence. From a customer perspective I have to assume that the activity was deprioritised yet there may well be good stuff going on in the background.  I think Planview are missing a trick on maintaining a level of dialogue with the community on background tasks, even if its just to reinforce a message that things are still progressing. At times it feels like there’s a lot of emphasis on promoting the new, shiny elements when the community could get really excited about fixing some of the fundamental challenges with the core platform capability!


pamela.sargent
Bronze Knowledge Guru
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  • Bronze Knowledge Guru
  • November 11, 2025

@James Bonfield I completely agree and have voiced that to the Product team as well. That’s the best we can do is continue to tell them directly and go through our CSM to raise concern of the lack of communication. Same thing happened with the improvements on the Plan screen and portfolio definitions. It does give the impression that they start work, that gets a lot of engagement, and then just complete ghost the topic. 


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  • Gold Innovator
  • November 11, 2025

@pamela.sargent I’ve literally just had the same conversation with my CSM about the Plan screen changes over the past week!


pamela.sargent
Bronze Knowledge Guru
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  • Bronze Knowledge Guru
  • November 17, 2025

Hello ​@mserafinowski - I’m not sure if you have received this explanation from Planview on the allocation fields, so I thought I would share. 

For others reading this, created by is not in the allocation table.  There are 3 usernames identified (PV’s definitions)

  1. Created By:
    There is no dedicated "created_by" field in the Allocation table. However, the "user_name" field typically stores the ID of the user who created the allocation. This value is set when the allocation is first created and corresponds to the user who initiated the process.

  2. Requested By:
    The "requested_by" field identifies the user who requested the allocation. This is populated when an allocation is created by a user who does not have the required permissions to approve it. In such cases, the allocation remains in a "Requested" state until it is approved by an authorized user.

  3. Approved By:
    The "approved_by" field represents the user who approved the allocation. It is populated when the allocation transitions from the "Requested" state to the "Approved" state, based on the grants of the user performing the approval.

  4. Last Updated By:
    The "last_updated_by" field indicates the user who most recently modified the allocation. This may differ from the user who created, requested, or approved it, as it simply reflects the latest update action performed on the record.

 

What I later learned in the case that I opened is that:

  1. The person who first setup the allocation is identified as the created by, however this field is not presented on the allocation detail screen. Their name will also display in the requested by unless #2 happens...
  2. While that assignment is still in a requested state, if another person runs schedule, adjusts dates or modifies the allocation in any way their name is then listed as the requester. This is the person whose name displays on the allocation detail screen. 

This would explain why we see names on the screen that do not align to who created the assignment and instead who made any change that could have impacted that assignment.  Not ideal but does explain the detail screen a bit more.  And, based on this, I think if we want changes to that screen to show the true creator PV will advise us to submit an enhancement request. 

Hope this added detail helps others as well. 

Best regards,

Pam Sargent
NASCO


mserafinowski
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  • November 17, 2025

Hi ​@pamela.sargent Thanks, we received the same explanation from Planview some time ago but unfortunately it doesn’t explain all  anomalies we’re seeing between the DB and the allocation screen. Created_by appears only on the screen while in the DB it’s actually stored as user_name. We’ve already seen cases where Timesheet Users with no rights to the resource or allocation appeared in the DB as either the requestor or the user_name (created_by). We also had an instance where an allocation was shown as created by a user who wasn’t even logged in to Planview on the day the allocation was created. Because of these differences between the screen, the database and the system activity itself, it’s difficult to fully trust the data presented in the UI.