The Auto check-in facility provides an alternative to users having to manually check individual files back into a project.  It differs in two main ways from the conventional Check-in approach:

  1. It is machine executable and has no interface for user control.  Usually executed via a service or under the command of another piece of software.
  2. For a given file it will automatically create a new incremental version irrespective of whether the file in the system was checked out or not at the time of activation.

This capability has been provided to enable finance, time recording systems and other corporate data sources which might be providing data relevant to project performance to be able to automatically update that information source in PROJECT in a box without the PM having to do it by hand.

Practically this can be set up and operated by any user with the programming skills as follows:

  1. The file to be updated must already exist in PROJECT in a box and you must know the unique Database ID for the File and project it is located within (switch on show database IDs in Options form).
  2. Go to your Windows App Install folder (usually C:\Program Files\Project in a Box Professional\bin) and check that the Auto Check-In component is present "piabcheckinexternal.exe".
  3. In the same folder use notepad to create a file which contains the rule for auto check in.  Name the file "rule1.cmd", subsequent ones rule2.cmd etc.  The file should be of the following format

piabcheckinexternal.exe ^
-s "http://localhost/piabws/piabws.asmx" ^
-u Admin ^
-p admin ^
-f "c:\temp\Project Mandate.doc" ^
-pid 2177 ^
-fid 957 ^
-desc "Test of external check-in" ^
-v 2


This rule file now complete can be executed by a windows service or another application as fits your desired purpose.

Further information and notes are provided in the Knowledge base here:Knowledge Base