In Microsoft Project Professional, when you type "NA" in a customer Enterprise Date field, the date may revert to a date in 1984 after you close and reopen the project from the Project Server.

If you wish to reset the value in the field to "NA", use one of the following methods:

• Click the cell containing the date, and then press the Delete key to remove the value.
• Click the cell containing the date, and then press the Backspace key to remove the value.
• Click the cell containing the date, and then press the Space key to remove the value.

This issue has been observed in Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007.  It also occurs in Microsoft Project Professional 2010 when the Task Mode is set to Auto Schedule.

To provide further clarification of this issue, following are the steps to reproduce the behavior:

1.  In Project Server, click Server Settings, and then click Enterprise Custom Fields and Lookup Tables.
2. Under Enterprise Custom Fields, click New Field.
3. On the New Custom Field page, enter the following information:
• Name: Date Field Test 1
• Entity: Task
• Type: Date
4. Click Save and exit Project Web Access or Project Web App.
5. Start Microsoft Project Professional and log on to the Project Server.
6. Create a new blank project.  If you are using Project Professional 2010, in the status bar click New Tasks, and then click Auto Scheduled.
7. In Task Name, type T1 to create a new task.
8. Right-click the Duration column header and then click Insert Column.  Insert the column Date Field Test 1 that you created in Step 3 above.
9. In Date Field Test 1 for task 1, click the drop down and use the date-picker to set the field to today's date.
10. Save and publish the project.
11. In Date Field Test 1 for task 1, click the cell and type NA.
12. Save, publish and close the project.  Click Yes when you are prompted to check-in the project.
13. Using the appropriate method for your version of Project Professional, clear the cache using the Clean Up Cache feature.
14. In the File menu, click Open, and then click Retrieve the list of all projects from Project Server.
15. Click the project you created in Step 10, and then click Open.

When you open the project, you would expect to see the value in Date Field Test 1 is "NA".  Instead, the value is a date in 1984. 

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