RationalPlan Project Management SoftwareThe latest version 4.12 for RationalPlan comes with a significant improvement for online project planning. Users can now manage their projects directly from a web-browser. In just a few minutes everything is set including project details, working calendars, task planning and scheduling, resource definition and work allocation and the final step: time and cost tracking.

RationalPlan started as an easy to use and straightforward project management software but it evolved into an embedded and powerful system that is now available even as a project management cloud service both for individuals and for companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users.

Important changes for this version

For the online and server side segment the users will get:

  • Improved web-based project management module
  • Timesheets with work and cost distribution
  • Calendars to define the working time
  • Possibility to add links and attach documents on tasks
  • Possibility to import projects

Changes for the stand alone products:

  • HDPI images for Windows
  • Support for Retina display on Mac
  • Faster speed for computing the project critical path
  • Added baseline columns
  • Work with multiple rates per resource
  • Improved integration with MS© Project 2013 files

Doing project management online has the advantage of making things easier with a web-based interface. There is no need to install and configure anything and users have access to the system from any browser as long as they have an Internet connection. All it requires is to create an account.

Within the new version RationalPlan offers some powerful features! Users have the possibility to import existing projects: no need to re-create them, just import them and continue your work.

For special cases of projects there is a real need to define custom working calendars either for certain resources or for the work that is going to be performed on certain tasks. There is nothing easier than defining them in RationaPlan. Just check the working days of the week and for each day establish the working intervals:

Working calendar

Once defined the working calendar and the resources get assigned to their activities RationalPlan users should be able to track the amount of work or the costs as it gets distributed in time. The newly added Timesheets offers to project managers this overview. Even more the problems like overtime costs or even worst the overallocation issues can be easily spotted (yellow – overtime; red – overallocation):

Timesheet

One major improvement was made to the critical path algorithm. The computations are significantly faster even for large projects that expand over several years.

Previous version added support for high DPI resolution screens. Unfortunately the images were not correctly resized to take into account the resolution. But this version comes to fix these issues for such screens on Windows© operating systems. On the other hand for Mac OS X computers RationalPlan offers now support for Retina ready displays.

When it comes to openning Microsoft© Project files things are not that easy because the .mpp file format is a binary one. However current version offers better support for 2013 files.

At users requests baselines related columns were added. This way users can compare different stages of the project to see the evolution of it not only using the charts but also using values (dates, numbers…).

There are certain cases especially when freelancing when the resources may work with different rates. These rates depend on the project and the type of work performed. It is now possible to define multiple rates for a resource (human or equipment) and for each individual assignment to establish the right cost (e.g. coding or design related work is better paid in IT than support related work).

RationalPlan suite is made of these products:

RationalPlan Single Project – an alternative to Microsoft Project and the perfect solution for novice or accidental project managers
RationalPlan Multi Project – project management software for multiple projects, projects that are interconnected through dependencies and share common resource
RationalPlan Project Viewer – free project management software viewer, the solution for anyone (from project stakeholders to team workers) to view projects details
RationalPlan Project Server – a centralized place to manage the company’s projects while offering concurrent access to different users

About Stand By Soft

Stand By Soft was founded in 1997 as a software company specialized in building desktop applications and components. RationalPlan is a project management solution that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is a Microsoft Project viewer that allows users to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft Project file.

Contact name: Crina Popescu
Address: Aleea Parului, Nr.4A, Craiova, Dolj, 200346, Romania
Email: marketing@rationalplan.com
Phone: +40771610710

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Tiberiu Ghioca

Tiberiu Ghioca, is a Product Manager at RationalPlan. He is responsible with the effective communication between customers, development team and marketing team.