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RationalPlan Version 3.24 Is Available With New Features

RationalPlan version 3.24 was just released. Many new features were added like the possibility to work with custom filters, to attach documents or to use rich text editors on tasks. More reports are available now in multiple languages and as a bonus a preview capability is also present. Another thing that deserves to be mentioned is the compatibility with the latest Java version 1.7.

RationalPlan is a project management software designed to fit multiple types of users starting from novices, those that need an alternative to Microsoft Project, users that need an environment to handle multiple projects and up to companies that need a server solution with concurrent access for multiple users. It has been developed to help project managers keep their projects on time and within budget.

Important changes added to this version:

  • Added support for custom filters
  • Support for multiple languages for reports
  • Added a new “Resource assignments” report
  • Added documents for tasks
  • Improved the functionality for managing conflicts
  • Added WYSIWYG rich text editor for the notes on tasks, resources, clients and risks
  • Added support for Java 7
  • Added the possibility to preview reports

The reporting mechanism was significantly improved from multiple points of view. The most important is the possibility to have a preview of each report before it is decided whether it will be printed or not. Next a new type of report was added: “Resource assignments”. This report is useful to generate the list of responsibilities for a certain resource. This way the project manager can hand over either digitally through .pdf files or manually through printed sheets the list of activities that each resource has to do. And all of these are now available in multiple languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Romanian.

Working with filters on tasks just got easier and at the same time more powerful. With the addition of custom filters users can now create any combination of the already existing ones. They will be able to see for example the tasks that are not completed and that are assigned to certain resource and that have a deadline.

The way users can manage documentation on tasks in the current version should be more helpful. They will have the possibility to attach documents as links to local files or to web pages over the Internet. More than that the Notes area was transformed in a rich text editor from a plain one. Users will be able now to format texts and add hyperlinks or images. The rich text editing was also extended to other data like resources, clients, risks etc.

Many more minor improvements were added like an easier way to manage conflicts, some cosmetic issues, better translation in other languages and so on. Support for the latest Java version 1.7 was also added.

RationalPlan suite includes:

RationalPlan Single Project – the alternative for 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

RationalPlan Project Management Software is available at http://www.rationalplan.com. It can be download from https://www.rationalplan.com/download.php.

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 software that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is a Microsoft® Project viewer that allows you to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft® Project file

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

###

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00September 6th, 2011|News, Project Management Software, RationalPlan|Comments Off on RationalPlan Version 3.24 Is Available With New Features

JasperReports tutorial for JAVA using JasperViewer to preview reports

JasperViewer it is a very useful component which allows you to preview the reports from your application before saving them  as documents. It also offers additional  functionality like printing the reports, saving them with different extensions (ODT, HTML, DOC, PDF and others), navigating through out the report’s pages and zooming in or out.  This was the perfect component for fulfilling the customers request here at RationalPlan because it was very easy and straightforward to use. The tricky part and also what I consider a drawback is that if you want to customize its appearance and functionality you can not do it.

First let us try using the viewer as it is without any customizations. The class that describes the viewer is JasperViewer. Looking at the API you can see that the constructors can receive three types of components: an InputStream, a JasperViewer or a String that describes the source file. Because we use a custom data source (click to see the tutorial) to fill our reports it was very simply for us to use the already generated JasperPrint object and pass it to the JasperViewer constructor.

[sourcecode language=”java”] JasperPrint print = JasperFillManager.fillReport(projectCalendarStream, hm, mainReportDS);
JReportsViewer jReportsViewer = new JReportsViewer(print);
jReportsViewer.viewReport(); [/sourcecode]

In the first line of code we created the JasperPrint component with the JasperFillManager and then we pass it to the constructor in order to create the report. The last line just shows up the JasperViewer dialog.

The next step is to create a customized version of the JasperViewer component to fulfill our needs. Let’s say we want to allow the users to save the reports only as a PDF document. Here is the source code for JasperReports.

[sourcecode language=”java”] public JReportsViewer(JasperPrint jasperPrint, boolean isExitOnClose, Locale locale) {
if (locale != null) {
setLocale(locale);
}
this.isExitOnClose = false;

initComponents();

this.viewer = new JRViewer(jasperPrint, locale);
List<JRSaveContributor> newSaveContributors = new LinkedList<JRSaveContributor>();
JRSaveContributor[] saveContributors = this.viewer.getSaveContributors();
for (int i = 0; i < saveContributors.length; i++) {
if (saveContributors[i] instanceof JRPdfSaveContributor) {
newSaveContributors.add(saveContributors[i]);
}
}
this.viewer.setSaveContributors(newSaveContributors.toArray(new JRSaveContributor[0]));
this.pnlMain.add(this.viewer, BorderLayout.CENTER);
}[/sourcecode]

This is one of the constructors that we kept because we use a JasperPrint object. We have deleted the other ones because we don’t use source files or InputStreams. As you can see inside this constructor we have a list of JRSaveContributors. These contributors represent the save extensions and as already mentioned we only want to keep the PDF format. To achieve this we look for the JRPdfSaveContributor and when we find it we add it to our list of contributors. Then we set this list as the new list of contributors.

This is a minor customization but if you want other complex ones you might need to take the source code, apply your changes, create the jar and then replace the original JasperReports jar with your own.

Hope this short tutorial helps. Good luck!

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00September 5th, 2011|RationalPlan|Comments Off on JasperReports tutorial for JAVA using JasperViewer to preview reports

How To Best Manage Resources In Project Management

The general features of a project management software include scheduling, costing, budgeting, controlling, management and communication. However an important function of any project management solution is resource management. This covers all types of resources including human, equipment, materials and costs.

Nowadays businesses can work efficiently only by managing resources. With materials and costs things are pretty easy: you buy a stock and it is yours. Human resource management is not the same. You can not just own a human resource, but need to retain one. With the help of a resource management software, project managers can make sure that the right human resources are working on the right tasks and following a real-time project timeline. This is achieved based on several factors like employee’s skills, experience, and availability.

Resource planning software – must have features

In today’s global economy, when projects are spread across multiple regions or even countries it only makes sense that the right resources should make up a project team, regardless of their physical location. Even more project managers need to have powerful project planning tools capable of managing multiple projects with shared resources. At any moment in time they need to view resource availability and utilization even across multiple projects.

(more…)

By |2011-08-04T13:25:42+00:00August 4th, 2011|Project Management Software, Project Portfolio Management, Resource Management|1 Comment

Who needs a task management software and when?

Many people find themselves at a certain point in their life looking for a task management software to help them refocus and keep their finger tips on what is important. Task management products organize, schedule and ensure that tasks get done on time. On short it can boost your productivity. By being better organized and more focused on what you have to do, you save time and reduce stress.

Good task and project management software was hard to find a few years ago when people were using Outlook. Nowadays productivity has become almost an obsession of geeks everywhere, so the increasing request for such tools generated a large base of good task and project management solutions. There are a lot of choices to help manage the tasks, ranging from standalone applications to web-based services.

What exactly are users looking for?

Most of them are actually looking for a personal organizer application to put some order in their busy and messy life. “In the beginning, I somehow managed to keep everything in my head. Then, as I began to take on more projects, I realized that I needed a task management system to keep me organized and focused.” says Deborah Woehr a freelance researcher and writer.

These personal organizers generally take the form of the so called “To Do List” applications where users create a list of tasks for which they set a start date, some deadlines and a priority – something very simple.

The Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology

Most of the to-do-list applications these days adopt, to one degree or another, the GTD approach to task management according to the work-life management system by David Allen that provides concrete solutions for transforming overwhelm and uncertainty into an integrated system of stress free productivity. Apps vary as to how tightly or loosely bound to GTD they are.

The problem, though, with To Do lists and personal organizers is that are only good for your work. Task management or task tracking software is more than just a to-do list. In a business many of the tasks are collaborative and require multiple team members to fulfill several tasks in a single project. In this case you need an application where assignments could be made, all tasks could be tracked, and completed work could be archived. This is a true task management tool.

Users sometimes need to manage multiple projects and delegate work to resources, schedule tasks in time or even create plans. This is a further step to an upper level: project management or project planning software. (more…)

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00July 22nd, 2011|Project Management Software|Comments Off on Who needs a task management software and when?

Project Management Software Alternative for Microsoft Project

One of the most used project planning software of all times is Microsoft Project with millions of users worldwide. The product is used mainly by companies to manage projects in almost any activity area. However the users base does not end here and the software package is also used for educational purposes or for personal use.

In the past there were very few project management tools hence a poor competition and for this reason the prices for such tools were high. In the last years the software market has grown rapidly such that at this moment there are hundreds of such products: some of them have just some basic functionality while others offer a full solution to manage projects. For this reason the prices have dropped significantly.

What to look for when searching for a Microsoft Project alternative

However many users still use Microsoft Project despite the high price. Why? Simple: Microsoft Project is still considered as the “de facto” standard in project management and many project plans are stored in its format. The biggest problem in migrating to another project scheduling software is the conversion of existing data to the new format. For this the new adopted product must be able to successfully read Microsoft Project files. Even more if it is needed a Microsoft Project integration then the new product must also be able to export data in MS Project Data Exchange format.

Another important factor in deciding what alternative to Microsoft Project to choose is the list of available features. It must supply some powerful tools like Gantt charts, scheduling mechanisms, resource management, cost management, etc. If it provides even additional features like running on multiple platforms, support for collaboration or even the possibility to handle multiple interdependent projects that is even better.

One major problem that users have with MS Project is the fact that they do not always need to modify projects. Many times they only need to view the projects or even less to see what they have to do. OK you might say that some printed reports will do the trick but this is somehow limited. Instead of using some static reports it would help a lot more to have a dynamic view over the projects: on short a Microsoft Project viewer.

(more…)

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00July 11th, 2011|Microsoft Project, Project Management Software|Comments Off on Project Management Software Alternative for Microsoft Project

PMP Certification is not enough, project managers also need good tools and processes

It is widely recognized that good project management is a combination of three key area:

  1. Project management skills and competence
  2. Project management processes, procedures and methods
  3. Project management tools and information systems

In this post we will explain why all three are important for an effective project management. Without effective ways of developing each of them the organization will fail to deliver the best solutions.

Project Management Competence

Project management competence is a combination of knowledge, skills and experience. The first two can be developed by project management training, however the latter, experience, is the most important, but hardest to acquire. Any training and development scheme must provide plenty of opportunity to gather experience delivering projects of increasing complexity. Ideal for this is PMP certification which includes both training and experience requirements.

Project Management Procedures

A number of widely recognised standard methods for project management. The most highly developed is PRINCE2 which comes from the office of government commerce in the UK. This method describes the roles and responsibilities of key members of the project team such as the project executive, project manager, senior user and senior supplier, but it also provides templates and standard processes for the main functions of a project. Prince2 has become widely accepted as the de-facto standard for many projects. Unlike the APM and PMI bodies of knowledge PRINCE2 is quite prescriptive about how the project should be run. For this reason many see the PMBOK and PRINC2 as complementary.

The Need for Effective Planning and Control System

Event the most competent and capable project managers are unable to deliver successful projects if the tools provided are not up to the job. This is especially true if multiple projects are delivered as part of a programme or portfolio. In these cases single stand alone project plans are meaningless because they do not show the overall resource demand across multiple projects.

Today more and more people are turning to server or cloud based solutions to deliver these project management tools. The advantages of the server based solutions are clear in terms of flexibility and availability of data across a number of platforms and in various regions of the world. Often for virtual project teams web-based solutions can provide instant start up and the ability to add members from a number of organizations. RationalPlan Project Server is one of these web-based tools which is growing in popularity.

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00June 29th, 2011|Project Management Certification, Project Management Training|1 Comment

RationalPlan Project Management Software 3.22 Is Available With Stronger Server Privacy Options

RationalPlan project management suite version 3.22 added support for custom roles and rights for its Project Server module and the possibility for users to work from different timezone locations world wide. More reporting capabilities, easier to use and more intuitive interface, improved Microsoft Project integration and many more useful features were added. All these also available in German and French language.

RationalPlan is a project management software that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. It has been developed to help project managers keep their projects on time and within budget. RationalPlan Project Server is a better solution for those companies that need a concurrent user project management system by adding a server module that gives project managers concurrent access to a central project data repository.

Important changes added to this version:

  • Added support for rights and permissions for users on RationalPlan Project Server
  • Possibility to create custom roles
  • Added the notion of TimeZone on server
  • Translated to German and French
  • Possibility to create task details reports
  • Render special working days in resource sheet
  • Added more filters to assignments page
  • Possibility to clear history on server side
  • Store graphical interface settings for resource sheets from all Gantt views
  • Allows users to select different positions for the labels on Gantt task bars
  • Possibility to move resources up and down in the list
  • Improved Microsoft Project integration
  • Possibility to fit horizontally to visible area on Gantt chart
  • Allow setting a fixed cost and accrual on phases

Some significant improvements regarding data privacy were added to RationalPlan Project Server. Business owners have now more powerful tools to keep their projects sensible data under control. “We decided to give our customers the possibility to create custom roles and rights and the ability to assign them for each created user. This is necessary to hide certain data like costs or other project details that should be kept private.” says Gabriel Toader, CEO of Stand By Soft. The list of rights usefulness expands further so that it can be used to also restrict access to certain functionality and features of the product. A resource or a stakeholder should always have less power over a software product than a project manager.

A sensible problem for companies that work over multiple locations is the timezone variable. Time related data like dates and working hours may be perceived differently by a user from Europe as compared with a user from Asia or America. This is why a solid project management tool should correctly manage time zone differences. Other improvements were also made to RationalPlan Project Server: the possibility to clear the history of changes, more filters for resources assignments and much more.

Current version also gets translated to German and French languages. “We would like to thank to all the users that helped us in translating RationalPlan products with special thanks to Mr. Jan Hefer from Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft research organization.” says Gabriel Toader, Stand By Soft CEO.

When resources in a project work according to a special calendar it is very useful to see those special working days while controlling the worksheets. All these are possible now in RationalPlan. Special working days are displayed with a different color while in Resource Sheet. It is easy to select the corresponding resource by just clicking on those special days.

All charts but especially the Gantt chart have been redesigned to offer more flexibility in presenting and handling data. A very useful “fit to page” action was added that will help users to easily scale the charts such that to fit horizontally to the visible area. This is neded when a project is spread over a large period of time and you want to easily see an overall presentation of it without too much details. Another useful feature is the possibility to present task details near the task bars in customizable locations (left, right, center). With this feature it is possible to generate better looking reports and printouts.

Other features: task details reports were added, the Microsoft Project integration was improved with a better support for MS Project 2010 files and more changes were made regarding the input of project’s data, allowing more flexibility in managing projects and resources.

RationalPlan suite includes:

RationalPlan Single Project – project management software for single projects
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 management of company’s projects while offering concurrent/controlled access for different users

RationalPlan Project Management Software is available at http://www.rationalplan.com. It can be download from https://www.rationalplan.com/download.php.

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 planning software that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is aMicrosoft Project viewer that allows you to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft Project file.

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

###

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00June 17th, 2011|News, Project Management Software, RationalPlan|Comments Off on RationalPlan Project Management Software 3.22 Is Available With Stronger Server Privacy Options

Things To Check When Choosing A Work Management Software

There are certain things that a project management software must have in order to be sure you pick the best one available and to maximize your return of investment.

One of the key features that a project management software should have is the possibility to track the progress, for both the project manager supervisors and workers that participate in the project execution. This is related to creating tasks that can be easily and clearly quantified or on short to create deliverables – tasks that have measurable parameters.

Analyzing the workload is very important feature that a work management software must have. Managers must be sure that an optimal work force is assigned to various parts of a project and that no overallocation occurs. Assigning more work force than it is necessary to tasks would be a waste of resources. A good project planning software must have the workload analysis process in inter-dependency with the list of analysis features.

Estimating budget costs and managing budgets makes a great difference between a good profit and waste of investment. A project scheduling software without a detailed cash flow, at task level, can do more harm than help. Tracking project evolution, in each stage, with a good correlation between costs and progress is very important to be sure that the level of funding is adequate at any time.

Also do not forget to check if the selected work management software is capable of handling multiple projects, being able to track resource usage (workforce usage) over multiple projects. You don’t want to assign a worker to two projects at the same time. In the case that it still happens a resource leveling mechanism is always welcomed.

Avoid project management software that do not have a trial version. It is imperative to check all the aspects before deciding if that one is the management program that best suits your needs. (more…)

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00June 14th, 2011|Project Management Software, Resource Management|Comments Off on Things To Check When Choosing A Work Management Software

MOOS Project Viewer 2.4 – A New Microsoft Project Viewer Version Available

Stand By Soft is pleased to announce the release of MOOS Project Viewer in French language. Besides this major change some other features were added like support for estimated task durations, more columns for tasks and support for MS Project 2007 .mpp files that were obtained by converting them from Microsoft Project 2010.

Here are the most important changes added to this version:

  • Added French translation
  • Added support for estimated task duration values
  • Added more columns for tasks including baselines
  • Support for 2010 to 2007 .mpp files conversion

MOOS Project Viewer is a cost saving solution for project stakeholders to view project details in a dynamic way and not just using static reports. By adding French language support the developers from Stand By Soft hope to better serve French users needs to view Microsoft Project files.

Estimated values for tasks duration is an important indicator regarding the status of the project. It helps project managers to easily see which tasks are still not a certain fact and which are well established. This is possible to be seen now with the current version of MOOS Project Viewer.

All tasks columns that are available in Microsoft Project 2010 are now also available in MOOS Project Viewer. This includes columns like baselines and all corresponding data (start date, finish date, duration, work, cost). This way users can see them not only on the Gantt chart but also in more detail on the table.

Certain problems where solved related to MS Project 2007 .mpp files that where generated by exporting them from Microsoft Project 2010. Companies that have purchased both version of Microsoft Project – 2007 and 2010 – and that are using just 2007 files for compatibility reasons will now be able to correctly view them.

MOOS Project Viewer allows you to open, view and print mpp files and it is running on any Java enabled platform including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

It is available at http://www.moosprojectviewer.com and can be downloaded from http://www.moosprojectviewer.com/download.php.

Stand By Soft develops software specialized for the project management area. Its main product RationalPlan is a project management software that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. It has been developed to help small and middle sized companies to plan and manage their projects.

About Stand By Soft
Stand By Soft was founded in 1997 as a software company specialized in building desktop applications and components.
Contact name: Lucian Ioan
Address: Aleea Parului, Nr.4A, Craiova, Dolj, 200346, Romania
Email: marketing@rationalplan.com
Phone: +40727159969

###

By |2022-11-18T10:20:12+00:00May 13th, 2011|Microsoft Project, MOOS Project Viewer|Comments Off on MOOS Project Viewer 2.4 – A New Microsoft Project Viewer Version Available

Project Management Glossary Of Terms-W

Wage

Waiver

Walk-through

War Room

Warranty

Watch List

Waterfall

Waterfall Model

WBS

WBS Coding

WBS Dictionary

Web Server

Web Site

Weighting

Well Managed Project

Wet and Dry Test Runs

What Market Will Bear

What You See Is What You Get (“WYSIWYG”)

What-If Analysis

What-if Simulation

Whole Life Costing

Whole Product

Win-Win

Withdrawal

Withdrawal, in negotiating

Work

Work Acceptance

Work Authorization

Work Authorization/Release

Work Breakdown

Work Breakdown Code

Work Breakdown Structure (“WBS”)

Work Breakdown Structure Dictionary

Work Breakdown Structure Element

Work Category

Work Definition

Work Effort

Work Flow

Work Guideline

Work Item

Work Load

Work Management

Work Measurement

Work Package (“WP”)

Work Package Budgets

Work Package Leader

Work Packages/Control Point

Work Pattern

Work Plan

Work Products

Work Release

Work Remaining

Work Sampling Study

Work Scope

Work Statements

Work Study

Work Unit

Work Units

Workaround

Workers

Workflow

Working Calendar

Working Capital

Working Drawings

Working Period Flexibility

Workload

Workmanship

Workshops

Workstation

Work-to-Date

Work-to-Go

Worth

WP

Written

WYSIWYG

By |2017-07-26T12:01:22+00:00May 9th, 2011|Project Management Glossary|0 Comments
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