RationalPlan 5.2 – Additional Columns for Tasks and Multiple Cost Rates for Resources

RationalPlan 5.2

RationalPlan 5.2 comes with new features for the web-based interface and an increased speed for computing the critical path. Many columns were added to the Gantt and Timesheet views: project code, task slack and related Earned Value Management data, working calendar, predecessors and successors. Also different cost rates can now be set for resources.

RationalPlan is a project management software suite that is available either as stand alone products or as a project management cloud service. It is used by individuals and by companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users.

Changes for the current version

  • Improved the speed of critical path algorithm
  • Added Project Code column for Gantt and Timesheet for both desktop and web interface
  • Added slack and EVM related columns to web interface
  • Added Calendar column to web interface
  • Added Predecessors and Successors columns to web interface
  • Added Notes tab for resources to web interface
  • Added resource rates to web interface
  • Mouse precision on charts for HDPI monitors
  • Bug fix: Do not allow a user to see the costs if it does not have the “See resource costs” right
  • Bug fixes for Hungarian and French translation

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By |2022-11-18T10:19:57+00:00May 28th, 2019|News, RationalPlan|0 Comments

RationalPlan 5.0 – Improved Web Interface and a Stronger PM Scheduling Engine

RationalPlan 5.0

RationalPlan 5.0 is a major release that comes with new features for the web-based interface and a more powerful project scheduling engine. The product is now able to handle those types of project plans in which certain tasks need to be delayed as much as possible. On the other hand the web interface of both the Cloud service and the Server product gets improved with several features.

Users with licenses older than one year are entitled to upgrade them with a 50% discount.

RationalPlan is a project management software suite that is available either as stand alone products or as a project management cloud service. It is used by individuals and by companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users.

Important changes for RationalPlan 5.0

RationalPlan can now handle As Late As Possible(ALAP) constraints for those tasks that need to to start as late as possible relative to the project end date. The entire scheduling engine was transformed to support this type of planning. Even the critical path detection algorithm was adjusted to comply with this major change.

Since certain parts of the application are depending on Java technology this major release also added support for Java 9 and Java 10. This is a big step forward to maintain the compatibility with the latest Java versions in order to avoid software vulnerabilities.

Starting with this release the developers of RationalPlan removed the support for the old .xrp files. This file type storage was deprecated and it is no longer being used.

For the online and server side segment:

  • Critical path functionality
  • Labels for task bars on Gantt chart
  • A hover icon and a contextual menu for the task tree grid (Gantt & WBS)
  • Project code and Client name within the email notifications
  • Bug fix: do not show the work on tasks in web if the user does not have the rights to see the resources
  • Bug fix: allow negative lags on web
  • Bug fix: guard against non-working constraint dates for dependency driven tasks
  • Bug fix: guard against the case when the project estimated start is non-working

For the On-Premise products:

  • Added resource data filter and project status filter for Timesheet view
  • In Timesheet view if a filter is applied for All projects then filter the resources
  • Bug fix for Ukrainian translation
  • Bug fix for budgets on Single version

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By |2022-11-18T10:19:57+00:00November 2nd, 2018|News, RationalPlan|0 Comments

Gantt Charts, Timesheets, Working Calendars – Project Planning in Just Minutes with RationalPlan 4.12

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.

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By |2022-11-18T10:20:02+00:00November 3rd, 2015|News, RationalPlan|2 Comments

Project Management Terms – Critical Path

Critical Path is the sequence of activities for which the slightest delay will influence the end of the project. The critical path of a project may change in time according to the new changes of the project schedule. In a project there can be several critical paths. Tasks that compose the critical path are called critical tasks.

Critical tasks need a special attention as they are more likely to compromise the completion date. Sometimes the project manager needes to see those tasks that could delay the project finish if they are late with a certain amount of time, in other words the tasks with a slack smaller than a given value.

In RationalPlan Project Management Software the Critical Path can be displayed by pressing the corresponding button from the toolbar while in Gantt view.

By |2022-11-18T10:20:11+00:00August 20th, 2012|Project Management Glossary|1 Comment

Project Management – The Light On The Critical Path

The mysterious critical path notion seems to put project managers in difficulty and especially the novice ones. However if anyone would take just a few minutes from his precious time to pay a closer attention to it things would be a lot more clear.

The origin

In order to clear things up we need to have a background knowledge. On short it all started with the Critical Path Method (CPM) an algorithm for scheduling activities within a project. This method is best used within the project scheduling phase and basically it requires to construct a model of the project that includes:

  • the list of activities needed to complete the project (aka Work Breakdown Structure defined in the project planning phase)
  • the duration estimates for these activities
  • the dependencies between the tasks

Graphical representation


There are two possibilities to render the structure created according to CPM: activity on arrow and activity on node. The most used representation nowadays is the activity on node. The activities are rendered as nodes and each node contains the duration of that activity while the dependencies are rendered as arrows where the arrowhead points to the successor while the tail to the predecessor.

To some extent a Gantt chart can also be considered as a CPM presentation although a more complex one. (more…)

By |2022-11-18T10:20:11+00:00February 21st, 2012|Project Management Software, Project Tracking|2 Comments

RationalPlan Project Management Software 3.15.7 Email Integration With Yahoo, Hotmail, Live

Stand By Soft has released RationalPlan 3.15.7, a powerful project management software application developed to assist project managers in creating plans, tracking progress, allocating resources, managing budgets and analyzing workload. The new version comes with email integration with Yahoo, Hotmail, Live, added quantity column in assignment table, it remembers last used time scale, added predecessors end date and successors start date columns and many more enhancements.

Important changes of this version:

  • Email integration with Yahoo, Hotmail, Live
  • Added quantity column in assignment table
  • Remember last used time scale
  • Added predecessors end date and successors start date columns
  • Bug fixes

Starting with this version managers can send emails to resources with their assignments not only through private email servers or GMail server but also through the well known Yahoo, Hotmail and Live platforms.

The assignments table from the task details panel also got richer with a quantity column needed for material resources.

At user requests RationalPlan now remembers the time scale used in each view on the graphical chart. Project managers have different types of projects: some spreading on a smaller time range (days/hours) and other complex projects that span over several years/months. This way based on the usual project type the manager no longer has to zoom in/out each time he starts the application.

By adding the predecessors end date and successors start date columns in the predecessors and successors table respectively, project managers have a better insight over the project schedule. Now they can see easier how a given task can influence its predecessors or successors and indirectly the project plan and can take better decisions related to the duration and work of that task: how many resources to allocate, whether it is necessary to have those resources work overtime or not depending on whetter the critical path is broken or not, etc.

Several other minor improvements where made and bug fixes where fixes: interface related issues, localization issues and others.

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 perfect solution for anyone (from project stakeholders to team workers) to view projects details

RationalPlan is designed as an affordable alternative to Microsoft Project with some extra-features like multiproject management and it is covering project management area from WBS construction, project planning and scheduling to critical path management, over allocated resources detection, progress tracking, cost estimation, etc. Gantt chart support as well as various time line reports are also provided. It offers the most important capabilities of a good project management software while being able to operate on various platforms starting with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and all other Java enabled platforms.

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.

Address: Aleea Parului, Nr.4A, Craiova, Dolj, 200346, Romania
Email: marketing@rationalplan.com
Phone: +40727159969

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By |2022-11-18T10:20:14+00:00November 30th, 2009|News|Comments Off on RationalPlan Project Management Software 3.15.7 Email Integration With Yahoo, Hotmail, Live
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