What's New in Version 9

New in ProChain Project Scheduling

• A Schedule Manager tool has been added that allows you to manage schedules in ODBC, MPP, MPD and MDB formats, as well as schedules in ProChain Enterprise databases.
• Actual task start and finish dates, if maintained, are taken into account when calculating the projected times of tasks linked with a lag time.
• Log files are now created on a daily basis, and the Log File dialog box provides revised tools to manage them.
• Microsoft Project 98 is no longer supported. In order to use Project 98, you will need to use an earlier version of ProChain.

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New in ProChain Pipeline

• The Independent Subproject option has been enhanced to allow a subproject to be dependent on one specific program.
• ProChain automatically determines whether you are scheduling a project or a program. The "This is a Program" option has been removed.
• A new pipeline option, Projected times ignore pacing resources, has been added that allows you to do decentralized as well as centralized updating.
• The Database Manager tool has been removed and its functionality incorporated into the Schedule Manager tool.
• The Pipeline scheduler now determines project priority strictly from the order in the master file. Projects with due dates are no longer automatically given higher priority.

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New in ProChain Enterprise

• API Functions. API project and task data are no longer limited by a view's column selection. All data is returned whenever a project, buffer, or task object is returned. Functions have been added for retrieving all projects, all buffers, and all tasks in a project without specifying a view. A function for monitoring server health has also been added.
• Actual Protection. An actual protection field, i.e., the ratio of remaining buffer to remaining work, has been added to the Project List view.
• Checklist Downloading. When schedules are downloaded or copied from the server, checklist information is automatically added to the task notes field. On check-in, the checklist info is removed from the Notes and any modifications are ignored.
• Column Order and Width. The primary view options now allow the column order to be changed. For text fields, PCE also allows the maximum number of characters to be specified.
• Client-side Schedule Manager. Many of the PCE scheduler manager functions (e.g., add, check-in, check-out along with the functionality in the Pipeline Database Manager) have been incorporated into a client-side Schedule Manager that is integrated into the ProChain Project Scheduling software. Schedules can be uploaded and downloaded from the PCE server en masse. It can work with MPP, MPD, and ODBC schedules.
• Completed Tasks. Completed tasks can now optionally be included in the primary task views. This makes it easier to see tasks that were completed recently or search for tasks without knowing whether or not they are done. It makes it easier to reopen tasks that should not have been closed.
• Custom Fields. Custom project and task fields can be displayed in the primary list views and are available via the API. These fields can be mapped to any MSP text, number, date, duration, or flag field. Custom text fields can also be edited in the Project Details, Task Details, and Task Split views.
• Custom View Filters. Custom view filters, formerly referred to as Custom Project and Task Groups, can now be made public. Public filters can be used by anybody but can be globally maintained by their owner.
• Database Application Architecture. PCE has been made into a true database application where system state and communication are done primarily via the database. All servers can access all databases. Servers are all peers with no roles, no server-to-server communication, and no single point of failure. The entire application, with the exception of the databases, is scalable by adding application servers.
• Database Schema. Rather than using the MSP database schema, the database has been redesigned so that extracting ProChain-related data is much faster and easier.
• Date Selector. A clickable calendar pop-up is now available on all date fields rather than requiring the user to type in a correctly formatted date.
• European Number Format. Schedules using European number formats can be uploaded to any PCE server. PCE servers will display numbers in the Windows format specified on the server.
• Global Resources. Global resource information can be uploaded from a template file so that the resources, calendars, resource hierarchies, groups, and managers can easily be synchronized across projects in the database. In addition, the resource information can be downloaded as a standard template for new projects. Global resources are also used for pipeline pacing.
• Holiday Calendar Import. Standard holidays can now be defined and users can optionally import them into their user schedule.
• Microsoft Project. Microsoft Project (MSP) is no longer used or installed on the server, except to upgrade version 8 databases. Scheduling operations for a database no longer need to be queued up and go through a single server and single MSP thread. All MSP file operations (e.g., add, check-in, check-out) are now done via the MSP-based client rather than browser. Project 98, which is not supported by PCE, is no longer supported on the client.
• Multi-Schedule Functions. The PCE Schedule Manager now allows more than one schedule to be selected when running buffer updates, deleting, locking, deactivating, and setting schedule options.
• Performance Improvements. Database re-architecting has generated substantial performance improvements for buffer updating and standard queries.
• Permission to Add Projects. Project names for which a user does not have view permission are no longer listed in the drop-down selection lists in the Tasks and Projects pages. The unrestricted project lists are still used on the Admin pages.
• Permission to View Database & Project Names. The names of databases and projects for which a user does not have any permission are no longer listed in the drop down selection lists in the Tasks and Projects pages. The unrestricted project lists are still used on the Admin pages but are limited to the databases that the administrator can view.
• Pipeline Scheduling. The ProChain Pipeline scheduler can now be run on the server and used to schedule new projects or reschedule existing ones taking into account the availability of one or more pacing resources. PCE lets you specify the projects, their priorities, the pacing resources, their reserve capacity, and flow expansion. Copies of template projects can be added to the pipeline to simulate future load. Multiple pipeline definitions can be maintained.
• Project Abbreviations. Project abbreviations are now used instead of the project IDs on the multi-project status chart. The abbreviation can also be displayed on the primary project and task views. Users can set it or can have PCE select one.
• Project Status Date Retained. The buffer update options allow you to keep the existing status date and time. This can be used to ensure schedules don't change during the check-in process.
• Resource Administration. Resource details such as name, parent, max units, manager, and group can now be changed via PCE for both local and global resources. Calendars and availability must still be done via a downloaded schedule in MSP. The parent is selectable via a drop-down selection list rather than a text field when using the MSP resource sheet.
• Resource Hierarchy. When filtering on a parent resource in the primary task views, the tasks assigned to its children will also be included.
• Resource Load and Impact. Summary information about the loading on individual resources and its impact on the schedules is now available.
• Schedule Groups. Project, resource, and task groups can now be defined and membership set via PCE. A project can now belong to more than one project group, a resource can belong to more than one resource group, etc.
• Schedule Managers. Project, resource, and task managers are now limited to PCE user accounts and thus can be displayed with their full user account name. Assigning a manager can now be done with selection lists rather than typing account names into the text fields.
• Simulation Date. The simulation date has been changed from a system-wide option to a database-specific option. Thus, a training database can be attached to a production server and utilize the simulation date without disturbing the production system.
• Subordinate View Filters. In the project and task views, selecting one filter option now reduces the selection of any subordinate filter selections. For example, selecting a project group will restrict the project selection list to those projects in that group.
• Subproject Linking. A subproject can now be referenced by more than one program. PCE lets you select/change which program controls the subproject's buffer update or whether it should be updated independently.
• Task Load Groupings. The Task Load Graph "Group By" options now include assigned user and resource group.
• Task Update History. All task update records, not just the latest, are now available in a separate secondary task view listed chronologically. Task update comments are now associated with the specific update record rather than timestamped and inserted at the beginning of a single status comments field. For tasks with checklist item durations, the name of the item triggering the task update is recorded with the task update.
• Updateable Project Fields. The project name, title, notes, managers, and groups are updateable via the Project Details page. Schedules no longer have to be checked out to make the changes.
• Updateable Task Notes. The task notes field is now updateable on the Task Details page. Since PCE doesn't maintain Rich Text Formatting (RTF) when the notes are changed, a schedule option is provided to disable this capability.
• Views for New Users. User administrator can now specify a set of views that will be copied to user accounts that they create. New users do not need to go to the View Manager when they first log in.
• What-Ifs. The PCE pipeline manager provides a means to try various scenarios and look at the impact on project completion and resource loading without overwriting the current production schedules. Scenarios can be tried with modifications to the resource availability as well as different pipeline options. This also provides the ability to see what the buffer consumption for existing projects would be if contention for pacing resources was taken into account.

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