[Processdash-announce] Process Dashboard 2.1 is Now Available

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The Process Dashboard development team is pleased to announce to
availability of version 2.1 of the Process Dashboard. To download version
2.1, visit:
http://www.processdash.com/

Version 2.1 includes these significant new features:

   - The Process Dashboard's internal web server has been enhanced to
   support Java servlets and JSPs. This makes it possible to develop custom
   reports using standard Java technologies, and run them against the
   project data in the Team Dashboard.
   - Significant new features have been added for Common Team Workflows:
      - In the WBS Editor, different icons are now used to visually
      distinguish tasks that were created by the application of a
workflow. This
      makes it possible to track the process origin of a particular task in the
      plan.
      - In the Team Dashboard, a new "Workflow Process Analysis" report is
      provided on the script menu. This report shows the time spent in
each step
      of the workflow, along with high-level metrics such as cost of
quality and
      historical productivity rates.
      - When defining a workflow, teams can now add a special "Personal
      PROBE Planning" element. This element enables the assigned individual to
      use the Size Estimating Template and PROBE Wizard to generate
size and time
      estimates for their work. It also provides a personal Project
Plan Summary
      for the component, as well as a "To Date" report showing
aggregate metrics
      for other components that the individual has produced using this workflow.
      - The Common Team Workflows window will now allow teams to
      prepopulate workflows with labels and notes. To do this, teams
can click a
      button in the top-right corner of the workflows table to select the
      optional workflow columns they wish to edit.
      - The embedded database in the Team Dashboard now includes
      information about the workflows that were used to generate
various tasks in
      a project plan.
   - A new Relaunch Wizard is provided to help teams prepare for team
   project relaunch meetings. This Relaunch Wizard:
      - Creates a new Team Project to hold the plan for the new iteration,
      and invites team members to join this new project iteration.
      - Copies the workflows, milestones, and team member schedules from
      the old plan to the new plan.
      - Copies incomplete components and tasks from the old plan to the new
      plan, and adjusts the planned times of in-progress tasks to account for
      work that has already been performed.
      - Marks the old project as closed, indicating that no additional work
      will be performed there. The next Sync WBS operation will help
team members
      to close the remaining tasks on the old project.
   - Milestones receive significantly improved support within earned value
   schedules:
      - A new Milestones chart is available for earned value schedules in
      both the team and personal dashboard. This chart displays a
horizontal bar
      for each milestone, comparing projected progress to the milestone commit
      dates. When the plan is not projected to satisfy a given milestone date,
      you can click on the corresponding bar and view a Gantt chart to
determine
      which tasks are responsible for the slip.
      - The Task & Schedule window, EV report, and weekly report display a
      new Milestone column (rather than folding milestone data into the Labels
      column).
      - When a task is projected to miss a milestone commit date, the new
      Milestone column will visually flag an error and provide a tooltip with
      more information.
      - In Flat View, an individual can check a box to highlight all of the
      tasks associated with a particular milestone. When they do this, a dashed
      line is drawn over the list of tasks to illustrate the commit date when
      tasks must be completed. These features help the individual as they
      rearrange tasks to meet the deadline.
   - The enhanced charts are now available for all teams to use free of
   charge.
   - The Weekly EV Report has always displayed the total actual time logged
   against each completed and in-progress task. Now, it also displays the
   amount of time that was logged to each task during the week in question.
   This makes it possible to distinguish between active and idle tasks.
   - When filtering a report in the Team Dashboard, two new tokens are
   automatically available. "Completed_Tasks" filters the report to display
   the tasks that have been marked complete, and "Completed_Components"
   filters the report to show data from team project components that are 100%
   complete.
   - The active task selector has been redesigned to make better use of
   available space, and to better support complex projects with deep work
   breakdown structures. The main window now displays as much of the active
   task name as possible, and the portions that do not fit are displayed in an
   overflow menu.
   - It is now possible to move time log entries to a different task by
   dragging and dropping rows in the time log editor.
   - The Task & Schedule dialog now provides new options for working with
   multiple baselines:
      - You can now save multiple baselines for an EV schedule, providing a
      name and optional comment for each one.
      - You can view the list of baselines that have been saved for a
      schedule, edit their details, and delete them if necessary.
      - You can review the saved baselines for a schedule and select the
      one that should be "active" for the purposes of charts, reports, and
      calculations.
   - When individuals join a team project, they will experience a new
   streamlined joining process:
      - Instead of being presented with page after page of questions, they
      will see a single form that collects all the necessary information.
      - The new form provides reasonable default values whenever possible.
      Fields that need attention are visually highlighted so they
stand out from
      the fields that already have a workable default value.
      - As they click on various fields, context-sensitive help is
      displayed to explain the data that is needed.
   - New performance tunings were added to improve the startup and shutdown
   time of large team and personal dashboards.
   - The "Find Task" functionality (available in the personal dashboard by
   typing Ctrl-F) has been improved for better usability. Completed tasks are
   indicated with a strikethrough, and past projects can be collapsed so they
   do not participate in the search operation.
   - A new option in the Team Member List makes it easy to move the start
   date of the entire team at once. This option is provided in the "Team
   Schedule Settings" window that appears when you click the date
   customization hyperlink.
   - The WBS Editor has traditionally displayed values with only one digit
   of precision after the decimal point. When numbers in a plan were smaller
   than 0.1, unusual rounding errors would sometimes occur. These problems
   have been corrected.
   - Additional keyboard shortcuts are now available for many actions in
   the WBS Editor.
   - A new user preference enables the main window's title bar to display
   timing information for the currently active task.
   - When an individual is participating in more than one team project
   simultaneously, they can create an EV Rollup in their personal dashboard to
   display a consolidated plan for their work. Now, the Task & Schedule window
   for that EV Rollup provides special support for balancing available task
   hours across the various projects. Clicking on the PT (planned time) column
   for a schedule row opens an interactive dialog for visually reallocating
   time and managing the total amount of time that has been committed across
   all of the projects.
   - If an individual leaves the timer running for several hours, the
   dashboard will now display a warning message asking if they did this
   intentionally. This can help individuals catch their mistake if they forget
   to stop the timer (for example, if they leave it running overnight).
   - The Task & Schedule dialog now has an "Expand All" option on the View
   menu.



*Upgrade Considerations*

   - Teams are encouraged to upgrade together. Some features may not work
   properly until all team members have upgraded, and exported their data
   at least once.
   - Teams using the built-in metrics collection framework will enjoy this
   functionality simply by upgrading. Teams that have defined their own custom
   metrics collection framework will need to refresh the definition
   <http://www.tuma-solutions.com/metricsFrameworkEditor.html#upgrading> of
   that framework to receive some of the enhancements listed above.


*Download*

For more information, or to download the Process Dashboard, visit:
http://www.processdash.com/


PSP(SM) is a service mark of Carnegie Mellon University. The open source
team that writes the Process Dashboard is not affiliated with Carnegie
Mellon University. Neither Carnegie Mellon University nor the Software
Engineering Institute have reviewed or endorsed the Process Dashboard.