[Processdash-announce] Process Dashboard 2.4 is Now Available

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The Process Dashboard development team is pleased to announce to
availability of version 2.4 of the Process Dashboard. To download version
2.4, visit:
http://www.processdash.com/download

Version 2.4 includes these significant new features:

   - The Team Dashboard now includes a comprehensive framework for
   role-based access control:
      - A fine-grained permission hierarchy has been introduced. This
      includes permissions for editing particular items (for example, "who is
      allowed to modify milestones?") and for viewing sensitive data (for
      example, "who is allowed to view the defect log?").
      - A user interface is provided for defining roles, and stating the
      permissions that each role should be granted.
      - Finally, a user interface is provided for listing users and
      assigning them roles. When users open the Team Dashboard or Work
Breakdown
      Structure, their actions will be subject to the role-based
permissions they
      have been granted.
   The default, out-of-the-box behavior of the Team Dashboard remains
   unchanged. But if teams wish to lock down their Team Dashboard, these new
   controls make that possible.
   - The Team Dashboard now includes a feature to define groups of users.
   These can be used for many purposes: for example, to describe people from
   different parts of the organization, different project subteams, or
   different engineering disciplines. Once groups have been defined, reports
   can be filtered to show data from a particular group.
   - Several improvements have been made to the Work Breakdown Structure
   Editor:
      - The speed and responsiveness of several WBS editing operations
      (including insert, rename, move up/down, cut/copy/paste, and delete) have
      been significantly improved for large projects.
      - Since 1.14.7, the WBS Editor has provided a filtering function.
      That filtering function has been enhanced:
         - When a filter is in effect, columns sums now respect the filter.
         For example, when the "Time" column displays the total time
for the project
         or for a particular subcomponent, the displayed totals will
only include
         time from the visible children that matched the filter.
         - Many columns allow you to edit the total value on a parent
         component, and will automatically scale the values on
children to satisfy
         your change. When a filter is in effect, this scaling
operation will no
         longer affect rows that were hidden by the filter. (This effectively
         shields filtered components and tasks from most editing operations.)
         - If you have created custom columns in the WBS, you can now
         filter the WBS based on data entered into those columns.
         - Simpler, streamlined controls have been provided for hiding
         completed tasks, and for narrowing the view to tasks performed by
         particular individuals.
         - A new "Show Related Tasks" option makes it possible to display
         all of the tasks under components that matched the filter.
      - The Find operation in the WBS has been extended to search in any
      column (including custom columns), and a Replace feature has
been added as
      well.
      - The WBS provides better autocompletion support for editing labels
      and custom column values.
      - Menus, labels, and messages in the WBS Editor can now be translated
      to other languages using the Localization Tool.
   - Several improvements have been made to team reports:
      - A "Time Log" section has been added to the Rollup Plan Summary
      Report in the Team Dashboard. This makes it possible to export the team
      time log to Excel, and to see views of the team time log that
are filtered
      by label or group.
                New teams will see this section right away. If existing
      teams have customized the Rollup Plan Summary (by clicking the "Edit this
      page" icon in the top-right corner of the report), their local
      customizations will override the addition of the "Time Log"
section to the
      default report structure. Those teams will need to edit their customized
      report and add a "Time Log" element.
      - In the Gantt chart, you can now click the configuration icon (which
      appears on the top-right of the chart) and toggle the display of optional
      "Assigned To" and "Milestone" columns. These can be especially
helpful when
      printing or taking a screen capture of the Gantt chart.
      - If you open a Gantt chart by clicking on a bar in the EV Milestones
      chart, the Gantt chart will display a line for the milestone commit date.
   - The configuration menu has historically been displayed as the single
   letter "C" to save space. Now, it uses the "≡" icon, an
   industry-standard representation for a menu of advanced and
   less-commonly-used functionality.
   - In the Team Dashboard, the "File → Alter Project" menu now includes an
   option to close a project. This can be helpful if work is ending on a given
   project, and it does not need to be relaunched for an additional cycle.
   - When more than one person is assigned to a task (such as an
   inspection), it is helpful for an individual to know which other people
   they are collaborating with. Now, this information is readily available
   from the task dependency indicator on the main dashboard toolbar. It is
   also displayed in the dependency column of the Task & Schedule window and
   the EV Report.
   - In the Time Card dialog, the columns depicting weekends now have a
   different background color. This assists with the process of reviewing time
   log data and correcting errors.
   - The Process Dashboard has been upgraded to be Java-9-ready.
   - When running in Java 9, the dashboard supports smooth scaling of the
   user interface for HiDPI/Retina displays.
   - Fixes are included for a number of bugs.

*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.

*Download*

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


PSP(SM) and TSP(SM) are service marks 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.