The planning module for activeCollab has 3 views. You can access them using a tabbed button bar at top right, next to the logo.

1. Outline View

Outline View

The outline view is a tree like view of your entire project plan. It’s editable and you can add items simply by pressing enter. You can also use Tab / Shift Tab to promote / demote items and their children.

The outline view also shows assignees, estimates, start date and due date. You can add multiple assignees and use initials for names. Estimates are tracked in hours, but you can enter them in hours or easy to read short cut format – like “1m 2w 2d 4h”. Start and due dates are smart too! Just enter date (e.g. 22) and it will complete it. We have also tried to parse a few other common date formats! Date display format can be customized from backend.

You can turn off any of these 4 columns using the view options menu at top right.

2. Card View

Card View

The Card view is designed to work on details of your project plan. It shows all Tickets in your project and you can easily filter on them. Spend time on each card and define the ticket details. Cards are color coded by categories to help identify them easily.

You can update ticket’s visibility, priority, category, name, description, tags, estimate, start and due dates, tags, workflow status and assignees from the card view.

Batch update is available in both Outline view and Card view. We have even included an option to add / subtract time from start / due dates. You no longer need to change all dates manually!

3. Gantt View

Gantt View

You asked for it and we have it! Gantt view is the much awaited timeline view of your project plan. It’s a “read-only” view. You can’t edit it, but it still shows a nice graph of your project. Completed items are marked, and we also show progress on items if you log hours on them.

You can expand / collapse items, zoom in / out and review your plan.

There are many other features in Planning module! We will write about them soon!

What would you like to see in the next release of Reports module for activeCollab? We have got a few items on our list, but would like to build something that you would like!

Here’s the list:

• Updating reports data everyday, instead of every week
• People Reports – list of members, their hours worked, tickets posted / closed (want your suggestions here)
• MIS Reports – project costing and profitability?
• Add tasks from Pages too
• Bug fix: If project names are too long, the view gets cut
• Improvement: Insert reports data in batches of only 100 rows at once to avoid query length limitations

What do you think will be most important? What features would you like?

Please post your comments on our Get Satisfaction page and let us know what you think. Feel free to add share any other ideas too!

We’ve been spending long hours over PlannerX last few days. As more people started using it, we discovered some limitations. So all time went in fixing those issues and making a smoother user experience. There is one big thing that’s still pending – changing position of existing items in the plan. This worked earlier, with some limitations. But now we uncovered a lot more limitations of Basecamp APIs and have to rework the entire logic. We are nearing a solution, but it’s taking longer than expected.

All this has resulted in delays on the Planning module for activeCollab. We wanted to launch it last week. But have been tied up.

I think all the enhancements we are making to PlannerX, will also make Planning module stronger, so am focusing on PlannerX for now.

Planning module will come soon! Wanted to let you know we are working on it!

We have been talking about our Planning module. It’s taking shape well, and we will release it in the next few days (unless we hit some road blocks). So what can you expect from it? What will be included?

1. We will have an Outline view to create project plan. With assignees, due dates and estimates. Similar to PlannerX.
2. We are adding a “card view” to add ticket description, category and other details. Also pushing in a simple ticket workflow (new -> assigned -> resolved etc)
3. A weekly iteration planner, that allows you to select from a list of incomplete tasks (backlog) and schedule them (via drag and drop) for immediate 3 weeks. (Update: We are skipping on iteration planner for now)
4. And a Gantt view that shows your project plan

What will be the most valuable features for you? How much time do you think something like this can save you?

Update:

The Card View took much longer than we expected. We added many things to make the workflow easier. And some eye candy 😉 Checkout Nirav’s blog post about Intelligent Time Estimation and Card Deck animation. There is more in the actual product! But we had to keep Iteration planner for later because of this.

Gantt Charts are great to visualize project plan, link dependencies and show reports to top management!

Should we include Gantt Charts in PlannerX?

This has been a big question! We know there are many people out there (in most web based collaboration / project management communities – including Basecamp and activeCollab) who really want it. And then there is this idea of focusing on collaboration to make a project success – rather than charts!

We don’t have Gantt Charts in the current version of PlannerX.

But, we are working on adding some level of Gantt chart support in an upcoming version. It’s difficult to create Gantt charts with Basecamp because Basecamp does not have due dates for to-do lists or tasks. Nor does it have estimates and dependencies. activeCollab does make it easier to add / manage these.

Bottomline: Our activeCollab version may have Gantt Charts sooner than Basecamp version. But we are surely thinking about this.

If you want Gantt Charts, please vote for it over on our GetSatisfaction support system!

If you get this error while installing Reports module, you are running an old version of MySQL (earlier than MySQL 5). Reports module requires at least MySQL 5 since it uses views on activeCollab tables to pull ticket categories and activity levels.

Error
Error (DBQueryError)
Query failed with message 'You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'VIEW IF EXISTS `acx_view_ticket_categories`' at line 1'
Error params:
File: NULL
Line: NULL
Sql: DROP VIEW IF EXISTS `acx_view_ticket_categories`
Error number: 1064
Error message: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'VIEW IF EXISTS `acx_view_ticket_categories`' at line 1
Backtrace:


#0 Error->__construct(Query failed with message 'You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'VIEW IF EXISTS `acx_view_ticket_categories`' at line 1', 1) called at [/yourserver.com/activecollab/angie/classes/errors/DBQueryError.class.php:57]

Solution
Upgrade to MySQL 5+.

We just released the latest, 1.2 version of Reports Module.

Icons in v1.2 main bar

• Works with activeCollab 1.1+ as well as activeCollab 2.0+
• You can now print Reports!
• Added localization support – you can now translate Reports interface in your own language
• UI and performance enhancements – icons, negative value support, date format etc!

You can now print your reports

This upgrade addresses most of the feature requests we received and bugs discovered. If you are an existing customer, you should have got your free upgrade by now.

If you are not a customer yet, buy it now. It’s only $39!

Got a question from a customer:
I am setting up a cron using a third party service. Do I have to set cron to execute the tasks both frequently, hourly and daily (or is it sufficient once a week?)

Our Answer:

If you set up frequently, hourly and daily it will make activeCollab happy! (The new Incoming Mail module uses frequently job to pull emails).

For Reports, once a week is sufficient, but you will need to ensure it gets called on the day your week starts (as per aC configuration you have). Webcron.org may be in some other timezone than your server. So you will need to ensure it gets fired at correct time. When cron gets executed, it checks if this is the start of the week, if so, it will take reporting snapshots.

Every week, on start of week (e.g. Monday) we take snapshot of previous week.

If your host does not have crontab / scheduled task enabled, your reporting data will not update. For best results you should have Scheduled Tasks configured and working for activeCollab.

If your server has a web based control panel (cPanel, Plesk etc), there are good chances you can configure cron jobs with it. If you have shell access to the server (SSH), you can easily configure cron jobs from command line (crontab -e).

If all that fails, what are my alternatives?

Alright, so life is really making it difficult for you, you have two alternatives.

1. Re-install Reports module every week. When Reports module installs, it collects all historical data about your projects. Re-installing it (uninstall, and then install) will refresh your data.
2. Run cron from another computer. Either set it up on your desktop or use a third party service to run scheduled tasks (e.g. Webcron.org). Just ensure your are using correct URLs of your activeCollab installation. Reports module needs the daily cron / scheduled task to be executed.

If you are using Access theme with activeCollab, Reports icon does not show up in main menu. You do see a menu item and can click on it, but it is missing an icon.

Why does this happen?

Access theme uses a custom CSS file to override look and feel of activeCollab. By default it hides any unknown styles. They do not have an icon for Reports module yet. This results in no icon showing for Reports module.

How to fix it?

It’s easy to fix this. Here are the steps:

1. Copy public/assets/modules/reports/images/icon.gif to public/assets/themes/Access/images/icons/reports.gif. Note we are copying as reports.gif, not icon.gif.
2. Edit theme.css in public/assets/themes/Access/. Search for #menu_item_status in it. It may have another line for invoicing module after it. Add this line: #menu_item_reports span.outer {background: transparent url(images/icons/reports.gif) no-repeat center 15px;}
3. Save the file and exit.
4. Refresh your activeCollab page. Reports icon should now show up.
5. If it does not, check permissions on reports.gif that you copied. Ensure it has same permissions as other images in icons folder.
6. If you notice that the icon is not positioned properly in the menu, ensure you have used 15px and not 10px like other Access theme icons.

If this does not work, post a comment here with some more details and we will sort out!

BTW,  we have already requested Leon (Access theme developer) to include a Reports icon. We are still to hear from him.