Planning Module 1.2 – Significant Upgrade available

this entry has 25 Comments/ in News, Planning / by Apps Magnet

October 10, 2009

We released version 1.2 of our most popular tool – Planning Module for activeCollab – today. This is a significant release and adds numerous enhancements and fixes important bugs.

Here’s what has changed.

Enhancements

Supports viewing Gantt chart for multiple projects together. Click Select Projects button and check all projects you want to see. (Idea from Thomas, Andy Jones and others)
Calendar in Outline view: Start and Due dates now sport a date picker calendar for easy date selection. Auto complete and anual entry still work too. (Idea by Randy)
Administration Panel added: Planning module configuration can now be done from activeCollab’s administration panel.
Category Templates from Admin: Set template to use as Ticket / Page description for each category. (Ok, this is our own idea, something that was on the wishlist from version 1!)
Branding Removal allowed: Tick one option (Show Help) to No in Admin and the AppsMagnet branding / Help menu will be hidden. And we are not charging anything extra for this 😉 (Suggestion by Michael, Gary and others)
Subscriber support in Level 2 items added. Also in Batch Update. A checkbox in Card view lets you subscribe all assignees. (Idea by Cyberz & Alexey)
Batch Update: Assignees can now be added / replaced. (Original idea by Alexey)
Open Selected Items in AC: A button in top menu under Cards View now lets you open currently selected Tickets, Pages or Checklists within activeCollab interface. This lets you make comments or further edits from original activeCollab interface. (Idea from Alexey)
Allowed changing projects and managing settings for Read Only users.
HTTPS Support: Planning module works well under HTTPS (if your entire activeCollab setup is under HTTPS)
Order of Milestones in Outline can now be on dates always. Even if you reorder them. Available as an option under Admin. (Feedback by Fabienne, Alexey, William and Matt)
Cleanups in Gantt view – hide item text in chart, added item type on tooltips
Notifications about item updates are now saved by default and can be turned off in Admin. (Thanks to Alexey for asking the question)
Zombie handling (parent item completed, children still open) improved.
Plus a few more…

Bug Fixes

Date auto complete problem with MM/DD format solved. (Reported by WillemN, Tim Swilling and Fabienne)
Date parsing problem with 4 digit years solved. (Reported by WillemN, Tim Swilling and Fabienne)
Quick Start guide link incorrect with friendly URLs. Fixed. (Ok, we get the credit here)
Jump to Ticket (Tickets hacks) gave 404 error if nothing was entered. Added validation to ensure something is entered in field! (Thanks Alexey for the bug report)
Category icon width: made all category icons 16×16. (Caught by Alexey)
Invalid workflow status now falls back to “New”.
Items completed by users who are now deleted caused Save to fail.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots of these updated features.

: Multi Project Gantt Charts

: Select Projects to show on Gantt Chart

: Configuration Options for Planning Module

: Smart Date Picker added to Outline

: Manage Subscribers too!

: Add or Replace Assignees / Subscribers

: Planning module administration links under activeCollab Admin

: Easily set Description field templates for Tickets and Pages

How to Upgrade?

You can always download the latest version of Planning Module for activeCollab using the download link in your purchase confirmation email. If you can not find your purchase confirmation email send us the email address with which you purchased the module.We will resend the email with download link.

Upgrading is just like installing. First go to activeCollab Administration – Modules. Uninstall current Planning module. Then upload new version files to your server. Go back to activeCollab Administration and install Planning module. That’s all!

acGarage customers will receive their upgrade automatically over the next few days.

BTW, if you have not yet signed up for acGarage, it’s a great time to do so. We can upgrade both your activeCollab setup and Planning module in one go!

How to Buy?

If you have not yet bought the Planning Module, you can buy it now. It’s only $149.

Tags: acpm, planning module, release notes

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Randy

Great, we really appreciate how responsive you have been to suggestions. Will we be receiving an email with a link to the upgrade as before?
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  Thank you
  
  You can use the download link in your purchase confirmation email to download the latest version.
  
  We will send a notification to all customers, but that won’t have the download link. Each customer has a unique download link.
Vin

Hi Nirav,

We upgraded with no issues and changes look good.

Are the any plans to provide export options for the tables and ghantt charts beyond the print button? project file, excel, csv? We regularly like to include the plan into client updates but we run into an issue when trying to get the data out of the system.

If not, what is process for feature requests?

Cheers,
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  Thank you for the suggestions.
  
  We will put exporting the plan outline to a CSV on our plan. You can also request features from our Get Satisfaction support pages.
Pingback: Planning Module 1.2.1 – enhancements and bug fix release available
Wei Zheng

Nice features and ideas. It would be even better if you can bring the “working” piece into the same module.

Right now this module is more or less for “planning”. We need something that would allow a user to easilly move/copy tickets from one project to another, add comments to a ticket, add file attachments to a ticket, etc.

Regards,
–Wei
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  Hi Wei,
  
  Fact is we started building our modules with a “unified dashboard” / “desktop like” app vision. So that you could both plan, work and review your projects from a single screen. We’ve thought about building something like QuickSilver for activeCollab and also thought about adding comments and moving items between projects from the Planning module.
  
  But if we added the “working” piece, what would you use activeCollab UI for? We will have to duplicate most of the aC functionality in our UI and keep updating it as aC adds features. This will be too much work.
  
  So we decided to focus on the planning / reporting bit.
  
  The QuickSilver for activeCollab is still making waves in my head.. so it may come someday…
  
  :Nirav
Wei Zheng

Hi Nirav:

Thanks for the feedbacks. We have been live with ActiveCollab for about a week. One comments that we have is that we have to go to different pages to get things done. For example, adding comments for a particular ticket, attach a new file to the ticket. Then jump onto another ticket, add comments, do file attachments. Jump to another project, do the same things, etc, etc.

There is not a single place that we can start off. Always have to go back to “Project” to get the project list, then select “Ticket”, then pick the right “Ticket”, then add comments, etc. A lot of clicks. hehe

I will spend more time with your module, and evaluate to see what it can do for us.

Thanks,
–Wei
https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team

Hi Wei,

You are right. Sometimes it takes many clicks to get to the ticket / task you want.

I use assignments page to get around this at times. Many times I even remember the project id, ticket id and change the URL directly. I also use Firefox and it’s great at auto completing the URL even if I start typing the ticket name in the URL box. These are some of the tricks I use to get to the page I want faster.

A recent development around activeCollab is that xid labs is building a desktop client for activeCollab. That will bring many activities together in a snappier desktop interface!

We have been thinking of an “ac Mini” app for a while – a desktop app to quickly track time and add items. It will take us a while before we can get to work on it, and hopefully someone else will come up with a better app in the meanwhile.

I am looking forward to a nice desktop app for activeCollab!

:Nirav
Wei Zheng

Hi Nirav:

Thanks for the feedbacks.

Regards,
–Wei
http://healthybuildingsusa.com Andy Thomson

Nirav, is it in the works at all to support manipulation of the items in gantt view (ie. milestones/tickets/tasks?) – if not, we are ditching activeCollab altogether in favour of our old workflow (fast-track to filemaker server) – since the partners here insist on being able to slide dates around in a graphic way – if it is doable – please send me a personal email, as I like aC and your module and it would be a shame to dump it after taking so much time to get it all set up and working.

Best – Andy
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  Hi Andy,
  We are currently working on some other priority items for Planning module – including some bug fixes. Gantt chart editing is on our roadmap, but we can’t promise a date for it yet. We use AnyGantt’s component to show the Gantt chart. Their latest version has Gantt editing capabilities, but it has not worked reliably for us so far.
  Gantt editing is certainly a big feature and we will make appropriate announcements about it. But I really can’t promise a date on it yet.
  :Nirav
http://healthybuildingsusa.com Andy Thomson

Another comment: Allowing a sort by person assigned would be extremely useful. Lastly, we are having difficulties importing and exporting ms project formatted xml files to a test project (with no tickets or milestones). We were hoping at the very least to be able to import a complete project from scratch from MS Project or FastTrack Planner – any pointers?? We opened the XML in text editor, coda, dreamweaver to cut+pasted to PM’s import field – but nothing happens?
http://healthybuildingsusa.com Andy Thomson

Furthermore – I only mention this as import/export functionality would allow us to continue to use Planning Module/ActiveCollab – but if we can’t get this working, the bundle will get pushed to the back burner… I can email you a sample of the MS Project XML format if you need/want a file to experiment with…
http://healthybuildingsusa.com Andy Thomson

And while I’m at it – even a csv export of the outline view would help! Finally – we have projects that typically run as far as 1 to 2 years into the future, the print view is really too narrown when it is formatted only for portrait/letter sized paper. It would be great if we could print 11×17 or tabloid sheets… Thanks again for the quick reply.
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  You asked for it, and we have it 😉
  
  We have added CSV Export feature to the “just released” Planning module version 1.3. Give it a try and let us know how it goes for you!
  
  Thanks.
https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team

Hi Andy,

1. MS Project XML import is not yet implemented. Planning module can only import XML files exported from Planning module itself. (But yes, we have studied the MS Project XML structure a bit and plan to implement it. If you can send in a few sample files to support at appsmagnet dot com, that will help us move faster on it)

2. CSV export of the plan is coming soon. I can’t promise a date, but it’s high on our list.

3. I haven’t studied FastTrack planner. Will take a look. But sure, we are more interested in supporting MS Project XML import / export.

4. Printing the Gantt on multiple pages is another planned feature.

Overall, we are focusing on getting a few bugs ironed out, a couple of highly requested features done, and implementing CSV export for Planning module. We may have multiple small releases to cover these features. But they are all coming soon.

Hope that helps.

:Nirav
Tom

Hello appsMagnet!
your app rocks! – but i have a question:
Is it possible to select/show projects in different directory?
I like to view a ‘global’ planning of my work.

Possible?

Thanks!
- https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team
  
  Hi Tom,
  Thank you!
  If you would like to see the plan of multiple projects together, you can do it in the Gantt view. Go to the Gantt chart / timeline view. Then click on the icon that looks like a folder to open more projects. Now select and check all projects you want to open. You can now see plan of all those projects together.
  Hope this helps!
  :Nirav
Tom

Thank you for your quick answer!

Last question: Do you include a 30-day money back guarantee for this amazing product?

Thanks!
https://www.appsmagnet.com appsMagnet Team

Yes, 30-day money back guarantee is included with all our products.
Rene

Hi appsMagnet Team,

What’s new about MS Project XML import/export implementation into the Planning module?
I’m interesting in activecollab and specially in your Planning modul but my chief need me to have PPM tool with mentioned MS Project integration.

May be you can help me?

Rene
- https://www.appsmagnet.com Apps Magnet
  
  Hi Rene,
  
  MS Project Import / Export is on our list. But we are holding onto that since not a lot of customers want it. We plan to improve CSV import in an upcoming version.
  
  :Nirav
Annette

Hi Nirav,

Without the MS Project Import/Export functionality, can you please provide advice for the best way to import tasks from a MS Project schedule. I am trying to avoid re-work. I have tried to import by saving the project as a text and XML and can not get it to work.

Thanks,

Annette
- https://www.appsmagnet.com Apps Magnet
  
  Text import feature of Planning module will let you import the outline of the project – milestones, tickets and tasks. You can then manually add assignees, estimates and dates via Planning module. This is the easiest that’s available right now.
  
  The XML import takes Planning module generated XML files and they are different from MS Project XML files.
  
  Improving CSV import is on cards for us.

Planning Module 1.2 – Significant Upgrade available

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