The Zen of Planning, Plan projects 5 times faster!
Planning Module is a breakthrough in project planning with activeCollab. It cuts down all distractions (no more jumping from one page to another) and lets you focus on planning.
We released a stable version today and are really excited. Here are some quick links for you:
Very nice job taking this thru beta and now production. I upgraded by beta instance to 1.0 and it really looks good I like the way you integrated it with the project, so there is now a planner tab INSIDE the project. At some point in the future, you may want to hide some of the translations that are going on to pick the proper project and display it when a user opens the planner. All the use needs to see is the outline view open. In any case, it appears that the Gantt Chart displays and outline views look great. Very impressive!!
When you have time, if you could release to the community a skeleton module framework, that would be much appreciated. Thanks for making PlannerX possible for activeCollab. This is an important module for users who need more extensive planning capabilities.
We designed the module such that it can be integrated from both a tab under projects, and from an icon in the top menu (where we have Reports icon for now). We also allow user to switch to another project while she is still in Planning module, without clicking another AC link. That's why we have the project selector at the beginning.
Another use of that screen, is that if you have an unsaved project plan, Planning module will prompt if you want to recover it or discard it. We had many people using Planning module extensively - sometimes for an hour. And if they forgot to save their plan it would be really a disaster. We added an auto save mechanism that saves the plan to local cache every 5 minutes. And if it is not committed to activeCollab by the user, it will prompt at the beginning.
And hey, your idea of skeleton module framework is nice. One of the offerings we are planning is acHacks. One AC hack every month, with full write up on how the internals work. Depending on interest from people, we can take this up.
Thank you once again, and I look forward to further feedback.
- acHacks - thanks. Will prepare a write up and share with all.
- Demo video: Used ScreenFlow on Mac. Used GarageBand with some noise filtering in Installation / Setup video (above) today and the quality is even better now. Though scripted videos work better than impromptu! It took me 6 hours to create the 2 minute quick tour. Took 3 hours for the Installation video ;-)
We are receiving superb feedback from everyone who's seen the Planning module so far. Thank you!
Planning module version 1.2.1 is now available. Planning module now supports multiple projects on Gantt chart, adds calendar for start/due dates in Outline and has number of other enhancements and bug fixes.
First of all - your (Appsmagnet) planning module is extremely useful. It's a joy to work with.
But I have a question about import:
If i just use a simple texteditor and type in a project, it works perfectly to import as text.
But the one thing I'm missing is the information on the card connected to a ticket.
Is there some way to also add this info in a simple text editor and imoprt it to planning module?
That would be really great and would mean to us that we can transform complex projects from other platforms including detailed instructions in just minutes.
We are glad Planning module has proved to be extremely useful to you. :)
The text import currently supports importing only the outline of the project plan. It does not yet support adding dates / assignees / details. We plan to add this feature in a future version.
Last week, we released a version (1.3) that allows CSV export of the plan. Along with its details. In future, we will support importing this CSV file back in, and then you will be able to import a plan with details.
We also plan to add MS Project import, and will consider other popular project management systems in future.
I can't promise a date on these yet, but will certainly keep all customers updated!
Thanks once again and feel free to ask any other question / suggestion.
Sounds perfect, both CSV and MS Project import.
And about future development, take a look at this feature at projectplace. It's the ability to edit a project in gant view.
Probably hard to make it work on stand alone installations, but I'm not a computer programmer. Just as inspiration.
The Zen of Planning, Plan projects 5 times faster!
Planning Module is a breakthrough in project planning with activeCollab. It cuts down all distractions (no more jumping from one page to another) and lets you focus on planning.
We released a stable version today and are really excited. Here are some quick links for you:
* Read about the benefits of the module
* Take a Quick 2 minute Tour of Planning Module - see how it works and why we are calling it a breakthrough
* Planning Module Demo – Try it yourself and find out if our claims are right!
* My blog post on the launch
I am just so happy!!!
Look forward to your feedback.