What's New in V4.0?

]project-open[ is an open source project management application with a focus on finance and collaboration. It’s main purpose is to coordinate the work of project managers, project members and stake holders across multiple projects. Target organizations are companies or corporate departments that need to track finances, tasks, and resources for a large number of concurrently running projects. ]po[ compares in functionality to Microsoft Project Server and other multi-project systems including CA Clarity and Oracle Primavera.  

The new V4.0 version is the latest public release, encompassing 24 months of development and includes new modules, extensions, features and numerous improvements. Installers are currently available for Microsoft Windows 64bit (Windows Vista, 7, 8, 2003 Server and 2008 Server) and Linux (as a Vmware VM image running CentOS Linux). Installation instructions for other Linux flavors will soon be available.

]project-open[ V4.0 includes updated versions of it's core infrastructure components OpenACS 5.6, AOLserver 4.5.1 and PostgreSQL 8.4. ]project-open[ V3.5 customers will have to update this underlying infrastructure before  upgrading to V4.0. This is the reason for the change in the "major" release number to V4.0.

New Modules and Important Extensions

Please see our roadmap for technical details, links and additional new features.

MS-Project Round-Trip Integration

]po[ V4.0 now allows both the import and the export of project plans from and to Microsoft Project 2003 and 2007. The integration includes information about project phases, tasks and resource assignments.

Using this integration link, project managers may continue to use MS-Project for the planning of their individual projects. After the import, ]project-open[ can compare the actual project progress and resource consumption with the planned values from MS-Project.

XoWiki

The new wiki component allows users to create Web pages inside ]projct-open[ using a Xinha WYSIWYG editor and  a syntax similar to Media-Wiki. The wiki also gives users the power to embed ]project-open[ pages and components as part of wiki pages, effectively allowing users to mix “hard facts” about  project progress with free text and other collaborative functionality.

Group/Skill Based Project Planning

V4.0 allows project managers to use generic placeholder values when planning a project. Typical examples are "Project Manager", "Consultant", "Senior Developer" etc. The group/skill placeholders are replaced by actual resources once the staffing process begins as the project progresses from planning to execution. This functionality is working as part of ]po[ V4.0. However, we plan to improve the GUI for the staffing process in ]po[ V4.1.

Resource Management

]po[ V4.0 now supports resource management processes on both on a coarse and fine grain level,  giving managers monthly, weekly, or daily options. Available resources are compared with planned project tasks and accounting for factors like resource availability, bank holidays and planned absences.

SCRUM and Agile Project Management

V4.0 now supports SCRUM and other agile methodologies. ]po[ also support using hybrid methodologies, allowing managers to mix waterfall planning with agile project management in a single project. Please follow the SCRUM Tutorial at www.project-open.org for the configuration of ]po[ for agile methodologies.

Idea Management

The new Idea Management package supports the entire idea management workflow from conception to implementation. Ideas are structured through annotation, filtering and prioritizing, and then tracked from approval to execution. ]po[ collects ideas anonymously or according to user permissions and then initiates a workflow that controls the rest of the idea’s life cycle. Finally ideas are converted into change tickets or projects for execution.

Financial Planning (Enterprise Edition)

This new package expands the budget planning capabilities of ]po[ to planning per project phase, project member, cost type and date (month, quarter, year). The comparison of planned values vs. actual values is integrated into the project's financial summary. Other usage scenarios include the planning of cash flow or the planning of budgets based on cost type. This last scenario is suitable for and targeted towards the specific outlay and provisioning requirements commonly found in many public and governmental departments.

Project Baselines (Enterprise Edition)

A project baseline represents an immutable “version” of a project plan at a certain moment of the project life cycle. Typically, baselines are stored after the initial approval of a project in order to track the changes of the project plan. This way management is able to analyze the reasons for project delays or budget overruns.

Project Risk Management

This new package enables users to capture project risks and their financial impact. Risks are displayed both as a list and in a 5x5 risk matrix graphical indicator. Customers can extend risks with custom fields and workflows in order to adapt risk management to the corporate process.

Executive Reports in PowerPoint/Impress Format

A new reporting engine based on the OpenOffice “Impress” (PowerPoint) format gives users the power to create executive project and portfolio reports including Gantt bars and other graphical indicators. Impress/PowerPoint templates can be used to customize executive reports to fit a specific corporate CI/CD.

SharePoint Integration

A new package can link ]po[ projects to a SharePoint server for storing documents and other collaborative functions.

Mail Tracking

]po[ is now capable of associating incoming email with users, projects, tickets and customers.

MS-Outlook and Mobile Integration with Funambol (Experimental)

The Linux version of ]po[ V4.0 now include an experimental Funambol integration with MS-Outlook and other PIM (Personal Information Manager) software as found in most mobile phones. Funambol is a SyncML server that synchronizes tasks, tickets and calendar items across mobile devices and PIM software including MS-Outlook. The installation of the Funambol integration currently requires manual intervention from an experienced Linux system administrator.

SVN, GIT and CVS Integration

This new ITSM package tracks source code changes in a code repository and associates the changes with projects and tickets. Commits are shown on the respective ]po[ pages.

The module effectively implements a seamless traceability that adheres to the Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel III regulatory statues. Compliance to the standards is implemented by linking code changes in released versions back to their original project execution phase and the change tickets that originally initiated the commit process.

SLA Management and Improved Helpdesk (Enterprise Version):

This new ITSM package is an extension to the existing helpdesk package. It allows capturing and tracking SLA contract parameters by means of a number of indicators. Typical examples for SLA parameters are response time, first call resolution percentage, solution time etc. The package will send out notifications if SLA parameters have been violated or are nearing thresholds close to violation.

Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP Integration:

MS Active Directory (AD) contains data about an organization's users and their permissions. ]po[ V4.0 now includes a wizard that connects to an AD server, imports the list of users and maps the AD user permissions into ]po[ profiles. ]po[ supports multiple AD servers and synchronizes user information before every login.

REST Web-Services API

]po[ V4.0 includes an extended Web-services API based on REST (Representational State Transfer) that allows Create, Read, Update and Delete access to all ]po[ objects. The REST API supports both XML and JSON as data-formats, which greatly reduces the effort of developing HTML 5 (AJAX/mobile) applications.

  Contact Us
  Project Open Business Solutions S.L.

Calle Aprestadora 19, 12o-2a

08902 Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona)

Spain

 Tel Europe: +34 609 953 751
 Tel US: +1 415 200 2465
 Mail: info@project-open.com