psrc@pegasus.ATT.COM (Paul S. R. Chisholm) (06/27/90)
I looked at project management programs last year, notably SuperProject Expert and Timeline 3.0 (4.0 wasn't out yet). I found both *extremely* awkward to use; SuperProject Expert seemed slightly less brain damaged, so I picked it up. (By then, my schedules were due, so I did it with a bunch of really weird awk scripts. No, I'm not willing to fight with the lawyers to release them. Ever group's gotta have one, that's why they invited me. . . .-) Unless you're going to play Project Manager full-time, I'd find a package that emphasizes ease of learning and use. Mouse support is a good sign. (Most of the time, you fill out forms; but fields change from being changeable to not in subtle and unpredictable ways.) Anyone played with MS Project for Windows? In article <7600006@spdyne> chert@spdyne.UUCP writes: > I'd like a software package that has the following features: > 1) Works well if there is only one person on the project - I'd like > the ability to support more than one, but it isn't really all that > nessarry. (InstaPlan sucks when it comes to single person planning - > I have to allocate 8h/d for me for every task!) You'll find this in a personal scheduler program, but not in a project management package. Doing stuff like this, I didn't find it hard to assign myself as a resource for (in effect) all tasks. > 2) Some sort of Import/Export - Ascii, Dbase (Perferred) *WHICH INCLUDES > MY TIME ESTIMATES!!!* and perferably includes the calcuated times > (ie: 24ed (Estimated days)) Instaplan does not do this. SuperProject Expert (but not vanilla SuperProject) does this very well. > 3) Prints on a HP Laserjet, or perferably, on a Postscript printer. LaserJet, yes; Postscript, no. Support for fancy text and fancy graphics on the LaserJet. Can't print a graphics image to a file; can print text to a file. > 4) Runs in under 440K. [This shouldn't be too tough to do.. But again, > Instaplan fails here.. I can't run it and the network at the same > time..] I think SuperProject Expert needs more than that. > 5) Good Gannt (Sp?) Charts, and Time estimate charts. SuperProject Expert does this very nicely. Timeline 4.0 (the newest version) really pushes its spiffy looking reports in its ads; they may be even better. > 6) Correctly allocating time.. [My biggest Beef with InstaPlan] (I.E., allow for part-time work on various projects.) I can't remember if SuperProject can do this or not; it might be tricky. > 7) Prefer cost under $100. Shareware/Public domain would be wounderful! Forget it. I played with Easy Project (a shareware package); no task couild have more than one predecessor, though it could have many successors. Sorry, reality's tougher than that. >Please resond Via E-Mail, I don't read this group much.. I did; but I also posted. >Chert Pellett - chert@spdyne.UUCP || chert@dungeon.lonestar.org Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories att!mtunq!psrc, psrc@mtunq.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.
garye@microsoft.UUCP (Gary ERICSON) (06/29/90)
I fiddled with TimeLine 2.0 for quite a while, and looked at 3.0, in a previous job and was continually frustrated how cheap and awkward it was. After coming to Microsoft, I started using Project for Windows (surprise) and I was really startled at seeing someone do a lot of things right. (This is not a company plug - I just use the thing.) Being for Windows, it's very mouse and visually oriented, but it also has very good support for tables and such. What I mean is, you can approach the problem from two directions: in a tabular, fill-out-the-form approach like TimeLine, or in a graphical approach where you grab and pull and connect things on the Gantt or PERT chart and let the tables take care of themselves. I use the latter most of the time because it's easier for me to mark two events with the mouse then click on the icon for "connect" than it is to go to a table entry and write in the correct predecessor item number. It's also sometimes easier to grab the edge of an item bar in the Gantt chart and pull it to where I want the event to end than it is to go into a table and guess how many weeks I need to add to the duration to make the end date right. I could go on and on about the neat things you can do, like have two windows open at a time showing different views of the same events, being able to define your own (or modify default) views and tables, and so on. But you should really at least take a look at it. I may have a narrow view of project management tools to think this is so great, but it's orders of magnitude better than the TimeLine I was using, so I'm in heaven here. One thing: it's a pretty complex, configurable product, so it might be frustrating to use for quicky, small-scale projects. I hit that frustration a few times at the beginning. But once you learn it, it works very well. In article <4874@pegasus.ATT.COM> (Paul S. R. Chisholm) writes: > >In article <7600006@spdyne> chert@spdyne.UUCP writes: >> I'd like a software package that has the following features: I believe PfW does most of these well, but I don't know enough specifics to answer here. Except: >> 6) Correctly allocating time.. [My biggest Beef with InstaPlan] > >(I.E., allow for part-time work on various projects.) I can't remember >if SuperProject can do this or not; it might be tricky. If this is what I think it is, I don't know think PfW does it well either, at least I haven't been able to figure it out. I've always worked around it, though, by not using automatic levelling. >>Please resond Via E-Mail, I don't read this group much.. > >I did; but I also posted. I'd like to see further postings - I remember how frustrating it was to find a good project management package. >>Chert Pellett - chert@spdyne.UUCP || chert@dungeon.lonestar.org > >Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories Gary Ericson - Microsoft - Work Group Apps