jmeissen@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) (09/11/90)
The Oregon Advanced Computing Institute (OACIS) is looking for a project planning and management system with the following capabilities: 1) The ability to specify "Task Work Units". That is, we want to be able to specify the time it takes to perform a task in man-months, man-weeks or some other unit. Then, depending on how many resources are assined to that task, the system should automatically adjust the duration of the task. MacProject II has this capability. 2) The ability to specify multiple precedence relationships accross sub- projects. Suppose I have a hierarchical structure in my project consisting of multiple levels of sub-projects and tasks. It may be required to set precedence relationships between various tasks in different sub-projects. SunTrack has this capability. 3) The ability to perform resource leveling with the constraints of the available resources, including allocating the percentage of time resources are assigned to tasks. Suppose I am designing a project in which there are a number of people constituting a given resource. I need to have the system assign these resources to different tasks and possibly allocate the percentage of time that this resource spends on given tasks. The object is to minimize the duration of the project, without exceeding the total resources allocated for the project. Presumably, if the desired schedule cannot be met, more resources can be allocated. Thanks for any assistance. Please reply via e-mail. G. William Walster, Research Director, Computation and Algorithms, OACIS fuddy@oacis.org
jma@lgc.com ( John Amason) (09/22/90)
In article <12035@ogicse.ogi.edu> jmeissen@ogicse.cse.ogi.edu (John Meissen) writes: >The Oregon Advanced Computing Institute (OACIS) is looking for a project >planning and management system with the following capabilities: > >1) The ability to specify "Task Work Units". That is, we want to be able >to specify the time it takes to perform a task in man-months, man-weeks or >some other unit. Then, depending on how many resources are assined to that >task, the system should automatically adjust the duration of the task. >MacProject II has this capability. > >2) The ability to specify multiple precedence relationships accross sub- >projects. Suppose I have a hierarchical structure in my project consisting >of multiple levels of sub-projects and tasks. It may be required to set >precedence relationships between various tasks in different sub-projects. >SunTrack has this capability. > >3) The ability to perform resource leveling with the constraints of the >available resources, including allocating the percentage of time resources >are assigned to tasks. Suppose I am designing a project in which there are >a number of people constituting a given resource. I need to have the system >assign these resources to different tasks and possibly allocate the percentage >of time that this resource spends on given tasks. The object is to minimize >the duration of the project, without exceeding the total resources allocated >for the project. Presumably, if the desired schedule cannot be met, more >resources can be allocated. > >Thanks for any assistance. >Please reply via e-mail. > >G. William Walster, >Research Director, >Computation and Algorithms, >OACIS >fuddy@oacis.org I am in the process of evaluating several commercial project management products and would also appreciate email describing PD or commercial solutions. John Amason Landmark Graphics Corp. jamason@lgc.com
cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill) (09/24/90)
If you are looking at project mangagement software for the Mac, MacProject II is bound to end up on your list. It does some things very well--graphical interface, good flowcharts, ok timelines, moderately sophisticated resource allocation and leveling. However, it falls down in what I feel is an absolutely critical area--reporting. It reproduces the graphical charts just fine, but tabular reports are virtually impossible to print. On every project with even two or three people, you want to be able to print out a milestone/task list sorted by project member, among other simple reports. Forget it with MacProject II. I've taught PM professionally, and it appears to me that MacProject was designed by a software person who read a book on project management, not by someone actually acquainted with the details of PM. Printed reports are usually much more useful than fancy on-screen graphics; don't be fooled by a bunch of gee-whiz features that get in the way of good solid information reporting. My guess is that Claris could care less about this product. They made a few cosmetic changes when Apple turned it over to them, and it's been dead ever since. -- | ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never | imagined, or were encouraged to avoid. T. Pynchon |Andy Cohill cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu VPI&SU |703/231-7855
nrf@cbnewsh.att.com (neal.r.fildes) (09/25/90)
From article <284@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>, by cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill): > If you are looking at project mangagement software for the Mac, > sophisticated resource allocation and leveling. However, it falls down > in what I feel is an absolutely critical area--reporting. I have looked at a number of packages over the years. MacProject II stands pretty well in the Mac marketplace. I am REALLY impressed with KeyPlan. It zips along nicely on a macPlus, allows you to define custom reports (and inserts them into the menu!) it handles subprojects nicely, and lets you look at several subproject windows at once. I have two complaints, the second of which keeps me from using it: 1) you can only view one type of data at once (e.g. network or table), you can't look at both a table and a network window at the same time. 2) there is no way to see both current progress and the recent past on the gantt views - if you ask for 'progress', it lopps off the 'completed' work and only shows you what remains to be done. The Bottom Line: I Use MicroPlanner X-Pert, which is a little more difficult to use than the above packages, but allows me to FULLY customize reports, specify dependencies between activities in different sub-projects (via "interfaces") and even link whole projects (via "transmitters" and "receivers"). I guess for the small user, the $2000 list price might be prohibitive. NRF
brendan@claris.com (Brendan McCarthy) (09/26/90)
In article <284@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> Andrew M. Cohill writes: >If you are looking at project mangagement software for the Mac, >MacProject II is bound to end up on your list. It does some things very >well--graphical interface, good flowcharts, ok timelines, moderately >sophisticated resource allocation and leveling. However, it falls down >in what I feel is an absolutely critical area--reporting. > >It reproduces the graphical charts just fine, but tabular reports are >virtually impossible to print. On every project with even two or three >people, you want to be able to print out a milestone/task list sorted by >project member, among other simple reports. Forget it with MacProject >II. Andy, it is possible to get tabular reports on a resource by resource basis by using MacProject II's search formulae and using the following formula "Resource equals <resourceName>" By adding additional constraints regarding task type, and dates, it's easy to generate fairly complex queries. These search formulae can be saved to disk for later reuse. Note that a saved search formula also saves the state of the project tables' columns, so you can restore a particular report format with this method. While MacProject II does not perform sorting operations, it is possible to export data from any of MacProject's tables and import them into your favourite spreadsheet. Once there, you can use the spreadsheet's additional computational and reporting capabilities to sort and fine-tune your report. It's really not too difficult to get good, quick results by setting up some search formulae and a spreadsheet template. >My guess is that Claris could care less about this product. They made a >few cosmetic changes when Apple turned it over to them, and it's been >dead ever since. MacProject II is the dominant product in the project management category on the Macintosh. While it is true that the original MacProject 1.0 was written by a project management novice, Steve Young; and Claris' first version, MacProject II 1.0 was a minor revision. But, as a member of the MacProject II 2.0 team, I have to say that the scope of our task was far wider than cosmetic. We added multiple window support, resource scope, automatic and interactive resource leveling, unlimited custom calendars, import/export capabilities, a spelling checker, fixed bugs, and improved its performance and accuracy. Most of the engineering team on the project had previous experience in the project management field -- two had worked on Harvard Total Project Manager. Rest assured that Claris takes the project management category seriously. If you have any suggestions for improvements to any Claris product, please write, or call Claris Customer Relations at (408) 727-8227. Brendan McCarthy : UUCP: brendan@claris.com : InterNet: {ames,apple,portal,sun,voder}!claris!brendan
wendy@sq.sq.com (Wendy Harrison) (10/02/90)
In article <284@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill) writes: > >Forget it with MacProject II. I've taught PM professionally, and it >appears to me that MacProject >was designed by a software person who read a book on project management, >not by someone actually acquainted with the details of PM. > Well then. I would be interested to hear if you have any feeling for Microsoft Project for Windows 3.0. PC World Magazine has a review of all sorts of PC-based PM products this month, and they rate this one the highest. I have the option of looking at software for Unix, PC or Mac, but have decided that I get the most choice with a PC-based product. Any comments on this package in particular (I know it is brand new), or PC-based PM products in general? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ______ |__ | SoftQuad Inc. Wendy Harrison | | | Toronto, Canada |__|___| wendy@sq.com |___ {utai,utzoo,uunet}!sq!wendy <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<