Error Creating a Wigglechart on Sharepoint

When you open your schedule via Sharepoint and run Wigglechart to create your first Wigglechart, fastProject will crash with an error something like “https://xxx.sharepoint.com/sites/…/https:/xxx.sharepoint.com/sites/…<schedule name> Wigglechart.xlsm”.

fastProject does not currently support creating a Wigglechart if your schedule was opened via Sharepoint. As a workaround, you should:

1. Copy the .mpp file to your local machine, e.g. Desktop

2. Run the Wigglechart which will create the Wigglechart

3. Save and exit both the Wigglechart and .mpp file

4. Copy both the .mpp file and Wigglechart back to Sharepoint

From then on, running the Wigglechart when the schedule is opened via Sharepoint will work.

Debugging fastProject Installation and Activation

If you are having problems activating fastProject after installation because the fastProject items are not under File, please check the following. 95% of problems are solved with one of these steps:

1. Make sure you installed 64-bit fastProject if you have 64-bit Office (the most popular), or 32-bit fastProject if you have 32-bit Office.

2. You will not see the fastProject items when clicking on File unless you have started a blank project (or opened an existing project).

3. Make sure the Global.mpt got installed. To check, go to c:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\MS Project\16\en-US. If the file size is about 1.2MB rather than 12MB, then the Global did not get installed. In this case, do the following:

   • Exit MS Project

   • Open a new File Explorer window and navigate to c:\Program Files\fastProject\System

   • Run the file “Copy Global.bat” (if present) and check the Global is about 12MB. If not:

     • Select the Global.mpt file, in the fastProject system folder > Right-mouse click > Copy

     • Select the window open with the location c:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\MS Project\16\en-US

     • Paste the Global.mpt file (ok to overwrite the existing version)

     • Start fastProject - the fastProject items should now be visible

4. Make sure you only have one version of MS Project installed (in the above path name, you should not have a …MS Project\14\en-us location.

5. Make sure you are not logged int to Project Server. If you are, change the setting that allows you to select an account (File > Info > Manage Accounts > Choose an account), restart MS Project, when prompted, choose Computer. The fastProject items should now be visible. If not, check one of the above. After you have activated fastProject, you can switch back to auto-login to Project Server.

fastProject 4.12.0 Released

General

• Added ability to add a note, action or cause of delay to multiple tasks at the same time. Simply select more than one task, then enter the corresponding text. It will automatically be date stamped.

• Updated Lookahead/Update Report slides.

• Three new fixes added to Tidy Up: Target date constraint type, non-zero duration summary tasks marked as a milestone and manual tasks converted to auto-scheduled.

• Added ability to show progress bars on the Summary tasks

• Option to allow updates by %Complete added

Build

• Added Mission statement and success criteria to Doneness when importing from Excel

Refresh - Roll-up

• Fixed problem where an incorrect dependency in the macro would cause the roll-up to crash

Actions

• NEW FEATURE to track actions

  • Create an Action Log (by default in the same folder as the schedule, but can be changed

  • Exports new actions automatically

  • Can add Actions manually

  • Intuitive interface allows you to view open actions, late actions, and sort by date created, date due, owner and status

  • Ability to import actions from multiple Action Logs

  • Action status’s in the schedule are synced with those in the Action Log

Update

• Ability to specify the Actual Start date of a task in the Update Report

• After an update, the Cause of Delay is now not automatically added for the first milestone

Wigglechart

• Actions can now be added to the milestone as part of capturing the Cause of Change. The actions are exported to both the Wigglechart and the Wigglechart Dashboard.

• Assigning risk to a Wiggle milestone, now gets exported to the Wiggelchart and Dashboard.

• NOTE: The two items above require an upgrade of the Wigglechart Dashboard. The user will be prompted to upgrade if it is required.

• Only Causes of Change are exported to the Wigglechart. Regular notes are not.

• Bug fixed when running Wigglechart, where the days/week could be miscalculated if the current week was marked as non-working time, thereby causing the Wigglechart to crash.

• Bug fixed in Dashboard where non-updated Wigglecharts were still copied over to the Dashboard

• Bug fixed where Actions are now ignored when exporting the Cause of Change

• Bug fixed where the Cause of Change was not exported to the Wigglechart if the Notes window was still open. Now when running the Wigglechart, the notes are closed and saved before the Wigglechart is run.

Inspector

• NEW: Added ability to display the baseline from a selected number of Refreshes back. The default is 4 Refreshes back. Updating the baseline from a new number of Refreshes back, sets the number of Refreshes back to this value (so long as the file is saved).

  • CP Viewer has been discontinued

• Review Targets and the Notes now both appear in the top right of the screen so the full Gantt chart and calendar can be seen.

• Fixed Baseline display problem, where the baseline displayed was from the date selected in the peel-back section and not the current/last week.

Report

• NEW: Added a new function to export project data for import to PowerBI. User selects the location, filename and export Map. These are stored for future exports to reduce any errors.

• Duration Analysis improved:

  • Can now pre-filter on specific tasks

Portfolio Dashboard

• Renamed from FTTM Dashboard to Portfolio Dashboard

• NEW:

  • Gap and Trend analysis added to the ribbon, as well as various sort and filtering options

  • Ability to quickly display the Critical Path to any milestone in the Dashboard

  • Some of the analysis capability added to the right-mouse click Context Menu

• Wigglets now include days/week average change, based on the last N weeks of history, when N can be set by the user (default is 6 weeks back). This determine when importing.

• Last Wigglechart update now exported to the Dashboard

• Bug fixed where Wigglets would not sort when sites were sorted.

fastProject 4.11.7 Released

General

• Can now select one of 5 different highlights colors (Yellow, Blue, Gray, Orange & Green) and the ability to name them. You also have the option to show today’s or all Highlighted tasks by color.

• Can now expand multiple summary tasks, optionally hiding the completed tasks and a new option to only show the expanded summary tasks (while hiding everything else).

• Add the ability to ad a Target Date when breaking down a task

• Estimated Durations can now be used. To use, goto Options > General > Allow Estimated Durations

• Prefix not added to Touchpoints, Checkpoints and Deliverables

Refresh - Roll-up

• After a roll-up, if the Start and Finish dates do not match, the number of days difference is now reported.

• Roll-up now automatically corrects when a micro-schedule has non-working time (and the macro-schedule doesn’t). It is possible date constraints are added to the Macro to align the dates in the Micro when the start date would occur on a weekend. To overcome this, the date constant is removed and the task duration if extended so the Finish dates align.

• Improve circular dependency checking and reporting

• Fixed bug where dates rolled-up were not the same if negative lags were used and the micro project was on a different calendar to the macro.

Analyzer

• Added improved auto-fix for tasks updated in the future

Wigglechart

• Fixed inconsistency in gap between Wigglechart and Dashboard

Inspector

• Critical Path Analysis now only exports Action items with an Owner (general notes are now ignored)

• Added ability to show All Predecessors including completed

• Added Show Inactivated and Activate All options under the Inactivate dropdown

Report

• Under Late Simulator, added ability to set Deadlines on selected Targets

FTTM Dashboard

• Added a check to check for duplicate Wigglecharts in the Import file

Re-instaling the fastProject Global

Background

Occasionally, the fastProject functionality (tabs in the ribbon) will disappear. This is usually due to the Global file getting corrupted. If this happens, then the fastProject Global file needs to be re-installed. This is done very easily, and does not involve IT.

Instructions to Re-install the fastProject Global

1. Exit fastProject/Microsoft Project

2. Open two File Explorer windows

3. In the first window (we will call this Window #1), go to the folder c:\Program Files\fastProject\System and you will see a file called Global.mpt

4. In the second window (we will call this Window #2), go to the folder c:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\MS Project\16\en-US

   • If the AppData folder is not visible, go to the File Explorer tab > View > Show > Hidden Items

5. Copy the Global.mpt file in the first window (Window #1) to the MS Project system location in the second window (Window #2).

   • Please ensure you do not copy from Window #2 to Window #1 as this will overwrite the fastProject Global.

fastProject 4.11.6 Released

General

• Cleaned up button names on the Toolbar (thanks Marianne!)

• Added additional task name fixes to Tidy Up (also performed when the Analyzer is run)

• Added ability to expand just a single summary task (only available on the right-mouse click menu) called “Expand Selected Summary Task”, with the option to hide completed tasks

• Added additional verbs

• Name Last Milestone now available when the entire row is selected

• Added “Show Summaries On Selected Tasks Only” that shows the summary bars, only in the selected tasks.

• Updated documentation

• Bug fixed where fastProject would crash if an Action was added on a task with no notes, no changes were made and notes were exited

• Bug fixed where selecting to update Touchpoints, Checkpoints or Deliverables only would update all of three types, regardless of which was selected.

• Bug fixed in fastProject Options where the Resources tab was hidden.

Refresh

• Resurrected “Convert to Micro” which converts the selected Summary task to a micro schedule. Improvements made to minimize the amount of “fixing” needed to after conversion.

• Does not automatically add a Cause of Change after an update if one already exists (this occurred if, e.g. a schedule wast updated more than one on the same day)

• Now displays a more friendly error message when attempting to open an Update Report that does now not exist, because it’s either been moved or deleted

• Review Targets now invoked, even if no tasks are updated, i.e. if after an Update Report is imported and no other tasks need to be updated.

• Added “Show tasks not updated today” under the Update Progress and Import Updates dropdowns

Analyzer

• Fixed bug setting Effort Driven to No if Task Type was Fixed Work

• Fixed bug where if a Target milestone was no 0 days, running the Target Errors test would cause fastProject to crash.

Inspector

• Added a check box in Review Targets so when changing the Target the critical path is automatically displayed. This is checked by default.

FTTM Dashboard

• Upgraded the Dashboard so it can now handle up to 200 Targets (from 50)

• Can now import Wigglecharts from Sharepoint

• Minor formatting improvements

• Fixed bug where selecting an import file would position the cursor at the end of the Import File box, thereby hiding the import file selected.

Documentation

• Updated FTTM Self Paced Tutorial & Reference Guide which is more comprehensive than the previous version and contains most of the current thinking.

• Added Resources guide

fastROI

• Fixed template where the y-axis on the Sensitivity Analysis chart was labeled 1-5 rather than Time, ASP, etc. It is important that the chart stays visible when exiting the file, otherwise you will have to manually reset the labels.

fastProject 4.11.5 Released

General

• Date format for Start/Finis dates now set to only dd/mm/yy (depends on country)

• Filter 3 Tasks option added under TOOLS > Filter Task

• Auto-bullets now not automatically set if the word “Done” (for Doneness Criteria) is recognized.

• Critical Path IDs are now hidden whenever you do a Incomplete tasks, Close all, Breakdown, Reset, Tidy Up, Analyzer, Open a file

• Targets

  • When adding a Target, if the milestone has a Deadline, the initial Target date becomes the Deadline and the Deadline is automatically removed from the Wiggle milestone when the user creates the Target.

  • “Exclude from FTTM Dashboard option added to target dialog box

• Review Targets

  • Cause of Change button added (Notes open automatically if not shown)

  • Clicking Cause of Change auto-populates the change

  • Positioned in the top right of the screen and Notes now open automatically and re-ordred buttons

  • Is automatically invoked after an update (can be turned off in fastProject Options)

• Applying Show Selected when only on a summary task(s) will show all non-completed subtasks

• Notes

  • Buttons with icons removed to two buttons labeled Add Date and Add Action

  • Auto-bullets removed

  • Whenever Notes are opened or saved, any lines with an empty date stamp or action are removed

  • Blank lines at the end of Notes are automatically removed

  • A blank line is inserted between the dated line item and the notes for the first dated line item

• English grammar corrected for some functions!

Build

• fastBuild

  • Removed (old) support for .pzd files

  • When importing a fastBuild file, a check is now made to see whether any planning had started (previously any work done was overwritten without any warning).

  • Added an Open Example button to quickly import the S-Phone training class file. Targets for the last two milestones are automatically set at 12 and 15 months out.

  • Fixed problem where extra lines are now removed when importing the Project Success criteria

  • Bug fixed where when a fastBuild file was opened, subsequent saves were not saved to the original filename, but to the temporary filename fastBuild1.fastBuild.

• Converting a .mpp file now always invokes the fastProject defaults

Analyzer

• View/Delete Deadline functionality moved from Extended Tests to the Negative Float test

• Added ability an extra function under “Show Preds and Succs” dropdown “Show Preds and Succs With Completed Activities”

Update

• Moved Import Updates to the ribbon

• When Update Report is imported, a check is now made to see if the columns have been filtered, and if so, the user is prompted if they want to turn filtering off. This overcomes the problem where an activity owner has filtered on their name but then not removed the filter. The Update Report only imports visible (filtered) tasks.

• Import Only Updated Tasks

  • If no tasks are found to be updated, now automatically runs the Update Progress wizard

  • Fixed bug where updates were still imported, even though they were not updated

• Added ability to open the last Update Report (under the Import Updates function)

• Wigglechart will now work with Sharepoint (Beta)

• Refresh cheat sheet added under Update Progress > Info group. Opens in Wordpad to allow formatting, images, etc. and can be customized.

• Last Updated can be accessed from either the Update Progress or the Import Updates, and distinguishes between the method used

Wigglechart

• Added a function to change the Program Name (cell A4) in the Wigglechart (REFRESH > Wigglechart > Change Name/Location > Change Program Name

Inspector

• NEW FEATURE: added the ability to the critical path to multiple targets

FTTM Dashboard

• Completely re-written and updated with more advanced portfolio analysis

• Update functionality now included in the Dashboard file

• Can now toggle between different criteria metrics (absolute vs. likelihood of hitting Target)

• Create an Update File right from the Dashboard file

• Only functionality remaining in fastProject is the Include/Exclude in Dashboard flag settings on the Target

• Added two new functions: View All Included Targets and View All Excluded Targets

Macro-Micro Roll-up

• Fixed problem where inactive tasks in the micro were included in the roll-up, thereby potentially causing a mis-match in the dates rolled-up

Report

• Dashboard…

• Moved roll-up Dashboard to the Report section in the ribbon

• Header in Focus This Week form now states correctly “Focus This Week”

fastProject 4.11.4 Released

General

• New feature where the gap to a Target is now displayed next to the name of the Wiggle milestone. Only displayed when the Critical Path IDs are displayed. Note: a one-time upgrade will take place if the capability is not present in the project file. This may take a few seconds.

• Actions

  • Adding an action now automatically populates placeholders for the action and owner in the correct format.

  • The action placeholder is automatically highlighted so the user can immediately start typing.

  • Clicking on the action or owner fields automatically highlights the whole field allowing the user to just start typing.

  • The user can also quickly move between the two by using the Tab key.

  • Exporting Actions now only exports the actions (and not the whole task’s notes)

• Can now Mark and Unmark multiple tasks as actions

• Forms that appeared in the top right now now positions the form so the whole form is visible

• Added a “Find Missing Activity Owners” function under TOOLS > Tidy Up

• Clarifies Add/Update Prefix includes Fill Down when on a column other than the Name column

• CP ID column is now automatically hidden when the:

  • Incomplete tasks is invoked

  • Wigglechart is run

• When importing a schedule, the project calendar is now reset to the default MS Project calendar:

  • Week starts on Monday

  • Start/Finish time = 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM

  • Hours/day = 8, Hours per week = 40, Days per month = 20

  • Working time = 8:00 AM-12:00 PM, 1:00 PM-5:00 PM (8 hours)

• Change Holidays/Working Time made more interactive. Apart from Holidays, there is now no need to click the Set button to record the Working/Non-working/Default days. Dropdowns changed so can’t be edited.

• Non-days task durations are now correctly converted when either converting an existing schedule, running the Analyzer of doing a “Tidy Up”. Conversion now takes into account “e”-type durations, task calendars and lag types on the dependencies.

• Fixed problem with the breakdown where the milestone wasn’t automatically named correctly if the task task a prefix

• Fixed Breakdown of a task that was previously reverted to a single task, where the first duration was 180d.

• Fixed problem when running the Analyzer of Tidy Up, where a rescheduled (not started) task would get it’s date constraint removed if the current day was a holiday (so was rescheduled to the next work day in the future).

Update

• The last folder selected when importing Update Reports is now stored and used as the default folder the next time the import function is invoked (huge time saver)

• Multiple Update Reports can now be imported

  • Update Reports are imported automatically if no errors are found (no prompt)

  • Only Update Reports with errors are displayed automatically (and must be saved after changing)

• Notes in the Update Report now appears to the right of the Update entry fields

• Fixed bug where canceling out of the file select dialog box when importing Update Reports resulted in an unfriendly error

• Fixed problem where the initial Update Progress window could appear off screen

• Fixed problem where importing only updated tasks where a Remaining Duration was in date format would cause an incorrect error in the Update Report.

Macro-Micro Rollup

• Improvements in aligning the macro tasks when rolled-up from the micro, including reflecting the dependency types and lags

• Removed non-needed date constraints on the initial creation of the network logic

Analyzer

• Touchpoints/Checkpoints/Deliverables with a date constraint in the future are now flagged as an error if they have a predecessor(s)

• A check is now made on the default working time. If found to be not 8 hours/day, the user is prompted to reset it to the default 8 hours/day.

  • NOTE: fastProject only works on an 8 hours/day working day, so the user must change the default working time to 8 hours/day, otherwise all durations may get changed automatically, and not reflect the intended duration.

Reports

• Can now customize the long duration of the WBS Analysis (still 30 days be default)

• Quick WBS Analysis of near-term tasks > 15 days changed to near-0term tasks > 1 month (30 days)

Documentation

• Latest dashboard added to S-Phone Wigglechart.xltm used in the Training class

fastProject 4.11.3 Released

General

• General UI improvements on the ribbon

• Added a new “Remove hierarchy” function (under Tools > Breakdown) than removes the hierarchy (summary task and milestone) of the selected summary task. Typically used when a summary task only has one subtask which itself is a summary task.

• Added Tidy Up to shortcut menu and moved Remove Constraint next to it

• Added Copy Target Milestone to Wiggle as a sub-menu item in the right-click menu

• Added from “Today” in the date difference calculator

• Date format for exported TP/CP/DEL dates changed to dd-mmm-yyyy

• Fixed problem where “Close all” would crash if the View was not a hierarchal view

Inspector

• Selecting “Selected Task” under the Targets dropdown now displays the critical path to the selected task. The sub-menu option allows you to just select the selected task (as before).

• Critical Path to the selected task added to the right-mouse click (context) menu on the table and the Gantt chart.

Update

• If there are errors in the Lookahead Report after importing, the Lookahead Report is now displayed immediately after the import.

• Bug fixed where a task being updated with a duration of >200 days was registered as being 0% complete

• Bug fixed in the Effort Updater where the Actual, Remaining and Total hours weren’t being updated correctly in the “joint task and effort” updater was being use (turned out to be a Microsoft bug where the Exit function of a TextBox wasn’t invoked if the TextBox was embedded in a Frame).

Wigglechart

• Formatting of Cause of Change fixed so all text is now wrapped

• Now includes %Confidence on the label in both the Wigglechart and Dashboard version

• Milestone name now displayed on the label

• New format of the label in both the Wigglechart and Dashboard version

• Fixed bug where “Cause of change” over 255 characters would not be plotted on the chart and would cause an error when generating the Wigglchart

• Fixed bug where the check boxes for the last milestone weren’t displayed

• Fixed border formatting problem in Dashboard

Analyzer

• Extended Test for >10 subtasks removed

Build

• Create/Import/Export Doneness criteria revamped

Reports

• Added Task Name Filter label to Late Simulator report

• Confidence Level

  • Added a “Setup Confidence Level Report” which shows/hides the Confidence Level column

  • Added a Show Confidence Level Assignments which shows only tasks with a confidence level assigned

  • When two confidence levels fall within the same month, the largest is taken

  • The outcome of a plotted experiment is now displayed on the last point plotted on the chart, and in the same color as its chart line

  • The report and chart title is now taken from the name of the custom column Text18, allowing the report to be more general purpose for anything that can be expressed as a percentage (named Confidence by default)

  • Confidence level now reported on Wigglechart and Dashboard chart

• Targets Report

  • Added Confidence Level (see above) to the report

  • Added a “Targets Report (Concise)” that generates a subset of the full Targets Report information

fastDecision 4.3 Released

General

• General improvements

Objectives

• Fixed problem where the best-fit indicator on the pair-wise was positioned incorrectly when only using two objectives (=100% consistency)

Constraints

• The number format of the Budget/Benefit info now follows the number format of the first alternative’s “cost” format (the number format of the first alternative’s cost is used).

• The cost-benefit chart number formats and wording now follows that of the alternatives “cost” header

fastProject 4.11.2 Released

General

• Target Scroller - minor refinements around the positioning of the text in the dropdown (now always left justified) and the notes (don’t move when you click inside)

• Dramatic reduction in time to Add/Update Prefix when larger number of tasks involved

• Link To End Milestone now links correctly when the other successor(s) are Start-to-Start with a task within the same group

• Removing duplicate dependencies now only removes Finish-To-Start dependencies

• Replaced “Remove Constraint” with a general “Tidy Up” function that removes all redundant date constraints and duplicate dependencies in a schedule. The individual Tidy Up functions can be accessed via the sub-menu.

• Automatically naming the last milestone will also automatically name the Target/Window if it has one.

• Expanded “Show Text On Gantt Bars” to include Right, Top, Bottom and Inside. In addition, you can now also reset the view from this function.

• Custom Text and Flag fields suffixed with a ‘*’ can be used by the user if those fastProject functions are not being used.

• Fixed problem where Text18 (Confidence Level) was display on the Left of the Gantt bar by default.

• Problem fixed where making a task a deliverable would cause the task name to be duplicated and unreadable.

• Fixed problem on the date picker where the font of the month was too large to see the whole name

• Fixed incorrect reporting if “Skips end milestone” is successor task was inactive

Build

• fastBuild

  • Added ability to export with tasks unlinked

  • Fixed problem where tasks were set to italic

  • Fixed problem where enabling a Target date did not enable the milestone box

• Improved Doneness Criteria import template and import procedure

Analyzer

• Added an additional “Skips end milestone” test where tasks with only Start-to-Start dependencies would technically have a successor within the group, but by being a Start-to-Start dependency, it would allow the task to go skip the end milestone. the test checks to make sure there is a Finish-to-Start dependency to the end milestone.

• Fixed problem where a task with a duration of weeks (“wks”) was incorrectly automatically fixed when the Analyzer was run when the schedule was a 7-day schedule.

Wigglechart

• New DASHBOARD with the ability to:

  • Dynamically select multiple Wigglecharts to display in a chart, along with their Target date (limit is 26)

  • Optionally display the Cause of Change on the predicted date point

• All Wigglecharts now display the Cause of Change on the predicted date point (this can be turned off in the fastProject Options)

Reports

• NEW FEATURE: Confidence Level report.

  • Ability to add confidence levels to a schedule and generate a confidence level report. The format of a learning group is:

    • A Summary task

    • A number of sub-tasks to the Summary task that represents a “learning cycle”

    To create and generate the report:

    • Insert the column: Confidence Level (%)

    • Enter a non-zero number on the Summary task of the learning cycles

    • Enter a confidence level on the task that represents an expected increase in confidence (typically at the end of a learning cycle)

    • Under REPORT > Confidence Level Report to generate the report

    • Note: you cannot have learning groups embedded within learning groups

• NEW FEATURE: Generic Export Report

  • Exports only those tasks with one of the custom flags set (user selectable)

  • Exported: Task ID, task name, start & finish dates plus up to 6 of the custom text columns, including the tasks’s notes.

  • All tasks are exposed but can optionally exclude completed tasks

• Fixed the date format in the Targets Report, where some dates were in US date format, regardless of the regional format

fastProject 4.11.1 Released

General

• NEW FEATURE: You can now Breakdown a task using the tasks that were stored in the notes from an “Undo breakdown”. If you want to roll-up a task’s subtasks back into a single task and copy the tasks into the notes, then one can perform an “Undo breakdown”. In the past, this simply stored the tasks in the notes. However, this has been recently expanded such that if you breakdown a task that has previously had a “Undo breakdown” performed, then it will take those tasks and recreate the WBS. Points to note:

  • It only works on “Undo breakdowns” performed using this release of the software

  • You cannot edit the notes when breaking down (do not manually edit the WBS in the notes)

  • If a started task was “Unbroken”, when it’s broken down, the first task is used to adjust the %complete

  • Includes Targets, Touchpoints, Checkpoints and Deliverables and their dates

• Can now select multiple columns to fill down a custom column using the Add/Update Prefix function

• Added “Copy Wiggle Name to Target” to the context (right-mouse click) menu

• Added “Remove All Duplicate Dependencies” under the Remove Date Constant function under Tools

• Converted the dates in the Inspector and Target Review to a standard dd-mmm-yyyy format to avoid ambiguity between different country formats

• Added the Organizer to the Tools tab

• Problem exporting to Notepad fixed

Build

• New method added to create a schedule by importing Doneness criteria:

  • Available via Tools > Build > Import Doneness Criteria

  • Submenu to Import provides three additional functions: Create, View and Export

  • When creating, allows the user to define a Category to classify the intermediate milestones

• Bug fixed where fastBuild would crash on export if the user navigated away from the fastBuild entry form

Update

• Can now select multiple owners when updating by Activity Owner (or any other selected text field)

• Task’s notes added as an option to get exported

• Fixed problem where the number of tasks to be updated was calculated incorrectly

• Fixed problem where the Last Update Info didn’t report the last update date & stats if there were no active tasks

• Bug fixed where updating a milestone to be 100% complete would cause the Update to crash

• Bug fixed where doing an update could cause the Num Lock key to be set on a PC keyboard

• Bug fixed when importing an Update Report would crash if a task name had been modified with a new line added

• Bug fixed when importing an Update Report where a non-started task with a date in the Remaining Duration column was interpreted as a duration, thereby updating the task with a ridiculously long duration!

Wigglechart

• Date Wigglechart was last run now under Refresh > Wigglechart > Last Wigglechart Run Info

• Problem fixed where the Wigglechart could crash when generating the Dashboard if a Wigglchart had been hidden since the last update.

Inspector

• Fixed problem when performing a Critical Path Analysis (All Targets). When the total number of critical paths exceeded 50, it was possible to get a “Merge Cell” prompt, and the Critical Paths would be incorrect.

• Fixed problem where performing a Critical Path Analysis (All Targets) when there were no Targets in the schedule would cause an Excel exception error.

Analyzer

• Skips End Milestone test now ignores tasks without successors (as these will be caught by te Dependencies test), so the test truly only tests for tasks that have a successor but do not have path to the end milestone

• Activity Owner names are timed of leading and trailing spaces automatically

• Added an option in fastProject Options to not save the Analyzer before running

• Added a check for the Project Calendar (must be set to Standard”)

• Updated collateral to support the new Analyzer:

  • S-Phone Bad.mpt for training

  • Updated slides

• Updated icons to be better aligned with test

• Fixed bug where a summary task was not detected by the Skips End Milestone test if it’s finish date was earlier than its group’s end milestone

• Fixed bug where the Analyzer would crash if in the Resource Pool view

• Fixed bug where a Target was not auto-completed if the Wiggle milestone was completed

• Fixed bug where a task with a date constraint in the future was not flagged if it was a Roll-up task

• Fixed bug where the Analyzer button did not state “Run Analyzer” after a reset

• Fixed bug which would cause the Analyzer to crash when checking for problems with the Target/Wiggle milestones

• Fixed problem where a Wiggle milestone was the first task in the schedule. Running the “Fix Targets” would cause it to crash.

Roll-up/down

• Fixed problem with Find Duplicate Task Names not working

• Removed create macro and create micro, and moved Find duplicate task names to under Roll-up

Resources

• Consolidated Mark, Unmark and View Resource Dependent into a single split button

fastProject 4.11.0 Released

General

• A milestone with negative float now displays the arrow head (same as the task)

• Fixed problem where the critical path would not be displayed if a task’s starts date was equal to the current date but the task had not been rescheduled

• Breakdown now renames the end milestone better when using a prefix

• Added more verbs to the breakdown/naming the end milestone

• Added a feature to prevent the use from directly changing the % Complete, unless the Finish date is in the past and % Complete = 100%. If the user attempts to change the % Complete, a message will appear advising the user to use Update Task to update the task.

• Standardized format of dates in the “Last…” to be dd-mmm-yyyy” format

• Fixed problem where the Finish date of a milestone was not displayed in the Gantt chart

• Fixed problem where a Challenge/Window (Early) date was positioned at the end of the day rather than the beginning of the day.

• S-Phone Good.mpt fixed

• Changed icon for “Show/Hide Changes”

Update

• Updating a newly added task with no predecessors (i.e. sits at the Project Start date), will get a start date of the previous day by default when updated as started. This avoids the problem of adding a task then have to cycle through potentially many months on a long program to get to the correct start date.

• When importing a Lookahead Report (LAR), if all subtasks of a summary are completed, the end milestone will now automatically be completed, as will it’s Target if present.

• Now have the option to include/exclude Roll-up tasks when generating the Update Report

• Fixed startup position of the Update Progress form

• Bug fixed where Baseline 0 is now not overwritten if set and doing a first update

• Bug fixed where inconsistent updates were being caused by inactive tasks. Inactive task are now ignored.

• Bug fixed where the number of iterations during a roll-up vs. a roll-up once was the wrong way around.

• Bug fixed where a task being marked 100% complete would cause the Update to crash.

Analyzer

• Fully re-vamped Analyzer:

  • Greater than 100% speed improvement

  • Fewer core (essential) tests (down to 6) with the option of seeing the non-core tests under the new “Extended Tests” dropdown

  • Three errors now fixed automatically when the Analyzer is run:

    • Manual scheduled tasks (converted to Auto scheduled)

    • Durations not expressed in days (includes lags on dependencies)

    • Updates in the future that obeys the following rules. If a task has a

      • Start date in the past and a Finish date in the future > Updated up to the current date, same Finish date

      • Start date = current date, the task is made started as of the previous day, same Finish date

      • Start date in the future, the task is reset to Not Started and will be flagged by the “Not updated” test

• Excel report option removed, Narrative added to fastProject Documentation > Analyzer

• Future date constraint checks now ignores Summary tasks

Inspector

• Inactive Targets are now not included in the Targets dropdown

• Can now “Scroll Through History” if Baseline 0 is set, even if there’s no updates.

• Fixed problem where targets did not appear in the Inspector if the current date was past the Target date

• Fixed problem where tasks (rather than Summary tasks) were not inactivated/activated when used through the Inspector version of Inactivate

Roll-up

• Roll-down only option added

Reports

• Bug fixed in Late Simulator where the Targets in the list should not have included those excluded from the Wigglechart

fastProject 4.10.10 Released

General

• Added ability to add any of the custom Text fields to the Gantt bars (currently restricted to the Left of the bar)

• Fixed bug where after an update, a task name would be changed to a “2”

• Fixed S-Phone Good.mpt baseline in Documentation > Training

Update

• PreFresh Report renamed to Update Report

• Added “Clear All Baselines” to option under the Update Progress dropdown

Roll-up

• TBD

Analyzer

• TBD

fastProject 4.10.9 Released

General

• New “countdown” timer added to the time, which displays the number of days remaining to Target

• Hiding the change since last baseline now also hides the baseline

• Peeling back to CP2 will automatically trung the CP IDs on. Turning them off will not turn them on again unless you go back to CP1 then CP2. Going forward to CP1 will automatically turn them off.

• Show/Hide Change Since Last Baseline button added to Toolbar (next to the Show/Hide Baseline button)

Update

• Problem fixed when the Update Task window would occasionally not appear.

Roll-up

• New fast Roll-up that provides:

  • Only basic checking before roll-ing up, specifically, no dependencies between roll-up tasks are checked

  • Does not re-create the heirarchy, but aligns the macro roll-up task by adjusting the negative lags with all the non-completed predecessors

• Fixed bug by adding an additional check during the verification that an error is reported if a macro task is inactive and the micro task is not, and vice-versa.

Analyzer

• File now saved when Analyzer runs in case the Analyzer hangs

fastProject 4.10.8 Released

Update

• Max number of tasks in the PreFresh report now 3000

• Refresh LAR now ignores roll-up tasks that are not milestones

• Problem fixed where the number of days lookahead when generating the LAR was off by 1 day

• Problem fixed where entering a remaining duration as “on schedule” where the LAR was generated on a day other than the day before the import would cause a 1-day slip

Wigglechart

• Problem fixed where the Gap in the Wigglechart would display fractions of a day (number with a decimal point) if the milestone did not finish at the end of a day, e.g. if the scheduled used fractions of a day in its durations

Analyzer

• Contiguous critical path test now valid when it starts with a Checkpoint or a Deliverable milestone

• Problem fixed where milestones were added to Summary tasks when the Analyzer flag was set to ignore

Macro-Micro Roll-up

• Fixed bug where the “Last Updated” time stamp was not being done on roll-down milestones

• Fixed problem where negative lags at the macro level were being incorrectly calculated if the earliest task at the micro level had a Start-to-Start dependency

• Fixed bug where importing the next day after generating the report would cause all tasks to be schedule 1 day later than entered

• Fixed bug where the Roll up/down once did not perform the roll-up

Inspector

• New function added to view the change (# days slip/pull-in) for each task. Most useful when looking at the critical path, the peels, a summary view and reporting. Inspector > Change dropdown > Show Change Since Baseline/Hide Change Since Baseline".

• Change wording in Review Targets now displays the same wording as the change in the Inspector

• Added notes to the “Review Targets” function, primarily to allow you to quickly review and change the “Cause of change” for each target.

• Performing a Critical Path Analysis for all targets now generates all charts in a single file with the option to include the Wigglechart and CP Analysis of the top 5 paths for each

• Added a “View cause of change” under the “Add cause of change” which opens the notes without adding a date stamp

• Added a “Inactivate” (and “Active”) function which Inactivates/Activates all non-started selected tasks and, if a summary tasks, all non-started subtasks.

• Fixed bug with Critical Path Analysis (Advanced) where displaying N critical paths included completed tasks

Report

• Targets in Gantt now excludes Targets if excluded in the fastProject Options

• Targets Report now excludes Targets if excluded in the fastProject Options

• Late simulator now excludes Targets if excluded in the fastProject Options

• Setting Deadlines to Target dates now excludes Excluded Targets

• Bug fixed where the lookahead information and Remaining Duration in the “Tasks This Week” report were incorrect (thanks Moe!)

fastProject 4.10.7 Released

Tools

• Fixed problem where a milestone couldn’t be set as a Checkpoint or Deliverable if it has it’s Roll-up/Down flag set

Refresh

• Added Effort to be optionally added to the PreFresh report

• Fixed problem when importing Effort and Task status using the PreFresh report, where the task status was taken from the task and not the PreFresh report.

• Fixed a problem in PreFresh options where the option to include Effort was mis-read.

Wigglechart

• Improved the Dashboard formatting, added Cause of Change and eliminated the stats table and charts

Inspector

• Added a new feature that allows you to generate a separate Critical Path Analysis chart for all Targets with one click (CP Analysis dropdown > CP Analysis (All Targets))

• Problem fixed where the baseline just before the update was displayed rather than the baseline from the previous update (week).

• Bug fixed where the correct Critical Path wasn’t displayed if it started with a Deliverable-type milestone

Misc

• Fixed link to the fastProject release notes

fastProject 4.10.6 Released

General

• Speed improvements with “Link to last task” and “Link from first task”

• Bug fixed where bringing up a form would cause fastProject to crash if the screen resolution was different than expected

Tools

• If a Wiggle milestone is selected, the Cause of Delay will be added to that milestone, otherwise the milestone selected in the Inspector is used

• Modified Add/Update Prefix so if not on the “Name” field, will fill down the content of that field

• Touchpoints/Checkpoints/Deliverables

  • Export now includes milestone completion status

  • Import now":

    • Completes the milestone if it has been marked completed in the export report (previously completed milestones are skipped)

    • Un-completes the milestone (if previously completed) if marked not completed in the export report

• Added ability to determine the number of dependencies between two selected groups without showing them (does not destroy the view).

• Breakdown now includes the option to copy the costs to the subtasks. This works like the duration, by dividing the cost of the task you are breaking down by the number of subtasks, adjusting the cost in the last subtask to ensure the original cost is maintained.

• Bug fixed where a rolled-up Touchpoint would be converted to a rolled-down Touchpoint if the date was changed

• Bug fixed where a Target couldn’t be inserted if the previous task was a sub-project

• Bug fixed when changing from a 5-to-7 day calendar + better reporting of which lags need to be manually adjusted

Analyzer

• Bug fixed where the “Skips End Milestone” would fail if the last task of the summary was an external task

Update

• Added Update Task Progress and Effort for an individual task

• Update task as not started added to right-click context menu as an option when updating a task

• Improved speed of import

• Added a progress update for the import

• Fix updated task added to right-click context menu as an option when updating a task

• Fixed problem where after doing a “Last Update Info”, the user was promoted if they want to set the current date to the last update date, even if the last update date was today.

• Fixed problem when importing a PreFresh report, when a task in the report was not in the schedule

Inspector

• Simplified “Change” button - removed all baselines in the dropdown (now accessed via the Scroll through task history if needed)

• Clicking the “Change” button now invokes the “Cause of change”

• Fixed problem when selecting “Selected Task” from the Targets dropdown, where if the user navigated away from the selected task and click the critical path button, it would display the critical path to the new selected task rather than the one selected through the Target dropdown

• Cause of Change defaults to the milestone selected in the Inspector (vs. having to select it first)

Macro-Micro Roll-up

• New, more robust updated version:

  • Faster roll-ups

  • Handles sub-projects, including determining the correct macro-dependencies and lags when between sub-projects

  • More comprehensive error-checking

• Micro-schedules are now left open after verification to either

  • Allow for debugging and

  • Improved performance performing the roll-up/down (don’t have to re-open them)

• Added an extra check if trying to roll-up or roll-down a sub-project

• Notes of a roll-up task now not rolled up from the micro to the macro

• Bug fixed where the date constraint of a Touchpoint, Checkpoint or Deliverable would be used as the update date, causing problems if the date was in the future

• Bug fixed where an incorrect start date or a macro task from a rolled-up micro task would occur of the Target date was before the start date of the task

• Bug fixed where dates weren’t lined up if a dependency in the micro schedule had a negative lag

• Bug fixed where for a micro schedule with sub-projects, if roll-up tasks in two different sub-projects had the same Task ID, the wrong task would have been used, producing an incorrect roll-up

• Bug fixed when rolling down to a roll-down milestone in a micro schedule

• Bug fixed which caused the Change Report to crash

Report

• Bug fixed where running the 3-on-1 Wigglechart after running the Wigglechart would caused fastProject to crash