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

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

fastProject 4.10.5 Released

General

• Fixed screen “flashing” when breaking dow a task

• Exporting Actions now fits the row to the notes

• Add Action removed from toolbar

• Fixed bug when changing the duration of a summary task would leave the user in edit mode and then unable to click any other field

• Fixed problem where the fastProject ribbon could disappear under certain circumstances when using subprojects

Scenarios

• New function (Beta) of Scenarios which allows scenarios to be built based on either different dates (using e.g. Touchpoints) or Activating/Inactivating tasks.

Analyzer

• Problem fixed where a problem was detected with the Target date when an External task was linked to the Wiggle milestone, thereby inserting itself between the Target and the Wiggle milestone and therefore indicating the previous task was not a Target. This scenario is in fact legitimate and the Analyzer now correctly recognizes this scenario.

Refresh

• PreFresh Report - by using Generate PreFresh Report By…, the user now has the option to:

  • Generate the report by All Tasks, Core Team Member, Activity Owner or Function

  • Include a pdf of the Gantt chart of the above selection, looking out ~60 working days

• Problem fixed where re-running the Wigglechart on the same day would not update the Pull-in/Slip value

Critical Path Analysis

• New function (under CP Analysis dropdown)allows the user to add:

  • A pdf of the remaining tasks to the selected target and

  • A screenshot of the Wigglechart to the selected target

  • The user can select either using Critical Path Analysis Advanced

• Actions taken on a task using the Add Action are now automatically exported to the CP Analysis chart. Only the first 3 actions are recorded, the remaining ones can be exported using the Add Action > Show/Export Actions (Dare Range). Note that this is in Beta, so feedback welcome.

• Updated CP Analysis chart to make it clearer where to add the actions + general format changes so the space occupied up the the Target date is shrunk, allowing the chart to more easily fit on a slide in a report

• New function “Add Cause Of Change” - only available under the right-mouse click menu and on a Gantt bar - to add the cause of a change to the notes of a Wiggle milestone after an update. Notes with the current date are exported to the Wigglechart when run on the same day.

Report

• Tasks This Week - by using Tasks This Week By…, the user now has the option to:

  • Generate the report by of the custom Text fields

  • Include a pdf of the Gantt chart of the above selection, looking out ~60 working days

  • Generate Wigglets of the above selection

• New Reporting module slides provided under fastProject Documentation

Effort Updater

• Added the ability to update effort within subprojects

• Added the ability to import the Activity owner when importing the Effort PreFresh Report

• Added task Start/Finish dates to the Effort PreFresh Report

• Added the ability to set the default save path for the CP Analysis report

• Added the ability to update "Effort" while doing a regular schedule update

• Enterprise Resource ID is used when adding/replacing a resource in the Effort PreFresh Report, and importing into the plan

• An error message is now generated when importing the Effort PreFresh Report if a task does not have a resource name assigned

• Inactive tasks are now ignored

Documentation

• Updated S-Phone Good.mpt which includes revised to add timeline for Reporting module

• Updated S-Phone Wigglechart

Updated fastProject Reporting

We have increased reporting capability with the release of fastProject 4.10.x . Further, we’ve developed a 90 minute training module focused on how to generate reports and conduct critical path analysis using fastProject. Following are the slides we use in the training, with instructions and advice about reporting.

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Download Reporting and Analysis Slides

fastProject 4.10.4 Released

General

• Fixed problem where a date stamp for the Notes was not being recorded when an existing file was opened.

Tools

• Importing a Touchpoint/Checkpoint or Deliverable now:

  • Updates the “Last Updated” date

  • Does not open all tasks prior to importing

• Added a new function under Summary Years On/Off - Cross-summay Dependency Analysis that shows all dependencies between two selected summary tasks

• Improved report for generating a task report for Marked tasks, Actions and Notes

Macro-micro Roll-up

• Improved calculation of negative lags to better align with the micro

• Fixed problem where a bogus dependency was made during a roll-up if the task was an external task. External tasks are now ignored.

Inspector

• Fixed problem with finding “All Preds” when a critical path hasn’t been previously determined

Refresh

• Improved PreFresh report with:

  • New options to show/hide the primary columns/text fields

  • Ability to add up to 6 custom columns selected from any of the remaining 27 custom text fields. All user columns can now be changed and imported when the PreFresh report is imported.

• Improved Tasks This Week (was the PostFresh report)

• Wigglechart

  • Simpler coding scheme for weekly change: Green up arrow = pull-in, Yellow dash = no change, Red down arrow = slip

  • Days to pull-in in the Wigglechart now to one decimal place

Report

• Added Completion group (Text4) to the Focus This Week report

• Added Completion group (Text4) to the Late Simulator report

• Updated Tasks This Week report with option to include Wigglets (does not include by default)

• Bug fixed in the Late Simulator where tasks were not stored by the Days to Pull-in when selected

• Problem fixed where the WBS Analysis form could not be displayed when another form was open

fastProject 4.10.3 Released

General

• Date problem fixed where in some instances, when selecting a date, the date did not appear in the correct format for the region

• Fixed issue where a user upgrading from fastProject with the old licensing scheme to fastProject with the new licensing scheme would get an “Invalid Timeout” message and be unable to request a license key

• Added a “Hide Summary Tasks” to the Toolbar

• Problem fixed with versions of MS Project 2019, Build 13801 and later, where the MS Project Feedback window would open vs. invoking the Inspector

Report

• ** NEW **

• All reports moved to a new Report Tab for which there are two groups: Team reporting and Executive reporting

• New step-by-step utility to walk through generating the reports for a project

Update

• When importing LARs:

  • Can now select multiple LARs when importing “Only Updated Tasks”

  • At the end of an import, Update Progress is only invoked if an import occurred, i.e. it won’t be invoked if there was an error importing a LAR or an import did not occur

  • Fixed a problem where some milestones were not being exported

• Number of tasks to be updated in the Update Progress startup window now better reflects the number of tasks that will be updated

• Added an option to display Progress in the Update window status bar, which shows the number of tasks that have been updated and the total to be updated (e.g. 7 of 56)

• Fixed problem highlighting a task from within the Update window when navigating away from the task being updated (bit the task being updated and the selected task were highlighted)

• Fixed problem when updating a Touchpoint/Checkpoint or Deliverable where the milestone would move to 8:00am (beginning of the day) of the date rather than 5:00pm (end of the day)

• Fixed problem importing a PreFresh report, where the Core Team Leader (Text1) and Function (Text3) values were overwritten based on the value in the Activity Owner (Text2) column.

• Fixed bug where the report under Last Update Info was incorrect reporting some tasks that had not been updated

• Bug fixed where the core team owner was not imported when importing a PreFresh report

• Bug fixed where the Notes weren’t being imported when importing the PreFresh report

Macro-micro Roll-up

• Activity Owner from and Notes now roll-up from Micro > Macro rather than Macro > Micro

• Roll-up now leaves all micros open unless the roll-up is successful

• Change Report now not generated by default

• Fixed problem where a micro task was not started (sub-tasks updated as not started), but the rolled-up macro task was not rolled-up as not started

• Fixed problem where -ve lags were not being calculated properly in the macro schedule

• Fixed problem where a summary was being incorrectly reported as being without and end milestone when the last task was an external task

• If an error was found rolling up, the micro files are left open (this saves having to re-open them again to fix the problem)

Inspector

• Target dropdown now includes a health icon against each Target

• Icon for the critical path to “Project” changed

CP Analysis

• Can now set the default location to save the CP Analysis chart and works according to the following rules:

  • If a location is not set, the default Excel save location will be used

  • If a location is set, the location will be used and the file will automatically be saved in that location with a date stamp in the filename

• CP Analysis & Actions.xltx renamed to CP Analysis and Actions.xltx to avoid problems with Sharepoint

Wigglechart

• fastProject Options > Wigglechart now allows you to customer performance to schedule by using a custom absolute +/- weeks or a likelihood of hitting target metric (same was Wigglechart)

• Hidden Wigglecharts are now not reported in the Dashboard

• Update and Analyzer stats now not reported in the Dashboard

Analyzer

• Improved “Fix all Targets” under the Target test dropdown

• Removed ability to view and set Target and Wiggle milestone settings

Reporting

• New REPORT tab added

• Exec View now includes Completed tasks and Summary rows now hidden

fastProject 4.10.2 Released

General

• Moved the Open all (+) and Close all (-) buttons on the toolbar over to the far left, next to the Incomplete tasks button.

• Minor change to the Context menu when selecting the entire task

• Fixed bug where legitimate date constraints would be identified as incorrect date constraints and removed

• Typos fixed

Tools

• Adding a Touchpoint/Checkpoint/Deliverable milestone before the selected task automatically applies the date constraint to the new milestone and deletes the old date constraint

• When exporting Marked tasks, Notes or Actions, defaults now to show them in the Gantt chart and export them

• Fixed export report when exporting Marked tasks, Notes or Actions

• Fixed bug in Breakdown when a predecessor to the task being broken down was an external task

Analyzer

• Fixed bug where tasks that were resource leveled would have their date constraints removed if one had been set

• Fixed bug where the Analyzer wold crash if the only sub-tasks within a group were external tasks

Refresh

• Roll-down milestones are now excluded from the PreFresh report. This means some legitimate milestones may be omitted when importing he report - these should just get updated after the import.

• Back by popular demand, the Highlight button has been added back to the Update window (next to the activity name)

Inspector

• Refinements to the formatting of the Critical Path Analysis chart

• Added the ability, under the Late Simulator, to set (and clear) the Deadlines on all Wiggle milestones to be the Target date. Any late tasks relative to their Target milestone will create negative float.

• Bug fixed when setting Deadlines = Target dates for sub-projects

Macro-Micro Roll-up

• Now works with sub-projects

• A task is re-updated of both macro and micro tasks are complete but their Start or Finish dates don’t align

• A date constraint is now added to a task to take into account different calendars and leveling delays on the micro task

• Only non-completed macro predecessors are required in the micro schedule - this allows roll-down Touchpoints to be removed from the micro schedule when done

• Fixed a problem where completing a Touchpoint in the future could cause a split task from the start of the project to the actual Finish date

• Fixed problem where a completed roll-up task in the micro schedule did not alight with the completed task in the macro schedule. If the roll-up task in the micro schedule was a summary task where the end milestone had a Target, and the Target date was later than the milestone, then the Target date was reported as the Finish date vs. the end milestone date.

• Fixed problem where two dependent roll-up tasks could generate negative float in the macro schedule

• Fixed problem where the finish date of a completed macro task rolled up from a completed micro task did not align, generating a “Roll-up Start/Finish dates did not match” error

• Fixed Dropbox link when going to a roll-up task in a micr-schedule that exists on Dropbox

Documentation

• Added “PreFresh Report on Google Docs.pdf” to the Refresh documentation

fastProject crashes every time I click on a fastProject tab

Overview of the Problem

In a few of instances, we’ve found after installing fastProject, fastProject crashes every time you click on any of the fastProject tabs in the ribbon. The problem is due to an update in Microsoft Project that was released in the June 2020.

Solution

The solution is to update your Microsoft Project. At a minimum, it should be later than the above update.