RationalPlan 5.0 – Improved Web Interface and a Stronger PM Scheduling Engine

RationalPlan 5.0 is a major release that comes with new features for the web-based interface and a more powerful project scheduling engine. The product is now able to handle those types of project plans in which certain tasks need to be delayed as much as possible. On the other hand the web interface of both the Cloud service and the Server product gets improved with several features.

Users with licenses older than one year are entitled to upgrade them with a 50% discount.

RationalPlan is a project management software suite that is available either as stand alone products or as a project management cloud service. It is used by individuals and by companies that need a distributed solution with concurrent access from multiple users.

Important changes for RationalPlan 5.0

RationalPlan can now handle As Late As Possible(ALAP) constraints for those tasks that need to to start as late as possible relative to the project end date. The entire scheduling engine was transformed to support this type of planning. Even the critical path detection algorithm was adjusted to comply with this major change.

Since certain parts of the application are depending on Java technology this major release also added support for Java 9 and Java 10. This is a big step forward to maintain the compatibility with the latest Java versions in order to avoid software vulnerabilities.

Starting with this release the developers of RationalPlan removed the support for the old .xrp files. This file type storage was deprecated and it is no longer being used.

For the online and server side segment:

• Critical path functionality
• Labels for task bars on Gantt chart
• A hover icon and a contextual menu for the task tree grid (Gantt & WBS)
• Project code and Client name within the email notifications
• Bug fix: do not show the work on tasks in web if the user does not have the rights to see the resources
• Bug fix: allow negative lags on web
• Bug fix: guard against non-working constraint dates for dependency driven tasks
• Bug fix: guard against the case when the project estimated start is non-working

For the On-Premise products:

• Added resource data filter and project status filter for Timesheet view
• In Timesheet view if a filter is applied for All projects then filter the resources
• Bug fix for Ukrainian translation
• Bug fix for budgets on Single version

For the web based interface of both the Cloud service and the Server product new functionality was added. Users are now able to see the critical path of the project within the Gantt chart view.

Also they can customize the information that can be displayed around the task bars. We are talking about details for the tasks like: task name, start and end date, completion percentage, duration, work, assigned resources or even project code. These data can be rendered in custom positions: left, right, top, bottom or center. Each user will have its own custom configuration and this is useful to have a better overview of the project.

The WBS and Gantt tables will present a shortcut icon when the user hovers the mouse over a task. This provides a fast access to a set of contextual actions(indent, outdent, move up, move down etc.) related to that task.

Within the email notifications that are sent to resources two new fields were added: the Project code and the Client name. We are talking about the automatic deadlines and late tasks notifications and the My Assignments table. This offers users a better overview of the context in which they are working.

For the On-Premise products in the Timesheet view there were added new filters. Users are now able to filter resources by custom data values and by the project status. Sometimes it is useful to focus only on those resources from a given department, or on those resources that are working on projects with the “In progress” status. If a filter is applied for All projects then the application will also filter the resources and not just the assigned tasks.

RationalPlan is offered in two flavors:

RationalPlan Cloud – a monthly payment project management solution offering  a centralized place to manage the company’s projects while offering collaboration through concurrent access for multiple users; a Free tier is also available

RationalPlan On-Premise – a suite of products for those that prefer to have the software installed on their machines

• RationalPlan Single Project – an alternative to Microsoft Project and the perfect solution for novice or accidental project managers
• RationalPlan Multi Project – project management software for multiple projects, projects that are interconnected through dependencies and share common resource
• RationalPlan Project Server – the On-Premise version of RationalPlan Cloud that can be installed on users hardware
• RationalPlan Project Viewer – a free project viewer, the solution for anyone to view projects details

About Stand By Soft

Stand By Soft was founded in 1997 as a software company specialized in building desktop applications and components. RationalPlan is a project management solution that follows the general recommended guidelines from project management domain. MOOS Project viewer is a Microsoft Project viewer that allows users to open, view in a dynamic way and print any Microsoft Project file.

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