The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.7 RC1 of the Process Dashboard!
This version of the dashboard is a release candidate:
- Multilingual users are invited to create translations using the new Localization Tool, and send them to the Process Dashboard development team for inclusion in the final release.
- Please report defects to the Process Dashboard development team for attention before the final release.
Version 1.7 RC1 includes these significant new features:
- The Process Dashboard now contains extensive, powerful functionality to support project teams, including:
- Support for team projects (to roll-up metrics and schedule data from several individuals) and master projects (to roll-up metrics and schedule data from several teams)
- Streamlined project planning tools enable rapid creation of balanced, top-down team project plans
- Powerful reporting tools allow the creation of custom forms, charts, and reports that analyze project metrics and earned value at the team level
- Tracking of task dependencies assists with coordination of work within and across project teams
- The Process Dashboard now contains extensive support for internationalization. A Localization Tool is provided to help users translate dashboard messages into their native language, and share those translations with other users.
- Memory usage and startup time have been reduced dramatically for individuals with many historical projects.
- The dashboard contains several enhancements to earned value functionality:
- A new task navigation option makes it easier to work through the tasks in an earned value plan.
- The plan and forecast lines on the earned value charts can be toggled off.
- The earned value report can display your task list hierarchically, and display rolled-up calculations such as “percent complete” at various levels.
- Export a GANTT chart of an earned value plan to MS Project
- Export an HTML snapshot of an earned value plan, for status reporting and collaboration
- The Data Analysis center has been enhanced to support custom processes. Users who define a custom process will see customized versions of Report 3, 4, and 5 for their process.
- The dashboard can be opened in read-only mode, making it possible for a mentor/coach to look at dashboard data without worrying about accidentally changing data.
- It is now very safe to use a networked directory for storage of dashboard data; the logic that saves changes will detect and recover from sporadic network outages.
- Time values are displayed on dashboard forms in hours and minutes.