Process Dashboard Version 1.8

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.8 of the Process Dashboard.

In addition to new functionality, version 1.8 includes the fix for a recently-discovered security vulnerability which was present in earlier versions of the Process Dashboard. Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

Version 1.8 includes these significant new features:

  • Several enhancements to the Work Breakdown Structure Editor:
    • Individuals can now open the team Work Breakdown Structure directly from their personal dashboard, via a new option on the script menu. (The Team Dashboard does not need to be running, and the individual does not need a Team Dashboard shortcut, to use this feature.)
      • This can be configured to open the WBS either in read-only mode or editable mode. The default is to open the WBS read-only, for viewing purposes. To grant team members the ability to edit the WBS, open the Team Project Parameters and Settings page for the project, and check the appropriate box.
      • If individuals open the WBS using this approach, add new tasks, and save the changes, the new tasks will appear in their dashboard immediately (a sync occurs automatically).
    • If an individual needs to perform a “Synchronize to WBS” operation, they will receive an alert shortly after starting the dashboard. When changes to the WBS are saved, an automatic “Synchronize to WBS” operation will take place in the Team Dashboard immediately.
    • If another individual has the Work Breakdown Structure locked for editing when you attempt to open it, the dialog that appears will now tell you the name of that other individual.
    • The Work Breakdown Structure Editor now includes an expand all button on the editing toolbar.
    • When the Work Breakdown Structure editor is opened, tasks will initially be expanded and collapsed as they were the previous time the WBS was viewed.
    • Backups of the team Work Breakdown Structure are now created each time the WBS is saved, and kept for 30 days. This makes it possible to recover from catastrophic edits that are made to the WBS accidentally.
    • In the past, if you opened the WBS for editing, then lost and regained network connectivity, your lock on the WBS could be silently lost. This would open the door for you and another individual to edit the WBS simultaneously, and possibly overwrite each other’s work. This problem has been resolved.
    • If you don’t have permission to modify the files for the WBS, a warning will be displayed immediately when you open the Work Breakdown Structure Editor. Previously, the editor would open normally, and you would only see an error when you attempted to save changes.
    • Bugfix: in the Work Breakdown Structure Editor, top-down-bottom-up errors would sometimes occur if the value in the Time column was only changed by a small amount. This error has been corrected.
  • Several enhancements to earned value support:
    • Drag-and-drop can be used to reorder tasks in the Flat View of an earned value schedule.
    • Forecast dates are calculated for every task in the EV schedule.
    • A new “Replan” column has been added to the earned value task list. This column displays the planned dates that would result if you were to “replan from today.” This column can be a useful tool for projecting completion dates in the face of schedule slips – particularly early in the project, when the forecast dates are too volatile to be trusted.
    • In addition to the “Chart” button, the Task & Schedule window now contains a “Filtered Chart” button. This button will display a filtered view of the earned value charts and statistics, for the selected portion of the hierarchical task list. At the team level, this generalizes the existing “Individual Chart” feature, making it easy to view earned value charts and statistics for any hierarchical subset of the project.
    • On the “Combined” earned value chart, the “Actual Time” line has been replaced with an “Actual Cost” line. With this change, the three lines on that chart are now displaying traditional BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP metrics.
    • When you apply a label filter to the team project plan, that filter will affect all parts of the earned value report and the week report.
    • Now, the weekly earned value report always has a “Next” hyperlink. You can move as far into the future as you like, without being constrained by the preexisting schedule boundaries.
    • The earned value report now includes clickable column headings for sorting data. Also, the “Weekly View” link has been moved from the bottom of the page to the top of the page.
    • If you turn of the “Assigned To” column on an EV report, it will also turn of the names of individuals in the task dependency status details. The resulting report should not indicate the name of any real person, making it safer to share with external stakeholders.
    • Whenever the status information for a task dependency is displayed, it will now display the dependent task’s forecast completion date instead of the planned date. (If the forecast date is unavailable, the planned date will be used as a fallback.)
    • When the Task & Schedule window is opened, tasks will initially be expanded and collapsed as they were the previous time the schedule was viewed.
  • Several enhancements to team project support:
    • It is now possible to view the rolled up time log for team and master projects. Time log entries from all individuals are consolidated anonymously into a single list, and displayed in a user interface similar to the Time Log Editor. Time log entries can be analyzed by WBS component, and filtered by date.
    • For convenience, many of the buttons on the Team Tools and Settings page have been replicated in the script button’s drop-down menu.
    • It is now simpler for a user to add tasks to a team project within the Hierarchy Editor. A new task can be added with a single step (rather than adding a subtask then adding a phase underneath). In addition, the Common Team Workflows defined by the team will appear as entries underneath the “Add Templates” menu in the Hierarchy Editor.
    • Many teams do not use the full list of phases provided by their team metrics collection framework, and the extra/unused phases clutter their team project plan summaries and charts. The Project Parameters and Settings page now allows each team to select the set of phases they wish to appear in team forms, charts, and reports.
    • It is now possible to define a defect type standard at the team level for shared use by the members of a team project. (This feature is available on the Project Parameters and Settings page)
    • Overzealous internationalization logic in the dashboard was preventing the proper operation of team functionality for users speaking Spanish, Japanese, or Chinese.
  • A new Quick Launcher tool is provided for quickly opening a dashboard instance without making a shortcut first. This launcher can open any arbitrary pspdata or teaminstance directory you specify, as well as any backup file (such as the ZIP files automatically exported by individuals). The launcher can even find dashboard data in ZIP files inside another ZIP files.
    • For access to this new tool, run the installer, select the “Tools for Team Leaders” option, and create shortcuts.
    • To use the launcher, simply drag and drop a directory, ZIP file, or PDBK file (see below) onto the Quick Launcher icon. Alternatively, you can start the Quick Launcher application by clicking on the icon, then drag and drop files onto the Quick Launcher window.
  • A new option has been added to the “C > Tools” menu, allowing the user to save a backup of their data directory to a file of their choosing. The backup can be saved either in ZIP format, or Process Dashboard Backup (PDBK) format. (The latter format is provided as a convenience for organizations that have difficulty emailing ZIP files.) The resulting files can be opened in the Quick Launcher from any computer, at any point in the future, with or without network access, to view exactly what that dashboard instance looked like at the moment the backup was made. This new option provides several powerful uses:
    • Individuals can save a snapshot of their personal Process Dashboard instance, and send it to a team leader, coach, or instructor for mentoring or other support.
    • Team leaders can save a snapshot of their Team Dashboard instance, and send it to a launch coach for mentoring / support. The coach can open the resulting file with the Quick Launcher, see their team plan, open their WBS, and even edit the WBS – all without modifying the “real plan,” and without needing access to the shared network directory where team data is stored.
    • Team leaders can save snapshots of their entire Team Dashboard instance on a periodic basis. Unlike the current plan summary snapshots, these data backups capture the complete state of the team plan at an instant in time, with full interactivity. This makes it possible to open a historical version of the team dashboard, and see exactly what the team plan looked like at some time in the past.
    • A team leader can save a backup of their team data directory, then open that backup to perform limited “what-if” analyses, without altering the real team plan.
  • Additional enhancements:
    • A new visual indicator has been added to the main Process Dashboard toolbar, displaying the percent spent for the current task. This makes it simple for individuals to notice that they are overrunning the cost estimate for a given task.
    • For convenience, the dashboard’s LOC accounting tool has been added to the Tools menu.
    • When a user manually enters interrupt time in their time log, the delta time is now adjusted accordingly.
    • It is now possible to select time log entries in the personal Time Log Editor or team Time Log Viewer, and copy these to the clipboard for analysis in another program like Excel.
    • The PROBE Wizard is now displayed in a larger, resizable window to address width problems with the “Historical Data” page. Also, when the user has mismatched size and time estimates, the final page of the wizard now includes a hyperlink allowing them to accept those estimates and quit anyway.
    • A bug in the PSP(SM) for Engineers template was preventing students from adding phases to their Interim Report and Final Report tasks. This bug has been corrected.
    • The injection phase of a fix defect is now initialized by default to the removal phase of the causative defect.
    • Bugfix: some users on Windows Vista were receiving an error when starting the dashboard, complaining that the time log file could not be read. This error has been corrected.