Process Dashboard 2.4

Process Dashboard Version 2.4 has been released, containing many significant new features.

• The Team Dashboard now includes a comprehensive framework for role-based access control:
  
  • A fine-grained permission hierarchy has been introduced. This includes permissions for editing particular items (for example, "who is allowed to modify milestones?") and for viewing sensitive data (for example, "who is allowed to view the team defect log?").
  • A user interface is provided for defining roles, and stating the permissions that each role should be granted.
  • Finally, a user interface is provided for listing users and assigning them roles. When users open the Team Dashboard or Work Breakdown Structure, their actions will be subject to the role-based permissions they have been granted.

  The default, out-of-the-box behavior of the Team Dashboard remains unchanged. But if teams wish to lock down their Team Dashboard, these new controls make that possible.

• The Team Dashboard now includes a feature to define groups of users. These can be used for many purposes: for example, to describe people from different parts of the organization, different project subteams, or different engineering disciplines. Once groups have been defined, reports can be filtered to show data from a particular group.
• Several improvements have been made to the Work Breakdown Structure Editor:
  • The speed and responsiveness of several WBS editing operations (including insert, rename, move up/down, cut/copy/paste, and delete) have been significantly improved for large projects.
  • Since 1.14.7, the WBS Editor has provided a filtering function. That filtering function has been enhanced:
    
    • When a filter is in effect, columns sums now respect the filter. For example, when the "Time" column displays the total time for the project or for a particular subcomponent, the displayed totals will only include time from the visible children that matched the filter.
    • Many columns allow you to edit the total value on a parent component, and will automatically scale the values on children to satisfy your change. When a filter is in effect, this scaling operation will no longer affect rows that were hidden by the filter. (This effectively shields filtered components and tasks from most editing operations.)
    • If you have created custom columns in the WBS, you can now filter the WBS based on data entered into those columns.
    • Simpler, streamlined controls have been provided for hiding completed tasks, and for narrowing the view to tasks performed by particular individuals.
    • A new "Show Related Tasks" option makes it possible to display all of the tasks under components that matched the filter.
  • The Find operation in the WBS has been extended to search in any column (including custom columns), and a Replace feature has been added as well.
  • The WBS provides better autocompletion support for editing labels and custom column values.
  • Menus, labels, and messages in the WBS Editor can now be translated to other languages using the Localization Tool.
• Several improvements have been made to team reports:
  • A "Time Log" section has been added to the Rollup Plan Summary Report in the Team Dashboard. This makes it possible to export the team time log to Excel, and to see views of the team time log that are filtered by label or group.
              New teams will see this section right away. If existing teams have customized the Rollup Plan Summary (by clicking the "Edit this page" icon in the top-right corner of the report), their local customizations will override the addition of the "Time Log" section to the default report structure. Those teams will need to edit their customized report and add a "Time Log" element.
  • In the Gantt chart, you can now click the configuration icon (which appears on the top-right of the chart) and toggle the display of optional "Assigned To" and "Milestone" columns. These can be especially helpful when printing or taking a screen capture of the Gantt chart.
  • If you open a Gantt chart by clicking on a bar in the EV Milestones chart, the Gantt chart will display a line for the milestone commit date.
• The configuration menu has historically been displayed as the single letter "C" to save space. Now, it uses the icon, an industry-standard representation for a menu of advanced and less-commonly-used functionality.
• In the Team Dashboard, the "File → Alter Project" menu now includes an option to close a project. This can be helpful if work is ending on a given project, and it does not need to be relaunched for an additional cycle.
• When more than one person is assigned to a task (such as an inspection), it is helpful for an individual to know which other people they are collaborating with. Now, this information is readily available from the task dependency indicator on the main dashboard toolbar. It is also displayed in the dependency column of the Task & Schedule window and the EV Report.
• In the Time Card dialog, the columns depicting weekends now have a different background color. This assists with the process of reviewing time log data and correcting errors.
• The Process Dashboard has been upgraded to be Java-9-ready.
• When running in Java 9, the dashboard supports smooth scaling of the user interface for HiDPI/Retina displays.
• Fixes are included for a number of bugs.

Upgrade Considerations

Teams are encouraged to upgrade together. Some features may not work properly until all team members have upgraded, and exported their data at least once.