Winter 2016 Milestones PM+ Release Notes

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2015/10/01

This post contains the release notes for the Winter 2016 release of Milestones PM+. This release starts with v5.0 of the application. This was a major release as it includes the following summary of changes:

ENHANCEMENTS

-Lightning Compatible - We made changes to the entire UI to be compliant with Salesforce's new Salesforce Lightning Design System (SLDS) standards and received Lightning Accreditation with this release. We encourage you to install this release into a lightning enabled sandbox (when available) and check out the user experience for all the features that you use for Milestones PM+ (and any other apps that are lightning compatible). If you see anything that could be improved with the new UI, please submit a case to support@passagetech.com as we know there are some tweaks that still need to be made.

-Manage Project Plan (Available to Paid Subscribers Only) - We've made it possible now to view your entire project work breakdown structure on one page in Salesforce. For example, from the project detail page you can now create or edit milestones or tasks from the view that opens when you click the Manage Project Plan button. We're hoping this new feature will minimize clicks within the application to change your data.

-Printable Gantt Chart (Available to Paid Subscribers Only) - We've implemented a printable view for the Milestones PM+ Gantt Chart. When you access the full view, a new print option is available. Please note that the full view & printable gantt chart feature is only available to customers who have purchased our Milestones PM+ Premium Edition.

-Date Rollups - We've responded to much feedback that task and milestone date rollups should be supported out of the box, so we've added that functionality. This will allow you to more easily keep your dates in sync with reality. If you still require more project rollups or changes to how existing project rollups calculate, please use our other product / add-on Rollup Helper. The changes that have been to date logic are as follows:

  • The Project Milestone Due Date when changed to a date that is later than the Project Deadline, will cause the Project Deadline to be set to the date that the Project Milestone Due Date was set to regardless of the Project Status.
  • The Project Milestone Start Date when changed to a date that is earlier than the Project Kickoff, will cause the Project Kickoff to be set to the date that the Project Milestone Start Date was set to regardless of the Project Status.

-Actual Start & Finish Date Logic - When completing a task, the actual start date and actual finish fields can be populated by the users or the actual finish date will be set to today automatically. When the actual finish date is setup, the due date of the task will change accordingly, so that tasks that are completely earlier, impact the completion of the milestone and any successor milestone also schedule earlier in the process showing a more recently forecasted finish date. Conversely, if the actual finish date is later than the deadline, the deadline will shift out and the delay to the milestone will delay the rest of your project schedule.

-Select Import Folder - On the Import Template tab, instead of only being able to find Milestones PM+ Exported Project Files (templates), you can now navigate Salesforce document folders to find the templates you need.

-Project Creation Button - You may now create entire projects directly from any Salesforce record page. Project created via the project creation button can automatically be linked to the record where the button was pressed as long as you have created a lookup field relating to the correct object.

DEPRECATED

-Summary Chart Deprecation - As part of the Lightning changeover, we are encouraging use of Embedded Analytics Charts to replace the charts in the application. The Embedded Analytics Charts are supported by Salesforce and these charts are configurable and you can easily create new charts. With this change towards using the Embedded Analytics Charts capability native to Salesforce, we've hidden and are deprecating the existing charts in the application. For the project detail page and the milestones detail page, we've created a replacement chart, called 'Task Metrics - Embedded Analytic' that you can drag onto your project page layout. You can create up to 2 embedded charts per page. All you have to do is create a report with a chart in Salesforce. Learn more about Embedded Analytics.

NOTE: This release notes post is a work in process and we expect more changes to be documented in the next few weeks. Please check back later.

Milestones PM+ Release Notes