in this issue....
	6.0 Truly Scalable 6.0 AMS REALTIME Enterprise Projects (EP) Announcing 6.0 Beta - coming soon Resource Assignments in AMS REALTIME Resources 6.0 I didn't know you could do that - What does the Fit to Budget function in RTP 5.7 do?

6.0 AMS REALTIME Enterprise Projects (EP)

AMS REALTIME Enterprise Projects (EP) was first conceptualized by Paul Wohlers (AMS CTO) in 2002. He based his concept on the premise that 90% of project managers only use 5% of the project management tools on the market. AMS already provides AMS REALTIME Projects to support the 10% of project managers with sophisticated project management needs. What the world needs now is something much simpler. In addition to this key driver, some of our existing clients wanted to be able to support massive plans. To support this business requirement, we decided to develope a database oriented planning tool. EP operates in a client/server or standalone mode and is a simple to use, but still a full fledged, project management system, with WBS, CPM, Resource Planning, Timesheets, User defined fields, and even more realtime graphical feedback than AMS REALTIME Projects. And you thought that was impossible! The initial release of EP will allow you to create project plans, as well as view and modify project plans committed to the Enterprise Server from AMS REALTIME Projects and different versions of Microsoft Project. In addition, you will be able to view and modify plans via the new WBS editor, plan projects and sub-projects knowing the cross-project resource availability of your staff and skill groups, manage massive plans, and take advantage of many other new features. You will also be able to control the features and functions staff have available to them when using EP. This means that some users could be able to do everything described in the previous paragraph, and others can be limited to viewing plans only, or you can set a level of access anywhere in between these two points. EP has much more to come, including; risk analysis, earned value, billing, further multi-project features, workflow support, further publishing features, web enablement, document management, ...watch this space!

Announcing 6.0 Beta - coming soon

We are happy to announce that we will soon be releasing Version 6.0 of the complete set of AMS REALTIME product modules for beta program participants, including the Enterprise Server, Resources, Projects, Solo, and WebSolo. The full Version 6.0 software release is planned for 2nd quarter 2004! Version 6.0 adds many powerful new enhancements for users throughout the enterprise. Project managers can access enterprise calendars and global resource availability from their project plans, allowing them to plan more effectively and manage resource capacity. We have greatly enhanced the performance of the integrated cost, resource and schedule features, providing even more powerful budgeting and earned value analysis tools. AMS REALTIME Projects provides the strong level of sophistication needed by today's project managers while still maintaining ease-of-use. Project managers using all versions of Microsoft Project©, via the AMS Microsoft Project Link©, are able to commit and status project plans into the same Enterprise database as AMS REALTIME Projects users. This allows project managers using either tool to make resource assignments from a common resource pool, commit their project plans so their project activities are available for time booking, and status their projects with actual progress. In addition, AMS REALTIME Projects exports project plans into XML format, the current Microsoft Project 2002© data exchange standard. Probably the most significant addition in 6.0 is the new Enterprise Projects function. This has been designed specifically for users with simple project planning needs, regardless of project size. Users can easily create projects, activities, network constraints, and make work assignments with a simple graphic application. This is a great asset for people who need to manage occasional projects. Resource assignment profiling and new features that make the fulfillment of multiple resource requests more efficient, will help resource managers with making project level assignments, balancing workloads, and optimizing resource capacity planning. For more sophisticated data administration needs, users may take advantage of auto-filtering, outlining, multi-table concurrent access, and parent/child record linking features. The Portfolio tool now provides filtered access to data, which provides access level control and easier analysis capability. Improvements to web- based applications and more Python APIs to support customized automation and behavior make it even easier to design an AMS REALTIME implementation that meets your specific business requirements. Employee timecards can be viewed for approval, filtered by project and by organization. This allows project managers to review/approve actual time recorded before updating their project plan, and managers/ supervisors to view/update/approve all their employee timecards together. Time card approval can also be carried out over the web. These enhancements make the entire approval process faster and more efficient. Further web enhancements have been made to the Data Adminstration and Web Reporting areas. Improvements to database synchronization processes allow complete integration of information to Oracle, SQL Server, and other ODBC compliant industry-standard databases. AMS has designed many of these improvements through consolidated analysis of the growing needs of our users. Incorporating feedback from our real-world users into our product suite has always been a key driver. This responsiveness to user needs has helped our products evolve into the most practical, powerful, flexible and user-friendly products on the market today. To see how AMS REALTIME can help your organization, please contact us. for information on Beta testing 6.0... »

Resource Assignments in AMS REALTIME Resources 6.0

The ability to assign staff to activities in a user-defined profile in the Workplan tab, has been a frequent client improvement request over the years. While AMS REALTIME Projects provided this functionality, it was more complicated when using the AMS REALTIME integrated solution. In 6.0 you can create profiled assignments in AMS REALTIME Projects and commit them to the AMS REALTIME Enterprise Server. You can also assign staff to activities in AMS REALTIME Resources Workplan mode, in a profiled manner. This means that all the resource assignment types in AMS REALTIME Projects will now be fully supported in AMS REALTIME Resources and AMS REALTIME Solo/Web-Solo. In addition to other enhancements in the Workplan tab, resource assignments in 6.0 can be made provisionally and subsequently "firmed up" by the resource manager, and many resources can be assigned (or swapped in) against the same activity at the same time.

I didn't know you could do that - What does the Fit to Budget function in RTP 5.7 do?

In AMS REALTIME Projects, when a resource is created, the Unit, Cost Per Unit, and Allow Fit to Budget Adjustments are some of the fields that are defined. The Unit and Cost Per Unit are used to calculate the cost of the resource usage on an activity. If Allow Fit to Budget is checked, this resource's usage is eligible for adjustments to meet a new target, which can be entered in either in cost or hours. For example, assume you have an activity that spans 6 months in a project that uses monthly costbins. If there are 600 hours assigned to a resource spread evenly over the task, and the cost per hour is $100, the total cost of the resource is $60,000 for that activity. When the task is baselined, there will be a BCWS of $10,000 per month. Now suppose that you are three months into the activity, and everything is right on schedule. Progress is current, and you have generated $30,000 in BCWP to date. But a budgetary crunch ensues, and your remaining $30,000 budget has just been dropped to $15,000. What do you do? By selecting the activity and choosing Fit to Budget from the Resources menu, you can see how much of the total remaining resource amount is eligible for scaling (this is based on Allow Fit to Budget in the resource definition). If Resource Usage is selected in the lower left corner of the dialog, the information displayed and entered will be in hours (or the resource unit). Since we want to enter a new dollar amount, click on the button next to Cost. At the Enter Target Total box, you can enter the new budget amount of $15,000. The options in the lower right determine how the new, scaled resource assignments will be created. Choosing Maintain Resource Profile will scale down the current resource assignment in a uniform way, preserving the basic allocation curve. The Hit Target Total option will create a new level assignment, and this method will usually come closer to the desired new target amount. The final step is to choose a Baseline Option. If you select Keep Current Baseline, the baseline will stay the same at $10,000 per month. If you Baseline All Work, the entire activity will be rebaselined at the new level. But if we choose Baseline Future Work Only, the past BCWS values will not change, but the future BCWS will be revised to $5,000. This will keep the future earned value in line with the activity budget changes. When you choose OK, a new dialog will appear that shows how the resources can be scaled and what the results will be.

email: emunir@amsuk.com
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