Asta Powerproject version 17.1.1 release notes

You can now apply colouring to the tabs that identify the views you have open. This makes it easier to identify which views belong to which project when you have more than one project open at the same time.

If you use tab colouring, you can apply a different default tab colour to each project, which makes it easier to identify which views belong to which project when you have more than one project open at the same time. You can also specify a different colour for each view category which overrides the project's default tab colour.

You can use a project timeline to display a visual summary of a project. Timelines give you an easy way of reporting the progress of a project at a high level to stakeholders who do not want - or need - to view detailed information about a project.

You choose which tasks and milestones to add to the timeline. Adding those tasks and milestones that give a good overall picture of the project - for example, key summary tasks and milestones - can be a good approach.

You format the timeline using a new range of timeline formatting controls, which appear on the Format tab of the Ribbon when you click in the timeline.

You can now use task activities to break down tasks into smaller units of work. Rather than adding additional tasks to a schedule, which adds to its complexity, you can have one task in a project that is broken down into subtasks by task activities.

Task activities also enable you to monitor the progress of work that cannot be easily sequenced. For example, in a new housing development you may have four driveways that need to be tarmacked, where only one drive can be worked on at a time but you do not know the order in which the driveways will be worked on. You can use task activities to model this situation in your projects.

If you need to assign the same set of task activities to a number of tasks, you can save those task activities as a task activity template. For example, you may have a commonly-used set of Plastering task activities, or Concreting task activities. You can then add the template's task activities to any number of tasks without having to create each individual task activity for each task.

You can now configure Asta Powerproject to save the project you are currently working on automatically. If you do this, Asta Powerproject saves the active project according to the period you specify - for example, every five minutes - without you having to save the project manually.

You configure Asta Powerproject to save automatically using the new Save every x minutes check box on the General tab of the Options dialog.

You can now specify the appropriate material when recording details of task work against tasks. This is useful if you model tasks in terms of task work without using resources. For example, a task may require 600 cubic metres of concrete; or 50 metres of electrical wire. Before this release, you could record the amount of task work, the work unit and the work rate, but not the material; you can now record the material too.

You record details of the materials that are used in task work using a new 'Materials' library that has been added to Library Explorer.

You record details of the material involved in task work using the new Task work material field that has been added to the 'Effort & Modelling' group of fields on the Task tab of the Bar and Task Properties dialog.

A new 'Task work material' field has been added. You can display this field in the spreadsheet, and use it to sort/group views.

A new Materials field has been added to the Task Work page of the Filter Wizard, enabling you to filter for tasks with task work relating to one or more specific materials.

The default work rate for each permanent resource is defined on the permanent resource record. All new allocations of a permanent resource are assigned this work rate by default. In some circumstances - for example, in manufacturing - it can be more appropriate to record the work rate against each individual task rather than against different resources. For example, a 'Produce glass pane' task or a could have a particular work rate - perhaps set by the machinery that is used - regardless of the resource that is assigned to the task.

Before this release, to cater for this situation you had to either edit the resource's work rate before assigning it to the task, or edit the resource allocation work rate after having assigned the resource to the task.

You can now specify a default allocation rate against individual tasks, using the Default allocation rate field that has been added to the 'Effort & Modelling' fields, on the Task tab of the Bar and Task Properties dialog. If you specify a default allocation rate against a task, this work rate is applied to any permanent resource allocations that are assigned subsequently to the task, overriding the permanent resource's default work rate.

Before this release, although you could define the amount of materials used in a project using task work, you could not carry out any calculations on the materials required for logistics purposes. For example, if a task used 300m³ of concrete, you could not easily calculate how many lorries would be needed to bring the concrete onto site.

You can now use Quantity From Task modelled consumable resources to calculate the number of consumable resources that are required for logistics purposes. For example:

• If a task uses 100m³ of concrete, if you know the capacity of concrete mixer lorries, you can calculate how many lorries are needed to bring the concrete onto site.
• If a task uses 20,000 bricks, if you know the capacity of brick lorries, you can calculate how many lorries are needed to bring the bricks onto site.

Before this release, if a permanent resource allocation used the 'Work From Task' modelling method, it was always considered to be working on its own: it was considered to be performing all the work, and any other allocations of the same type on the task were also considered to be performing all the work. Regardless of how many allocations were assigned to a task, the calculated parameter - for example, the task duration - was calculated from the allocation with the slowest work rate.

You can now combine work rates when modelling resources using the 'Work From Task' method. This is useful if you have two allocations of the same type of resource working together to complete a task. For example, you might have two roofers working together to tile a roof. You do this by selecting the Combine work rate check box that has been added to the Assignment tab of the Permanent Resource Properties dialog, and to the Modelling tab of the Permanent Allocation Properties dialog. This check box appears when you set the modelling type to 'Work From Task'.

If you select this check box for two or more permanent resource allocations on a task, their work rates are combined for the purposes of resource modelling, provided that the allocations:

• Are of the same type (ie demand or scheduled).
• Use the 'Work From Task' modelling type.
• Have the calculated and balancing parameters set to something other than 'Work rate'.
• Have the Combine work rate check box selected.
• Have the Ignore check box cleared.

You can now specify user access rights over print profiles. You may want to do this to prevent certain users from being able to create, edit or delete some or all print profiles. You specify user access rights over print profiles using the Library Access Rights tab of the Security Group Properties dialog, where 'Print Profile' now appears in the library hierarchy.

You can specify user access rights over all print profiles, or over individual print profiles. User-specific print profiles do not appear in the library hierarchy, as these print profiles are always available to the user that created them.

As part of this change, it is now possible to create, edit and delete print profiles using Library Explorer, and a new Print Profile Properties dialog has been introduced. You can use this dialog to view and edit the properties of print profiles. The dialog is similar to the existing Print dialog, except that the Preview and Print buttons are absent, and the Print profile group of fields on the Details tab are unavailable.

If you use an IFC simulation profile to specify how products are 'built' in a timeline simulation, with no colour specified in the Build colour field on the IFC Simulation Profile Properties dialog, products with more than one associated task are now displayed in timeline simulations using the background colour of each task's code assignment in turn, as each task is encountered in the timeline. For example, if a product is associated with 'Build Wall', 'Plaster Wall' and 'Paint Wall' tasks, the product is now displayed firstly using the background colour of the 'Build Wall' task's code; then using the background colour of the 'Plaster Wall' task's code; and finally using the background colour of the 'Paint Wall' task's code.

Now, when a timeline simulation is not being run, products with more than one associated task are displayed using the background colour of whichever assigned code has the highest sort order. As the sort order of codes is editable, this means that you can now specify which code is used to colour multi-task products.