Asta Powerproject version 15.0.01 release notes

Before this release, when you opened a different view, the view always opened with the Programme chart as its scope. You can now choose to open views using the scope of the current active view. If you do this, the view opens displaying whichever charts or summary groups provide the scope of the current active view. If you are currently viewing an RBS or CBS view and choose to open a different view, the view opens displaying whichever resources or cost centres provide the scope of the current active RBS or CBS view.

To open a view using the scope of the current active view, select the Open using the active view scope check box that has been added to the More Views dialog, or hold down CTRL when selecting a view to open from the View dropdown on the Home or View tab of the Ribbon.

Before this release, you could display only the codes from a single library on the bar chart at any one time. Some users wanted to display the codes from more than one code library at the same time, and to get around this restriction, some users created all of their codes in a single code library, which could be difficult to maintain.

Now, this restriction has been lifted: you can display the codes from more than one code library on the bar chart at the same time. You specify which code libraries to use to colour tasks either by right-clicking code libraries in the project view and selecting Display Library from the menu that appears, or by clicking the Display Libraries button, on the Tasks tab of the Format Bar Chart dialog.

This release introduces a completely new way of booking data into and out of projects for remote editing. This functionality has been completely rewritten for this release to simplify and improve the booking in and out of data. In brief, the improvements comprise the following:

• You now book out data by selecting one or more charts or summary groups, rather than by "tagging" individual objects.
• Booked out charts and summary groups can be identified by a new icon that is applied to them in the project view.
• The different book out statuses (read-only, read-write and read-write-delete) have been removed; once a chart or summary group has been booked out, it is now always editable in the destination project and always read-only in the master project. As part of this change, the 'Book from master status', 'Bookout tag' and 'Significant bookout status' fields have been removed.
• You can now specify whether users can book out charts and summary groups on a chart-by-chart basis, using the new Book out check box that has been added to the Chart Access Rights tab of the Security Group Properties dialog.
• You can now specify whether users can cancel book outs that have been performed by users other than themselves, using the new Cancel book out check box that has been added to the General tab of the Security Group Properties dialog.

Before this release, you could import projects from, and export projects to, Primavera P6® in XER format. In addition to this, you can now choose to import and export in XML format. This has a number of advantages, the main one being that when you import and export in XML format, any baselines are included in the import or export.

You now import from and export to Primavera software using commands on the new Import/Export tab that has been added to the Backstage view. This tab brings together the commands that enable you to import and export in a number of formats.

Before the release of version 15.0.01, baselines of local projects - as opposed to Asta Enterprise projects - were separate files, with a .PPB file extension. From version 15.0.01 onwards, any new baselines that you create for local projects are embedded automatically into the corresponding project file. For this reason, you are no longer asked to specify a location and file name for new baselines when you create them.

Although you can continue to work with any existing separate baselines as you did before, you may want to embed them into the corresponding project. Embedding baselines into their corresponding projects makes it easier to share projects with other Asta Powerproject users, as you do not have to provide both the project file and the baseline file(s); you need only to make the project file available, as it contains both the project and its baselines. If you save a copy of a project using the version 15 file format, any embedded baselines will be saved with the file and will be available in the copy of the file.

If you are working with a baseline that is embedded into a local project, or a baseline in an Asta Enterprise project, you can now export the baseline to a separate file. You may want to do this to make a baseline available to someone else without providing them with the project itself, or to save a copy of a baseline for reference purposes before deleting it from a project.

Baselines of Asta Enterprise projects are stored in data sources and baselines of Asta Vision projects always exist as separate files; you cannot embed these types of baselines.

Original start and Original finish fields have been added to the Progress group of fields. You can display these new fields in the spreadsheet and in text annotations. The Original start and Original finish fields are kept in step with the start and finish date of tasks, until a task is started, at which point they are fixed at the start and finish date of the task immediately before progress was entered. Once a task is in progress or completed, you can edit these fields in the spreadsheet if required.

These fields are calculated for summary tasks, expanded tasks and hammocks, with the Original start field displaying the earliest original start date within the parent task or hammock and the Original finish field displaying the latest original finish date. These fields are not editable for summary tasks, expanded tasks and hammocks.

The Original duration field is now calculated as the duration between the original start and the original finish date of a task and is no longer editable.

You can now specify a delivery date for projects, which may be useful if the contract for a project specifies a date by which the project must be completed.

You can specify a delivery date for the programme of projects, and a delivery date for each chart or summary group that has been identified as being a project. You can use a project's delivery date as a deadline when rescheduling. If you do this, rather than using the finish date of the last task in the project, the project's late and free finish dates are set to the delivery date when rescheduling and float is calculated out to the project's delivery date. A delivery date provides a deadline for all tasks in the project, so any tasks that exceed the delivery date have negative float (ie they become super-critical) following a reschedule.

Setting a delivery date for a project is similar to setting a deadline flag on the project, apart from the fact that when you set a deadline flag, float is not calculated out to the flag's date when rescheduling.

As well as being able to enter textual notes against tasks, you can now also enter three types of dated note against tasks. These are notes against which the date and time of each note are recorded. The following types of dated note are available:

• Text notes.
• File notes - these are hyperlinks which can be clicked to open a particular file. Use these notes to attach relevant documents or photographs to tasks.
• URL notes - these are hyperlinks which can be clicked to open a particular webpage. Use these notes to link relevant webpages to tasks.

If you use Asta Site Progress to record progress against tasks and build stages in Asta Powerproject projects using a mobile device, any notes that have been recorded against tasks by mobile users, as well as any photographs they have taken, appear against tasks as dated notes.

If you use IFC simulation profiles to control the appearance of objects during timeline simulations, you can now choose from two new build behaviours when setting up an IFC simulation profile, using the Build behaviour field on the IFC Simulation Profile Properties dialog:

• Construction - select this to specify that objects should be visibly "built", or "constructed", at the start of the tasks with which they are associated and that they should remain visible from then on. This would be a suitable build behaviour for an object such as a brick wall that is built gradually, rather than being installed in one piece.
• Destruction - select this to specify that objects should be visible before and during the tasks with which they are associated and that they should be visibly "deconstructed, or "destroyed" at the finish of the tasks. This would be a suitable build behaviour for an object such as a brick wall that is destroyed gradually, rather than being removed in one piece.

If you select one of these build behaviours, you can specify the direction in which objects are either "constructed" or "destroyed", using the new Direction field on the IFC Simulation Profile Properties dialog.

You can now display an indicator in the spreadsheet to identify the status of tasks, using the Display status indicators in the spreadsheet check box that has been added to the View tab of the Options dialog. When this check box is selected, the indicator appears in the left side of the Bar name, Task name and Name columns in the spreadsheet. It shows:

• Red for critical tasks that have not yet started.
• Blue and red for critical tasks that have started.
• Green for non-critical tasks that have not yet started.
• Blue and green for non-critical tasks that have started.
• Blue for tasks that are complete.

The indicator identifies the status of the visible tasks on the bar; it ignores any tasks that are not currently visible, for example those that do not meet the criteria of a filter that has been applied.

For bars that contain more than one task, the indicator displays red if one or more tasks are critical; otherwise, it displays a colour appropriate to the mix of tasks. For example, if a bar contains a mixture of started non-critical tasks and completed tasks, the indicator displays blue and green.

A Paste and Retain Links command has been added to:

• The Paste dropdown, on the Home tab of the Ribbon, in the Clipboard group.
• The bar chart right-click menu.
• The spreadsheet right-click menu.

Selecting this command will paste the selection of bars or tasks that have been copied to the Clipboard, including any links between these bars or tasks and tasks outside the selection. For example, if tasks A, B, C and D are linked together with Start-to-Finish links and you copy the bars containing tasks B and C to the Clipboard then select the new Paste and Retain Links command, copies of B and C are pasted into the bar chart, with a link from task A to the copy of task B, and a link from the copy of task C to task D.

You can now store information in baseline-level user-defined fields. One possible use of this is to enter IDs against baselines that you can reference in reports. For example, if you have Contract, Delivery and Revised baselines, you could enter IDs to identify these into a baseline-level user-defined field, then reference these in reports. This is preferable to referencing baseline names in reports, as once a baseline has been created it cannot be renamed, and if a baseline has been named incorrectly, reports that reference the name as it should be will not work.

Using a user-defined field to identify which baseline performs a particular role - Contract, Delivery, etc - also enables you to change which baseline performs each role, by editing the IDs that you have entered into the user-defined field. For example, you could identify that a different baseline performs the Contract baseline role by editing the user-defined field that identifies the role of a baseline and entering "Contract" into the field for the new Contract baseline.

Planned actual task work and Planned task work remaining fields have been added to the Progress and Task Work groups of fields.

The Planned actual task work field displays the number of task work units have been completed for each task in the specified baseline, by the specified report date.

The Planned task work remaining field displays the number of task work units that have yet to be completed for each task in the specified baseline, by the specified report date.

If no baseline is specified, these fields display the number of task work units that have been completed, or that have yet to be completed, in the live data.