Asta Powerproject version 16.0.01 release notes

Using Asta Powerproject, you can apply formatting to individual spreadsheet cells, columns and rows, in the same way as you can using Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel. Before this release, if you copied data from Microsoft Project or Microsoft Excel and pasted it into the Asta Powerproject spreadsheet - or if you copied data from the Asta Powerproject spreadsheet and pasted it into Microsoft Project or Microsoft Excel - any formatting that had been applied to the cells was lost.

Now, when you copy and paste data into or from the Asta Powerproject spreadsheet, any formatting that has been applied to the cells is retained. For example, if the text in a particular column has been coloured red, the text in a particular row has been formatted in bold italics and the text in a particular cell has been formatted with a particular font, this formatting information is retained when the data is copied and pasted.

You can specify the way in which cell formatting is pasted into Asta Powerproject, using the Pasting from other programs field that has been added to the Spreadsheet tab of the Options dialog.

You can now apply strikethrough formatting to text in the spreadsheet and to text in text annotations, using a new control that has been added to the Home tab of the Ribbon.

When you apply strikethrough formatting to text in the spreadsheet, it is applied to all of the text in the selected cell or cells. When you apply strikethrough formatting to text in a text annotation, you can apply it to the entire annotation, or to selected text within the annotation.

You can also apply strikethrough formatting to text in the spreadsheet using the Strike through check box that has been added to the Font tab of the Format Cells dialog; a corresponding check box has also been added to the Format Font dialog that you can use to configure the font of text annotations.

• You can now specify the location in which backups are stored, using a new 'Backup Files' option that has been added to the File Locations tab of the Options dialog.
• A new Open Folder button has been added to the File Locations tab of the Options dialog, making it easier to access your Asta Powerproject-related files.
• The Create BAK files (backups) and Create JOURNAL files (logs) check boxes have been removed from the Edit tab of the Options dialog. Backup and SQLite journal files are now always created for your projects. These check boxes used to be provided to enable you to disable the creation of backup and SQLite journal files if you were using Microsoft SharePoint and did not want these files to appear in SharePoint. Now that you can specify a folder in which to store backups, this is no longer necessary: you can specify that backups are stored in a different folder to your projects.

Before this release, if you opened a project or baseline that was located on a network drive, Asta Powerproject opened the file directly. This could lead to problems if your network connection failed when the project was open.

Now, when you work with a project or baseline that is located on a network drive, Asta Powerproject does not open the project or baseline directly; it takes a copy of the project or baseline file, copies this to the temporary folder on your local computer, and opens this file. This improves performance when working with projects and baselines that are located on a network drives and reduces the possibility of file errors caused by network problems.

Each time you save, the original file on the network is synchronised with the local copy, in such a way to minimise the possibility of network errors causing problems during the save operation - the file being saved is saved under a new file name on the network, then this file is given the same name as the original file. For large files, a progress indicator appears each time this happens, indicating the progress of the save operation.

If a save operation to a network location fails, you are given the option to save the file to a different location.

While you work on a project or baseline that is located on a network drive, even though you are actually working on a local copy of the file, the project or baseline on the network drive is locked to prevent other users from accessing it.

Now, the start date of each new bar chart shading selection defaults to the day after the end of the latest shading selection in the grid. For example, if the latest shading selection in the grid had a finish date of 09/11/2021, the start date of the next shading selection you created would default to 10/11/2021.

There are two exceptions to this new behaviour:

• If the finish date of the latest shading selection is a variable date, the next shading selection you create will start the day after the latest shading selection that has a fixed finish date.
• If the finish dates of all the shading selections are variable dates, the next shading selection you create will start on today's date.

You can now configure Asta Site Progress to display live data rather than baseline data, using the Use live project for planned dates/progress check box that has been added to the Export tab of the Site Progress Settings dialog. If you select this check box, the following fields display live data in Asta Site Progress:

• Planned start.
• Planned finish.
• Planned percent complete.
• Planned work.

If you clear the check box, the above fields display information taken from the current baseline, if a baseline is available.

You can now prevent users from editing project-wide dates, using the Edit project date controls check box that has been added to the General tab of the Security Group Properties dialog. If you clear this check box, members of the security group are prevented from editing the fields in the 'Dates' section of the Properties tab of the Backstage view, the corresponding fields on the Properties tab of the Properties dialog and - when viewing the properties of the programme chart - the date-related fields on the Project tab of the Chart/Project Properties dialog.

This field is selected by default in new projects and in projects that have been converted from an earlier version of Asta Powerproject.

You can now configure the Planned percent complete (PPC) field to display a distributed average for parent tasks, using the Show distributed average for charts/summaries check box, on the Table Definition Properties dialog.

If you select this check box, Asta Powerproject displays a progress value for expanded and summary tasks that takes into account how the progress is distributed within the subchart or summary group (a distributed average figure, which matches precisely the shading on expanded and summary tasks). If you clear this check box, a simpler value, which indicates the percentage of progress that has been completed without taking into account how the progress is distributed throughout the subchart or summary group, is displayed.

Although 100% complete tasks are still excluded from risk analysis, partially-completed tasks are now included: Risk Analysis generates new durations for the uncompleted sections of part-completed tasks in the same way as it does for tasks with no progress.

If the minimum value that you specify would result in a task being given a duration that is less than the duration of its completed section during an iteration, Risk Analysis does not reduce the duration of the task to make it 100% complete. If the maximum value that you specify is less than the duration of the completed section of a task, Risk Analysis excludes the task from the process and warns you.

1. Now, if all the tasks in a sort/group band use the same calendar, this calendar is used to calculate the duration of the sort/group subheading, which means that the subheading duration will be completely accurate. If the tasks use different calendars, the calendar that is selected in the Subheading calendar field is still used to calculate the subheading duration.
2. Now, if all the tasks in a summary group use the same calendar, this calendar is applied to the summary task when you import the project from Primavera software, which means that the duration of the summary task in Asta Powerproject will match the duration it had in Primavera software. If the tasks use different calendars, the default calendar is applied to the summary task.