Cloudbyz ITPM July 2017 Release Overview

Cloudbyz PPM July’17 release brings exciting new features that users requested and will find extremely useful. We have also fixed certain issues related to export of the project schedule to MS Project.

New Features:

Timesheet

The Timesheet functionality which is typically the one used by all users in an organization is revamped with a simple to use UI providing users the ability to enter time against three categories of activities viz., Project, Operations and Organizational. Users would also be able to copy the entries from the previous week thus reducing the time it takes to record time for weeks with similar work activities.

1. A completely revamped UI keeping in mind ease of use and ability to enter time quickly.
2. One click button to copy entries from previous week enabling users to enter and submit timesheet quickly for weeks with similar activities
3. One click button to clear entries for the current week rather than having to delete entries one by one
4. Ability to go to any week in the past or in the future easily in a non-sequential manner.
5. Time entries are grouped under three categories – Project, Operations and Organizational so that there is visibility on the resource effort spent on each of these categories.
6. Ability to capture time at the level of tasks related to the project(s) that the resource is assigned to on any particular week.
7. Flexibility to record timesheet with or without approval as per organizational policy (configurable)

Resource Absence Schedule

We have also introduced the Resource Absence schedule that enables PMO, Resource Managers and PMs to have visibility into the time-off and other non-productive time of resources. The PMs would have visibility on the same for resources specific to their projects. The users can create planned time-off entries right from this schedule and the same would be reflected in the Timesheet as well. This also comes with a nifty feature to configure the color codes for each absence type rather than fixed predefined ones.

1. Visibility on time-off and other planned non-productive time of resources at one place to enable PMO, Resource Managers and PMs to plan effectively.
2. PMs would have visibility on the same for resources specific to their projects.
3. Users can create planned time-off entries right from this schedule and the same would be reflected in the Timesheet as well. Similarly the entries made in Timesheet against Organizational activity types would get reflected in this schedule.
4. The color codes corresponding to each absence type are completely configurable through custom settings.

Sprint Planning

The other major feature added is Sprint Planning that would come in very handy for the product owner and project team to be able to see all unassigned product backlog (Stories as well as Defects) of the project in one place along with the information on their priority, complexity, ranking, story points, estimate etc., and assign one or more backlog items to appropriate sprints.

1. Product owners can view the unassigned product backlog (User stories as well as Defects) by project along with the details on their priority, complexity, ranking, story points, estimate etc.
2. Selecting the sprint would display the corresponding sprint details like start and end dates, total story points, estimate, etc.
3. Users can choose one or more of the unassigned product backlog items and assign them to selected sprints.

Resolved Issues:

Fixed issue in project schedule export to Microsoft Project (xml format) where the dates and Duration in days were not showing correctly. The related issue wherein the dependency info (related task, lead and lag times) which were not showing up in the exported mpp/xml has been fixed.

Minor issues like Budget Hours getting defaulted with 1 and Budgeted cost defaulting with 0 at the time of creation of the project have also been fixed.