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Planview Customer Success Center

PPM Pro Q2 2020 Roadmap Q&As

Question Answer
Love the look of the high-level task timeline! Will you need to enable Reports 2.0 in order to see that? Nope, do not need Reports 2.0. It is currently planned to be part of the project Task view, similar to the task Gantt chart.
Do cards HAVE to be mapped to tasks, or can they be mapped to the project log (for Projectplace and LeanKit phase 2 integrations)? Since there is only one type of card in Projectplace, they will likely be mapped to a single task category or a single project log category (to be determined if we support one or both of these entities), but not both. Since LeanKit can have multiple card types, you will likely be able to map a card type to a different task or project log category (again, TBD).
Will dependent field logic be available on Requests and Projects or what sections will that be applied to? Dependent field logic should be available for all SSA-enabled entities (for example, projects, tasks, project logs, requests, portfolios, assets).
For the dependent field logic, can those rules be applied by category (like project category) or other controls, or is it applied universally? For example, some of our user groups will have different rule requirements but use shared fields. We hope to be able to apply the logic rules by category.
Will the spreadsheet editor pull all available columns when it goes into the editor or will it be limited to whatever columns the admin has selected to appear in the list? We currently have an enhancement in queue to be able to change the columns shown in the editor, similar to how grid configuration works on the regular grids. So for example, the Task Spreadsheet Editor opens with all the columns from the Task WBS grid, but users can add/remove columns within the Spreadsheet Editor view similar to how they can be changed on the Task WBS grid. The same will be possible with the Spreadsheet Editor for other SSA entity grids when we do that feature.
For project archiving, will the timesheet data also be archived? Timesheet data will not be archived - it will remain.
For archiving projects, will there also be permissions on who can see projects that have been archived? For those that can see archived projects, will they be visibly tagged (like a read-only checkbox) that shows it has been archived? Or are archived projects only visible by reporting? I apologize if these questions are too early in the stages of this item; I am very interested in this one. Archived projects will not be viewable or reportable once they are archived, they will effectively disappear from the system, so permissions won't apply to the archived projects per se, because there are no archived projects in the system. However, there will be permissions for who can archive and who can restore archived projects. If a permitted user selects to Restore Archived Projects, they will be able to see a list of all archived projects (so that they can select and restore).
I have a few questions here:
1. OData feed: When we can expect the special character issue to be resolved? Currently OData feed removes all formatting along with the special characters.
2. Dependent filed: will this be available in all areas (e.g. task / project / project log etc.)
3. Project archiving: If a field is getting used in archived project, will there be any challenges removing those fields? Because, as we move forward, we may not use some of the fields anymore which we had created in the very initial stage.
4. Not related to the current session, but still‚ are you planning to make the platform more mobile friendly any soon?

1. A fix for the issue about diacritics getting dropping in the OData feed is targeted for the June release. In addition, the issue about the first column field name including quotes is also targeted for the June release. If your question was more general, about allowing special characters in field titles, we believe this is a constraint of the OData feed and cannot be changed.

2. Answered above (yes, for SSA-enabled entities).

3. We will make sure to address this in the requirements for this feature (great question, thanks!).

4. New reports and dashboards should work better with small screen devices. For our mobile access UI, we do not currently have plans to add new capabilities. This was brought up as an idea in our last Customer Roadmap Spigit Challenge, but it wasn't one of the winners. Absolutely please feel free to suggest when we do our next Spigit challenge later this year.

Will the Show on Timeline option be available to add on the grid view instead of having to open the side view to add? We believe so. Since the Show on Timeline option is a task property, it should be available as a grid column and editable from the grid row (this is our understanding, remember, this feature is not yet under development, but barring any problems it should work this way).
We need to have a report/dashboard that will show project dependencies either outbound or inbound. (aka project depends on the end of another project or number of projects). Is there a report/dashboard that can show the dependencies? This is possible today, to show a Gantt report (and on a dashboard) with project predecessors/dependencies, in both Legacy and the new reports beta. You would need to make sure your project-predecessors section is shown on relevant project categories and then add project-predecessors. These are soft dependencies, because they do not control start and end dates, but they will show up on the Gantt. If you wanted hard dependencies, where changing the date on a project impacts the date on another, you'll want to set up cross-project task dependencies. Cross-project task dependencies will not show up on a project Gantt, but you can use the project-predecessors to have the relationship show up on the Gantt and the cross-project task dependencies to control actual date dependencies (use both as needed).
Hi, sorry I missed the start of the presentation. I'm crying out for a baseline Gantt report showing task baseline against new dates (standard in MS Project). Any idea when this will become available please?

One of the ideas for our Customer Roadmap Spigit Challenge last year was to make improvements to/extend the project Baselines to include tasks, capabilities of which your question would fit into. It didn’t make the top winners but we will include it in the next Spigit challenge later this year. In the mean time and in case it helps, there might be a workaround for this today, but it would be manual work on your part. You could create a Task user-defined available field for manual entry of an “Original Target Date” per task…likewise if you want to track “Original Start Date”. Then when you create a Task Gantt, for one of the bars use Start Date and Target Date and for the second bar use Original Start Date and Original Target Date. Again, manual effort, but a workaround if you need this now.

With alerts 2.0, will we be able to include external email addresses (non-PPM users)?  And will these be available to use with both Project and Request entities? We believe so, as we think we will be re-using our filter logic structure and capabilities from the new Dashboards publishing notifications to resources and external email addresses. We've captured this for that feature's requirements.
Following up regarding our previous conversation regarding Drill Down capability with reporting. Is this still on the list with a potential completion in Q3 or Q4? This feature is high on our list, not sure yet exactly when it will be added to the beta, but it should be there before Reports (Beta) becomes Reports (GA).

When you submit an enhancement, how are you notified once your request has been picked up or becomes complete?

Is there or will there be a way to see where an enhancement request sits in the queue?  Status (yay or nay), and perhaps some potential delivery date/quarter?

I just want to see the list of enhancements, others are submitting, because I may want that feature too.

Have you discussed the ability for customers to upvote existing enhancement requests? To help with the prioritization.

Your best bet is to keep an eye on the release notes - when we include an enhancement request in a release, we always highlight it in the release notes (usually the "New" and "Improved" notes).

Unfortunately there are just too many enhancements to make granting visibility to customers worthwhile...it would truly be an exercise in frustration and you would quickly cross your eyes going through all of the enhancements. The only enhancements that are ever marked as "nay" are those that directly conflict with other customer needs and preferences (for example, the system behaves in a certain way because customers asked it to and we don't want to change that), or that simply aren't feasible. For the majority of remaining "yay" enhancements, there is never a potential delivery date/quarter because of our Agile/Lean development process which picks up enhancements as each sprint has room and the developers with the right skills are available; we don't know a target delivery date until a dev picks the enhancement up. 

Trying to use something like Spigit for up-voting/down-voting is problematic for prioritization because as new enhancements come in, people tend to ignore older enhancements which then naturally migrate to the bottom of the list. For example if you enter an enhancement and 20 other new enhancements come in right after, your enhancement may not get many ratings because simply may not look at it. We've found that triaging enhancements weekly, to calculate a Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) score for each that is based on the number of customers asking for the enhancement, the importance of the enhancement to the customer(s), how many customers will benefit, and other measures along with the overall development and QA effort, is the fairest way to prioritize. The WSJF ensures that new and old enhancements both stay relevant and are picked up in an order that balances overall importance with development effort, meaning that we are able to release more enhancements quicker that are helpful to more of our customers.

If you have an enhancement that you are concerned about and would like to know where it stands, please contact your Customer Success Manager, Account Executive, or Product Management (Sherrill spackebush@planview.com or Jennifer jrose@planview.com).

We plan to have a Customer Roadmap Spigit challenge later this year, which is an opportunity for you to suggest and vote on your favorite features and key enhancements.

Perhaps I missed it, but is the project financials section going to be optional, or was it optional in terms of enabling it in beta?

Can you show the relationship between the financial entries and display in the financial summary

Financial Summary is not yet in Beta, but when it is, you will be able to configure it to show or not show per project category. For example, for a project category you could display just Financial Entries, or just Financial Summary, or both. You can use permissions to determine who can actually view and edit the Financial Summary section and fields.

For archiving - can the information on those projects be available on reports still? Archived projects will no longer be visible in the system and therefore cannot be reported on. If you need to report on a project, you probably don't want to archive it, you'll want to change its status or some other field value and use that to filter it out of your projects view, but still be able to report on it (which is possible today).
Thank you.  Does this lack of information availability also apply to resource data and financial entries data? We're not sure what this question was referring to and didn't see a followup question...please contact Sherrill spackebush@planview.com or Jennifer jrose@planview.com with more details and we'll be happy to help.
Will the export Gantt to Powerpoint feature (as in Enterprise One) become available to PPM Pro too? We plan to support exporting Gantt reports to PowerPoint, similar to how you are now able to export non-list reports to PowerPoint in the reports beta - no target date at this time. Not sure if more is meant by "as in Enterprise One"?
Another question - For financial summaries - Is this available in the sandbox yet to play with? Financial Summary is targeted for the beta to begin with the July release.