What's New - September 2019

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Release Schedule

Click here for an overview of the PPM Pro release process.

The table below lists this month's product release dates.

What	When
Release Notes published	September 6
System released to sandbox environments	September 13, 10 PM - 1 AM PT
System released to production environments	September 20, 10 PM - 1 AM PT

Releases are deployed during the standard maintenance windows, which are Fridays, 10 PM PT - 1 AM PT.

Reminders

Features that are ready will enter GA status in the first month's release of each calendar quarter: January, April, July, October. There will be an occasional variance from this schedule. You can enter a support request to move a beta feature into your production environment.
You can request that beta features be enabled in your production environment by entering a support ticket. Please note that any issues you find will be handled during the normal development cycle.
Planview sends out status emails in advance of planned releases/updates. These alerts include the date and time window of the update, as well as a link to the release notes that include a list of the issues addressed in the update/release. To subscribe to these alerts, please go to https ://status.planview.com/ and click the Subscribe button.
We hold a live product release webinar - typically on the Wednesday before the production release. This webinar will be hosted by PPM Pro product management and consulting personnel, and will include time for Q&A. Click here to register for the September 18th release webinar.
Inner circles are offered as a way for our interested customers to collaborate with PPM Pro Product Management and each other, provide feedback on PPM Pro product capabilities, and guide new feature development. Click here for more information or to register.

Update 2

Release planned for Friday September 27, 2019, pending QA approval.

Function Area	ID	Release Note Description
Baselines	906283304	Fixed. Using the Baseline Viewing in project Staffing works as expected. Previously, an issue was thrown after selecting the Baseline view after creating a baseline from the Re-plan dialog.
Managed Staffing	906425603	Fixed. Users can add notes to managed staffing requests as expected.
Notes	906667653	Fixed. Notes and status comments can be saved without entering text in the message body. Previously, an issue caused a "Note is null" error to be thrown when saving without a message body.
Printing	892276015	Fixed. The Print action works as expected on Home/Timesheets and other grids.
Requests (new)	906479471	Fixed. When grouping by Current Gate, gates from the selected category only appear. Previously, an issue caused all the gates from all the categories to display.

Update 1

Release planned for Saturday September 21, 2019, pending QA approval.

Function Area	ID	Release Note Description
WS API	905780293	Fixed. WSAPI session timeouts now work as expected. Previously, sessions were timing out after 10 minutes even if still actively being used.

New Feature Matrix

Available	Notes	Status	For more information…
New rich text editor	We have a new, improved rich text editor that, among other things, maintains formatting when pasting in from Word, multi-level indenting, and a menu of special characters.		Tips for Working with PPM Pro Fields/Editing Text Box Fields
New Requests! (aka Requests revamp) This feature will be rolled out over the course of several releases ("rolling beta"). We will update this list every month to indicate when/what additional features will be included. Legacy requests will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future. You can use legacy requests and new requests side-by-side while you set up the new requests to your liking. Since the new model is different from the legacy in several key ways, we are not planning an automated migration at this time.	Current functionality (rolling beta) UI for API (Admin/WSAPI). This page displays the Request entity and the corresponding Fields link, which displays a list of all fields on a request that can be accessed using the API. Current API support for request creation only; submission happens via the UI. Configure multiple approvers Ability to map most fields (including pre-SSA lists) from requests to other entities. Support for mapping any human resource field to entity owner, as well as support for mapping a department list field on the request to a department field on a project. Out-of-the- box filters Ability to associate/create projects after request approval Ability to copy categories, including gates Sequential Gates Single Approver Approval notifications Ability to disable "New" for legacy requests Scoring Ability to edit tabs, if configured, other than Details when creating a request Ability to report on associations - both directions Ability to associate new and existing projects, tasks and issues Ability to copy notes and attachments to associated entities Request Gantt chart report Request category-based permissions Basic Reporting Self-service administration for configuring request types New graphical, status-based card view Coming Later Advanced Gate Logic (gate skipping) Activity Log Data Import	Beta	Known Issues User Experience Inner Circle: New Requests - Note that this was recorded earlier this year, and target dates have shifted Request FAQs - End User Request FAQs - Admin, Setup Setting Up Requests (SSA) Creating Gates Configuring Gate Approvers Gate Approval Examples, Videos Gate Approval Example - Screenshots Transitioning from Legacy to New Requests
Spigit Challenge Results!	We will discuss our findings during the customer webinar on September 18. Register here for the webinar!
Coming Soon
Domain change for PPM Pro! innotas.com -> ppmpro.com	In order to align our users' experience with the branding which was rolled out in the beginning of 2018, starting with the October 2019 sandbox release on Oct 11, then the production release on Oct 18, you will access PPM Pro through a new domain name, ppmpro.com. For example, if you currently access PPM Pro at mycompanyname.innotas.com you will now use mycompanyname.ppmpro.com. To make this transition as smooth as possible, we will redirect connections to innotas.com to ppmpro.com for the forseeable future. This will give ample time to update links, bookmarks, integrations, etc. You do not need to take any immediate action. Things you can optionally do now, in preparation for the change: review any organization firewall, proxy, and email policies. Anywhere you have innotas.com on your allowlist, add a rule for ppmpro.com. Having both in place for a time will allow for a smooth transition if you have created email filter allowlist for alerts_innotas@innotas.com, add an entry for alerts@ppmpro.com (i.e. have both in place for a time) inform your end users so they're expecting the change Things you can optionally do after the October release at your leisure: update any links to PPM Pro, including published dashboards (intranet sites, sharepoint, documentation, etc). Again, we'll have redirects in place so existing links to innotas.com will continue to work but it would be the least confusing if links from these sites are updated to use ppmpro.com change any integrations not managed by Planview to use ppmpro.com (redirects will be in place to give you time to do this) update any SSO configuration. Currently, we use innotas.com as the SAML issuer ID. There's no requirement that this match the URLs being used but it's less confusing to administrators if it does. Contact customer care to help plan your SSO updates. Please contact customer care if you have any questions regarding this change.
October 2019 - deprecate task level expenses	Project-level financials was made generally available (GA) for all customers in October 2018. We will begin to enforce the transition away from task-level expenses on the year anniversary. Phase 1 - October 2019: The ability to create new task level expense estimates will be disabled (New button removed). This will prevent the creation of new expense estimates. Phase 2: The task level expense facility will remain visible but view only. This will allow you to run reports on historical data. We will leave this enabled until we are sure that there is no longer any need for this data. As always, if you are already not using this feature and would like it removed so it doesn't confuse anyone, please enter a Customer Care Case and ask to disable the New button or the entire feature for your organization.	October 2019	Transitioning to Project-Level Expenses

Release Notes

Function Area	Issue ID	Release Note Descriptions
Access	892428548	New. PPM Pro requires strong passwords. Previously there was an option to enable the check for strong passwords. Starting with the September release, all new passwords must be strong. Users with existing passwords that do not comply will be required to conform to the strong password parameters when they update their existing password. No changes are required for organizations already enforcing the use of strong passwords. No impact to users authenticating with SSO. Password requirements are as follows: must be at least 8 characters (max is 80) must include at least 1 capitalized letter must include at least 1 numeric or special character cannot match last password
Calculated Fields	864449200	Fixed. Calculated fields using GetChildEntityValue for allocated roles is returning resource names as expected. Previously, an issue was causing the calculated field to return the resource name and the resource ID. For example, [1234567890: Lovelace, Ada] is now (Lovelace, Ada).
Calculated Fields	865260319	Fixed. Filtering on a boolean calculated field works as expected.
Calculated Fields	879799608	Improved. The character limit for calculated field formulas has been increased to 10,000.
Display Formats	877782469	New. A new display format "Integer - no format" is provided for number fields that do not require a thousands separator (number = 123456789). The regular "Integer" field uses the thousands separator of the current locale (number = 123,456,789).
Field Restrictions, SSA	845155475	Fixed. Fields restrictions based on the Department Group work as expected. Previously, an issue prevented members of the Department Group from viewing/editing a restricted field, even though the field was configured as Able to View on Details set to Yes - Editable for members of that group.
Financial Entries	894434691	Improved. The Title field is no longer "mandatory", and as a result can be hidden on New. Note that the Title field must be on the Details, but is not required to be visible.
Groups	795786274	Fixed. After adding or removing members to/from a selected group, the cursor remains focused on the selected group. Previously, the cursor would jump focus to the Admin group after adding/removing resources.
Groups	881774162	New. The "Description" field is now included in the Add Member modal that displays when adding a group to an entity team or permission profile. This provides information to the user adding the group at the appropriate time. Previously, the Description field appeared on the grid after the group was added. In addition, we added the Description text for all the standard groups.
Internationalization	879853120	Fixed. If a customer requests to change their organization's default locale, the system will automatically update all users who have not changed the default locale. Users who have already changed their locale will not be affected - if they want the new organization locale they will need to change their preferences. Previously, users with the default locale would have to open their preferences and resave them to get the updated organization setting.
Issues, Permissions	883196085	Fixed. After doing some permissions work earlier this year, we realized that the top-level Issues view displayed only issues that were assigned to the current user, or, if the current user was a member of the Organization group, all issues were displayed. (Permission profiles were bypassed.) Now, the Organization group has no bearing on issue permissions. The current user will still see any issues assigned to them, as well as any issues resulting from the appropriate permission profiles.
Managed Staffing	875167047	New. When Managed Staffing is enabled, the Allocations pane (lower pane) of the Resource Workbench now displays resources who have been proposed or requested for a project, in addition to staffed allocations. There is a new Status column that you can add to the lower grid that reflects the status of each record: New, Requested, and Staffed. Note that since the upper pane only reflects utilization numbers for staffed allocations, the numbers in the upper and lower panes will not match.
Managed Staffing	892828314	Fixed. Designated Staffer field working as expected. Previously, an issue caused the field to render an error message instead of the correct value.
Notes	887554183	Fixed. Underlined text persists after saving. Previously an issue was causing the underlined formatting to be discarded upon saving.
Projects	835317899	Fixed. The project fields "Conversion for Tasks- Hours per day" and "Conversion for Tasks- Hours per week" can no longer be set to 0. Previously the user was allowed to enter a value of 0, which resulted in a divide by zero error and no tasks appearing in plan.
Projects, SSA	878218695	Fixed. PPM Pro has the concept of "mandatory" fields, which is a small set of fields that the system needs on an entity form in order to work properly. Recently we implemented a change that prevented mandatory fields from being hidden - which is the correct behavior for mandatory fields. However, recently the set of mandatory fields has inadvertantly grown to include fields that are not mandatory. As a result, the requirement for mandatory fields to be shown disrupted several of our customers. With this release, we reverted the following project fields back to "regular" (not mandatory) fields, and they should respond to "show" setting as expected: PMO Locked Allocation Units Resource Planning Mode New Tasks Conversion for Tasks - Hours per Day Conversion for Tasks - Hours per Week Forecast Title We will verify/update the mandatory fields for other entities in upcoming releases.
Reports	861156031	Fixed. Calculated fields are appearing in baselines and baseline reports, as expected. Previously, an issue prevented the calculated fields from appearing in a report for any baseline other than the Current Baseline.
Reports	850029424	Fixed. Drilldowns from UDF list fields that are configured with Select: All Resources as the List to Use return the appropriate projects in the drill-down results. Previously, an issue caused a drilldown based Select: All Resources to return only rows of <no value> in target field.
Reports	846079858	Fixed. Money fields that are used as bar labels in Gantt charts are rendered with the correct money format. Previously, an issue caused the money fields to appear as a decimal instead of money.
Reports, Filters	893879809	Fixed. Using “is” filter functionality with multi-select fields in portfolio reports works as expected. In addition, drilldowns to reports from multi-select fields on pie charts produce expected results.
Requests (new)	883227733	Improved. Performance improvements to handle processing gate approval logic when a large number of requests are in progress.
Requests (new), Notifications	886692383	Fixed. When configuring the message for the notification "Send a reminder email to approvers who have not yet approved", the text renders as expected both in the editor and in the rendered message. Previously, if there was anything besides straight text in the rich text editor, upon reopening the gate, characters/spaces/line breaks were displayed in HTML notation, though the same text in the rendered notification displayed as expected.
Requests (legacy)	890919151	Fixed. Float/Money fields from legacy requests are now mappable to Project Number (superset) / Money fields without any issue. Previously an issue was preventing mappable project fields to appear.
Resource Workbench	844443387	New. The Allocations pane (lower pane) of the Resource Workbench can be sorted by any column on its grid by displaying the column header menu and choosing Ascending or Descending.
SSA, Projects	793036393	Fixed. Editing the Field Length of a UDF in the Common Properties section on Project/Details and or Project/Additional Details works as expected. Previously, an issue caused an error to be thrown when editing a the field length of a UDF at the Details level in SSA.
SSA, Tasks	835083683	Fixed. Task Date fields reflect the Display Name set on the Details page in SSA. Previously, an issue cased the task Date fields to always display their out-of-the-box name, even when a Display Name was configured in SSA.
SSA	897918155	Fixed. Default values can be configured for fields in SSA as expected. Previously, an issue caused an error to be thrown for some users after clicking into the Default Value field.
Task Import (MSP)	761375961	Fixed. When importing tasks via MSP, using the option to delete/replace the existing task plan will work without timing out for large task plans. Previously, customers were experiencing a "Server Did Not Respond" timeout message after 5 minutes for large plans, although the plans were ultimately imported correctly.
Task, Roles	879853172	Fixed. The field titles for Task Role fields have been updated to remove "ID" from the field titles (Task [ID], Role [ID], and Billing Rate [ID]. Because all of these fields are titles (and not ID numbers), this re-labeling reduces confusion and supports data dictionary updates to these entities.
Tasks	870287750	Fixed. Time users can view tasks they own or are scheduled to, and are allowed to edit a subset of task fields. All the non-editable (read-only) fields are grayed out - previously the Complete Date field looked active (was not grayed out), though still was read only.
Tasks, Project Logs	881715571	Fixed. After opening an alert sent as a result of project log creation and clicking on the URL to the new project log (project log opens in own page), users can navigate to the parent project by clicking the Projects button at the top of the window. Once in the project, clicking the Tasks section works as expected. Previously, after navigating to the project (from the project log), clicking on the Tasks section threw an error.
Timesheet Entry Filters, Reports	819858468	Fixed. Timesheet entry filters work as expected when comprised of multiple "does not contain" criteria. For example, project title string does not contain support and project title string does not contain maintenance. Previously, using multiple "does not contain" statements in the filter caused no results to be returned.
Units	882526878	New. Ability to create user-defined unit select lists (single and multi) on any SSA-enabled entity (such as project, task, issue).
WS API, UI	881815974	Improved. As part of our ongoing transition to a more modern UI framework, the Admin/WS API page has been updated to use our new framework. Note that instead of seeing a "Fields" link next to every entity type, you now double-click a row or select the entity and click the View Fields button at the top of the page to display the Fields dialog.