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Planview Customer Success Center

What's New - December 2020

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 November 27
System released to sandbox environments December 4
System released to production environments

December 11

Additional updates as necessary To support our goal of getting working features to customers faster, we may deliver a release outside of the monthly cycle to provide new, low-risk functionality and/or essential issue fixes.

Releases are deployed during the standard maintenance windows.

Reminders

  • New: The December release cycle has been moved forward to accommodate the holidays and vacations: November 27 Release Notes Posted, December 4 Sandbox Release, December 11 Production Release.
  • 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 (some beta features not initially available in production, Planview will advise). 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.
  • There is no release webinar for December.
  • 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.

Updates     

Function Area LeanKit Card Release Note Description Planned Release Date - Pending QA Approval
Data Import 145696663 Fixed. Fixed an issue where a small number of customers were seeing 'class java.util.HashMap cannot be cast to class java.util.Hashtable' in data import. Targeted for January 8, 2021
Reports 1449277298

Fixed. UDFs on the resource entity are rendering on reports as expected. Previously, these UDFs were not rendering on reports.

Targeted for December 18
Reports 1442261013

Fixed. Resource Planning reports now return Resource capacity data as expected. Previously, fields from the Resource Capacity folder were returning no data.

Targeted for December 15
WS API 1449669343

Fixed. Method ID 513 for inserting Task:Type Title works as expected. Previously, when using this method the system threw the error "Processing Value Pairs: Invalid Value".

Targeted for December 18

New Feature Matrix 

Feature

Notes

Status

For more information…

Support for Iterative Work Management (IWM)

IWM supports iterative planning methodologies that by definition are de-coupled from dates and schedules. This decoupling allows you, for example, to plan phases by time and dependencies, but then pool the actual work done in those phases into IWM tasks/cards.

In support of IWM, this release introduces the date-optional or date-free task ("IW task").

In a nutshell, you can use SSA to create a task category and make task Start Date, Target Date, and Duration fields optional, or remove them completely from the category's task Details. 

Your WBS can be hybrid - it can contain both regular and IW tasks, in fact, you can have hybrid parent-child relationships as well.

Task dependencies are still supported, as well as visualizations on the task Gantt chart.

Please refer to the help topic Iterative Work - Using Tasks without Dates for all the details!

Note: Nothing will change with your existing task categories, other than the Required property for Start Date, Target Date, and Duration can be unchecked.

Note also: Custom integrations might need to be adjusted to account for tasks w/out dates or multiple owners. Please review your integrations.

GA

New: Iterative Work - Using Tasks without Dates

New: Demo recording of IWM feature

Multiple Owners for Tasks

The task Owners field allows you to select multiple resources. All owners are granted implicit owner permissions (including Time users), meaning they can view and edit on Home/Tasks. The multi-select field also lays the groundwork for phase 2 integrations with LeanKit and Projectplace.

   

Dashboards Revamp

If you wish to enable Dashboard Overviews in production, enter a support case requesting to do so.

Rolling beta highlights:

  • Ability to change report component headings in dashboards
  • Dashboard Overviews! Project and Home
  • Minor usability enhancements around Content tab
  • Dashboards grid from where you can New/Edit/Run dashboard
  • Content tab (Title, Description, Available Reports) with ability to drag and drop or click “Add” button to add a report to the dashboard
  • Scope tab with ability to specify what entity dashboard grids the dashboard shows up on
  • Preview - able to move reports around, resize, and Remove
  • Variable properties on report components to adjust filters
Beta

Known Issues

FAQs Dashboards (Beta)

Dashboards - Then and Now (Beta)

Using the Dashboard Designer

Setting Up Overview Dashboards (Beta)

 

Reports Revamp

If you wish to enable this feature in your production environment, enter a support case requesting to do so.

Rolling beta highlights:

  • Reporting on hierarchical entities (tasks, portfolios)
  • Specialty reports: Project/Request scoring, permission
  • New chart type: Combination: Area, Column, Line chart
  • Ability to edit/rearrange color palette
  • Ability to express % value on pie and donut charts
  • Updated controls for Gantt and bubble charts
  • Combined sorting and grouping
  • Drilldowns from all chart types to appropriate targets (report, dashboard, data)
  • Export to PDF for all reports other than Gantt
  • Drilldown-from, grouping-by multi-select fields
  • Times Series reports with date ranges (non-contoured data)
  • Export to PowerPoint for all reports except List, Crosstab, and Gantt
  • WYSIWYG report designer with field search - real-time preview of sample report output 
  • and much more!

See previous release notes for complete list of features. Completed feature list winnowed down for readability :)

Beta

Known Issues

Demo: Intro to Reporting Beta

FAQs Reports Beta

Reporting - Then and Now

Reports Overview (Beta)

Using the Report Designer

Building Gantt Chart Reports 

Grouping and Sorting for List Reports

Creating Drill Down Links

Reports (Beta) Cookbook

Training videos!

 

Financial Summary

If you wish to enable this feature in your production environment, enter a support case requesting to do so.

Rolling beta highlights

  • Added a set of Financial Summary PMI metric fields to project/Available Fields in SSA. See Financial Summary PMI Metrics for more information.
  • Create from project template
  • Create and configure summary fields and data streams in Organization/Finances/Financial Summary Components
  • Add Financial Summary section to project categories in SSA 
  • Create summary in Project/Financial/ Summary view 
Beta

Known Issues

Setting Up Permissions for Project Financials

Configuring Summary Data Streams - General Tab (Beta)

Creating Fields for the Financial Summary (Beta)

Working with the Summary View (Beta)

Checking the Numbers

Financial Summary: Cookbook (Beta)

Financial Summary PMI Metrics

Coming Soon      
DECEMBER RELEASE DATES

Due to the proximity to the end-of-year holidays, vacations, and our commitment to customer success, we are shifting the December release dates one week earlier:

  • the release notes will be posted by 11/30
  • the December sandbox release will be on Friday the 4th
  • the December production release will be on Friday the 11th
 

Sunsetting Internet Explorer 11 March 31, 2021

Please see End of Internet Explorer 11 Support for more information, including Microsoft's own plans for deprecating IE11.

Planview's plan is as follows:

  • Between now and the end of the year we will be on limited support, which means that from now on, we will not fix IE11 bugs unless they are critical​:

    • Bugs resulting in cosmetic, layout, or performance issues will no longer be fixed, and another browser will be recommended​.

    • Customer and internal critical bugs will be reviewed for potential fixes​.

  • Beginning December 31, 2020 we will be offering very limited support:​

    • We will no longer be testing IE11​.

    • Only critical bugs reported by customers will be triaged, with no guarantee of a fix​.

  • We will completely stop support as of March 31, 2021​.

 
Support for Negative Financial Entries The Negative Financial Entries capability will allow you to enter negative amounts within financial entry forecasts and actuals, allowing you to record corrections and make adjustments. Target - January

Release Notes

Function Area LeanKit ID Release Note Description 
Attachments 1406923062 Fixed. Users can change the attachment category for request and project attachments, as expected. Previously, the system threw an error when the user attempted to change the category.
Filters 1340761028

New. A complete set of relative date filters is now available. Every time interval (day, week, month, quarter, year) has the same set of relative filters. For example:

  • is prev NNN weeks
  • is prev NNN weeks, including this week
  • is next NNN weeks
  • is next NNN weeks including this week
  • is prev NNN months
  • is prev NNN months, including this month
  • is next NNN months
  • is next NNN weeks including this month
  • and so on
Filters 1381027573

Improved. The out-of-box filter "+ Requests I Can Approve" has been replaced with "+ Requests Pending My Approval". The filter results will not include requests with status "Approved/Rejected", "On Hold" or "New", and will be based on current Gate Approval logic. This means only approvers that are derived from the gate approval logic will be considered, and "super users" who can approve all requests will not be reflected in the filter results.

Filters 1390280011

Fixed. Filters that use a multi-select field as criteria work as expected. Previously, if the selected values exceeded 80 bytes, the filter did not save properly and the system threw an error when trying to use the filter.

Filters, Financial Entries 1363971684

Fixed. The Financial Planning Time Series reporting entity can include sub-filters. In addition, you can now build and view Financial Planning Time Series filters in Home/Filters and Admin/Filters. Previously, Financial Planning Time Series filters that used sub-filters could not be saved.

Permissions 1348928655

Fixed. In project Staffing, when staffing resources and drilling into a Harvey Ball to view a resource's current allocations, any project that the current user does not have permission to view will be represented by "No Access ####" where #### is the project ID. Previously, the title of the project was displayed.

Portfolios 1385602359

Fixed. Toggling between the portfolio chart view and list view no longer creates a duplicate chart. This falls into the "I had to see it with my own eyes" category, but previously, if you toggled between the two views you spawned an additional chart each time. Go figure.

Projects, LeanKit 1388499780 Fixed. (For customers using the LeanKit 1.0 integration) Made the "LK Card URL" field available for reporting.
Tasks, UI 1291399725

Fixed. After scrolling down to the bottom of a lengthy task history, you can smoothly scroll back up to the top, as expected. Previously an issue caused some annoying behavior while trying to scroll back to the top, including jumping back down to the bottom and behaving all higgly-wiggly.

Timesheet alerts 1338572826

Fixed. If a customer has not configured a logo for their environment, then the PPM Pro image will appear in the header of the timesheet alert email notifications. Previously, a broken link appeared in the notification if a customer image was not available.

UI 1315881272

Fixed. Users who do not have timesheets activated will not see the Home/Timesheets link. The landing page is determined per users based on what features they have configured, such as timesheets, the Home Overview dashboard, for example.

UI, I18N 1384693518

Fixed. The error message for creating passwords now reflects the correct minimum length requirements in all supported languages.

WS API  

New. With the new ability to have multiple task owners, new methods have been added that accept multiple entries. The old methods for Owner ID and Owner Last, First have been deprecated. In most cases, depending on how you've written your integration, there should be no impact. The original methods are backwards-compatible, meaning they can still be used in your integration, however GetEntityFields will no longer show the methods and they will not automatically be returned in a SelectEntity statement. If you specifically ask for the methods in the SelectEntity call through fieldsRequest, they will be included in the payload. If you are planning on using multiple task owners, you should upgrade your integration to use the new methods.

Old methods:

515 Owner, Last First (single owner)

516 Owner, First Last (single owner)

517 Owner ID (single ID)

New methods:

516 Owner, First Last (comma-separated list)

589 Task Owner IDs (comma-separated list)