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Planview Customer Success Center

What's New - October 2021

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 for new features October 1
New features released to sandbox environments October 8
New features released to production environments October 15
Issue fixes released weekly Planned weekly releases containing issue fixes and minor enhancements; release notes updated accordingly

Releases are deployed during the standard maintenance windows.

Reminders

  • Defect fixes and occasional beta features are delivered weekly; most beta features and GA features (when ready) are delivered monthly.
  • 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 and non-planned releases/updates/incidents. These alerts include the date and time window of the releases/updates/incident, as well as a link to the release notes that include a list of the issues addressed in the releases/updates/incident. To subscribe to these alerts, please go to https://status.planview.com/ and click the Subscribe button.
  • We typically hold a live product release webinar 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 October 13th release webinar. Also, remember you can sign up for any/all upcoming customer webinars here.
  • 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.

New Features Matrix

Feature

Notes

Status

For more information…

Financial Summary

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

Rolling beta highlights

  • Reporting on financial summary
  • Additional ETC/EAC calculation
  • Additional PMI metrics (ETC, EAC, NPV, ROI) - project fields and settings interface
  • Variance column for totals and time series
  • References for summary fields now includes list of projects
  • Added a set of Financial Summary PMI metric fields to project/Available Fields in SSA. See Financial Summary PMI Metrics for more information.
  • and much more!

See previous release notes for complete list of features - list above winnowed down for readability :)

Beta

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

"Display Data As" options for grids

The "Display Data As" option from reports has been added to entity grids. Individual users can select how data in each column appears. This option is available for:

  • lookup lists
  • percents
  • floats
  • money
  • dates
Generally Available  
Changes to Rendering of Calculated Fields

Many of you are familiar with the “new” reporting and the  “Display As:” feature, which allow you to apply formatting and color to specific fields. Previously, calculated fields were used as workarounds to implement field formatting. With the advent of HTML 5 and the new features mentioned above, many of these calculated fields are no longer required. With the October release, unsupported HTML anchor tags, such as font size, and font color are being stripped from calculated fields because HTML 5 provides direct support (no workaround required).

If you come across rendered fields that no longer show color or specific formatting, it is likely that it is a calculated field that uses unsupported tags. Your data will not be affected, but, for example, a field that previously displayed in the color red will simply display the uncolored text. To fix, change the Display Type of the field to HTML, and adjust the formula from using '<font color = …>’ (since the <font> tag is not supported in HTML 5), to use  <div> or <span> instead of <font>. The replacement can be either `<span style =\"color: ...\">` or `<div style =\"color: ...\">` (`<span ...>` is preferred). Note: If you do not change the Display Type to HTML, the HTML will display the literal characters of the HTML tags in the field.

Please contact Customer Care if you have questions. 

   
Removing Support for Some Weaker Cipher Suites

We will be removing support for less secure cipher suites with the October release. Starting October 15, we will no longer support the following TLS Ciphers:

  • ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256
  • ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256
  • ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384
  • ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384

This change will affect some unsupported legacy browsers, including IE11 on older versions of Windows (8.1 and earlier) and Safari versions 6, 7, 8 on older iOS platforms. This change does not affect modern browsers. 

See System Requirements for our browser support policy.

NA  
Stepping Into Reports and Dashboards

This new Customer Success Center topic is based on a recent Accelerate presentation for how to create effective reports and dashboards. This topic isn't about the mechanics of creation, but about the art of creation. It includes recommendations such as how how to decide what to include and what visualizations to use, with a handy dandy report type selection table.   

NA Stepping into Reports and Dashboards
Coming Soon   Date  
Task Timeline   Target - Nov/Dec  

Release Notes - Sorted by Release Date 

Release Date Function Area LeanKit card Release Note Description
Target November 12 Financial Entries 1624307489

New. There is a new control on the Financial Entries toolbar that toggles the display of Actuals on/off.

Target November 12 Gantt Chart 1647377560

Fixed. Printing a Gantt chart works as expected when enabling the setting "Print list/chart on one page (shrinking Gantt chart as necessary)" - the columns and chart print on the same page.

Target November 12 Project Calendar 1645527822

Fixed. Changing Project Calendar/Working Hours works as expected - the Base Calendar field can be edited without the modal locking up. 

Target November 12 Reports (Legacy) 1626491307

Fixed. Portfolio trend fields return data as expected when using the legacy report source "KPI Trend Report for Portfolios in a Portfolio". Previously, an issue prevented reports based on this source from returning data.

Target November 12 Reports (Legacy) 1639133715

Fixed. In legacy reports, the Target "All Tasks under a Summary Task" is available and returns correct results, as expected.

Target November 12 Staffing Requests 1642350884

Fixed. (Managed Staffing) When accessing the staffing modal from an email notification, the Route To field's value can be edited and saved, as expected.

Target November 12 Staffing Requests 1621810437

New. (Managed Staffing) On Admin/Organization/Routing, the Staffing Request Options section has a new option that allows you to route a "No Resource" request to a specific hierarchy unit manager. Select the new (3rd) radio button to enable this option. Then, when the request is submitted, the requester can click Route To and the organization hierarchy and associated unit managers with staffing permissions is presented.

 November 5 Financial Entries 1588454537 New. Standard fields for ETC and EAC are now available for use on financial entries. These fields use the same calculation formula as their Financial Summary ETC and EAC counterparts.
November 5 Financial Summary 1093932681

Improved. You can edit a financial summary field (all properties except Constraints), even if the field has one or more references. Note that none of the edits will be propagated to the project details. For example, if fields like Multiplier, NPV and ROI exist on the project, they will not be affected by changes made on the Summary.

November 5 Reports 1624546361

Improved. Time Entry topic reports scoped to projects return results in a reasonable time frame, even if no filter applied.

November 5 Reports (Legacy) 1643430903

Fixed. (Legacy) Users can edit list reports that they own, as expected. Previously, an issue prevented reports from being edited by their owners unless the owners were in the Admin standard group.

November 5 Reports (Legacy) 1605223552

Fixed. When using a KPI Trend Report for Projects in a Portfolio and Sub Portfolio as component on dashboard, the data is returned according to the selected date range, as expected. 

 November 5 Resource Workbench 1617668465

Fixed. When changing an allocated resource, the display updates automatically to reflect the new resource. Previously, the browser needed to be refreshed in order to display the new resource.

November 2 User Interface 1642945874

Improved. Improved performance when using multiple Text Box fields on Details. For best results, it is recommended that the browser zoom be used at 100%.

October 29 Calendars 1641642298

Fixed. Can set effective dates on a calendar, as expected. Previously, an issue caused the dialog box for inputting the split date range to appear and then disappear, preventing the date from being entered. 

 October 29 Reports 1640750800 Fixed. Custom color ranges can be added and deleted, as expected. Previously, an issue prevented the Delete button from being active once a range is selected
 October 29 Reports 1635378538

Fixed. Applying the setting Column Width = Fixed Pixels and setting column wrapping to Truncate (Do Not Wrap) to a column in a report works as expected, even if the report has only one column. Previously, if the settings described above were set on the one column contained in the report, an issue caused the system to throw an error. 

October 29 Requests 1636420477

Fixed. Gate approvers can approve a request that does not display the request Title on the details.

October 29 Resources 1642080557

Fixed. Resources photos can be uploaded into PPM Pro, as expected. Previously, uploading a resource photo resulted in a blank screen and required a browser refresh.

October 29 Resources, Filters 1625196267

Fixed. Applying the filter logic "Unit directly managed by this resource is" <unit> in the Resource list's ad hoc filter works as expected. Previously, when using the operands "is" or "contains" for the unit being searched, no results were returned.

October 29 Resource 1642080557

Fixed. Resources photos can be uploaded into PPM Pro, as expected. Previously, uploading a resource photo resulted in a blank screen and required a browser refresh.

October 29 Tasks, Spreadsheet Editor 1642128772 Fixed. You can copy and paste multiple cells in the task spreadsheet editor, as expected.
 October 26 Project Status Comments/Notes 1641392292

Fixed. You can edit project status comments/notes, as expected. Previously an issue caused the context menu to disappear after editing a comment/note. Then, after choosing Actions > Edit and making an edit, the system threw an error upon saving.

 October 26 Project Status Comments/Notes 1641431060

Fixed. Creating a project status comment or note works as expected. Previously, after saving the the comment/note the system was locked and required a browser refresh to view the UI.

 October 26 Resource, Attachment 1640886082

Fixed. The "Public" checkbox is now editable when creating or editing attachments for Resource, division, and Department entities, as expected. Previously, the Public checkbox was not editable for attachments on those entities.

October 26 Timesheets 1638257329

Fixed. Using the Entries from Previous Timesheets feature to populate a timesheet works as expected - entries from previous timesheets display in the modal. Previously, even if more that one timesheet entry was available, only one entry was displayed in the modal that appears after choosing New > Entries from Previous Timesheets. As a result, users could not populate their timesheets with all available entries.

October 26 Timesheets 1638177475

Fixed. The Total Hours field value on timesheets updates when hours are added or removed from timesheet entries, as expected. Previously, an issue prevented the Total Hours field from updating to reflect changes in the timesheet entry.

October 22 Calculated Fields 1603118001

Fixed. Calculated fields with Display Type of HTML are rendered on entity grids. This matches how HTML strings work in reports. Previously, calculated fields with display type of HTML were converted to a textbox and all HTML was stripped away.

October 22 Reports 1626605701

Fixed. The Show Hierarchy setting can be applied to Portfolio reports as expected. Previously, an issue caused the system to throw an "unable to render" error when the Show Hierarchy option was applied to the Portfolio: Title field.

October 22 Dashboards, Reports 1622809407

Improved. Dashboards containing reports that use field-level filters render in a reasonable timeframe, as expected. Previously, an issue caused dashboards containing reports with field-level features to load slowly.

October 22 Reports 1628856778

Fixed. KPI reports with monthly trend intervals are displaying last day of month in reports, as expected. Previously, an issue cause the first of the month to display instead of the last day.

October 22 Tasks, Spreadsheet Editor 1636981514

Fixed. Copy and paste functions - within the spreadsheet editor and between external tools such as Word or Excel - work as expected.

October 22 Tasks 1638271539

Fixed. Editing large task plans works as expected - the record being editing stays in focus and visible on the plan. Previously, when editing a task in a large task plan, an issue caused the navigational scroll for the task list to automatically jump to the top of the list, leaving the task open for editing out of view (if there are enough tasks on the project plan to require scrolling).

October 20 Managed Staffing 1638760876

Fixed. You can make edits to contours on the project Staffing screen as expected. Previously, when editing contours, an issue caused the contours to shift, making it difficult to know which resource's record is being edited.

October 20 Reports 1638905176

Fixed. When exporting a list report that contains a Boolean field, the value for the exported boolean is correct (Yes or No) as expected. Previously, an issue caused the exported Boolean value to always be Yes.

October 20 SSA 1638568578

Fixed. Configuring entity Details in SSA works as expected. Previously, when removing a field from the Details, an issue caused the right-hand side of the Details to go blank until the browser was refreshed.

October 20 Tasks 1638271539

Fixed. Editing large task plans works as expected - the record being edited stays in focus and visible on the plan. Previously, when editing a task in a large task plan, an issue caused the navigational scroll for the task list to automatically jump to the top of the list, leaving the task open for editing out of view (if there are enough tasks on the project plan to require scrolling).

October 20 Timesheets 1638257329

Fixed. Using the Entries from Previous Timesheets feature to populate a timesheet works as expected - entries from previous timesheets display in the modal. Previously, an issue prevented entries from populating the modal after choosing New > Entries from Previous Timesheets.

October 20 Timesheets 1638177475

Fixed. The Total Hours field value on timesheets updates when hours are added or removed from timesheet entries, as expected. Previously, an issue prevented the Total Hours field from updating to reflect changes in the timesheet entry.

October 19 Copy to Clipboard 1638934299

Fixed. Copy to Clipboard works as expected. Previously, an issue caused inconsistent behavior with the resulting modal and prevented a successful copy.

October 19 Tasks, Spreadsheet Editor 1638084702

Fixed. Textbox fields can be used in the spreadsheet editor, as expected. Previously, when canceling out of a textbox field an issue caused the system to throw an error and hang.

October 19 Tasks, Spreadsheet Editor 1638961495

Fixed. Can edit and save task predecessors and successors in the spreadsheet-style editor, as expected. Previously, after editing the predecessor/successor, an issue prevents the edited value from saving (retains the old value).

October 19 Timesheets 1638338679

Fixed. The internal and billing rate labels no longer appear on Home/Timesheets, as expected. Previously, the labels were displayed, although no rates were exposed.

October 18 Dashboards 1618743045

Fixed. Dashboards that contain multiple reports with the same title can be exported to Excel, as expected. Previously, an issue caused Excel to throw an error when exporting a dashboard containing 2 or more reports with the same title.

October 18 Resource Staffing 1637956088

Fixed. On the Resource Staffing grid, the Display Data As menu displays the correct date formatting options, as expected. Previously, after selecting a date field and choosing Display Data As, and issue caused the Display Data As menu to display number formats rather that date formats, which was not expected.

October 18 Timesheets 1638098129

Fixed. Users can log time with entries that require additional timesheet fields (sometimes labeled Company or Location), as expected. Previously, an issue caused the picklist associated with these additional fields to be empty, preventing users from submitting timesheets when these fields were required.

October 18 UI 1638204651

Fixed. Pop-up modals for UDF pick lists working as expected. Previously, an issue prevented the modals from displaying properly.

October 15 (production) Lookup Lists 1635198979

Fixed. When editing the Title of a lookup list item, you are not required to choose a color value, as expected. Previously, an issue caused the system to require a value in the color field in order to save edits. 

October 15 (production) Reports 1593831963

Fixed. Aggregation works as expected for numeric, top-level fields. Previously, numeric, top-level fields were set to auto-aggregate, which produced inconsistent results.

October 15 (production) WS API, Home Overview Dashboards 1619136999

New. You can now set the default Home Overview dashboard using WS API. Insert/update methods are available on the User entity, which you can use with the defaultDashboardId parameter to set the default Home Overview dashboard.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Data Import 1615486073 Fixed. Data import now correctly displays a rejection reason for imported rows with bad date formats. Previously, a rejection reason was not listed when a row failed to import because of bad date data.
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Financial Entries 1620049930 Improved. You can view/open the details modal (which includes Notes and Attachments) of a forecast or actuals financial entry if they have view permissions on the relevant financial entries, as expected. Previously, there was no View option in the Actions menu for users with View permission, and as a result they were unable to view the Detail modal.
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
General UI 1623670773  1610549594 New. We recently updated our UI Framework. The only differences you may see are updated icons.
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Projects 1623285257 Fixed. Administrators can set "No" as the default value for the "Can Be Template" setting for Project fields. Previously, attempts to do so resulted in an error message asking the user to change the setting.
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1629467282 Fixed. Users can now export hierarchy reports as expected. Previously, an issue caused Excel, CSV, and PDF exports of some hierarchy reports to fail, displaying a loading icon that spun indefinitely. 
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1629739243 Fixed. You can edit and save report filter descriptions and use calendar widgets in reports that allow you to change the filter before running it. Previously, you could not edit existing filter descriptions. Additionally, if the filter used dates, you would not be able to use the calendar tool.
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports

1612086207 1611562496  1611564399  1611560342   1611562214

New. You can now add conditional background colors to time series fields in the List: Time Series report type. On the Data tab you can assign the colors to different percent ranges for a numeric field from the field's Settings (gear icon).
October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1606539310

Fixed. Viewing a dashboard on a browser zoomed to something other than 100% and with the "Minimize White Space" print option works as expected -  dashboard components occupy the entire width of the window, and the top and bottom rows are aligned. Previously, the top row of reports was offset from the bottom row.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1623510248

New. There is a new setting called "TIme Series Width Percent" that allows you to set width of time series columns in the report designer as well as on a dashboard. The setting is on the Display tab of the report designer, and in the Edit Headings section of the dashboard components. The columns can be manually sized in the rendered report, much like a Gantt chart. Note that for a report on a dashboard, the splitter (control between the columns and the time series) is disabled.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1606721434

Fixed. Printing the task gantt chart works as expected, with no extraneous blank pages. Previously, printing to PDF caused blank pages to be generated.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1607178227

Fixed. Printing a multi-page dashboard with the Minimize White Spaces option enabled works as expected - if a chart does not fit on the page, it will be moved to the next page. Previously, an issue resulted in charts being cut off on the first page, rather than moving them to the next page.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1610143274

Fixed. When building a report of Type Pie: Crosstab or Pie: Basic, grouping on a boolean field and including Count as the Value field works as expected  - slices labelled True/False for the boolean and Yes/No for the count are included and labelled correctly. Previously, an issue caused only the True/Yes/1 values to get counted and mis-labelled in the pie chart as "1" instead of "true" or "yes".

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1594645683

Fixed. On reports with Topic = Task Schedule, configuring an entity drill down from task Title or ID works as expected. Previously, the system threw an error after the user clicked on an entity drilldown. 

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Reports 1622747396

Fixed. After configuring a list report (including grouping and sorting) and running it, you can make a copy of the report and change the Type to Pie and successfully run the report. Previously, an issue caused the copied report to render blank after switching from List to Pie output when grouping was enabled.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Requests 1627875869

Fixed. The Group By field for the Request card view is working as expected - it successfully uses the first list field in the request grid as the default Group By field. Once you change the Group By field it is sticky. Previously, after removing Status and Gate Status fields from the grid and selecting Menu >  Reset to Default Settings, an issue caused the Group By field to be blank and the "Show" field to display the Status field lookup list values - if that category did not use the Status field, all the cards wound up in the None column. Yucky.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)
Tasks 1631882241 Fixed. Time users with appropriate view permissions can view the Scheduling tab on tasks.  Previously, an issue prevented time users from seeing the Scheduling tab had the appropriate permissions.

October 8 (sandbox)
October 15 (production)

Tasks, Spreadsheet-style Editor 1607191766

Fixed. The spreadsheet editor can be opened and used as expected, even if there is a calculated field on the Task Details that is in an error state. Previously, an issue prevented the spreadsheet-style editor from opening if a calculated field on the task Details had thrown an error.