EPS 2011 SP1 Released!

Enterprise Portfolio Simulator 2011 SP1 has been released!  It includes several new features listed below:

·         Hammock Tasks

·         Multiple Divisions

·         Right-click Menus

·         Hide and Show Columns

·         Contour Visualization

·         Expressions in Task Templates

·         Breadcrumb Navigation

·         Simultaneous Simulations

·         Cost/Revenue Totals Report

·         Expanded Resource Work Report Options

·         Export Report Images

·         Displaying Unfinished Gantt Tasks

·         Save Grids to Excel

·         Restrict Users to ‘My Items’

·         Additional Features

More details follow about each of the new features in the following sections.  To receive your upgrade of ESP 2011 SP 1, contact ProModel Support at support@promodel.com  or call 888.776.6633.

Hammock Tasks

Projects can now be created using hammock tasks.  These hammock tasks get their information from milestones or key tasks in a source project.  This is useful for custom summarizing of detailed plans into tasks that are better suited for resource forecasting and/or variability analysis.  For example, a business unit might be in charge of detailed project scheduling, while another unit needs to estimate resources for key phases of the detailed plan.  In this case, a resource plan with hammock tasks can be easily created using information from the detailed plan (start/finish dates, priorities, attributes, etc.)

Multiple Divisions
Within an organization there can be different groups who would like to use the same instance of EPS, but with unique and separate data.  EPS now supports ‘Divisions’, which represent individual sets of project data within the same instance of EPS.  Users can be granted access to multiple divisions as needed, and switch between.  Each division can link to a different MS Project Server.

Right-click Menus

Many of the options in the toolbar are now available in right-click, context menus.  The options that appear in the menu are different depending on the selected items.  The new right-click menus are available in the grid rows and headers.

Hide and Show Columns

You can now customize which columns are visible or hidden. Columns can be hidden or shown by right-clicking on the column headers.  The hide/show state is saved on a per-user basis.

Contour Visualizations

A sparkline has been added to the contour view in order to make it easier to visualize contour trends.  Contour points     > 1, which will increase a base value, are shown in green.  Contour points < 1, which will decrease a base value, are shown in pink.

Expressions in Task Templates

Similar to Resourcing and Financing Templates, Task Templates now accept the use of expressions, which can include numeric variables.  This is useful for using information from the source project plan’s custom fields to drive task template information.  For example, the source project may contain information about survival or variability that can be used for the tasks when the template is applied.

‘Breadcrumb’ Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation makes it easy to see the parent item, see which item or items are currently selected in the grid below, quickly switch between parent items using the drop down, and navigate back up a level by clicking on the link. 

Simultaneous Simulation Support

In order to better leverage the large multi-core nature of servers, and improve EPS performance, scenarios can now be simulated simultaneously.  When the user selects more than one scenario to run, the scenarios will be run at the same time, up to the number of simultaneous simulations defined when EPS was installed.

Cost/Revenue Totals Report

This new report allows analysis to be done on the total cost and revenues accrued in any given time frame.  This report also supports percentiles.

Expanded Resource Work Report Options

The Resource Work report previously had four separate series for 8-hour days and 24-hour days.  Now, there are only two ‘Work …’ series, and work can be displayed in minutes, hours, 8-hour days, and 24-hour days.

Export Report Images

The report charts can be saved to an image file, with or without the legend.  This option is available by right-clicking on any blank area of a chart.

Displaying Unfinished Gantt Tasks

In previous EPS versions, only the tasks that successfully completed were shown in the Gantt report.  By design, this would exclude tasks that should have been successfully completed, but did not finish before the simulation ended (determined by ‘Run Length’).

Tasks that don’t complete before the simulation completes, are now displayed and the simulation end date is used when calculating average finish dates.  In this case, these tasks are highlighted with a red border to denote that the average finish dates may use the simulation end date for one or more replications. 

Save Grids to Excel

In addition to copy and pasting to Excel, a new option exists to save an entire grid to an Excel file.  This option is accessed by right-clicking on the top-left cell of a grid.

Restrict Users to ‘My Items’

In some views, the user may be restricted to viewing and editing only the items they have created or last edited.  This permission is set in the User – Permissions view.

Additional Features

The following additional features have been implemented in EPS 2011 SP1.

·         Additional Simulation Status and Cancel.  A new status icon is shown after a scenario is checked to run and begins loading for simulation.  Simulations can now be canceled by clicking on the running icon.

·         The Financial – Productivity report now supports stacking by projects, tasks, and attributes.

·         The wildcard character (*) can now be entered in a Date type attribute field for the templates.  This is useful for defining a date as a matching criterion for some template row, while ignoring the matching for others.  Text and Number type attributes also support the wildcard, while Flag types do not.

·         Point labels are no longer shown for data point with a ‘0’ value.

·         Report tabs can have their text edited.

·         Report attribute filters now group the attributes by type.  I.e. task, project, and resource type attributes have their own groups.

·         Various performance improvements have been made to the database queries and other general functionality.

What's New in EPS 2011

Improved User Interface
The EPS user interface is being updated with the latest technology.

• Easier to use grids in which data entry and edits can be made. Click here for more information about Grids.
• Information can be copied and pasted to and from other cells in EPS or Microsoft Excel.
• Data can be filtered, sorted, and grouped by almost any criteria. This is useful for looking at projects by attributes, tasks by resource assignment, etc.
•  Tasks are shown hierarchically, and can be expanded and collapsed at any time by any level.

Performance Improvements.
The load time for views has been significantly improved. For example, displaying of large data-sets that took 45+ seconds in the old technology now load in 1-3 seconds.

Roles, Rights, and Privileges
Individual users of EPS can now be restricted to certain areas of the application. These permissions can be applied quickly via pre-defined roles and then fine-tuned as needed, or completely customized by specific privileges.

Calendar Exceptions
EPS calendars can have up to two exception schedules defined and applied. This functionality is similar to Portfolio Simulator, and allows for the modeling of holidays, various time off, or alternate work schedules for tasks and resources.

Project-to-Project Task Conditions
Once projects are added to a portfolio, dependencies between the tasks in separate projects can be defined. This is useful for situations like controlling the starting a project based on the progress of another project, or starting/canceling contingency plans depending on the events of other projects. All three condition types (Start, Finish, and Terminate) are supported, thus allowing for nearly unlimited modeling of real-world dependencies and time constraints.

Link to Excel File Imports
When importing projects from Excel, a link can be maintained between the projects in EPS and the Excel file. This is useful for rapidly updating project data in EPS without reimporting the entire project.
Projects linked to Excel will only allow the editing of fields that will not be overwritten during an Excel update. This prevents the loss of custom changes, while allowing the user to make specific changes to the EPS projects, which would otherwise be lost if re-importing from scratch.

New Add-in Capabilities
EPS 2011 will support custom add-ins that can be created on demand by the ProModel Development team. If there are custom features required by particular users and organizations, these can be address quickly in an add-in for that customer without waiting on the main EPS release cycle.

Additional Reports
The following reports are currently schedules for inclusion in EPS 2011:

• Throughput WIP. This work in progress report is similar to the WIP report in Portfolio Simulator.
• Durations (Cycle Time). The durations report is similar to the Cycle Time report in Portfolio Simulator.
• Additional Reports. As the development of EPS 2011 progresses, other reports may be added to this list.

Minor Features and Bug Fixes
The following minor features and bug fixes are scheduled for implementation in EPS 2011.

• Simultaneous simulation of individual scenarios. To improve simulation times on servers with multiple cores, EPS is able to simulate multiple scenarios simultaneously. For additional scalability, the user can also set up additional servers to run simulations as need.
• Filtering visible items by logged in user. The option exists to view all items in the ‘Analysis’ views or just the items that the logged in user has either created or last modified. This makes viewing large lists of items across an entire organization easier by filtering out those that may not apply for the logged in user.
• Behind the scenes project import. When importing projects, the import process will happen on the server, and not tie up the client interface. This is useful for queuing up multiple projects to import, and then doing other work in EPS while the projects are being imported.

Savable Report Views

Once a report has been defined, it may be saved for use in the future or for sharing with colleagues. In addition to individual reports, entire dashboard views may be saved.

• Saving a Report. Individual reports are saved by clicking on the save icon at right of the report title bar, and entering a name. Please note that the report type and filter settings will be saved for the report; however, zoom levels and right-click menu options will not be persisted.
  
  
• Saving a Dashboard View. A collection of reports in the same view may be saved by mousing over the view tab, clicking the save button, and entering a name for the view.
  
  
• Loading a Saved Report or View.The saved reports and views will be available from the ‘Saved’ tab in the reports area. Simply click on ‘Saved’, and mouse over the Views or Reports. Click on the name of a saved view to load it. Click on the name of a saved report, or click and drag its name onto the layout, to load it.
  

Selectable Chart Types

The user can now choose whether chart series show as bars, lines, areas, splines or spline areas. Additionally, if the report is stacked, the series type will stack accordingly (i.e. stacked bars, stacked areas, etc.)
The series type is selected for individual series in the report filter. Simply expand the series name to see the type selection drop down menu.

Chart Data Point Values Shown in a Grid

The values for data points shown in any chart (except Gantt) can now be displayed in a grid. These values can also be exported to Excel in a pivot-friendly format.

• Displaying Data Point Grid. Simply right-click on any empty area of a chart to show the appropriate right-click menu. Select the “Display Series in Grid” option.
  
  
• Exporting to Excel. Once the data point values are shown in the dialog that appears, they can be exported to Excel by clicking on the “Export to Excel” button at the top. Additionally, one or more rows can be selected and copied to the clipboard.
  
  

It should be noted that only the data points visible in the chart will be shown in the grid. Therefore, if you have zoomed in the chart, the data in the grid will only reflect the points still visible in the chart.

Exportable Start/Finish Report

A new report has been created that will export raw task start/finish values to Excel in a pivot-friendly format. The dates can be the average of the replications, or each individual simulation rep.

Easier Resource Mapping

When importing projects, there is an option to import resource requirements. This requires that all resources in the source project be mapped to EPS resources. The mapping had automatically been suggested based on resource names, but when individual resources were to be mapped to EPS resources of a different name, the mapping process could become tedious.

There are two new options for pre-defining resource mappings to make importing of resources much easier.

• In the “Resources” view, there is a new ‘Suggested Group Members’ field. Here names of resources can be entered. If that resource name exists in the project, and doesn’t already exist as an EPS resource, this EPS resource will be automatically suggested during import.
  
  For example, if I have an EPS resource called ‘Developer’, and I may want my named resources in MS Project to map to ‘Developer’. I could simply enter in the named resources in the ‘Suggested Groups Members’, and they will map to the EPS Developer resource at import.
  
  
• In MS Project and in the Excel Import Template, there exists a “Group” column in the resource sheet. If this column contains the name of an EPS resource, the EPS resource will automatically be suggested during import.

There is now an order of automatic mappings suggested by EPS during import:

• If an EPS resource by the same name exists, it will be mapped.
• If no EPS resource by that name exists, then any name that matches in the ‘Suggested Group Members’ field will be mapped.
• If neither of the above are true, then the “Group” field from MS Project or the Excel sheet will be read, and if an EPS resource name matches, it will be mapped.
• If none of the above is true, then the user will need to manually select an EPS resource to map.

EPS 2010 SP2

User Defined Fixed Costs
In addition to the three default fixed cost types (start, prorated, end), up to seven additional fixed cost categories can be custom defined along with their accrual method.

Projects imported from Microsoft Project Server (EPM) will continue to save fixed costs from the projects to the first three default EPS fixed cost categories. Projects imported from Excel may have five fixed cost categories defined, which may be mapped to any EPS fixed cost category.

Finish Conditions
Tasks finish when all their work and duration are complete. However, there are situations where a task should end based on the events of other tasks or a calendar date. Finish Conditions are now available to allow the forced finish of a task.

Finish Conditions can be defined in the new 'Finish Condition' tab in the task view, and are automatically created when importing from MS Project Server for tasks that have finish-to-Finish dependencies and Must Finish On constraints. Please note that EPS will always enforce finish conditions, whereas MS Project may be told by the user to ignore finish dependencies and constraints.

Increased Number of Attributes
The number of available text-based attribute categories has been increased from 20 to 60 for projects, tasks, and resources.

Statistical Reports
Most report series now support the viewing of data by percentiles. This means that when a scenario is run for multiple replications with some variability (task, work, survival, etc.), the reports can show percentiles of key metrics across replications. Percentiles are selected by expanding report series and clicking on the Add/Edit percentiles button. Percentiles can then be selected by clicking on the slider.

Streamlined Strategic Rollup
When projects are rolled up to strategic levels, the start date of each project is now automatically used as the status date. This simplifies the process of selecting multiple projects at once for import when using strategic rollup.

Scenario View Improvements
The scenario view now shows a more concise set of columns. The information shown now consists of the major settings for each 'what if' scenario. An additional option has been added to quickly constrain or unconstrain all resources, or let each resource use the constraint setting specified in the Resource view and Change Descriptions. The 'All Constrained' and 'All Unconstrained' options will trump any change descriptions for individual resource allocation mode. Scenario settings that were in columns that no longer appear can still be viewed and changed by editing individual scenarios.

Performance Improvements
The load times of various parts of the application have been greatly improved for large data sets. The largest gains are in the task views and output reports, where 2x-10x reductions in load times have been realized.

Added Support for SMTPS Mail Servers
In addition to supporting the sending of emails using an SMTP mail server, EPS now supports SMTPS.

Minor UI Improvements and Bug Fixes
A number of small improvements have been made to the usability of EPS as well as some fixes to the user interface.

• Duplicate Template Profiles. Entire profiles in the task, resourcing, and financing templates can now be duplicated.
  
• Update Report Appearance. New theming has been applied to the report user interface.
  
• EPS Port Configuration. When deploying EPS, the ports for the various parts of the application can now be specified in the Configuration Manager. This is useful for networks where ports may already be in use by other applications.
  
• Configurable Output Directory. During the deployment, the default location of output report files can now be modified using the Configuration Manager.
  
• Caching of Projects. When projects are imported from Project Server, they are no longer cached in the browser session. This modification allows the user to make a change to a Project in Project Server that was recently imported, and then reimport or update the project without needing to close all browsers to reset the session and clear the cached project.
  
• Empty Conflict List. Occasionally, when importing or updating, the conflict dialog would not show the list of conflicts. This has been resolved.
  
• Deleted Projects Referenced by Portfolios. In some environments, deleting a project that is referenced in a portfolio could result in an error when displaying the portfolio's project list.
  
• Importing of Project Priority. When importing, the priority of projects is brought over automatically from the import source, and no longer entered in the import wizard.
  
• Importing Resource Requirements from Excel. Previously, resource requirements did not come across when importing projects from Excel in certain situations. All resource requirement information is now properly imported.
  
• Deleting a Resource that is referenced by a Template. Now, when a resource is deleted, any resourcing template that references that resource will also be deleted.
  
• Excel Import – Survival/Duration Contour Base Date. The survival and duration contour base date now import correctly from Excel.
  
• Resourcing Templates – Enable/Disable. The cells in the resource templates view were becoming improperly enabled and disabled when scrolling horizontally. This has been resolved.
  
• Duplicate Button in Templates. The Duplicate button would become disabled in the template views after deleting a template record. This has been resolved.

EPS 2010 SP1

• Multiple Project Import with Resources.  Entire portfolios of projects can be imported from Microsoft Project Server in a single pull, and then continuously and automatically updated in EPS thereafter.  All applicable project information is now completely transferred, including: tasks, resource assignments, dependencies, constraints, financials, attributes, etc.
  
  
  

• Import from Excel. Any project data that can be represented in Excel can now be imported into EPS.  Tasks, resources, assignments, and advanced simulation properties can all be defined in Excel 2003-2010 and loaded into Enterprise Portfolio Simulator.
  
  

• Advanced Task and Financing Templates.  Now, in addition to automatically applying resource requirements to projects based drivers and algorithms, financial information and task variability can be contained in algorithms that are applied to tasks based on attribute drivers.
  
  
  

• Project-to-Project Start Conditions.   Projects can be modeled to start or finish based on other projects in the portfolio.  This is useful for planning contingency projects and alternative futures based on the outcome (success or failure) of other projects in the system.
  

• Multi-pane Reports (Dashboard).  Any number of reports can be viewed side-by-side in a flexible arrangement.  Useful for showing overall portfolio performance and comparing multiple portfolio metrics in a single view.
  
  

• New Cost Report.  Costs are accrued in a multitude of ways by many different cost objects (resources and fixed costs).  Now these costs can be simultaneously sliced, stacked, grouped and filtered by any combination of resource, task, fixed cost, or attribute values.
  
  

• Resource Requirement Excel Report.  Complete resource usage results can be exported to Excel in a pivot-friendly format, which allows for further analysis of the simulation output.
  
  

Additional Resources:

• Scenario Planning
• Project Portfolio Management and Simulation
  
• Visualize, Analyze, Optimize your Portfolio