eProject is a Sohodojo Research Sponsor, find out more...

Sohodojo and Communities of the Future proudly host...
The Center for Community Collaboration Technologies
M2: Analysis of Comparable Project Planning/Management Offerings

M2 Section Summary: Task Constraints

Copyright (c) 2000 Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci
All Rights Reserved

Associated project: Specification Writing for Web-based Project Planning Software

Project URL: http://sohodojo.com/techsig/project-planning-project.html

sXc Project detail: http://sourcexchange.com/ProjectDetail?projectID=24 (SourceXchange is out of business.)

Project coordination: Sohodojo

Sponsors: Position open

Sponsors (M1-3): Opendesk.com and Collab.Net

Core Team: Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci

1 Introduction

This document aggregates the feature and underlying model analyses of comparable products and services in the domain of the project specification requirements. During the comparables analysis phase, nine product and service offerings were examined.

1.1 Format and Key to Abbreviations

Each of fourteen sections of the Comparables Analysis Data Capture Outline has a Section Summary file such as this one. Section 1 of each data collection form is an Introduction statement explaining the project and the assessment. Section 16 is a reviewer profile. Since all data was produced by the core project team members, section 16 does not have a summary section.

In a Section Summary file, we aggregate the analysis data within each subsection of the raw data collection forms. Each data point from the raw assessment outlines is presented in the following alphabetical order and prefixed with the following identifying abbreviations:

Note: The HTML versions of the deliverable use bullet lists with more readable prefix identifiers than the two-character source identifier used in the text versions.

The aggregated section data in each Section Summary file is the last section of the file. In addition to the aggregated data, each summary file has an optional section for the capture of summary insights or comments.

1.2 Section Summary Insights and/or Comments

====== SECTION SUMMARY DATA ======

11 Task Constraints

11.1 Task Dependency Internal (intra-project)

  • Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

    Tasks can be constrained by Fixed, As Soon As Possible, As Late As Possible, No Earlier Than and No Later Than settings. A collection of Predecessors further describes Task dependencies.

  • eProject Express [ Full data ]

    None

  • FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

    FTS has powerful and flexible Activity dependency constraint capabilities. Particularly strong is the intuitive user interfaces which allow easy drag-and-drop editing which respects constraint requirements.

  • ManagePro [ Full data ]

    ManagePro is decidedly weak in terms of traditional task dependency modeling. Goals and subgoals maintain start and due dates which gives a Goal/Subgoal elements a calendar duration. Subgoal durations roll-up to determine Goal durations, but there is no mechanism for setting Goal-to-Goal dependencies.

  • Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

    Fully implemented.

  • Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

    Functionality not supported.

  • SourceForge [ Full data ]

    Within a SourceForge project, the TaskManager allows you to create multiple project plans. While you can assign multiple dependents of other tasks within the same group, it is not semantically enforced, you can not assign dependents on tasks in other project plans within the scope of the high level project.

  • WebProject [ Full data ]

    Tasks in WebProject support task and calendar constraints within the current project plan.

    The task constraints are called predecessors and can be indicated as types Finish-Start (FS), Finish to Finish (FF), and Start-Start (SS). The types can be further refined using the standard lag (+) or lead (-) with a number of unit indicator. For example 1FS+2d describes a task that is constrained by the finish of task #1, and will lag start for 2 days once task #1 is completed.

    Start No Earlier Than is a constraint that forces a tasks to start on or after the date indicated in the task description field.

  • X-Community [ Full data ]

    The Information Unit model of X-Community provides a 'structural decomposition' that allows tasks to be understood as task/subtask relations, but the 'information structural' approach of the X-Community model defers inter-task dependencies modeling to MS Project through its Whiteboard/Project mapping.

11.2 Task Dependency External (inter-project)

  • Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

    Enact supports an Export function which large projects to be partitioned into multiple, smaller Plans. Task interdependencies are maintained across these exported partitions. There is no way to link any arbitrary Task within on Plan to another arbitrary Task in another Project.

  • eProject Express [ Full data ]

    None

  • FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

    You can open many Project files concurrently in FTS. However, each Project is its own 'private turf', there is no inter-dependency mechanism which ties Projects together.

    That said, FTS is highly configurable and uses host OS-specific scripting and object-embedding features to allow the motivated user to create such inter=project dependencies.

  • ManagePro [ Full data ]

    The same limitations on dependencies applied in the case were data for more than one project is maintained within a single ManagePro database.

  • Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

    Fully implemented.

  • Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

    Functionality not supported.

  • SourceForge [ Full data ]

    Functionality not available.

  • WebProject [ Full data ]

    Tasks can not reference other project plan tasks.

  • X-Community [ Full data ]

    Whiteboards within a Business Center map to MS Project Projects. In this sense, the X-Community Information Unit model space represents a collection of related projects. So you have easy access to a multi-project collaboration space, but the Information Unit model space does not appear to provide explicit dependency relations between units across Whiteboards. (More information is needed here to more fully understand the integration between the X-Community and MS Project.

11.3 Resource constraints (expressed as percentage)

  • Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

    No.

  • eProject Express [ Full data ]

    None

  • FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

    Same as other answer...

    Not applicable in the default configuration.

    The user is free to 'get creative' with the extension features of FTS to 'make it so'.

  • ManagePro [ Full data ]

    No.

  • Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

    As would be expected, with a very cool new feature call "Contoured Resource Availability" . With this feature, users can create plans that incorporate time-phased resource availability information. For example, they can show that a resource's availability increases from 50 percent to 100 percent from one period of time to another.

  • Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

    Functionality not supported.

  • SourceForge [ Full data ]

    Functionality not available.

  • WebProject [ Full data ]

    Resource constraints are supported in relationship to project calendars, task sizing and resource availability, all of which are fully configurable. Resource constraints include:

    Calendars - Weekends, holidays, vacations, etc. can be marked as non-workable. These are considered in the Gannt View and overall project projections.

    Availability - The amount of time percentage (0.0 - 1.0) per day a resource is available in a group or for assignment to a task. This constraint is considered in the reporting options for Leaders and Administrators to detect over allocation.

  • X-Community [ Full data ]

    Don't think so, at least so far as in the default configuration. The reviewer did not have the time to explore what might be done through Information Unit Typing customization and using Notecard wrappers to introduce 'tool add-ins'.

11.4 User defined constraints

  • Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

    No.

  • eProject Express [ Full data ]

    None

  • FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

    Actually, yes. If by that we mean that there are good facilities for supporting the extension of the Activity model. Again, the system is open and flexible enough to let you 'roll your own'.

  • ManagePro [ Full data ]

    Not by default, but the creative use can do customizations which may implement such considerations.

  • Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

    Not a feature of the product, but can be implemented over the data/logic layer. For example, further semantic validation according to business processing rules.

  • Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

    Functionality not supported.

  • SourceForge [ Full data ]

    Functionality not available.

  • WebProject [ Full data ]

    Functionality not supported.

  • X-Community [ Full data ]

    Don't think so, at least so far as in the default configuration. The reviewer did not have the time to explore what might be done through Information Unit Typing customization and using Notecard wrappers to introduce 'tool add-ins'.

11.5 Reviewer Comments

  • Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

    None

  • eProject Express [ Full data ]

    The current release is 'ruthlessly simple' service. Projects are nothing more that a 'TODO' list. But, in fairness, this release is a placeholder for market development and branding. The true measure of this service offering will be its announced major upgrade and new service offering to be released this Fall.

  • FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

    None

  • ManagePro [ Full data ]

    Don't look to ManagePro for date-related constraint modeling. The timeline view is a helpful visualization to relate 'when' to 'what' but it is not intended to compete with conventional project management systems which explicitly model the time elements and constraints within a project.

    This underlying model-related difference should be among first order considerations as to whether ManagePro is a solution candidate for a particular application. Where teaming and communication within a broader goal-directed activity management need is to be filled, ManagePro is an excellent 'horse of a different color' solution choice. But when complex time and resource dependencies are needed to effectively model a project, a more conventional tool is probably the better choice.

  • Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

    In addition to the standard constraints, and the flexibility of the newer features, coupled with the constraint satisfaction engine that has been a staple of this product line for years, Project is the ideal model of what can/should be defined in a project planning/task management system specification.

  • Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

    There are no constraints available to review.

  • SourceForge [ Full data ]

    None

  • WebProject [ Full data ]

    For assessing critical paths, account/budget over-run tracking, resource leveling, and over-all capability, WebProject has done it right. The full feature/functionality set rivals that of the more familiar MS Project. Because of it's expressive richness in task details, it has the ability to interchange MS project content with it's own facility with no appreciable loss of important details.

  • X-Community [ Full data ]

    None

DOCUMENT HISTORY

Version 0.9 - Draft
Version 1.0 - Final

### end of sxc24-m2-02sect-comparables.txt (Version 1.0) ###


© 1998-2010 Jim Salmons and Timlynn Babitsky for Sohodojo except as noted for project deliverable and working documents. Our Privacy Statement
"War College" of the Small Is Good Business Revolution
Website design and hosting by Sohodojo Business Services,
A Portfolio Life nanocorp

Support Sohodojo, the Entrepreneurial Free Agent and Dejobbed Small Business R&D Lab exploring Open Source technologies to support 'Small is Good' business webs for social/economic development
[ Support Sohodojo ] [ Translate page ]
[ Search site ]

Sohodojo home

About Sohodojo

BIG IDEAS for small business

TechSIG area


CCCT home

Community Collaboration Platform Project

OSS Project Planning Project


LegalSIG area

Nanocorp reading

Links/Resources

Donor/Sponsor Information


Go to the Visitor Center

 Go ahead, we can take it... Give us a piece of your mind. Complaint? Irritation? Suggestion?
Tell us, please.