PROJECT PLANNING/MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW - SECTION SUMMARY

SECTION: Task Constraints

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

Associated project: "Specification Writing for Web-based
		    Project Planning Software" (sXc ID: 24)

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

sXc Project detail: http://sourcexchange.com/ProjectDetail?projectID=24

Project coordination: SourceXchange

Sponsors: 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:
	
	EN - Enact Enterprise System 4.2 by Netmosphere/CriticalPath
	EP - eProject Express by eProject.com, Inc.
	FT - FastTrack Schedule 6.04 by AEC Software Inc.
	MP - ManagePro 4.0 by Performance Solutions Technology LLC
	MS - MS Project 2000 by Microsoft Corporation
	OD - Opendesk.com by HBE Software
	SF - SourceForge by SourceForge (VA Linux)
	WP - WebProject by Novient
	XC - X-Community by X Collaboration Software Corp.

	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)

** EN **
	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.

** EP **
	None

** FT **
	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.

** MP **
	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.

** MS **
	Fully implemented.

** OD **
	Functionality not supported.

** SF **
	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.

** WP **
	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.

** XC **
	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)

** EN **
	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.

** EP **
	None

** FT **
	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.

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

** MS **
	Fully implemented.

** OD **
	Functionality not supported.

** SF **
	Functionality not available.

** WP **
	Tasks can not reference other project plan tasks.

** XC **
	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)

** EN **
	No.

** EP **
	None

** FT **
	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'.

** MP **
	No.

** MS **
	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.

** OD **
	Functionality not supported.

** SF **
	Functionality not available.

** WP **
	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.

** XC **
	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

** EN **
	No.

** EP **
	None

** FT **
	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'.

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

** MS **
	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.

** OD **
	Functionality not supported.

** SF **
	Functionality not available.

** WP **
	Functionality not supported.

** XC **
	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

** EN **
	None

** EP **
	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.

** FT **
	None

** MP **
	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.

** MS **
	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.

** OD **
	There are no constraints available to review.

** SF **
	None

** WP **
	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.

** XC **
	None


DOCUMENT HISTORY

Version 0.9 - Draft
Version 1.0 - Final
 
### end of sxc24-02sect-comparables.txt (Version 1.0) ###