Gantto

Gantto http://gantto.com Gantt Charts Online Wed, 30 May 2012 15:44:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with PlusmoSubscribe with The Free DictionarySubscribe with Bitty BrowserSubscribe with Live.comSubscribe with Excite MIXSubscribe with WebwagSubscribe with Podcast ReadySubscribe with WikioSubscribe with Daily Rotation Improved PDF Export and Assignment Inspection http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/improved-pdf-export-and-assignment-inspection http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/improved-pdf-export-and-assignment-inspection#comments Mon, 21 May 2012 23:52:29 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2606 Online Gantt Chart. Both of these features are often requested and we finally made the time to hammer them out.

Improved .pdf Export

The requests here were very reasonable. Until recently our .pdf export was what we called WYSIWYG, we took a snapshot of the chart on the screen and included it into a .pdf. This worked ok for smaller schedules, but for more sophisticated schedules, our customers wanted:

To print areas not visible on the screen

Selectable time ranges

Multi-page tiling to allow the construction of a larger schedule than paper size

pdf options menu Improved PDF Export and Assignment Inspection

pdf size options Improved PDF Export and Assignment Inspection

To be honest, we also had multiple requests for vector output into our .pdfs. We looked into it and for now have deferred that battle to another day.

Improved Assignment Inspection

Another request we had was from one of our more sophisticated users. They had multiple summaries with different names, but the same steps for each group of tasks. On the task chart this looked fine, but under the resource manager it became difficult to tell which summary an assignment belonged to. To facilitate this we created an assignment inspector. Hovering the mouse over any assignment reveals more detailed information, including the group the assignment belongs to (or chain of groups, if the task is deeply nested.)

assignment parent Improved PDF Export and Assignment Inspection

We Want Feedback!

What do you think about our new features? Did we miss the point entirely? Are you one step closer to happiness? Please let us know: support@gantto.com ]]> http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/improved-pdf-export-and-assignment-inspection/feed 0 Gantto on Cool Tools and Wikipedia http://gantto.com/company-news/gantto-on-cool-tools-and-wikipedia http://gantto.com/company-news/gantto-on-cool-tools-and-wikipedia#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 22:20:37 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2594 Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools blog. I also noticed recently that Gantto now has its own Wikipedia page, which is pretty cool. Thank you guys for helping to spread the word about Gantto!

Gantto is a Cool Tool

The reviewer used our online gantt chart to manage her time while publishing her book. You can see her review on Cool Tools here: Gantto review on Cool Tools.

Wikipedia

At one point I had tried to setup a Gantto page on Wikipedia and the editors politely suggested that as a business owner it was a “Grey Area” at best for me to edit my own page. Now a Gantto customer has taken the time to create a page here: Gantto Wikipedia page. If anyone reading this would like to add something to our Wikipedia page, please do! ]]> http://gantto.com/company-news/gantto-on-cool-tools-and-wikipedia/feed 0 Google Single Sign On http://gantto.com/ux/google-single-sign-on http://gantto.com/ux/google-single-sign-on#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 21:53:26 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2573 Google Single Sign On for our Online Gantt Chart. I had been putting this off for way too long since Flash makes it somewhat of a pain to implement well, but I got three requests for it, from three different users, on the same day and that put me over the edge. I now login with Google almost exclusively and love it.

All we request from you when logging in with Google is your name and email. We need your email to identify your account and we appreciate having your name so that we may adress you properly. Existing google accounts should also login seamlessly. Please let me know if you have any problems when signed in via Google.

Google Single Sign On – Login

Logging in is now as simple as clicking a button. It really is amazing that SSO has not been adopted more widely.

Google Single Sign On – Signup

Signing up with your Google account is much more straight forward than with manual data entry. The SSO provider validates your email, so there is no need for a email-validation loop check.

Single Sign On for a Flash Application

Flash applications make SSO difficult by not allowing native windows to display web pages and their redirected parameters. They do this by design, Air applications for instance have no such restriction. It is possible to work around though, it is just a bit more annoying to do so. If you would like me to write more about the implementation, please let me know : chris@gantto.com. I don’t want to get sidetracked writing it up unless I am sure someone is interested

]]> http://gantto.com/ux/google-single-sign-on/feed 0 Project Resource Loading Report http://gantto.com/ux/project-resource-loading-report http://gantto.com/ux/project-resource-loading-report#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:43:50 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2552 robot resource loading FTE 600x460 Project Resource Loading Report

Project Resource Loading

Resource loading is another great way to think about and describe your project. By understanding your resource loading requirements you can make high level comments like: * Burn Rate – For a lot of jobs the head count is the primary expense, so how you use your resources drives how you will spend down your budget. * Under or Over Allocation – Periods of low activity or high activity can show you where you resources may be sitting idle, or where they may be assigned more than they can accomplish. * Peak Activity Times – Peak activity periods often require more management focus than usual to be on time and successful. This chart shows you were you will need to pay extra close attention to the project to keep it on track. To show off this new feature, I created a simple schedule for building a Robot. You can see this is a pretty typical schedule for a mechatronic system where electrical integrates with mechanical and then software integrates with electro-mechanical.

This same schedule with a resource view shows what the man power or Full Time Equivalent (FTE) requirements for the project will be.

From this plot we can see that although the peak requirements for the job are 4 FTE, on average the resource loading will be less than that. For complex projects it may not be clear what all of those FTE are working on. To help you with this insight we have created an inspector which breaks down the summary FTE into its individual parts. To see this summary, just mouse over the point on the chart you are interested in.

Customer Feedback

How do you think about Resource loading? What insights are you looking for from your project plans? Do you want us to plot project cost? Project value? Do you wish we did a better job highlighting conflicts or are the Sparklines enough? We want to know! Email me: chris@gantto.com to share your thoughts on Gantto, project management, or just to start a conversation. ]]> http://gantto.com/ux/project-resource-loading-report/feed 0 Resource Management With Sparklines http://gantto.com/ux/resource-management-with-sparklines http://gantto.com/ux/resource-management-with-sparklines#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:21:55 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2536 Sparklines for our Online Gantt Chart to help you understand your project’s resource loading at a glance.

Sparklines

Sparklines are a data-visualization invention of Prof. Edward Tufte and are designed to tap into the pattern matching portion of the brain. We find them extremely helpful for identifying at a glance if any one resource is under or over allocated.

Empty means not allocated Green means 0-100% allocated Red means allocated > 100% Here is a simple example of a team gantt chart which is over allocated, but it is difficult to see the over allocation from this view.

overallocated task chart 600x247 Resource Management With Sparklines

However this same project rendered with Gantto’s Resource Manager View clearly shows the over allocation via the red sparklines:

overallocated resource chart 600x199 Resource Management With Sparklines

So at a glance we can tell that both Fed and Chris are largely over allocated and that we will have to shift one project in time to account for our resource loading. Here is what the new plan looks like with resource loading taken into consideration, Chris’ sparklines are now all green:

proper allocation resource chart 600x237 Resource Management With Sparklines

The gantt chart clearly reflects how the project deliverables have changed in time:

proper allocation task chart 600x295 Resource Management With Sparklines

Customer Feedback

It is great to have so many engaged customers helping us build our product. These new visualizations around resource loading are the direct result of some really inspirational conversations with our customers. We have a huge pipeline of ideas we are working on, please help us pick the best things to build first! Just email me: chris@gantto.com with your comments or to simply start a conversation.]]> http://gantto.com/ux/resource-management-with-sparklines/feed 0 Event Planner Tools You Probably Missed http://gantto.com/marketing/event-planner-tools-you-probably-missed http://gantto.com/marketing/event-planner-tools-you-probably-missed#comments Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:14:17 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2502 www.eventmanagerblog.com as one of the Ten Useful Event Tools You Probably Missed Gantto is a great fit for Event Planners 1. Events usually occur on hard dates and can not be shifted in time 2. Event Planners are usually coordinating many different resources at the same time which sometimes depend on each other 3. Project management is only one small part of an event planner’s workload, and they need something simple to use 4. Event resources are usually spread across several different organizations

Hard End Dates

When faced with a hard end date, it can sometimes be overwhelming where to beging your planning process. One technique I find helpful is to model the project backwards in time. The thing I like about this process is that it is often easy to think of the last few things that must be done in order to meet your deadline. Once you have the ultimate tasks down, the next step is to think of what needs to happen in order for those to be completed, and so on. By way of example, lets assume we need a set of brochures for an upcoming show and we want to know when we need to make our final decisions on design. A thought process might go like this 1. It takes two weeks for the printers to turn a brochure once we have final art and copy 2. The copy editor wants a week to work on the copy 3. And the artist wants a week to prefect the artwork to support the copy Therefore we need to finalize the design input for the copy editor no later than one month before the show. So even though the brochures only take two weeks to print, we need to finalize this design a month in advance. This chain of reasoning easily presented with the following Gantt Chart that took 20 seconds to make in Gantto.

brochure critical path 600x180 Event Planner Tools You Probably Missed

Coordination

A big part of keeping a team working well together is helping them understand how they depend on each other. For instance it may not be immediately obvious why the copy creator needs to start a full month before the brochures are due. However once the event planner explains the dependency of the artist and printer, it makes a lot more sense.

Easy to Use

We have built Gantto to leverage the power of Gantt Charts for modeling schedules, but we assume that event planners have a lot more on their mind than just managing a schedule. Our simple UI should allow anyone to easily create a helpful project model in just a few minutes. Our getting started video shows you how to build an online gantt chart in just a few minutes.

Communication

A lot of traditional scheduling tools require an expensive software install for anyone who wants to view or edit the schedule. With Gantto it is as simple as sharing a link. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions I would love to hear them. Email me any time: chris@gantto.com ]]> http://gantto.com/marketing/event-planner-tools-you-probably-missed/feed 0 More Powerful Spreadsheets http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/more-powerful-spreadsheets http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/more-powerful-spreadsheets#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:28:19 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2438 Selectable Columns As an example, I am going to hide the resources and dependencies columns for the demo Gantt Chart. 1. Enter spreadsheet mode via View->Spreadsheet 2. Click on the column selector drop down menu in the upper right left side of the screen:

spreadsheet mode 2 600x275 More Powerful Spreadsheets

From this menu I will deselect the dependency and resource columns:

spread sheet select columns 2 600x274 More Powerful Spreadsheets

Exiting the menu commits the changes to the chart:

spread sheet resources hidden 2 600x274 More Powerful Spreadsheets

Draggable Columns

The other spreadsheet related request we have been getting a lot of is the ability to change the order of the columns. This is now simply a drag and drop operation. To move the duration column after the start and end dates, I just grab the duration column header and drag it to the right:

spreadsheet drag columns 2 600x274 More Powerful Spreadsheets

And drop it behind the end date column:

spreadsheet duration dragged 21 600x275 More Powerful Spreadsheets

Our Goal is to be the Best Online Gantt Chart

This feature set is yet another example of how we can get great ideas from customer feedback. Our goal is to create the best possible user experience for our online Gantt Chart. Please send me an email with your suggestions for Gantto and we will see what we can do. -Chris. chris@gantto.com ]]> http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/more-powerful-spreadsheets/feed 0 Team Plans http://gantto.com/company-news/team-plans http://gantto.com/company-news/team-plans#comments Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:21:38 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=2415 plan options for our online gantt chart. As with most of our new features we built this after receiving many online and offline user requests. The key benefits of team plans are: 1. An administrator may add and remove team members from a single account 2. Gantto teams get unlimited projects 3. Plans start at only $25/mo which includes 5 seats and we discount for annual contracts This was a bit of a task to build because we felt it implied real-time collaboration which is a notoriously difficult set of features. But the work was worth it, and we are very excited to be the only online gantt chart with realtime updates similar to Google Docs. We will expand on this feature more later.

Signup for or upgrade your account to a team plan

First login and open the user profile menu: bigger top ribbon Team Plans

From there you can select the plan you are interested in:

If we don’t yet have a credit card on file for you, then we will ask for that information now.

Add team members

To add team members, you first select the “team” tab:

Now selecting “Add” will invite the team member. 1. If the email is already associated with a Gantto account, then we will move them under your team account 2. If the email is not associated with a Gantto account, then we will create a new account for them 3. You may also resend the invitation if you wish to do so. 4. Removing a team member will immediately revert their account to “read only”

Granting administrator privileges

By choosing “Admin” for the team member permissions, you are enabling this user to also add and remove team members from the account.

Who wants team gantt charts?

Gantto now has a number of customers with multiple Gantt Chart editors in the same organization. Our pricing system used to requre new customers in the same organization to enter their payment details all over again and did not offer discounts to volume users. For inspiration we looked around at other software companies we admire such as Pivotal Labs built up a pricing system similar to the one they used for Pivotal Tracker. We also have a set of customers who wish to share their Gantt Charts online with their customers, but did not want to force their customers to signup for Gantto accounts on their own. By adding these customers to their team plans, they are now able to collaborate with projects online just like they would with a Google document.

Feedback requests

We love to hear from our users. What do you think of our new team plans? Email me at any time to let us know: chris@gantto.com ]]> http://gantto.com/company-news/team-plans/feed 0 Color Coding http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/color-coding http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/color-coding#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:10:09 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=1850 color coded assignments 600x374 Color Coding

color coded assignments 600x374 Color Coding

Thoughts on Color

We generally like Stephen Few’s and try to stick to his guidelines when we can. The short form of his advice is “Use Color Meaningfully and with Restraint.” With that in mind we asked our selves how can we use color to convey additional meaning in our Gantt Charts. So far we have come up with the following scenarios: Color is helpful when used to: - Code which resources are assigned to tasks - Bring some tasks to the attention of the chart viewers - Group tasks together into logical groups such as phases or internal/external This latest release now supports color coding of the assignments in the resource view. Next will be resource dependent color coding of tasks in the Gantt Chart view along with color coding of individual tasks and groups of tasks.

Performance Improvement

We hope you notice an improvement in how Gantto has been performing over the last few weeks. We have been rolling out the juiciest performance optimizations we can find and have improved responsiveness by 50% or more for many user gestures. As always, we love all comments or suggestions. Please drop me a line: chris@gantto.com]]> http://gantto.com/new-release-feature/color-coding/feed 0 Work Calendar Editor http://gantto.com/ux/work-calendar-editor http://gantto.com/ux/work-calendar-editor#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:01:34 +0000 Chris Carlson http://gantto.com/?p=1840 Work Cal – edit, add, remove the default working times to your custom working times – that is it, navigate [...]]]> Quick Overview of the Work Calendar Editor To edit your work calendar – Open your project – navigate to View->Work Cal – edit, add, remove the default working times to your custom working times – that is it, navigate back to whatever you were doing

work calendar editor 600x438 Work Calendar Editor

Work Calendar Editor Requirements

Up until now Gantto has assumed that the working times are 8am-12pm, 1pm-5pm Monday to Friday. While this works for a number of customers, we have gotten numerous requests to allow more flexible working times. Some people like to work on weekends, some define the work day from Sunday to Thursday, some people just like to work a lot more than 40 hours a week. We set out to create a system for editing the work calendar which: – Defaults to the existing behavior (8am-12pm, 1pm-5pm, M-F) – Easy to create or edit, should take less than 60 seconds for most people – Is flexible enough to handle the customer calendar requests thus far – Is precise to 15 minute intervals

Work Calendar Editor How To

For a quick example, lets assume you want to schedule a death march, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. First, Open your project and navigate to View->Work Cal You should see the default work calendar:

From here simply resize the working times to span the ranges you are looking for, lets assume we want to work from 10am to 11pm with a 1 hour video game break:

work calendar death march 600x441 Work Calendar Editor

That is it, the work calendar has now been updated, the project now assumes that you are working 7 days a week. So now a task dependent on one which finishes on Friday will start Saturday instead of Monday. Also tasks modeled as taking 70 hours of effort will now finish in 1 week instead of almost two. We would love to hear your comments, suggestions and requests about this work calendar editor or any other aspect of how Gantto is working for you. Please drop me a line at chris@gantto.com. ]]> http://gantto.com/ux/work-calendar-editor/feed 0