Clarizen 2.0 project management software has gone live and with it more than a dozen new features, as well as usability and existing feature enhancements.

New Features and Functionality

1. Usability Enhancements
- Right-click is now available across the entire application.
- For easy navigation, Clarizen now features an interactive tooltip when doing mouse over cells in the grids, showing the item's path and links to available actions wherever relevant.
- Screen length is now optimized allowing you to view more rows in the grids and is no longer fixed.
- Session time-out has been extended from 15 to 60 minutes, allowing you to keep Clarizen running in your browser for a much longer period if you are inactive.
- Multi- indent is now possible when highlighting more than one item. Read

2. Export to Excel
You can now take the data from your Clarizen projects and export them to Excel where you can later generate reports, charts or simply have offline access to your data. You can export to Excel from the following Clarizen views: Current Project, Projects, Tasks and Resource Load.
To do the export, click on the Excel icon on the top right corner of your screen and select one of the export options.

The Excel .csv file is emailed to the user currently logged in.

3. What's New
From now on when you log into Clarizen you will see be able to see instantly in your dashboard (Home) all the new information that was added to projects where you have any role.

When clicking on one of the groups of new items a new window opens displaying a list of those items that are new, for example, new 'Projects'.

You can select from the dropdown menu to view all the other groups of new items. From the list of new items you can select one or more of the items and mark them as 'Read' or 'Unread', similar to the behavior in common email applications. Items that are kept Unread will remain this way until you view them or mark them as 'Read'. Clicking on one of the new items will take you to the actual item in the Current Project view.

Throughout the Clarizen application you will notice all New items via the bold font and red asterisk on the icons.

4. Set Duration in Various Time Units
From now on you can set the Duration field in Minutes, Hours, Days, Consecutive Days (allows you to override non-working days), Weeks and even Months. (You can even customize the working days and non working days on the organization’s calendar.)

See Part II of Clarizen 2.0 Release Notes

Continued from Clarizen project management software 2.0 Part I Release Notes

New Features and Functionality

5. Change Type
Now you can change the type of work items, say a Task to a Milestone so long as they are direct children of the project. Read

6. Export to MS Project
Now you can also export your projects to MS Project, not only Import. (please note that some fields will not export accurately due to the different calculation methodologies used by each solution).
To export, select the 'Export Project' option from the Project's context menu (right-click project name).

7. Resources Can Create Sub-Items
Thus far Resources were limited to reporting the completion for items they were assigned to. With Clarizen 2.0, now they can also add sub-tasks to those items.

8. Resources on Milestones
Users can now assign Resources to Milestones.

9. Reviewers Replaces Sponsors and is Unlimited
You can have more than one view-only team member, called from now on 'Reviewer', per item.

10. Modular Projects
For total flexibility Clarizen enables restructuring project hierarchies allowing users to move sub-projects from one parent to another or converting a parent project to a sub-project of another project.

You can move an existing project by selecting the 'Move' option in the Project's context menu:

or, add a Child Project that already exists in your project pool:

11. View Options
With the new View dropdown in the Current Project , users can select between the available views. Currently Budget and Basic views are available with more to come soon.

As always, we welcome your feedback (complements too) and, as many of you may have already noticed, we respond to it accordingly with our ongoing delivery of new and enhanced features.

What's New in Clarizen SR1.03

Send Message via Email (regarding specific work item)

• Extended collaboration features through email
• Send email messages to your team members regarding any work item - a task, milestone or project

Print Functionality

• Print project Roadmap, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Now you can write and send email messages to your team members regarding any work item - a task, milestone or a project directly from within your projects.

A link to the work item is automatically added to the outgoing message, allowing users to quickly access it.

A member may use it to send a link to the work item (Task, Milestone or Project) to any related members or groups of members in the project team. The following scenarios are covered:

• Send a message regarding a specific work item (could be at the project level) to the project team, notifying them of an update or a new item that was added and inviting them to view it.
  
• Make an initial plan of a project, assign managers to milestones or sub-projects, and invite only the managers to help you co-plan the project.
  
• Send a message to an individual team member (or more) in order to emphasize, highlight or just bring topics to their attention.

Benefits:

• Team members receive an email on projects directly to their inbox.
• Collaboratively plan, update and create projects.
• As users get a direct link to the specific work item, it's easy to update information.
• Get ongoing, up-to-date information for timely decision-making.
• Increased participation of your project team.

How does it work?

All you need to do is select the work item (task, milestone or project) you wish to send, and click on the envelope icon (Alternatively, you can select the Send via Email option in the item's context menu).

The 'Send to...' form opens where you can edit the existing content and recipients:

You can even select recipient Groups, such as All Team or All Managers of the work item(s) you had selected or select recipients from your entire Organization or Project pools:

The selected Group gets added to the recipient list and you're ready to click the 'Send' button:

The recipients are notified immediately and once opening the email can click on the included link to access the selected work item:

Clarizen allows users to print the entire plan of the currently selected project (‘Current Project').

Project members may choose to print the Roadmap or Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).

How does it work?

On the top right side of the screen there's a Printer icon.

When printing the WBS, once you have expanded or collapsed the work items you need printed, click on the Print icon and select the WBS option.

If you are printing the Roadmap, select the Time Scale you want to view and print and then click on the Print icon followed by the Roadmap option.

Known Issues

Limited Firefox Support - Firefox will be fully supported in a future release.

Earlier Changes: For information about previous release notes, please see the Clarizen V1.02 Service Release Notes.

What's New in Clarizen SR1.02

• ProjectMail^TM - Progress Reporting by Email
  • Extended collaboration features through email
  • Receive and update project tasks via email
  • Unsubscribe capabilities
• Improved User Interface Design
  • New toolbar icons in the main project view(WBS)
• New ‘Owner' filter (on tasks and projects)
• User Set Fields

Earlier Changes: For information about previous release notes, please see the Clarizen V1.01 Service Release Notes.

ProjectMail^TM - Progress Reporting by Email

With Clarizen's ProjectMail feature, project team members receive status reports, tasks and updates from the system directly to their Inbox.

ProjectMail Benefits:

• Team members can update their progress on projects directly from their inbox.
• You can edit, modify and mark items as completed on your project status in just one click.
• Get on going, up-to-date information for timely, on-target decision-making.
• Hassle Free - No Login Required!
• When project managers initiate a progress report by email they can expect participation from their project team members.
• Every update is automatically updated in the system.

How does it work?

• Progress Reports are automatically sent to users, but managers can also place a manual request from resources to update their progress.

• The email includes all the active and current tasks and the expected progress status. The user can accept all changes, meaning each task would be updated with the expected progress, or the user may choose to manually update his/her progress.
  
  
  
  
• When manually update is selected a web form opens with a list of his/her tasks, were he/she can insert the actual progress.
  
  
  
• These operations are done without having to log into the Clarizen system.

Improved Toolbar Design

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) menu has been modified with better icons that are more intuitive.

New ‘Owner' Filter (on tasks and projects)

This feature allows users to create more granular filters on their home page so that they can see work items (project, tasks) according to their role - e.g. only projects they manage, only tasks they are a resource in, etc.

A new ‘Owner' Filter was added on tasks and projects panels and subsystems.
You can now filter work items to view the ones assigned to you as manager or as a resource.

User Set Fields

This feature allows users to manually set various work item attributes such as Start Date, Due Date and Duration rather than have them be computed by the system. Users can easily instruct the system to re-compute a certain value. For example, if the system calculates the start date of a task to be November 1, the user can manually set it to another date, say November 10, and the system will indicate this field with a blue triangle at the top right corner of the field.

By hovering with the mouse over the blue triangle, a little window will open and provide the user with links to perform certain actions. These actions include restoring the system- calculated field on a field that was manually edited by the user, or opening the Clarizen online help in a specific relevant location.

If the user wishes to restore automatic calculated fields, he may do so easily from the project page.

Known Issues

Limited Firefox Support - Firefox will be fully supported in version 1.03.

The following document outlines the new features and limitations of Clarizen's version update.

We've taken great measures to ensure that this update includes significant performance enhancements in the application. In addition, new features were added to increase team collaboration and allow project participants the ability to exchange information and update on project progress. The enhanced toolbar and new looking icons and links were created to assist users by allowing them to add dependencies, documents, notes and posts.

You can truly maximize the benefits of Clarizen by taking advantage of all its features and functions.

Beyond being an on-demand project management application, Clarizen excels the challenges that project managers face in the project management environment.

Clarizen enables you to:

• Concurrently plan and execute at the same time by enabling you to keep portions of your project plan in Draft state while others are already in Active state.
• Working concurrently with several stakeholders - the automatic synchronous save enables you and other team members to immediately assess each other's plan updates.
• Plan and execute both top-down and bottom-up - Clarizen's Roadmap and WBS enables you to observe and understand the big picture of the project as your project continues to be updated.
• Define the roles of the different project's stakeholders at the level of the project and specific items in the project plan
• As each user is defined to a role in the hierarchy of the project plan, users can interactively participate and respond where other users from the team can view the results immediately.

Solution Highlights

High Level & Detailed Project Review

Users can view a high level summary of the organizations project plans or drill down to specifics based on a specific project or task.

Creating a new project

When adding a project, the new project and import from MS-Project wizard are simple step by step approaches to implementing a new or existing project plan to Clarizen's project management application. The wizard guides the user through the project framework implementation process. In addition to the fact that the user can continue working on their project in the Clarizen interface, they can use the default system templates to help identify the structure of a project plan of which they can use as the base of their project.

Building project plan

Once a project plan has a structure, the application enables users to easily build a hierarchical project plan based on sub-projects, milestones (the goals that you want to reach throughout your project) and tasks. As a result, a roadmap plan is created in order for you to graphically view the status of the project.

Adding schedule dependencies and progress impact enables users to create a consistent work plan where one task follows another. Within the WBS grid you can easily select the tasks of which you wish to create a dependency link between them.

Define and collaborate with the project's stakeholders

You can begin assigning roles and tasks to users for each of the objects in the grid. Each functioning role has different permissions. For example sponsor can read all object details in the WBS, but cannot modify anything.

Immediate up to date information enables teams from across buildings, cities, even continents to interactively participate in the organizations project plans.

Collaboration on content

Clarizen facilitates collaboration on content and exchange of information by allowing upload and download of documents, exchanging notes as well as discussing in context on a specific entity from a project.

Updating project progress and status

As your project is under way and the status is constantly in a different phase, it is important to update the progress of the project as well as the life cycle of the entities in your project plan. Each state in the project lifecycle represents a different maturity level of readiness. Every entity within the project is in a defined state. Take into account that moving from one state to another usually affects the entity's su-entities.

Clarizen Features

Progress Reporting by Email*

To encourage team collaboration and increase adoption rate, Clarizen developed the Progress Reporting feature.

Progress Reporting by Email ensures that project participants receive continuous and up to date emails of tasks status.

Each user in the system has defined properties:

• The Email Allowed field enables users to receive progress reporting by email. If no resources are assigned to a task or the Email Allowed field is not checked, the progress reports are sent to the managers.
  
  
• When a progress report is sent to a user, it contains two groups of tasks - current active tasks and upcoming tasks (tasks that are assigned to start between the current progress report and the next progress report).
  
  
• The user can interactively select to ‘Accept All' or to ‘Modify' the data in the Progress Report. If the user selects the Accept All button, all data reported in the progress report is updated in the system. If the user selects the Modify button, a new report page is opened so that the user can edit the required data. Once modified, data on the report page is updated to the system.

As the status of tasks change on a constant basis, when selecting the ‘Accept All' or ‘Modify' options, the user might receive an error due to:

• A new report being sent with updated % completeness status
• Task state change from active to another state
• The user no longer being manager or resource to the task
• The task being deleted

Another interactive way in which users can go directly to their tasks in the system is by clicking the tasks links in the Progress Report.

In addition, managers can manually send progress reports by selecting the task in the WBS and from the action list select the Request Completeness Report option. Participating resources will receive a progress report including details of the % completeness of the selected task.

*This feature will be available by mid-September.

Reachout Plan

The Reachout plan is a comprehensive method used to create better emphasis on building project team and adding strategic admin approval process for new users created in the system.

The following scenarios are supported in the system:

• New user awaiting assignment of license message sent to admin - when a new user is added to the system, admin will receive email stating the pending license assignment for new user. This will take place during trial and post-trial.
  
• Automatic check of external user - see section on external user.
  
• Notifications and reports - reports sent to user with license or during trial period; user continues to receive notification 28 days after trial version expiry; user continues to receive notification 7 days after license expiry.
  
• Invitations to Clarizen - when new user added to the system; after trial when user assigned license; when license is revoked from user; reassign license to user.
  
• Notification to Admin after new users imported from MS-Project import - Admin receives email including list of new users which are pending license assignment.

Performance

The main focus of this release was to improve the performance of the application on different web browsers:

• Over 300% improvement in performance in Internet Explorer 6
• Significant improvement in Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox

Alerts and Highlights

The application Home Page provides a visual summary of the alerts and highlights under a single panel. The information specifies the number of total unresolved alerts and the number of new alerts that have been triggered since the last time the user logged into the system.

The links direct the user to the Alerts and Highlights section of the application.

Info card

In the Current Project page, the Info Card panel may be expanded by clicking the button or contracted by clicking the button. By default the Info Card is contracted.

The Info Card tabs are vertically aligned on the right side of the panel. A user can clearly indentify by the images the connotation of the icon.

The following image displays the icons of the Info card and a description of each:

Toolbar enhancements

From the toolbar of the WBS the following functions may be triggered:

External User

When an email of a new user is not part of the organization's domain, the external user checkbox is automatically marked in the ‘Create New User' wizard screen.

External users logging into Clarizen will only be able to view and modify the item (e.g. sub-project, task) to which they were assigned. If the external user was made manager of an object which has children, they will be able to view and modify items from the whole tree.

Note the admin can change external user to internal user or the other way around.

License Management

The License Management module can only be viewed by Admin users.

The License Management module enables Admin users to track the status of the licenses that were purchased for the organization. They can follow such details as renewal date and expiration date. They can also purchase new licenses.

Live Support Chat

To maintain ongoing communications with our customers, the Live Support Chat feature by ‘LIVEperson' has been added. LIVEperson enables you to receive online support as following:

• The button indicates that a Clarizen support representative is online. Customers are given instant access to textually converse with a Clarizen support representative
  
• The button indicates that Clarizen support is offline and an email message may be sent to support. A response will be sent by email.

The Live Support Chat button is located in several areas of Clarizen:

• Account Registration screen
• Login Screen
• Clarizen application - on the header
• License Purchase screen
• Billing systems screens

Limitations

Missing Option to View Resource Usage in Assign Resource Page

The Assign Resource page provides a view to resource properties. It currently does not have a direct link to the Resource Usage page. To view resources usage, navigate More -> Resources. Select the user/s your interested to view and click the Resource Usage button on the toolbar.

Conflicts and Status Columns

Tooltip limitations: Currently there is no option to navigate directly from the conflict icon ( for example) to the relevant entity to resolve the conflict. User has to navigate through the relevant task/milestone/project.

For more details see section on Managing Conflicts in the help file.

Undo is Currently Not Available

The system automatically saves changes to the database.

Auto save Duration

After making a change to a record in the grid, browser status bar indicates when data is being saved (sent to the server). Occasionally, an error may be displayed if user tries to perform an action before the save is completed.

MS-Project Import (Dates)

Dates of projects imported from MS-Project are calculated per business days. Elapsed time is currently not available in Clarizen's system.

Organization Calendar

Change of organization working days setting, will take effect after user logs out and logs in back to the system.

Templates

When creating a project from a global template, new project entities are created with the organization's account registering user as manager and you as the project manager.

Asynchronous Validation

Validation of potential loops, caused by scheduling dependencies or progress impact between entities in different projects is done asynchronous. If a loop is detected, an alert will be created and email notification will be sent.

Project Tree Structure

Tree hierarchy is currently restricted: milestone cannot be created under milestone or task.

Delay Reflection of User Permission Changes

When user permissions are changed, for example, a user is appointed manager of a milestone or parent task, it may take a few minutes for the system to reflect the change. During this time the user might not be able to perform actions permitted by the new role.

Sort and Filter

The following table is a summary of the issues that are related to Filter and Sorting in the application.

Known Issues

Linked Document/Notes/Discussion Missing from Info Layer

Within the Current Project tab, the info layer area on top of the roadmap displays relative information per project record. Details per milestone and task are not displayed in the area.

Missing Option to View Resource Usage in Assign Resource Page

The Assign Resource page provides a view to resource properties. It currently does not have a direct link to the Resource Usage page. To view resources usage, navigate More -> Resources. Select the user/s your interested to view and click the Resource Usage button on the toolbar.

Conflicts and Status Columns

Tooltip of conflict icon ( for example) provides basic information regarding the relevant conflict. To resolve the conflict, user should navigate through the relevant task/milestone/project.

Users Access to Parent Project

Users that are assigned to tasks but are not project manager/manager/milestone manager are not able to view the parent project. However, if organization settings permit, user (except for External users) can access the parent project via the Search function.

Auto Save

The system automatically saves changes to the database. Undo is currently not available

Organization Calendar

Change of organization working days setting, will take effect after user logs out and logs in back to the system.

Asynchronous Validation

Validation of potential loops, caused by scheduling dependencies or progress impact between entities in different projects is done asynchronous. If a loop is detected, an alert will be created and email notification will be sent.

MS-Project Import (New Users)

New users added to Clarizen's system through MS-Project import, whose email addresses are not included in the imported file, will not receive email invitation with a password.

Admin can update their email address in Clarizen's system and initiate sending an invitation email. Navigate to More -> Admin -> User Management.

Project Tree Structure

Tree hierarchy is currently restricted: milestone cannot be created under milestone or task

Alerts & Highlights Subsystem

Sort on Alerts & Highlights Message column is not available

Templates

When creating a project from a global template, new project entities are created with the organization's account registering user as manager and you as the project manager.

MS-Project Import (Dates)

Dates of projects imported from MS-Project are calculated per business days. Elapsed time is currently not available in Clarizen's system.

Delay Reflection of User Permission Changes

When a user permissions are changed, for example a user is made manager of a milestone or parent task, it might take a few minutes for the system to reflect the change.

Browser Support

Clarizen system is tested on IE 6, 7 and Firefox 2+. However during the Beta period Clarizen recommends using IE7.

We are currently in the process of fixing known performance issues with IE6 and Firefox.

Overlap of Milestone Images in Roadmap

When two milestones have the same due dates, the graphic display of the roadmap reflects two diamond images one overlapping the other. When standing on the relevant record in the WBS, the Roadmap will display the relevant milestone accordingly.

Search Results

User can not open full note text of selected objects in the Search Results subsystem. In order to read, select the Go To Task from the record action menu.

User Management Filter

Select All in column filter is currently not supported

MS-Project Import (Subprojects)

When importing MS-Project plan that includes subprojects, dependencies of entities between projects/subprojects may not be created in Clarizen.

Documents Download

Chinese file names may be displayed incorrectly when trying to download entity's attached document.

Browser Back Button Support in Wizards

In Create New Project/Import MS-Project wizards, using browser back button is currently not fully supported.

Resources in Tasks Subsystem

Resources assigned to task are not displayed in the Tasks subsystem grid. They are viewable via the task info card.

Notes

User can view entity's notes via the Note and Discussions tab in the info card. Currently Notes columns sort is not supported.

Copy Functionality

After copying a WBS entity, pasted row may be missing some of the entity objects (dependency/document/note/discussion) even though grid may display otherwise.