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M2: Analysis of Comparable Project Planning/Management Offerings

M2 Section Summary: Accessibility

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 ======

7 Accessibility [ All assessments, this topic ]

7.1 Web-based

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  Enact is a web-based client/server platform.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  The current release uses very simple HTML, well-designed. It is full server-based browser-neutral interaction.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  No.

  FTS is 'web-aware', not web-based.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  ManagePro is not a web-based service although its mobile-computing and Multi-link features give it some in-roads into WAN-based and 'loosely coupled' network configurations. (You can, for example, use a remote access facility like PC Anywhere in conjunction with ManagePro's mobile computing extract and synchronization features to provide collaboration interactions among a team of distributed members... but this is a "where there's a Will there's a Way" variety solution.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Yes

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  OpenDesk is enabled through HTML pages and server side Perl script applications.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  Yes. In addition, each project member is given a shell account on it's Linux servers. The shell account supports file exchange using SSH tunnels through TCP/IP.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  WebProject is enabled through HTML pages and Java Server Pages. Its general design assumes installation within an organizations intra-net.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  X-Community is a full web-based service which currently is limited to Windows-flavored clients.

7.2 Interchanges support (MS Project, XML, RDF, etc.)

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  ActionPlan imports and exports MS Project MPX format files.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  There is a clever, low-key export feature to transfer calendar Event and Person/User records into Microsoft Outlook. Outlook is not, however, required to use any of the feature of eProject Express.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  FTS will 'natively' open MS Project's 'MPX' export file format. In addition, FTS has a generalized import function which allows data to be imported from the clipboard or files.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  Version 4.0 has updated and expanded its data import and export feature sets. Import/export integration with Outlook 98 and 2000, and through Outlook linkage to Palm Pilot devices is supported. The range of email clients and transport mechanisms has been expanded and includes Outlook, Netscape and any MAPI-compliant applications and services as well as Notes Mail, Sendmail, GroupWise and Eudora.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Project 2000 and Project Central support extendability at the server level (as project data is stored in SQL92 compliant form) and is therefore accessable to any specialized input/output systems (ODBC, COM, etc.).

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Functionality not supported.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  None at this time, although the group has started architectural investigations such as the implementation of an object supporting client applications.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  Interchange occurs through the import and export facility.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  STRONG support for MS Project integration. X-Community maps its 'Information Unit' architecture (Business Center, Whiteboard, Notecard) model to the Task decomposition of a MS Project project plan. This gives a tight integration of MS Project's project planning and management features to the X-Community architecture.

  Since this exchange involves a 'mapping' between a 'people/task'-centric to an 'work product'-centric model, some Project Manager 'mindset' development will be required to take best advantage of these advanced features of the offering.

7.3 Import/Export (MS Project, text, etc.)

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  ActionPlan imports and exports MS Project MPX format files.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  See above. The transfer is one-way; export from the eProject system to the user's Outlook client.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  Imports and exports MPX files.

  Import and export of data to user-definable file export formats is supported. In addition, project data may be exported in lightly-configurable HTML formats.

  Platform-specific features, like OLE server functions on Windows machines, are also applicable.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  Flexible data import and export is provided by allowing import and export operations to target 'to this view' and 'selected items' operations as well as 'entire database' data exchange operations. Field-mapping dialogs allow quick and easy import/export operations.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Details not available at this time although certainly import/export to other vendor project tools has long been a staple of Microsoft Project.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Support not explicitly mention through hands-on or documentation.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  Functionality not available for cross product exchanges. CVS supports imports of existing CVS repositories.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  WebProject can import and export from and to Microsoft Project Exchange (MPX) files, which are supported in a number of PC based project planning tools. In addition, WebProject supports archiving the project to a second database as well as saving the project as a template to be re-used to quickly setup new projects.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  See above. The integration appears to be tight and interactive based on initial research. We'll revisit this when we assess MS Project.

7.4 Mobile Users

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  A convenient Palm OS device interface supports loosely-connected, mobile users. Project plans can be 'checked out' from the Collaboration Server so a single user can go mobile and disconnected and continue working on a plan. Unlike ManagePro's mobile computing support, Enact provides a relatively awkward 'check out and unavailable/unchangeable until returned' mobile computing support. There is no conflict detection and resolution to support disconnected use of a Project Plan by mobile users.

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  The current release assumes a connected user. eProject has announced eProject Anywhere which will add wireless and advanced mobile features. The release is projected for the Fall of this year.

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  Not applicable.

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  ManagePro was one of the earliest Windows-based groupware products that supported 'loosely connected' mobile computing users. Fine-grained database data extraction and resynchronization features make it relatively convenient for Team Members to maintain collaborative, accumulative interactions despite the demands of today's 'Road Warrior' schedules.

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  Web access, RAS (Remote Access Services), and offline work synchronized with central server on reconnect.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Support not explicitly mention through hands-on or documentation.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  Any web accessable interface is supported.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  Support not explicitly mention through hands-on or documentation.

• X-Community [ Full data ]

  There is no 'disconnected' mode per se. Email communications and the 'off-line' working of 'Information Units' with the versioning history features gives the current offering a reasonable 'connect, figure out what to do, then disconnect and go do it' mode of operation.

7.5 Reviewer Comments

• Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]

  None

• eProject Express [ Full data ]

  None

• FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]

  None

• ManagePro [ Full data ]

  None

• Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]

  As expected. In addition, there is the content accessability aspect in regards to business processing that is not itemized in the outline, but Project 2000 supports rule definitions for every activity associated with project data manipulation. This adds a significant benefit to overall project management capability.

• Opendesk.com [ Full data ]

  Working as designed.

• SourceForge [ Full data ]

  Working as designed.

• WebProject [ Full data ]

  Working as designed.

• 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) ###

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