POMS 3.0 Release Notes

What's New in POMS 3.x
What's New in POMS 2.x
Bugs Fixed (Since Build 120)

These release notes apply to Version 3.0 (Build 332), released on 29 Nov 2005.

Please refer to Chapter 1 of POMS User Guide on how to correctly install, configure, and deploy a POMS release.

The concept of resources has been expanded through the introduction of new entity called Business Units. You will find this under the Resource node of the POMS navigation tree. It allows you to divide your organization into a number of business units (eg, departments) such that projects managed by each business unit are kept separate from those run by other business units. Each user may be allocated to a specific business unit, in which case, they will only have access to projects managed by that business unit. Furthermore, test cases, issues, and risks created for a project, inherit their business unit from the project, and hence are subdivided accordingly. Under this scheme, you can still have projects and users that are shared across business units by not allocating them to a business unit.

You'll notice that most search screens have a Business Unit drop-down list as an extra search parameter. For normal users, this is disabled and permanently set to the business unit to which they belong. For users in the SysAdmin security group, this is enabled so that such users can search across business units. Furthermore, only SysAdmin users can change the business unit of projects, test cases, issues, and risks.

A user in a specific business unit has access to data created for that business unit, plus shared data (ie, data with no business unit). If you want to view only data relevant to your business unit, you should tick the Strict Business Units option in the Settings/User Options screen.

Note 1: If your organization does not require this additional level of flexibility, then simply ignore the business unit facility, and POMS will behave as before.

Note 2: Any data created using version 2.x of POMS, has its business unit set to blank. If you want to change this, you should login as a SysAdmin user and make the changes.

Revised User Activity Screen (3.0)

The user Utilities/User Activity screen has been extended to allow you to search for activities of various users instead of just the currently logged-in user. The admin user can search for activities of any user. Other users can search for activities of users in the same BU as themselves.

Revised User Guide (3.0)

The POMS User Guide has been substantially revised to reflect the many changes implemented since version 2.0.

Requirements Search (3.0)

A new tab has been added to the project search screen, which allows you to search for requirements across projects. After a search, you can drill-down the search result and view a requirement within its parent project.

What's New in POMS 2.x

Test Management (2.0)

A new module has been added to support the creation of project test plans. This module allows you to create test cases for a project and, for each test case, to record the details of each test run. Test Management is linked to Issue Management, so that when you record a failed test run, you can at the same time raise issues. Conversely, you can navigate from an issue to the test case that caused it to be raised.

Search Tables (2.0)

All search tables have been converted to be auto-size. To convert a table to manual size, right-click on the table heading and untick the Auto Column Sizing option.

Icons in Tables (2.0)

Object icons have been added to tables to make it easier to recognize the data they represent.

Import Utility (2.0)

A new utility has been added for importing data to POMS (see Import under the Utilities node). Only project importing is supported in the current release.

Extended Pick Lists (2.0)

The use of pick lists as a means of customizing POMS has been further extended to cover additional fields throughout the system.

Project Allocation (2.1)

A new tab (called Project Allocation) has been added to the user details screen. It displays (for a specified timespan) how a user (resource) is allocated to various projects, as a pie chart.

Project User Access (2.1)

A new tab (called User Access) has been added to the General tab of the project screen. It allows you to define rules for controlling who should have view/update access to a project. Access rules can be specified using user groups as well as usernames. The admin user is exempted from these rules. For all other users, access to each project is determined by the intersection of their security groups permissions and the access rules specified by the project. To allow universal access to a project, leave its rule table blank.

Project Dependencies (2.1)

A new field has been added to the General tab of the project screen, for recording project dependencies.

Customizable Idle Period (2.1)

A new option has been added to the User Options screen (under Utilities) so that you can control whether the application should timeout after being idle for a user-specified period (defaulting to 60 minutes).

New Project Fields (2.1)

Two new fields have been added to projects to record Estimated Effort and Estimated % Complete. Unlike, the Effort and % Complete fields (which are read-only and automatically calculated by POMS from tasks), these fields allow the user to enter their own estimates. The latter fields have been renamed Plan Effort and Plan % Complete for clarity. The news fields have also been added to reports and printed version of project plans.

Multiple Deletion (2.1)

Multiple deletion of projects, issues, risks, and test cases is now supported. You can select multiple rows in the search screens for these by holding down the shift or control key when selecting.

Publications Screens Revised (2.1)

The screens for Publications and My Documents nodes (under the POMS node in the navigation tree) have been totally revised to allow users to access and/or update public/private documents. Access to these nodes is controlled via new entries in the Permissions tab of the Security Group screen. The View permission allows group members to view documents and to download documents/folders. The Create/Edit permission allows group members to upload/delete documents/folders, and to create new folders.

Search Enhancements (2.1)

Search screens have been enhanced to allow use of wildcards and to search by keywords in an object's description. Fields that support these features are clearly marked by corresponding red icons. Also, the field tooltip indicates what type of search is supported.

Archiving (2.1)

A new check box, called Archived, has been added to projects, test cases, issues, and risks. By ticking it, you can indicate that the object should be set aside. Also, a new drop-down, called Stage, has been added to search screens, which allows you to search for non-archived items (default), archived items, or both.

Setting Default Tree Node (2.1)

A new drop-down field in Settings/User Options allows you to specify your preferred default tree node. When you log into POMS, this node is automatically selected.

Project Dashboard (2.2)

A new node, called Project Dashboard has been added under the POMS node. It allows you to view summary information about projects for a given period. Global summary information (across all projects) is displayed graphically. Specific summary information for a project is displayed as traffic lights across a range of measures, the rules for which are user-customizable.

New Reports (2.2)

Three new reports have been added:

The Project Dashboard Details report is available when viewing the Project Dashboard screen. It produces a report containing the information in the Global Summary and Specific Summary tabs.
The Users Project Allocation report is available when viewing the Users search screen. It produces a report which contains the users in the search result and, for each user, a pie chart showing how the user is allocated to various projects.
The Requirements List report is available when viewing the Project Management search screen. It produces a report which contains all requirements for all projects in the search results.

Copied project resources cannot be pasted (fixed in Build 120).
Object locking does not work correctly in certain situations (fixed in Build 125).
When the user quits the application, some object locks are not released (fixed in Build 127).
No object locking is performed when a user edits User Options or System Options (fixed in Build 129).
User permissions are not correctly enforced in some situations (fixed in Build 131).
Drilled-down objects sometimes are added to the tree when they are already in the tree, resulting in duplicates (fixed in Build 132).
Start menu shortcut commands may be longer than Windows limit (fixed in Build 133).
Service installation scripts fail with 'path not found' error (fixed in Build 135).
Load Tab (under Project Resources) ignores user's calendar (fixed in Build 195). Rows representing leave/holiday are now dimmed.
The reports (in Server Monitor) fail to generate (fixed in Build 201).
Certain complicated task dependencies can cause the scheduler to loop indefinitely (fixed in Build 208).
To avoid the risk of accidentally deleting a project, an additional warning is generated when the project has structural contents (added in Build 220).
Imported projects and resources are duplicated if they are in different upper/lower case (fixed in Build 237).
The project budget spreadsheet (under Accounting tab) has unreliable binding when you switch between projects (fixed in Build 248).
The auto-logout (after being idle for 60 minutes) fails to successfully re-run the application (fixed in Build 250).
Pressing the Email Details button in the User Details screen causes an error (fixed in Build 259).
Colors are recycled in pie charts with many segments (fixed in Build 260).
Traffic light pie chart for projects does not use the relevant Green, Yellow, Red colors (fixed in Build 260).
Pressing the delete key while viewing tasks of a project attempts to delete the project (fixed in Build 265).
When a new user is created and saved, the user drop-down list is not correctly updated (fixed in Build 267).
A user can edit another user's timesheet (fixed in Build 268).
When client and server boxes have their clocks out of sync, the user is frequently prompted about an edited object being older than the one in the database (fixed in Build 269).
Adding a user to the resource tab of a project sometimes causes an error (fixed in Build 270).
Gantt chart calendar behaves inconsistency for various settings of its popup menu (fixed in Build 277).
The "1 Page Wide" zoom option in Print Preview window sometimes produces multi-page results (fixed in Build 279).
When viewing a Gantt chart, the time line does not center around the current date (added in Build 288 and tied to the Reschedule All button).
When a task is selected in the project plan, its bar is not brought to view automatically (added in Build 289 and tied to double-clicking the task).
The Required Effort field for tasks allows only one decimal place (extended to 2 decimal places in Build 293).
In a project's Resources tab, the Tasks sub-tab sometimes does not find all tasks allocated to a user (fixed in Build 295).
The Schedule Formula in Project Dashboard is not working correctly (fixed in Build 297).
Sorting in order of Project Name in the Project Dashboard doesn't work correctly (fixed in Build 298).
In a project with no tasks, changing the Required Finish date does not cause the Finish Date to be set to the same (fixed in Build 300).
When a project's calendar is modified, the changes are not propagated into the project schedule (fixed in Build 303).
Setting a project's Required Start date to empty causes an error (fixed in Build 304).
There is no way to delete an incorrectly-submitted timesheet (added ability for admin user to do this, in Build 307).
After generating a report, if you leave it open, and try to regenerate it, you'll get an error (fixed in Build 309).
Some drop-down lists are not alphabetically sorted (fixed in Build 312).
Pie chart colors in generated reports don't match the ones on the screen (fixed in Build 320).
For SysAdmin users, BU and Project drop-down lists in (test case, issue, and risk) search screens act independent of each other. Selecting a project from the drop-down list should automatically set the BU according to the project definition (fixed in Build 323).
For SysAdmin users, the Project drop-down list in (test case, issue, and risk) details screens should show all projects, and set the BU field according to the selected project (fixed in Build 325).
In the Project Resource tab, data in the Tasks and Graph sub-tabs remain even when you switch to another project (fixed in Build 327).
Project column in Project Requirements search tab does not sort correctly (fixed in Build 328).
Requirements List report is tied to project search result, not the requirements search result (fixed in Build 330).
After submitting timesheets and doing project review, automatic resource cost calculations are incorrect in the Income/Expense tab, and do not immediately appear in the budget spreadsheet (fixed in Build 332).