Early Preview of Project Management Software – ZilicusPM 6.3

Zilicus, cloud based solution provider of award winning online project management software – ZilicusPM, will be releasing next version – ZilicusPM 6.3.

I am happy to share preview of ZilicusPM 6.3 and latest enhancements. Here is a preview of ZilicusPM 6.3. In this minor version of ZilicusPM, we have introduced quite a few enhancements based on customer feedback and product roadmap.

Project State – Planning/Draft

Sometimes, as a project manager you just want to evaluate the cost-benefit opportunity before taking up a new project. ZilicusPM lets you create project in ‘Planning/Draft’ state such that the project remains accessible exclusively to you but it is not really a project in reality. You can even allocate budget for test purpose, allocate resource, create a project schedule, assign resources, set resource cost rate and billing rate, etc. Essentially, you can make a project assessment in terms of what duration it may take to deliver a new project, which all resource are available, what could be their allocation; what will be cost and billing implication of taking up this project etc.

Project State – Planning, Draft

Project managers should note that the resource assigned in this project are not really assigned, these are assignment done just for drafting/assessment purpose i.e. team members will not receive email when tasks are assigned to them, neither they will be able to access project workspace. Also, this project will *not* be shown up in portfolio reports and dashboard.

Portfolio Gantt chart

This feature has been most sought after one. Finally we are able to pull through all projects’ Gantt chart in one view. Portfolio managers can view health of all project schedules in one view. You can select which all project Gantt chart you would like to view.

You can expand and collapse the project schedule to view project’s timeline. In collapsed view, this report shows timeline and overall progress made at project level.

Project Portfolio Gantt Chart

Email only Users

Some customers have contract resources who are unable to login to ZilicusPM but they have been able to access emails. This feature allows such users to be part of ZilicusPM system even without logging-in. When administrator adds any given user as ‘Email Only User’, it is treated just like normal user – who can be assigned tasks, who has cost and billing rate, has resource availability and resource utilization tracking.

Email Only User in ZilicusPM

Whenever task is assigned to such users, they will be notified through email about such task assignment (and if task calendar setting is activated, task event will be shown up in his/her calendar.)

In subsequent release, these users will also be able to update tasks progress over email. Please contact our product expert for more details about this user subscription type.

Project Portfolio groups – Dashboard

Portfolio managers can now group project dashboard based on the projects belonging to specific portfolio. The screenshot below shows how portfolio dashboard can be viewed for specific set of projects.

Project Portfolio Dashboard in ZilicusPM

Create Issue through email

Few project stakeholders (employees, customers, etc) may not have access to projects in ZilicusPM or would prefer to create issues over email. This feature allows your project team members, customers to create issues over email. Each project overview page will show unique email id for a given project to create issues.

Create-Issues-Using-Email

Users who are registered in ZilicusPM (they can be normal user, email only user or customer contact added to project) When they send email to this designated email id, the subject line will become summary of issue; body of email will become description and email attachment become issue attachment. Once issue is created, it will be assigned to project manager for further action.

The issue reporter is notified when issue is created or if issue creation fails for any reason.

In subsequent release, ZilicusPM will enable users to update task progress, etc. over email.

Employee Leave Plan

Your project team members can apply for leaves in ZilicusPM and leaves will be processed in ZilicusPM. The reporting manager for him/her can approve or reject its application.

Once leave is approved, respective resource availability, load/utilization gets affected for the duration of leave. Employee can apply for even half a day leave.

Employee Leave Plan – Project Context

ZilicusPM has provided most commonly used types of time-off/leaves such as Personal Leave, Sick Leave. Your account administrator can add/modify types of TimeOff.

Task reordering

ZilicusPM has made it even more interactive for you to manage tasks schedule. Project planner can drag drop and reorder tasks in the task list using mouse. The same will get reflected into Gantt chart. This operation is available both – in interactive Gantt as well as normal task view.

Add links to issue, Task, Risk

Just like attachment, you can add URL to your issues, tasks and risks. We have enhanced URL linking functionality at various places in project workspace e.g. task attachment, issue description, issue attachment, risk description, risk attachment.

Attach Link To Project Task

Attach-Link-To-Issue

Delete project permanently

Many times,users create projects for test purpose and would like to delete such test/temporary projects permanantly, Now administrator has capability to permanently delete projects its account. The screenshot given below is self-explanatory.

Delete-Projects-Trash

So there are many new enhancements lined up. We are confident that customers will be really interested in using latest features introduced in ZilicusPM6.3. One week to go for ZilicusPM 6.3 to go live. Few customers are already using test environment to test these features.

If you would like to manage projects effectively, ZilicusPM is the right solution; not just for you as project manager but also for your team members (simplicity), as well as executive management (dashboard, reports). Sign up for 30-days risk free trial.