Auto Project Planner 2.4

Auto Project Planner 2.4 offers you a professional and powerful software which automatically calculates a proper project plan based on your effort estimations and the due dates you have in mind. APP computes time plans, based on due dates, given estimations and other variables. A list of tasks and a list of employees can be defined.

A list of tasks and a list of employees can be defined . Tasks can be assigned to one or more employees. It is also possible to define a maximum percentage value an employee can/should work on a task. Predecessors, public holidays, leaves, weekly working hours and some more parameters can be specified and are considered in the calculation.

According to this input the software compute project plans by minimizing the MSE (mean squared error) between expected and computed end dates.

The idea is to

1. Define a task and the relation(s) to team members only once
   
   • There are simple relations, like: this guy is doing this task in a week
   • And complex relations, like: two people are doing this task, one guy should do max. 70% of the work, the other max 50%. One guy needs some training for this task, the task needs an other task to be completed for 50% and should end at the same time a third task ends, of course the holiday planning and stuff has to be considered!
2. Then just regularly update the remaining estimations (e.g. get this information from the team in a weekly status meeting)
3. Start the APP.NET calculation engine (this can be done during the meeting as well)
   
   • You get errorfree results within a minute (means problemfree project plans)
   • You don't (means estimations vs. due dates... it's not gonna happen) - then you have to do some re-planning

Goals:

• Reduce the manual work of planning
• Have a relevant time plan always available
• Allow predictions about how optional projects and tasks affect the plannings

1. Add/Remove/Edit/Arrange Projects and Tasks
   
   • Estimated/Remaining Time
   • Expected End Date
   • Worked Hours (till now)
   • Calculated Target State [%] vs. Is State [%] (till now)
   • Predecessors
   • End with an other Task
2. Add/Remove/Edit Staff Members
   
   • Hours per week
   • Productivity
   • Training Time
3. Assign (multiple) Staff Members to Tasks
4. Define max. percentage a Staff Member could/should work on a Task
   
   • Whole Task
   • Per Week
5. Define Sick/Personal Leaves & Public Holidays
6. Define Training Time and a Productivity Rate for unexperienced workers
7. Set Start Date of Calculation
8. Calculation:
   
   • Minimizes MSE between Expected and Calculated End Dates of Tasks
   • Calculates the 'best' project plan for you
   • Graphical and textual display of calculated proect plan
9. Examples should improve your understanding of the software
   

Enhancements:

• Replaced the old binary file format.
• Additionally a complete code refactoring has been made.