2023.11
Project management is one of the most critical challenges that organizations around the world are faced with. We are enthusiastic to present the latest update to our FlexiProject system, which introduces several new features designed to make day-to-day work with projects easier and more efficient 🚀 In the new release, you can find, among other things, a change of project permissions, an extension of the integration with JIRA, the possibility of including holidays in the project schedule, the numbering of schedule elements and much, much more.
Our goal is to provide you with a tool that allows you to manage your projects more efficiently, so we invite you to review all the changes that the latest version of FlexiProject brings. Check out how we can help you achieve even greater success in project management.
Project permissions
We have broken down the extensive project permissions change into the following areas:
- Elements owners
An option has been added to the permissions tab on the project to define what element owners are allowed to edit. An element owner could edit all parameters assigned to a task, risk, or product in earlier versions. However, now it depends on the project administrator’s settings. The administrator can choose which options are available for editing by the element owners, such as name, status and progress, owners, dates, and others.
- No access to schedule, risks, and products
In previous versions, assigning a user to a task would allow the user to view the schedule, risks, and products. The user will no longer have default access to these tabs in the latest version. The user will only see the elements assigned to himself, i.e., his tasks, risks, and products. He will not see a given tab if he does not have elements assigned to himself in the individual tabs. When assigning a user to a task, risk, or product, he will, by default, be invisible in the list of people with project permissions because he will belong to the group “Element owners.” Of course, individually or through project roles, it will be possible to give the user broader access to the project.
- Removal of the Project Team
Previously, when adding a user as owner of a task, risk, product, he was assigned to the ‘Project Team’ group. The permissions of this group could not be edited and the user gained access to view the schedule, risks and products. In the newest version, all owners will no longer be automatically assigned to the Project Team. Instead, you can create such a project role in the system settings, where you will also be able to define the scope of the group’s permissions on the project.
- Project Administrator
The current permission for the ‘Settings’ tab on the project has been converted into a project administrator permission. The person holding this role will have the highest permissions imposed in advance for other project tabs. Those assigned to the project manager role will automatically be given the project administrator permission.
- Project roles
The above changes will also be available in the project role settings. You will be able to define for a given role not to have access to the schedule, risks and deliverables, or set the role as a project administrator.
Project charter preview for standard licence
Along with the rebuilding of permissions, the options for the standard licence have also been extended. In the newest version, the standard licence has gained the ability to view the project charter.
Preview of project portfolios
In the new release, there is also an extension of project permission for project portfolios. You will now be able to grant a user the ability to view the project portfolios tab.
Rebuilding JIRA integration
Until now, when creating a FlexiProject integration with JIRA, tasks from JIRA in the schedule tasks you could only add connections to tasks from JIRA. The latest integration with JIRA will allow tasks from JIRA to be displayed together with tasks from FlexiProject on a single schedule. Tasks from JIRA will be marked with a special icon visible behind the task name. Information such as name, description, status, owners will download from JIRA automatically and will be synchronised in case of any change in JIRA. Additionally, in the task details and in the columns in the schedule list, information such as what type of JIRA task it is and its ID with a link leading to the task will be available.
You will be able to move tasks from JIRA to other parts of the schedule while preserving the structure that exists in JIRA (e.g. it will not be possible to assign a task from JIRA to another Epic). New tasks originating from JIRA will appear in the corresponding structure under the parent originating from JIRA. Items without parent tasks in JIRA will fall in at the end of the schedule at its highest level.
In the schedule settings, you will be able to create a connection to the JIRA project. This will be done as before based on the permissions of the respective user and the JIRA project key, but you will be able to define which types of elements from JIRA you want to download.
If an organisation does not share the email addresses of users assigned to tasks in its JIRA settings, then in tasks downloaded to FlexiProject, the task owners will not be linked to FlexiProject user accounts. To do this, there is an option in FlexiProject’s system settings to upload a file with JIRA user IDs and email addresses.
AD account synchronisation [on-premises clients]
When FlexiProject is installed on the client’s servers, the integration with Acitve Directory is extended to include the automatic download of user statuses. In this way, if a user ceases to be active in Active Directory (e.g. leaves the organisation), this person automatically loses access to FlexiProject. Additionally, it will no longer be necessary to define the user’s domain when creating accounts. If the user’s email belongs to the organisation’s domain, their account will automatically be synchronised with the Acitve Directory.
Holidays on the schedule
An option to define holidays has appeared on the project schedule. The option to define holidays will be available together with the definition of working days on the schedule. Holidays will not be taken into account when calculating the schedule.
Numbering of the schedule rows
In the list and timeline of the schedule, there is now an option to enable the numbering of the schedule rows. With extensive schedules, numbering will certainly allow you to find your way between tasks more quickly. Furthermore, the numbering will also be visible when adding relations and linking budget, risk and product elements to schedule elements.
Changing the schedule settings locations
Schedule-related settings such as working days, schedule fields and JIRA integration have been moved from project settings to the schedule tab. All persons with administrator permissions to the schedule tab will have access to the schedule settings.
Message about no working time on task
In the system settings for working time, the possibility of including a message that there is no recorded working time on a task has appeared.
When the user marks a task as completed and there will no working time recorded on it, the following message will appear:
Sorting and filtering of risks
In the risks tab on the project, there is now an option to sort and filter elements. You can filter risks by name, status and probability and impact. Filtering risks also has an impact on the risk distribution map.
Import extension from MS Project
In the latest release, the import of projects from MS Project has also been extended to include projects larger than 25 MB, the download of days off and the download of owners based on email address.
Export of reviews to PDF
In project reviews, there is now an option to export the data entered by project managers into a single summary document. The PDF shows exactly the same overview layout as the one created in the system, with each project starting on the next page.
Filtering projects by project roles
In the reports for projects, the option to filter projects by project roles defined in the system settings has now appeared. Previously, the filtering option was only available for the project manager role. To filter projects, indicate the role and the person assigned to the role.
Name of projects in e-mail regarding starting and finishing tasks
In the daily emails regarding the start and end of tasks and overdue tasks, the name of the project from which the task came will now be visible under the task name.
