For a long time, we have been struggling with the idea of further simplifying project and resource planning for the user. A hierarchical project structure and a Gantt plan are still the central instruments for a project manager to structure his work packages, to place them on the time axis and to link them to each other with dependencies. And from the very beginning, PQFORCE has closely linked this planning tool to resource management in order to give users full transparency about the availability of resources right from the planning stage. A division into two separate worlds - here the work package planning in the project, there the resource allocation from the line - was never really appealing to us.

A single click can set a lot in motion in the Gantt plan

However, the close coupling of the Gantt plan to resource management also poses major challenges for a real-time platform such as PQFORCE. Even the simplest actions by the user, such as extending a project phase with the mouse, can result in a large number of data mutations. A chain reaction can be triggered by task dependencies, hierarchically as well as via explicit links, e.g. end-to-start. The end of supertasks as well as successor tasks are also extended or postponed accordingly. And since each of these affected tasks may also have allocated various resources, all respective workloads must be recalculated. Finally, we aim to provide every user with up-to-date data on the screen at all times.

More performance and even better user experience with PQFORCE 4.0

The immediate persistence of potentially dozens or even hundreds of modified tasks in the database and the recalculation of at least the same number of workloads on a daily basis requires both high-performance hardware and optimized application logic in the PQFORCE server. Likewise, so many newly calculated Gantt elements and histograms are not just quickly drawn by the browser (so-called rendering). In order for all this to happen very quickly, our software engineers put their heads together for a long time, worked out new, innovative solutions architecturally and conceptually and implemented them completely and as a 100% in-house service within a few months - 100% Swiss-made, that is.

The result is striking, and with PQFORCE 4.0 you will feel this immediately as a user:

• A seamlessly scalable timeline with the mouse wheel
• Super-fast copying of entire scenarios; even if hundreds of work packages, tasks and phases are included, a copy is created within a few moments
• Various color schemes that can be switched with a mouse click enable a clear task display in the entire Gantt chart.
• A quick text-based filtering of the whole project structure leads you quickly to the task you are looking for.
• Fast in-place editing of task properties with keyboard shortcuts allows quick creation and editing of a variety of tasks

And of course there's more to discover in the completely redesigned Gantt view. This makes planning even more fun!

An integrated support system

What was often requested is finally here. With PQFORCE 4.0 we have also developed an integrated help system. It works as an overlay, a help layer that overlays the user interface and highlights the visible controls with an info label. This help layer can be called up at any time by pressing a button (F9) or clicking the mouse and immediately shows which control elements are used for what. For further explanations, simply click on the info label to go to the relevant page in the PQFORCE manual. This can be found in our customer center.

We have developed the help system primarily for the recently available PQFORCE Starter Edition. This edition is available off-the-shelf from the webshop and aims to be self-explanatory. The integrated help system takes care of that. And with PQFORCE 4.0, this help system is now also available for the other PQFORCE editions, so that enterprise customers can also benefit from it.

So look forward to PQFORCE 4.0! As mentioned: available from April 9, 2021.

Your PQFORCE Team

PS: If you are not already a customer, you can purchase the PQFORCE Starter Edition here at a reasonable price.