October 31, 2007

Microsoft demos Office Project upgrade

by Jan Harris

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Microsoft demos Office Project upgrade
Microsoft demonstrated the latest features of its ‘Project’ software, at the Microsoft Office Project Conference in Seattle.

The company has focused on making Project easier to use, both for project managers and other people in an organisation.

The latest version will feature a new timeline view, which will allow users to cut and paste the timeline into applications such as PowerPoint. Individual components of the image will be able to be edited after pasting.

Project’s user interface is undergoing a major revamp to include an icon ribbon at the top of the screen. A number of tabs are displayed which change the icons available.

The icons give users one-click access to range of functions that require several clicks in Project 2007, such as filtering for incomplete tasks or grouping by resource name. Microsoft is also making it easier to customise fields.

Attention is also being paid to make the software more web-friendly, with online-access expected to become more important in the future.

If changes are made via the web to several time frames for completing tasks, the application won’t automatically update the overall schedule. This should ensure that performance isn’t slowed down.

After all changes have been made, a calculate changes button will make the alterations. Every item that has changed will be highlighted, and can be deleted via the undo button if necessary.

By 2013, Microsoft expects around 50 percent of Project customers to use a fully hosted version of the software.

The company is also working on developments that could make Project available from mobile phones.

There is no news yet on when the upgraded version will be available.

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