Announcing the Release of Task Master R1.5

Based on your feedback on R1.0, Task Master is an extremely useful tool for the creation and management of changes to your task schedule. Since our recursive development model requires continual improvement, however, we began work on enhancements and new features for this popular product as soon as we shipped the initial release. In the just released R1.5, the following new functionality has been added:

• Web License Manager (WLM). Please see the blogs Introducing Bamboo WLM and WLM Use Case and FAQs for detailed information on WLM.
• Allow users to set the tasks to collapse and expand by default.
• Allow users to modify the font size and style for the levels, e.g., based on the level such as Top Level to use Red, 12 points and 2nd Task Summary Level to use Green, 10 points.
• Allow users to track Resource Work via Work, Actual Work and Remaining Work.
• Duration can be displayed in other units such as days, hours or minutes.
• Automatically compute the % complete of the Project/Task Summaries based on the total % complete of the sub tasks.
• Allow users to navigate back to the Default View.

• Allow users to change Font and Style settings for Milestones

NOTE: If you are upgrading from an older version like R1.1 to this version R1.5, you need to go in the Tool Pane and click on the Upgrade button, then Apply & OK first. This is needed since the way we calculate the Duration is different in this newer version. Plus, three new columns (Work, Actual Work and Remaining Work) are added to allow users to track Work hours.

Shown below are screenshots demonstrating many of the new features in use.

1. Collapse and Expand

I have a schedule like this and I want everything to collapse below level 2 Task Summaries.
 

Change in Tool Pane with Automatically expand level: 1 and above:

Now by default the view will be collapsed to level 2:

2. Change font and style for the Levels

My schedule looks like this. I want the top level to show with bold letter and the second level to show with green color.
 

In the tool pane, under Custom Format Columns, set WBX=X with bold and set WBX=X.X with green:
 

Note: Title is a hyperlink CSS font of SharePoint and therefore cannot be changed to a different font or style.

3. Track Work and Actual Work

Task Master now has some new columns: Work, Actual Work and Remaining Work. You can use these columns to track the Work for your resources. To add the new fields to your list, in the tool pane click on Upgrade Task List.
The Work field will not be populated until you fill in the Assigned To field. The Actual Work is based on the % Complete and Work columns. For this example, the Work for task Technical Management is 405 hours and only 80% is completed. Therefore the Actual Work is 324 hours and 81 hours remain to get the Work done.

4. Duration can be displayed in other units such as days, hours or minutes

In Days:
 
Change to display in Hours:
Change in Tool Pane

 
Now, show in hours:
 

5. Automatically compute the % complete of the Project/Task Summaries based on the total % complete of the sub tasks

 
6. Allow users to navigate back to the Default View

You might navigate around to look at your Gantt View like going from Year View to Month View. Click on Default, it will take you back to the default view that you select in the Tool Pane.

7. Change Font and Style settings for Milestones
 

Check it out by downloading your free trial now.