I had a conversation with the people from ISIS, a Work Automation Solutions provider. ISIS has spent the last 10 years building project management software solutions for the IT industry. They have a world class product christened iPlan enterprise to show for their effort. iPlan Enterprise is being used 50 organizations world wide.

So, how does iPlan help reaching "the 7 goals for PM software"?

1. Improve project reporting and tracking:

iPlan has integrated Project Planning (Planner module of iPlan) and team members work area (part of the Organizer module). This helps in real time work assignment, reporting and Tracking as explained below.

The Organizer module of iPlan has a field where a team member can not only report the progress of his work in hours or in percentage, but can also specify the work needed to complete a task. iPlan can then calculate the progress at a task , summary activity and project level based on the data entered.

iPlan users can also use Earned value management technique to review the progress of the project.

2. Improve estimating and scheduling:

Data from projects executed in the past is saved on "as is" basis by iPlan. Any user (with proper access rights) can use the Discover module of iPlan to search for projects based on criteria such as technology, domain etc.

3. Reduce cost or speed process up by automating workflows

iPlan is an Integrated Enterprise Project Management Solution, therefore data related to all the projects in an organization are stored in a central Server. The reporter module is used to create reports based on the data available in iPlan. The reports can then either be generated as per a predefined schedule or generated real time.

To support exception management we have an event based triggering mechanism which can send out system alerts or e-mails based on user defined events.

4. Improve resource assignments

Project Mangers using Planner module would be able to see the availability of any team member throughout the life span of a Project. There are also reports to monitor the utilization of a resource assigned to a Project.

iPlan also helps Project Managers(PM) in obtaining the best possible team for a project as explained below:

PMs in most of the organizations raise a request to the Resource Managers(RM) for a resource with a particular set of skills. Profiler module of iPlan makes the life of an RM easier as it can not only capture the current assignment of a resource, but can also remember the employment history of all the resources in an organization.

5. Improve project communication

iPlan has been designed to work in both a LAN and WAN scenarios. Access to Project data in iPlan is dependent only on the rights of a login.

6. Improve project team collaboration

iPlan has a web module which can work well in a Broadband connection.

7. Improve overall project process

iPlan has a concept of Process Templates. A process template is a workflow with all the activities, roles and possible schedule that will be needed to implement the workflow. It is possible scale up or down the schedule based on the needs of a project.

iPlan enterprise also features in a study of PM tools conducted by University of Osnaburck. The results of the study can be obtained from www.ispri.de.

For more information visit their website.