New on P5:

Improved Reporting Options
1. The report wizard will allow joining multiple select subject areas. For instance, the wizard will allow the selection of notebook topics as well as activities to display activity data with all related information stored in the notebook fields.
2. All reports defined in PM Professional will be accessible in myPrimavera, allowing users to view and print these reports from a myPrimavera session.

New Activity Type: Summary Activities - Summary activities will allow for the roll-up of information across a specific node of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). In addition to the automatic roll-up to the WBS element, this new activity type will allow for the assignment of resources and the collection of actuals at the WBS level.

Progress Spotlight - Progress spotlight is a usability tool that will allow the project manager to quickly schedule as planned by graphically identifying and selecting activities that should have progressed since the last scheduling period. The feature allows the project manager to step through selected activities, updating them at a more discrete level, as necessary.

EPS Level Activity Codes - Users will have a third option by which to distribute activity and project codes. This new option associates codes at the Enterprise Project Structure (EPS) level. Codes are assigned as accessible from a specific node within the EPS. Activities in that node (and its children) will have access to the identified activity codes.

Baseline Maintenance - Baseline maintenance will now include the option to update portions of a project plan or even select only newly added or deleted items from the last baseline for incremental baseline updates.

Suspend and Resume Activity - Project managers will now have the option to selectively set dates for an activity to indicate that work on the activity has been suspended and will resume on the specified date.

Rates on Roles The role dictionary will now include a value for rate on each identified role. This will allow for the assignment of roles and a calculated, estimated cost based upon the specified weight for the assigned role.

Past Period Actuals - The system will now store reported period actuals for use in all layouts and reports. Period actuals will be tied to the “Period Closeout” feature, allowing for the storage of reported actuals without the need to collect time reported actuals.

Step Enhancements - Users can now build activity step templates that will allow for the assignment of groups of steps to activities. In addition, the interface will display a graphical indicator when an activity has a step assigned to it.

Unraveling Float Path - This new capability will allow for the identification and mining of critical paths that exist in the schedule and will allow users to incrementally step through all contributing network logic.

Independent Resource Leveling (5.1) - Independent resource leveling will provide an option for leveling that allows activity dates to be calculated based on assigned resources without a prerequisite of consistent availability of every resource assigned to the activity. The activity will be scheduled if at least one resource is available.

Excel Import/Export engine - Users will have the ability to export multiple subject areas to an Excel® spreadsheet. An easy to use wizard allows the user to build export templates and quickly execute the export and import of multiple tables to multiple worksheets within the same Excel workbook.

Undo - A fully functional undo feature will be included in the 5.0 release. The system will track an unlimited number of user actions and provide for the instant reversal of any minor data addition, modification, or deletion. Example of some of the actions that can be undone:
• Rename activity • Delete activity • Fill down • Copy/paste activity

Layout Improvements - To allow project managers to leverage layouts as a robust reporting tool, Primavera will continue to update layout graphic options and capabilities. The 5.0 release will include the following graphical layout improvements:
1. Ability to format weight and color of vertical sight lines
2. Combination of ordinal dates with corresponding weeks on the timescale
3. Introduction of 3rd line for bar chart and histogram timescales
4. Multiple curtains and extended formatting of timescale curtains
5. Customization of bar labels

Multiple Timesheet Approval Periods - The timesheet approval screen will now allow for the selection of multiple reporting periods and graphically indicate when a time period contains timesheets awaiting approval.

Overhead Activity Visibility - The resource assignment view will include reported actual overhead hours entered within the timesheet.

Security Enhancements - To allow greater access control, the security infrastructure will be extended to allow for more discrete assignment of access rights based upon specific area of functionality. These security changes include:
1. New privilege for scheduling, leveling, and applying actuals
2. Separation of calendar privilege into multiple options (e.g., global vs. resource)
3. Node level resource access, restricting users to a specific node of the Resource Breakdown Structure
4. New privilege that will prevent the deletion of any resource that has posted actuals
5. Separate add and edit privileges for resources, activities, and project codes
6. Separate add and edit privileges for user defined fields
7. New privilege for updating the activity ID

Hope it helps,

Regards

Marcio Eduardo