With Kapa^Plus, the company Pipetech, located in Ratingen, Germany, provides a software solution for project-oriented companies that is used for visualizing the resources’ capacities for different decision levels and thus allows to schedule them. Kapa^Plus calculates the resources that are needed in a project and contrasts them with the base load and customer orders, selecting by project ideas, medium-term plannings and approved customer projects. Hence it is a rough calculation of resources that can be complemented with a detailed view if needed.

With the help of a central project data base that can be quickly integrated into the IT landscape of the company, a very transparent overview of the state of data is created, keeping the responsible project and division managers informed and at the same time providing the business management that is used to more compact planning sheets with relevant data.

The planning’s results are visualized in clearly-structured Gantt charts that Pipetech realizes by using VARCHART XGantt ASP .NET. Manfred Nutz, IT Consultant with Pipetech, gives reasons for the decision to use the NETRONIC component: “With NETRONIC’s VARCHART XGantt ASP .NET we rely on a largely platform-neutral software component for the integration of professional project and resource planning functions in our application development. Due to the seamless integration of graphical planning and reporting functions in our sectoral and trade-specific data base applications, planning activities in the project workflow are being supported in an optimal way. Furthermore we are thrilled by the outlook of constantly enhancing this component by using the respective technologies.”

Rough planning is essential, e.g. in the tender phase, to recognize possible resource bottlenecks in advance as is illustrated by a red bar in the following planning table. Possible project end dates can also be reliably deduced from the chart:

Single-project planning in the tender phase

If a bottleneck occurs, the overcrowding can be analyzed and possibilities for striking a balance be looked for by simply switching to the team view:

View for team-related planning

A further graphical planning table gives a clearly-structured overview of all simultaneously running projects. It enables the person responsible for the resource management to realize the tasks and project orders as well as the resource availability at a glance. If they recognize a bottleneck or free capacities they can react and reschedule immediately:

Production schedule for multi-project planning

By being a web-based solution, Kapa^Plus is available also to local teams and allows an easy rough planning of resources. Kapa^Plus is based on the Microsoft ASP.NET/AJAX technology and uses a state-of-the-art user interface for displaying the production schedules created with VARCHART XGantt in the browser, consisting, amongst others, of:

• undo/redo mechanisms
• modal popup-dialogs for the controlling of the planning tables
• global and user-specific layouts for the planning tables
• project-related versions of the planning tables simulation
• rough-planning-compatible resource-scheduling assistant

Just a quick reminder of what the NETRONIC WPF framework is all about: The general WPF framework brings enormous graphical horse power especially when combined with the MVVM development pattern. On the other hand, the standard WPF framework lacks certain features and functions that are crucial for interactive, time-centric applications. Hence, we started to build our own – NETRONIC – WPF framework as kind of toolbox to rapidly create interactive graphical planning applications and controls within WPF, with which we make full use of the standard WPF horse power and also apply the MVVM principle. We used this new toolbox to start developing two different time-centric graphical WPF components, which we demonstrated as prototypes at CeBIT. Thanks to the power and flexibility of the NETRONIC WPF framework, this is be a WPF Gantt component and a WFP milestone trend analysis (MTA) component.

Please now have a first look at the concept of the NETRONIC WPF framework, and at the WPF Gantt chart example.

Interested in NETRONIC WPF framework? We would love hearing from you!

Fixed bugs in build no. 10

• In some cases too many pages were printed.
• An error occurred when the property IgnoredByOptimizationNodeFilter was invoked.

Enhancements in build no. 10

• No Enhancements in this build

Few years ago, many national and international reporters wrote about the creeping death of CeBIT, about the fact that big IT tradeshows have become out fashioned, and that companies need to apply modern strategies to communicate with their customers, partners and prospects. Well, the latter undoubtedly is true. However, it seems that things did not develop in an “either or” but in a “both and” fashion. The efficiency that email Marketing, social media Marketing and all forms of online communication have brought to software vendors is amazing. Fair enough. But there is little to nothing that can replace a face-to-face meeting, a handshake between business men and women, and a straight-forward personal dialogue. This is what CeBIT is about. Gone are the days of companies purely competing with the size and extravagance of their booths. Gone are the days of companies competing by throwing giveaways at everybody passing by. Gone are the days of companies turning away from CeBIT due to not getting a value from this behavior. For us, CeBIT 2012 was about having real (not virtual!), agreed and well prepared meetings with customers, partners and prospects. It was about business. A CeBIT like this is not dead. It is alive. And we like it!

Lesson 2: Old and proven does not imply „not sexy“: VARCHART XGantt remains to be a highlight

We came to CeBIT with an amazing bunch of new products and solutions, and we still love that we can deliver this degree of innovation and innovation speed to our customers. Well, it does not require much thinking to recognize that this innovation wealth only can happen if there is a strong fundament for it. In our case, the strong fundament is VARCHART XGantt – our proven Gantt chart control for Microsoft developers. When preparing for CeBIT, we received a call from a c’t journalist, which is one of the top3 IT magazines in Germany. He was preparing a CeBIT special, and VARCHART XGantt is featured in there – alongside with products from IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Sage and others.

Finally, it was not only the press who got excited on VARCHART XGantt. Whenever we demonstrated both the core and some of the advanced features to people who came by our booth, we always were very surprised that they were surprised what can get achieved with a powerful developer control – “This is exactly what I need” became an often heard feedback during all these CeBIT days. Guess what: we like it!

Lesson 3: The next thing that is not dead at all: Silverlight!

We all know that Microsoft did choose not to pursue an easy path for developers who decided to start with Silverlight. The directional changes hit us somewhat harder than anticipated, but given the state and quality of our product development, we decided to keep going with Silverlight. Our impression was that Silverlight will provide immediate UI advantages to the universe of .NET developers, and that quite a bit of them will try to capitalize on this opportunity. Also, we recognized the following: we today have a unique proposition with still developing and maintaining our ActiveX Edition of VARCHART XGantt. That means, that we still win new customers with this product. The conclusion is obvious: if ActiveX still is a living development technology, why the hell an innovative technology like Silverlight should already be dead? As obvious as these thoughts are to us, as obvious is the fact, that these are our thoughts. Hence, we came to CeBIT with a certain degree of curiosity about how our customers, partners and prospects would think about Silverlight … and act about it. The discussions with them, their feedback and their input gave us the endorsement that Silverlight is not dead. There still is a living and vivid community out there, that started to develop or will develop Silverlight applications. You know it already: We like this!

Lesson 4: WPF and Silverlight bring new Gantt chart chances … and face strong demand

From you time to time, we made a little experiment: We had three presentation screens at our booth, and changed the sample application that was shown by default once in a while. It was interesting to see that whenever a WPF or Silverlight sample was on one screen, it clearly worked as eye catcher. People passing by glanced at the information provided, recognized a cool looking Gantt application, continued to walk, slowed down, looked at the screen again and finally entered the booth. This did happen multiple times a day. We still do not have finished our WPF and Silverlight products, and our key focus is to implement leading Gantt/graphical functionality first. We will take a deep dive into UI possibilities and animations in summer, closer to the release date. However, although we only touched these new user experience possibilities that come with WPF and Silverlight, our current samples already worked as compelling eye catcher. As consequence, we already have a substantial list of significantly interested (beta/pilot) customers … 5 months before the products will be released. Well, we like this … and we are looking forward unleashing the full UI chances for Gantt charts that come with Silverlight and WPF.

Lesson 5: Java developers appreciate new approach to Gantt application development

Besides all the new and fancy Microsoft stuff, we also silently but consistently enhanced our Java Gantt control, VARCHART JGantt. The release is due end of this month, and we brought the virtually final version with us to Hannover. With version 3.0, we entirely focus the paradigm of significantly increasing the ease-of-use and decreasing the application development time for all Java developers who are tasked with a graphic-savvy planning application. This is achieved by a complete new Property Editor that provides rapid and intuitive access to all properties and settings that a developer can change. Encouraged from early beta customers’ feedback, we received the same endorsement from our CeBIT visitors and feel confident that VARCHART JGantt 3.0 will create new value for Java developers. No surprise: we like this.

Lesson 6: CeBIT is fun!

All in all, this year’s CeBIT was another great experience for us and from the feedback received also for our customers, partners and prospects. That way, CeBIT is not “just another trade show that we need to attend”. That way, CeBIT is fun … and inspired us to do a spontaneous video take (in German) on our booth. Have fun watching it and stay tuned! We already started planning for CeBIT 2013

If you do not understand a single German word, here is a quick summary of what we discussed:

• Shared the target of having a release fire works for Gantt chart controls and products in 2012.
• Starting with VARCHART JGantt 3.0 in March this year to provide Java developers with new functions to decrease their Gantt application development time.
• Presenting at CeBIT a solution to make full use of VARCHART XGantt in the role-tailored client of Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
• NETRONIC WPF framework to rapidly and flexibly develop graphic-savvy WPF applications and controls.
• And last, but not least the VARCHART XGantt Silverlight Edition, which will bring the power of XGantt to Silverlight developers.

Looking the interview, you will also see Martin showing the conventional VARCHART XGantt control center example as well as giving a sneak preview of the XGantt Silverlight Edition. Well, enough words: have fun watching the video!

If you didn’t manage to visit our booth at CeBIT or if you managed to understand Martin speaking German, please feel free to reach out to us. We are always happy to set up an online meeting to discuss how we best can support you!

From an Oracle Primavera user:

Phil Webb, Outage Scheduling Supervisor at NBP Canada generates network charts from Primavera .XER data that have time lines : “At New Brunswick Power Point Lepreau Nuclear GS we utilize Graneda Dynamic to review outage schedule logic ties. We use this excellent tool to graphically represent the plant unit outage schedule allowing us to review task dependencies related to various equipment, plant and system configurations. An outage at Point Lepreau typically has 10,000 tasks sub divided by system. The software allows us to plot pert diagrams for specific system logic reviews”.

From a Microsoft Project user:

Brian Normile, Outage Scheduling Supervisor at Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation in Kansas, USA, generates Gantt charts from Microsoft Project data using GRANEDA Dynamic: “Planning nuclear refueling outages requires analysis of multiple plant conditions, work windows, and their combined effect on risk.  Graneda Dynamic offers a powerful set of customizable graphics used to communicate complex interactions in a simple and informative display.”

Independent from any project management system:

Mr. Mika, a project manager at bwin.party services (Austria) GmbH uses GRANEDA Dynamic to generate network charts that he edits with the bar chart module: “I use GRANEDA Dynamic without Microsoft Project today; that is, as a stand-alone software, and I feel completely happy with this. It brilliantly fullfills my requirements, particularly in terms of flow charting. Thanks a lot for the great support provided by NETRONIC that led me to the decision for this product!”

Curious? Start working on enhancing the data visualization capabilities of your project management system today, and ask for a free GRANEDA Dynamic trial!

Working as supplier of Gantt controls for mission-critical enterprise-class applications for more than 25 years, we are aware of the fact that many planning and scheduling applications typically have a very long lifetime. Hence, the decision to rely this application on an external control is crucial, and never trivial. Typically, software developers expect that those controls that they decided for will be supported minimum as long as they maintain their application.

Our explicit mission is to provide best-of-breed interactive graphical controls to software developers. In that regard, “best-of-breed” has – at least! – two facets:

1. Of course, it relates to the functionality, the feature-richness, and the performance of the component.
2. It also relates to our unprecedented commitment to be a reliable long-term partner to our clients – providing superior support, and maintaining products as long as they are required by our customers.

As such, we fundamentally believe that our VARCHART XGantt .NET Edition is a valid (and logical) alternative for those ILOG Gantt partners and customers, who will need to maintain their application well beyond 2014, which marks the end-of-life of IBM ILOG Gantt for .NET. In order to facilitate the migration from ILOG Gantt to our VARCHART XGantt, we are happy to offer a comprehensive migration package.

Interested? Curious? Ready to start? Then click below to learn how to migrate from IBM ILOG Gantt for .NET to VARCHART XGantt .NET Edition.

Fixed bugs in VARCHART XNet:

• The key combinations <Ctrl><End> and <Ctrl><Pos1> entailed runtime errors.
• The graphics export format of vcPNGObservingPageLayout did not print colors but merely grayscale charts.

Fixed bugs in VARCHART XTree:

• When the tree structure was emptied completely and subsequently the world view was displayed, an unexpected end of program could occur.
• Drag&drop actions on nodes were performed erroneously.
• The chart used to blur when it was scrolled.

How to Accelerate the Development of Gantt Applications in Java

Virtually all our customers appreciate the rich set of functionality which is provided by the JavaBean VARCHART JGantt. This functionality is based on our more than 20 years experience with developing Gantt chart software, and many of the advanced JGantt functions have become indispensable for most of our users. Of course, as an inevitable consequence the API of JGantt has also grown significantly. The resulting effect for developers is twofold: the plethora of functions on the one hand comes with a component that might look initially complex on the other hand. We are aware of this conflict between the power of functionality and the speed of application development.

Consequently, we put the solution to this conflict in the very focus of the current release. Hence, the new version of VARCHART JGantt will particularly accelerate the development of Gantt-centered planning applications and will provide you with a new Property Editor. The creation of interactive Gantt charts will then be carried out even faster and more intuitive.

All properties that are available for the development of the Gantt charts are newly arranged by Gantt-specific topics so that you have all available settings on one screen e.g. when you customize the timeline or the diagram part of the Gantt graph. In addition to this, all  properties can be edited directly from the (sample) graphic. If you click on an object, a layer for instance, the according editor with all setting options automatically opens up.

For simple settings the values of the properties are displayed by an inplace editor and the developer just has to select the desired value. For more complex settings, the user will be guided through the available properties by easy-to-understand dialog editors.

Not only has the selection of the setting options become easier but also the testing of the chart’s look and function can now be carried out a lot faster. Modifications of the settings are immediately performed and displayed in the Gantt chart at the lower part of the screen. That way, the user can rapidly find the optimum form for the visualization.

From version 3.0 onward, the source code is displayed in all property settings so that the developer can create the source code of each property or even of the entire configuration and insert it into his Gantt application if needed. That way, the Property Editor supports different scenarios in the context of the development process:

• The developer can benefit from the editor when developing a new application. It doesn’t matter whether he starts from scratch or on the basis of a sample project delivered from us. In both cases after having made the settings he can let the editor generate the complete initialization source code. Then he can either copy that code to his own application or extend the used sample to a new application.
• The property editor supports also the modification and extension of existing applications. At any time the editor can be started in a running application. It can regenerate the initialization code or replace the initialization section, respectively.
• Existing Gantt applications – i.e. applications developed without using the editor – will benefit from the editor as well. In this case it makes no sense to generate the whole initialization code section, because all property settings might be spread all over the application and therefore they cannot be replaced automatically. But nevertheless the user can evaluate new property settings and if they fit his requirements, he can copy the shown source code snippets property by property.

Sounds compelling to you? Please contact us to receive a complementary pre release trial version or to meet us at CeBIT.

List of fixed bugs:

• Expanding groups by API calls did not work if all groups of the diagram had been collapsed before.
• In the ASP.NET edition, tool tip texts sometimes were positioned in a wrong way.
• The events VcTableColumnWidthChanging  and VcTableColumnWidth¬Changed were missing in the ASP.NET edition.
• Horizontal grid lines were missing in hierarchies if at runtime an ActiveNodeFilter had been set and the hierarchy was switched off.
• Modifying properties by calls of the API in table format fields of the table format Subtitle did not work.
• Scheduling occurred to be deficient if a time zone was not adapted to daylight saving time.
• The information window appearing when creating a node would display a wrong date.
• Times in the AM/PM time format could not be edited.
• Modifying grouping properties in some cases did not work.
• Error No. 152 occurred on drag&drop actions between two instances.
• The visibility of links did not work properly.

• Error No. 381 occurred when nodes were dropped on the time scale or on the table.
• The phantom of the splitter line appeared too long.
• Moving several nodes by drag&drop actions did not work when the <Ctrl> key was pressed and nodes were selected by mouse.
• When visible links were switched between optimized and overlaid, performance problems could occur.
• An initialization error could occur when VARCHART XGantt was used with Microsoft Access 2010.
• The 3D effect in some cases worked with the layer shape „rectangle“ only, but not or merely erroneously with other shapes.
• Line grids in histograms could not be switched on at design time.
• Performance problems could occur when the width of table columns was modified.
• The event OnStatusLineText did not work with extended data structure, the text value remaining empty.
• In drag&drop actions the bar could happen to drop to a different place or in a different group.

• When downsizing table columns the diagram could become inconsistent.
• Graphical elements sometimes left traces when scrolling the screen.
• In hierarchies nodes could lose their selection marks.
• When the .NET and ASP.NET editions were run on Windows 7, the comment line of the DLL properties was missing.
• Links could appear or disappear when data was loaded or reset (reloadconfiguration). Repeated reloads could lead to an unexpected end of program.
• Error No. 522 could occur when in the time zone Brasilia time was adapted to DST.
• In table formats wrong colors could occur in color gradients.
• In some cases, nodes could be moved although they were not supposed to.
• Positioning the time scale at the bottom of the diagram was incompatible with the „histogram only“ setting.
• The number of table columns could not be retrieved at runtime.

List of enhancements:

•  Fill patterns in numeric scales of histograms were extended by color gradients.