KIDASA Milestones Project Companion 2006

By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator Golden Triangle PC Club March 2006 General Overview An increasingly important genre of computer software, project scheduling and management, has now become a major application in most all businesses. The many steps in key business processes can now be better managed and controlled using these exciting new applications. Building on the solid theoretical framework of fundamental project management, these computer programs provide the tools to pragmatically implement these principles in a manner that all members of the team managing the project can understand. Coordinating projects demands managerial control over time and resources, and the more complex the project, the more expensive and time consuming it becomes. This has resulted in a need for a project scheduler program to help with these critical management responsibilities. There are now many applications on the market available to help managers with this task, and as you would expect, these range in price as well as level of complexity. Also, as most folks know, the more features and capabilities that are coded into a program, in addition to raising the price, this also increases the time it takes to learn all these features. KIDASA Software, Inc., provides three marvelous project scheduling programs that cover the diverse needs of customers. The flagship product, Milestones Professional 2006 is a full-featured, powerful project management program that excels in its ease of use and full array of features. Milestones Simplicity 2006 is an excellent entry-level project management program that is just right for anyone new to this type of software, as well as users experienced in project management who want a easy way to very quickly create timelines. Click here for a review of Milestones Professional 2006. Click here for a review of Milestones Simplicity 2006. With Milestones Project Companion 2006, KIDASA provides a marvelous program that will assist customers who want to create presentation reports based on data from Microsoft's project management program, MS Project. Project Companion provides a super add-on program that will enable Project users to greatly improve the output of their project reports and customization of these reports that are not built into MS Project. Anyone who now uses Microsoft Project will most definitely want to give serious consideration to Milestones Project Companion, as KIDASA's program will enable these customers to produce very impressive output reports that would otherwise not be possible using just the features in MS Project. What's New in Version 2006? Coded Symbols Earned Value Reports from MS Project Data Built-in Save As PDF makes schedule distribution easy Even more stunning presentation reports Improved Custom Project Import Templates Define your own stoplight columns within the Project to Milestones Wizard Project Companion Features At A Glance Produce presentation reports from your MS Project schedules and keep them up-to-date Robust Internet Publishing, including "drill-down" for easy management access to project details Choose from a variety of presentation-ready formats including Earned Value, Resource, Summary, Milestones and Gantt Customize the results to meet your reporting needs Other Project Companion Features Best as an add-on product for MS Project users who need to create presentation reports Easy schedule creation with an easy click-drag-and-drop interface Beautiful schedules, ideal for presentation Combines powerful project scheduling and tracking capabilities with ease-of-use Easy schedule sharing with a Free Viewer and built-in "Save as PDF" Easy integration with Word and PowerPoint Produce presentation reports from your MS Project schedules and keep them up-to-date Robust Internet Publishing, including “drill-down” for easy management access to project details Choose from a variety of presentation-ready formats Basic earned value reports Customize the results to meet your reporting needs Basic Features Easy click-and-drag scheduling Extensive Symbology Free viewer Great looking schedules Lots of formatting options Paste schedules into other documents Symbol HyperLinks Work with Excel DataGraphs Column Calculations A way to report earned value Task Outlining Find and Replace text A continuous scrolling view The ability to collapse and expand tasks Summary bars A robust filter capability An easy way to sort your schedule An easy master schedule capability Publish a single schedule Publish a set of schedules Easy click-and-drag scheduling Status Line Shift the schedule ahead or behind by a number of days Summary Bars Task Roll-Up % Complete SmartColumns Presentation-Quality Schedules Excellent customization of schedules Gradient fills Position Bars at 3 levels Frame shadows Presentation "slide-show" mode "Curtains" to shade date ranges Full screen mode Color Themes Two colors in a horizontal connector Shading based on outline level Start and End Date Task Number Calculation / Indicator Stoplight Symbol Text Resource Allocation Percent Duration WBS Number Status date Time ahead/behind Baseline start, end, duration Symbol count Calculation / Indicator MS Project Date from Symbol Automation Tag ValueSet Values Built-in earned value reports With the 2006 edition of Milestones Project Companion, the KIDASA company continues to build in many of the more common features necessary to support the essence or fundamentals of project management, while maintaining their focus on ease of use and improving on MS Project. Milestones Project Companion 2006 concentrates on making it very easy to greatly enhance the existing output report capability in Microsoft Project, while heavily investing in many powerful presentation enhancement features users of MS Project will very much appreciate. Anyone with any degree of interest in project scheduling software and currently running MS Project will want to give serious attention to Milestones Project Companion. For many folks, owning Milestones Project Companion is as vital as running MS Project, and today, with Project Companion in its latest 2006 edition, this Project add-on has now become an essential investment when considering MS Project. The key concern of this company is providing project management programs that make scheduling, tracking, and presenting projects very fast, while being easy to learn and use. With this newest 2006 version of Milestones Project Companion, KIDASA further strengthens their hold on this add-on to Project, providing an affordable add-on program that makes MS Project files even better. Operational Features This program is easy enough to be used by anyone managing a first-time project, especially anyone brand new to project management software, and is used in many large companies for many good reasons. Milestones Project Companion supports fast and easy project reports and click-and-drag scheduling, making it possible to begin scheduling, tracking, managing and presenting projects in just minutes. The real beauty in using Project Companion are the many impressive output report features that do not exist in MS Project. With this MS Project add-on program KIDASA has smartly recognized the limitations in Project, and has provided an important additional program that will enable Project owners to greatly improve the appearance and functionality of their Project files and reports. Typical Uses of the Program Milestones Project Companion 2006 is an excellent choice for busy managers needing to prepare and manage a project, while providing superior features that are not built into Microsoft Project. With the vast numbers of MS Project owners, KIDASA recognizes their need to produce very professional, impressive reports and that Project has some limitations in this area. This add-on program will enable Project owners to produce superior reports, while at the same time introducing them to the features and functionality of other KIDASA Software products, especially their powerful, stand-alone project management program, Milestones Professional 2006. Activating Milestones Project Companion Once Milestones is installed and when you first start-up Milestones, you will be prompted to activate the software either automatically, or manually retrieve and enter an Activation Key. If your computer is connected to the Internet, then you can use this easy option. Click Press this button to Activate automatically. Using your Internet connection, an Activation Key is automatically retrieved and entered into the registry. Click OK when the Activation Successful message appears. If you receive an error or your firewall prevents this automated action, then use the Manual Activation procedure as described below. If your computer is connected to the Internet, then you can manually retrieve an Activation Key from the KIDASA web site. Or, call or e-mail KIDASA Software to request an Activation Key. Click Obtain Activation Key via the Internet. Your internet browser will launch, automatically go to the KIDASA web site, and display your Activation Key. Enter the Activation Key in the Activation Key slot, as shown in the dialog box above, to the right of Step 2. Press Activate Now. You may choose Activate Later up to 10 times before the software is disabled. If you need to enter a Program Key, Serial Number and retrieve the Activation Key, open Milestones, choose Help | About Milestones Professional | Program Key, enter the Program Key, and then click OK. Enter the Serial Number and any other missing information, and then click OK. Recommendations This latest 2006 edition of Milestones Project Companion just keeps on getting better and better, and continues to provide the features necessary to create and manage projects that are not built into Microsoft Project, while also focusing on ease of use. Project Companion is genuinely as essential add-on that belongs on all computers that also have Microsoft Project installed. In addition, the learning and training costs of Milestones Project Companion 2006 will also be well received in any organization, because the initial cost of learning Milestones Project Companion will be far less than learning MS Project, or any other competing project scheduling software. This is because KIDASA takes great care in the design of their super Milestones Project Companion 2006 to make it one of the easiest project management applications to learn. This is important in any organization, because once an application has been acquired and installed in the organization, the costs related to learning the program must also be considered. With Milestones Project Companion 2006 you will certainly realize a less expensive learning curve, thus enabling users to more quickly get rolling with the program. Price $149 Milestones Project Companion 2006 - download ONLY Note that this price is NOT mis-keyed. This is the actual price for Milestones Project Companion 2006, and is a super bargain. $60 Milestones Simplicity 2006 boxed version $55 Milestones Simplicity 2006 download version $239 Milestones Professional 2006 boxed version $219 Milestones Professional 2006 for electronic download System Configuration Requirements Windows 2000, ME, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista or later For use on Macintosh, you would need to run a Windows emulator, like Virtual PC. Any computer which can run the above operating systems will be able to run Milestones software. 39MB free hard disk space for Milestones Simplicity 98MB free hard disk space for Milestones Professional 24MB free hard disk space for Milestones Project Companion 16MB free hard disk space for the Milestones Viewer About KIDASA Software, Inc. KIDASA Software, Inc., located in Austin, Texas, introduced its first product, Milestones, Etc. 1.0, in 1989, for the Windows 2.1 platform. Since then, the company has continued to refine and develop this concept into two distinct project scheduling titles: Milestones Professional 2006 and Milestones Simplicity 2002. Founder Sue Butler used to work with the Austin Division of Lockheed, and while there she spent much time helping engineers put together their presentation-ready milestone charts for their briefings. Project management programs did not then offer the required presentation qualities, so the engineers resorted to using CAD programs, graphic design and drawing packages for this purpose, which was very tedious and time-consuming. As is usually the case with entrepreneurs, problems are opportunities, which is how Ms. Butler saw this situation that led to the introduction of the first version of Milestones. Milestones Professional 2006 offers more fully developed features and capabilities than Milestones Simplicity. Simplicity is an inexpensive package for managers with limited time to learn software but needing to quickly produce schedules. Both programs are the result of over ten years continual improvements driven by customer requests, and the attention to the customer definitely shows in this latest edition of Milestones Professional 2006 that adds a ton of features to an already feature-rich application. As for the unique company name, KIDASA, this is how the company president explains it. When they first started the company, they called it "SoftPro," but they soon found this name was too generic and also found out that several other companies were already using it. So, the president decided to come up with something unique. After mulling over quite a few names, she finally decided to just make up a name. The six letters in their KIDASA name come from the first two letters in the names of her three children, KIm, DAn, and SAm. Ever since, they have had no trouble with competition for the name, as well as no problems getting the domain name for their Web site. Neat! Contact Ms. Susan J. Butler, President KIDASA Software, Inc. 1114 Lost Creek Blvd., Suite 300 Austin, TX 78746 512-328-0167 512-328-0168 product support 1-800 765-0167 (sales and volume pricing) FAX 512-328-0247 sbutler@kidasa.com www.kidasa.com Support e-mail: support@kidasa.com KIDASA1 America Online Check this link, www.kidasa.com/news, to sign up for a newsletter that provides tips and tricks with Milestones, as well as links to more information about this nifty program.