KIDASA Milestones Simplicity 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. Milestones Simplicity 2006 from KIDASA Software, Inc., is an entry-level project scheduling software program that is excellent for beginning computer users. Just type in your project steps and click and drag to enter timelines. That is all there is to it. KIDASA wisely offers this wonderful program that introduces users to the key elements of project scheduling, and when they are ready, they can readily move up to KIDASA's powerful, flagship project scheduler application, Milestones Professional 2006. In addition, KIDASA offers a superb add-on program, Milestones Project Companion 2006, that is designed to provide superior output report capabilities not found in Microsoft Project. Click here for a review of Milestones Professional 2006. Click here for a review of Milestones Project Companion 2006. With Milestones Simplicity 2006, users will thoroughly enjoy creating and managing their various projects, as Simplicity focuses only on the most commonly used aspects of project management. What's New in Version 2006? Save as PDF 3D Highlights Toolbar and Toolbox Improvements More colors Date heading separator Symbol Markings Angled Symbol Text Legend Improvements Custom Date Formats New Line Patterns Rounded Frame Control Transparent Pop-up Calendar Fundamentals of Milestones Simplicity 2006 Best for those who need an easy tool for quick preparation of basic project charts 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 Same easy Milestones interface All the basics! Basic Features Easy click-and-drag scheduling Extensive Symbology Free viewer Great looking schedules Lots of formatting options Paste schedules into other documents Task Outlining Find and Replace text Publish a single schedule Status Line Shift the schedule ahead or behind by a number of days Presentation-Quality Schedules Excellent customization of schedules Gradient fills Position Bars at 3 levels Frame shadows Start and End Date Task Number Built-in earned value reports With the 2006 edition of Milestones Simplicity, 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. Milestones Simplicity 2006 concentrates on making it very easy to set up a project and produce the standard Gant chart, while heavily investing in many presentation enhancement features users will very much appreciate. Anyone with any degree of interest in project scheduling software will want to give serious attention to learning the basics with Milestones Simplicity, and for many folks, Milestones Simplicity may be all the project management software they ever need. However, for more complex project management features, you will find all these additional features in KIDASA's top-of-the line program, Milestones Professional 2006. 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 Simplicity, KIDASA further strengthens their hold on the entry-level, easy and affordable project management software market. Milestones Simplicity 2006 will also definitely well serve most managers desiring a project management program that is easy to use and is loaded with many practical features. KIDASA's Project Scheduling Program Options In addition to Milestones Simplicity 2006,  KIDASA also has other project scheduling options to meet the varied needs of all customers. These other options include Milestones Professional 2006, the high end, more powerful program, and Milestones Project Companion 2006. 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 Simplicity supports fast and easy project steps entry and click-and-drag scheduling, making it possible to begin scheduling, tracking, managing and presenting projects in just minutes. Typical Uses of the Program Milestones Simplicity 2006 is an excellent choice for busy managers needing to prepare and manage a project, while providing easiest to learn project scheduling software now on the market. The program is very easy to use and most importantly, easy to learn. This also means it will more quickly start providing a return on the investment in the program. Understanding the reality of typical manager time limitations, KIDASA's Milestones Simplicity program is now even more easy to learn and use, and this means it will be very easy for managers to quickly get going with a project. Finding the right balance between thoroughness of features, while offering the user an intuitive and quick to learn interface, is a never ending coding challenge for any project scheduling program. Milestones Simplicity 2006 represents one of the best examples how to achieve a genuinely user friendly project scheduler that has just the right amount of features required to prepare and manage schedules. Activating Milestones Simplicity 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 Simplicity just keeps on getting better and better, and continues to provide the essential features necessary to create and manage projects, all the while focusing on ease of use. Simplicity is genuinely the most efficient and easiest to learn and use project management program now available. In addition, the learning and training costs of Milestones Simplicity 2006 will also be well received in any organization, because the initial cost of learning Milestones Simplicity 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 Simplicity 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 Simplicity 2006 you will certainly realize a less expensive learning curve, thus enabling users to more quickly get rolling with the program. Price $60 Milestones Simplicity 2006 boxed version $55 Milestones Simplicity 2006 download version Note that this price is NOT mis-keyed. This is the actual price for Milestones Simplicity 2006, and is a super bargain. $239 Milestones Professional 2006 boxed version $219 Milestones Professional 2006 for electronic download $149 Milestones Project Companion 2006 - download ONLY 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.