eProject Announces PPM6, a Complete On-Demand Project and Portfolio Management and Collaboration Platform

June 5, 2006; 08:07 AM

eProject (www.eproject.com), a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), on demand Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) with more than 400 customers worldwide, announced availability of its PPM6 service, the industry's most complete on-demand PPM and Collaboration platform used to select, staff, track, control and manage projects across the enterprise.

PPM6, with more than 100 new features, is fully customizable, easy to use and wrapped within a new tab-based interface that cuts across project lines to deliver cross-project data for powerful portfolio analysis.

By aggregating and automating projects from a resource management and capacity planning perspective, and across operations and departments as well as outside to partners, customers and distributed workers, PPM6 introduces a new model for increased efficiencies and productivity.

"Project organizations continue to seek departure from the use of point tools and familiar but limited desktop productivity tools to provide project and work visibility. It is possible to support PPM processes using these tools, but the administrative burden associated with it becomes too painful very quickly. Implementing a centralized PPM system allows a project organization to visualize demand and capacity; this visibility ultimately leads to better decision-making around project work," said Daniel Stang, Principal Analyst, Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) Applications, Gartner (www.gartner.com).

PPM6 also delivers comprehensive Resource and Capacity planning, Team management, Executive Dashboards, Project Status tracking, Dynamic Applications, Workflow, Lifecycle Management, Task, Team and Issue management, and much more.

For example, the PPM6 Project Resource Utilization view displays team member allocations, as well as scheduled and actual time spent on a project. Project workgroup calendars are shown with vacation and personal days, and the Portfolio Management View provides on-screen status for projects within and beyond the enterprise, customized to each user's role.

"Projects, once viewed as static one-offs, can be viewed cumulatively, providing layers of business intelligence previously unavailable or extremely hard to get at. PPM6 offers a highly strategic and completely new way to look at business performance," said Christian Smith, vice president sales and marketing, eProject.

With PPM6 Capacity Planner, managers can run multiple what-if scenarios to determine which projects should proceed and when; executive dashboards can also aggregate multiple projects and portfolios into one view.

Continued Smith, "With PPM6, management gains a more realistic and real-time view into both resources and shifting priorities vertically and horizontally throughout their organization, while workers become more efficient and accountable."

PPM6 onscreen views are fully customizable and interactive -- executives can easily drill down into project data and perform actions with the click of a button. A simple wizard enables managers to easily assemble web forms that, once placed on an intranet, can populate project workspaces with critical data which can be easily formatted into reports.

"PPM6 makes good use of AJAX in the interface and supports not only 'custom views' of anything in the system, but also supports role-based access, and a dynamic interface. There is an executive dashboard (allows rollup of all projects), issue tracker, and the ability to do resource management and integrating resources with schedules," said David Coleman, founder and managing director, Collaborative Strategies (www.collaborate.com).

PPM6 provides a standards-based API that allows integration to a wide variety of business needs, ranging from ERP integration to project financials or executive decision support, as well as synchronization and integration with Active Directory and Microsoft Outlook. PPM6 is built on an SOA architecture based on SOAP and 4-tier architecture (Client JavaScript, Web, Application Server, DB).

Continued Coleman, "PPM6 also takes advantage of another trend we see gathering steam, the 'self service' trend. In the case of PPM6 they provide the components for an end user to create their own application or function quickly and easily without having to go to IT or a developer. This fact alone will make PPM6 more successful with mid-market businesses that often do not have a large IT staff."

Additional PPM6 features include printable Gantt charts, Outlook integration and task, issue and document management.

PPM6 is priced at $45 per user per month; installed server licenses are also available for an additional one-time server fee of $15,000.

eProject, the leading provider of on-demand PPM, is the only SaaS PPM provider on the Gartner Grid for Project and Portfolio Management, versus installed solutions from vendors including Microsoft, Primavera, Planview and Niku.

According to an October 2005 IDC (www.idc.com) Insight Report, "A Case for On-Demand Project and Portfolio Management," eProject "offers a full-blown project management capability on a multi-tenant basis" and "is most likely the largest on-demand PPM provider in terms of revenue and customer count."

eProject (www.eproject.com) delivers the only Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), on-demand project and portfolio management solution for the extended enterprise. eProject PPM6 is an intuitive, unified platform that enables users to maximize project ROI by compressing project cycle times, identifying best practices and optimizing resource allocations, with rapid deployment and quick adoption. eProject is used by more than 400 companies worldwide including BASF, BP, Cushman and Wakefield, Dow Chemical, Honeywell and T-Mobile.