P2 Ware Planner Features

P2ware Planner has been specifically designed to enable a truly integrated approach to planning a project and controlling the execution of the plan. As many experienced planners will know, traditional project management software products offer many of the required components, such as network diagrams, Gantt charts and resource tables, but these are not integrated with the project products or deliverables, and amending the plan is far from straightforward – often resulting in significant inconsistencies.

PBP supports a cohesive approach to planning and controlling all aspects of the project by allowing the user to simultaneously manage:
  • structured and detailed narrative description for the plan
  • Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)
  • Product Flow Diagram (PFD)
  • product descriptions and configuration management (for complex products, P2ware Planner controls their composition as well as their placement in the PFD)
  • activity dependencies automatically generated from the PFD
  • activity network, including PERT and Critical Path Analysis (CPA)
  • activity structure / Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
  • activity schedule indicating the critical path, risky and "low slack" activities)
  • Gantt charts with a timescale from minutes to years
  • calendar illustrating the allocation of tasks
  • planned and actual costs (including simplified finance plan)
  • product checklist
  • quality, risk and issue logs
  • planned resource loading

Project Control

After the plan has been prepared and accepted (baselined), the user moves into the project execution and control phase. P2warePlanner includes tools that simplify the work of the project manager, including:
  • allocation and authorisation of work packages
  • checkpoint report control (integrated with Gantt charts)
  • assessing progress and management reporting
  • change control
  • all source documentation associated with the plan

Inter-operability with other applications

You don’t have to be an expert to use P2ware Planner. P2wP is part of a suite of desktop tools designed to be used by both specialist project managers and other staff.
P2Ware Planner provides:
  • an easy-to-use interface, yet with powerful functionality
  • a useful help facility, including a Product Based Planning manual
  • data import from Microsoft Project®, Microsoft Word®, Mind Manager®, Mind Mapper® and text files
  • data export to Microsoft Project®, Microsoft Excel® and, via XML, potentially any other application
  • integration with Microsoft Outlook®