News

September 20, 2008

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.10 of the Process Dashboard. Version 1.10 includes these significant new features:

The Process Dashboard is now released under version 3 of the GNU General Public License.

For new team projects, created after the installation of this update, a new task structure will be used:

	Previously, the process phase of a task (e.g. Planning, Code, Test, etc) was recorded via a final "stub" that appeared at the end of each task in the hierarchy. Now, these stubs are no longer created. This change reduces clutter, makes it easier to subdivide existing tasks, and reduces the memory usage of the Process Dashboard.
	In a new-style team project, individuals will have a project plan summary report similar to the one on the team side: it can be edited to include custom charts, reports, and tables of data.
	Important: Data from new-style and old-style team projects can still be rolled up together into master projects.

For a new-style team project that is underway, new columns will appear in the Work Breakdown Structure Editor to display actual metrics:

	Actual time spent on each task
	Actual completion date
	Percent complete
	Percent spent

Among other things, this makes it possible to see which tasks have been completed, which are in progress, and which have not yet started.

When changes are made in the WBS, individuals use the "Sync to WBS" operation to copy those changes into their personal plan. In a new-style team project, the synchronization is now bidirectional. When individuals make changes to the following data in their personal plan, the changes will be propagated back into the WBS automatically:

	Changes to the planned time for tasks
	Changes to the planned hours in the schedule
	Changes to task notes/comments
	Changes to the phase type of a task (e.g. Planning, Code, etc.)

The colored bars in the WBS Editor are a useful tool for balancing work between team members. For a new-style team project that is underway, these bars can now be toggled between two modes:

	Show End-to-End Plan: This mode takes all tasks into account. The dates calculated for each team member will correspond to the "Planned Completion Date" for that individual in their personal earned value schedule.
	Show Remaining Work: This mode subtracts out tasks that have already been completed, as well as effort spent on in-progress work. The dates calculated for each team member will correspond to the "Replanned Completion Date" for that individual in their personal earned value schedule.

The new "Remaining Work" mode is a powerful way to rebalance work during a relaunch. Teams can also use it throughout a project iteration to continually rebalance work.

The Process Dashboard now supports baselines for earned value data. You can save a baseline for any earned value schedule, then view baseline metrics in the task list and EV charts.

The WBS Editor now includes support for project milestones:

	It is possible to define a list of project milestones, and optionally enter commit dates
	Each component and/or task in the WBS can be assigned to a particular milestone
	Marks appear on the colored balancing bars to indicate when each individual could potentially finish their work for each milestone
	The colored balancing bars can be configured to balance work for the entire project or just for the next milestone(s)
	Future milestones can be marked as "deferred," and the sync operation will not copy the associated tasks into team member plans.

A new icon on the main toolbar makes it easy to attach free-text notes to any component or task in the Process Dashboard. On a team project, these notes are shared by the team, and accessible in the WBS Editor.

Play and pause now appear as separate toggle buttons.

A new "timing reminder" feature is available. This feature can periodically display pop-up alerts, reminding the user to start or stop their timer or to change the active task. (This feature is not enabled by default, but can be turned on by individuals who wish to use it. To enable this feature, right-click on the tray icon and choose "Reminder > Enable Reminder.")

The WBS Editor now allows you to enter detailed schedules for each team member, to include start dates, end dates, and planned time exceptions on specific weeks. This information is bidirectionally synchronized with each individual's personal earned value schedule.

Previously, the WBS Editor would not allow you to assign a task to an individual until a time estimate had been entered for the task. Now, it is possible to assign a task to an individual even while the task's time estimate is still zero. Agile project teams may use this feature to support on-the-fly cost estimation.

The Team Dashboard Users Manual is now included in the dashboard's searchable online help.

When starting a new project or iteration, you can now bring forward the data from historical earned value schedules. As a result, the dashboard can calculate forecast dates and prediction ranges during a team project launch, even before any actual data has been collected.

The weekly earned value report now includes a "Tasks In Progress" section. This section displays tasks that have been started but not yet completed, making it easier to spot problems such as overspent tasks.

Historically, "PSP Tasks" were required if a team wanted to capture planned and actual LOC for their project. Now, LOC can be captured for "code" tasks as well.

Installation and operation of the dashboard on Mac OS X is greatly improved.

On Unix/Linux systems, the default web browser has been changed from Netscape to Firefox.

September 15, 2007

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.9 of the Process Dashboard. Version 1.9 includes these significant new features:

The Process Dashboard now displays an icon in the system tray:

	Users can click on the icon to start/stop the timer, and tell from a glance at the icon whether the timer is running.
	The tooltip on the icon displays the active task. Ctrl-click on the icon allows the user to select a new active task.
	The popup menu on the tray icon provides quick access to many commonly used dashboard features.

In the Team Dashboard, you can now expand the weekly earned value report to show data for each individual team member. This resulting report can be very useful in weekly team meetings.

The play/pause button now displays new icons that make it easier to determine whether the timer is running or stopped.

Tasks labels (assigned in the WBS Editor) are now displayed for each task when you open an earned value plan in the Task & Schedule window or view a report in your browser.

Warning icons now appear when a task is planned to be completed before its dependencies.

Since version 1.7.1b-9, team members have been able to open the Work Breakdown Structure directly from their personal dashboard. A preference on the Team Project Parameters and Settings page controls whether individuals should be allowed to make changes to the WBS. Previously, this setting defaulted to "read-only," but with this release, the default is to allow edits. Teams that wish to keep the WBS read-only will need to adjust the value of this setting after upgrading.

Several common operations have been optimized, and now require much less time. For example, the dashboard may start in half the time, and export data in one-fifth the time.

May 26, 2007

Version 1.8.1 was released to address two small bugs present in version 1.8. Most users will not need to upgrade. For more information, read the two bug reports: #1710407 and #1710543.

April 26, 2007

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.8 of the Process Dashboard.

In addition to new functionality, version 1.8 includes the fix for a recently-discovered security vulnerability which was present in earlier versions of the Process Dashboard. Users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

Version 1.8 includes these significant new features:

Several enhancements to the Work Breakdown Structure Editor:

Individuals can now open the team Work Breakdown Structure directly from their personal dashboard, via a new option on the script menu. (The Team Dashboard does not need to be running, and the individual does not need a Team Dashboard shortcut, to use this feature.)

	This can be configured to open the WBS either in read-only mode or editable mode. The default is to open the WBS read-only, for viewing purposes. To grant team members the ability to edit the WBS, open the Team Project Parameters and Settings page for the project, and check the appropriate box.
	If individuals open the WBS using this approach, add new tasks, and save the changes, the new tasks will appear in their dashboard immediately (a sync occurs automatically).

If an individual needs to perform a "Synchronize to WBS" operation, they will receive an alert shortly after starting the dashboard. When changes to the WBS are saved, an automatic "Synchronize to WBS" operation will take place in the Team Dashboard immediately.

If another individual has the Work Breakdown Structure locked for editing when you attempt to open it, the dialog that appears will now tell you the name of that other individual.

The Work Breakdown Structure Editor now includes an expand all button on the editing toolbar.

When the Work Breakdown Structure editor is opened, tasks will initially be expanded and collapsed as they were the previous time the WBS was viewed.

Backups of the team Work Breakdown Structure are now created each time the WBS is saved, and kept for 30 days. This makes it possible to recover from catastrophic edits that are made to the WBS accidentally.

In the past, if you opened the WBS for editing, then lost and regained network connectivity, your lock on the WBS could be silently lost. This would open the door for you and another individual to edit the WBS simultaneously, and possibly overwrite each other's work. This problem has been resolved.

If you don't have permission to modify the files for the WBS, a warning will be displayed immediately when you open the Work Breakdown Structure Editor. Previously, the editor would open normally, and you would only see an error when you attempted to save changes.

Bugfix: in the Work Breakdown Structure Editor, top-down-bottom-up errors would sometimes occur if the value in the Time column was only changed by a small amount. This error has been corrected.

Several enhancements to earned value support:

	Drag-and-drop can be used to reorder tasks in the Flat View of an earned value schedule.
	Forecast dates are calculated for every task in the EV schedule.
	A new "Replan" column has been added to the earned value task list. This column displays the planned dates that would result if you were to "replan from today." This column can be a useful tool for projecting completion dates in the face of schedule slips - particularly early in the project, when the forecast dates are too volatile to be trusted.
	In addition to the "Chart" button, the Task & Schedule window now contains a "Filtered Chart" button. This button will display a filtered view of the earned value charts and statistics, for the selected portion of the hierarchical task list. At the team level, this generalizes the existing "Individual Chart" feature, making it easy to view earned value charts and statistics for any hierarchical subset of the project.
	On the "Combined" earned value chart, the "Actual Time" line has been replaced with an "Actual Cost" line. With this change, the three lines on that chart are now displaying traditional BCWS, BCWP, and ACWP metrics.
	When you apply a label filter to the team project plan, that filter will affect all parts of the earned value report and the week report.
	Now, the weekly earned value report always has a "Next" hyperlink. You can move as far into the future as you like, without being constrained by the preexisting schedule boundaries.
	The earned value report now includes clickable column headings for sorting data. Also, the "Weekly View" link has been moved from the bottom of the page to the top of the page.
	If you turn of the "Assigned To" column on an EV report, it will also turn of the names of individuals in the task dependency status details. The resulting report should not indicate the name of any real person, making it safer to share with external stakeholders.
	Whenever the status information for a task dependency is displayed, it will now display the dependent task's forecast completion date instead of the planned date. (If the forecast date is unavailable, the planned date will be used as a fallback.)
	When the Task & Schedule window is opened, tasks will initially be expanded and collapsed as they were the previous time the schedule was viewed.

Several enhancements to team project support:

	It is now possible to view the rolled up time log for team and master projects. Time log entries from all individuals are consolidated anonymously into a single list, and displayed in a user interface similar to the Time Log Editor. Time log entries can be analyzed by WBS component, and filtered by date.
	For convenience, many of the buttons on the Team Tools and Settings page have been replicated in the script button's drop-down menu.
	It is now simpler for a user to add tasks to a team project within the Hierarchy Editor. A new task can be added with a single step (rather than adding a subtask then adding a phase underneath). In addition, the Common Team Workflows defined by the team will appear as entries underneath the "Add Templates" menu in the Hierarchy Editor.
	Many teams do not use the full list of phases provided by their team metrics collection framework, and the extra/unused phases clutter their team project plan summaries and charts. The Project Parameters and Settings page now allows each team to select the set of phases they wish to appear in team forms, charts, and reports.
	It is now possible to define a defect type standard at the team level for shared use by the members of a team project. (This feature is available on the Project Parameters and Settings page)
	Overzealous internationalization logic in the dashboard was preventing the proper operation of team functionality for users speaking Spanish, Japanese, or Chinese.

A new Quick Launcher tool is provided for quickly opening a dashboard instance without making a shortcut first. This launcher can open any arbitrary pspdata or teaminstance directory you specify, as well as any backup file (such as the ZIP files automatically exported by individuals). The launcher can even find dashboard data in ZIP files inside another ZIP files.

	For access to this new tool, run the installer, select the "Tools for Team Leaders" option, and create shortcuts.
	To use the launcher, simply drag and drop a directory, ZIP file, or PDBK file (see below) onto the Quick Launcher icon. Alternatively, you can start the Quick Launcher application by clicking on the icon, then drag and drop files onto the Quick Launcher window.

A new option has been added to the "C > Tools" menu, allowing the user to save a backup of their data directory to a file of their choosing. The backup can be saved either in ZIP format, or Process Dashboard Backup (PDBK) format. (The latter format is provided as a convenience for organizations that have difficulty emailing ZIP files.) The resulting files can be opened in the Quick Launcher from any computer, at any point in the future, with or without network access, to view exactly what that dashboard instance looked like at the moment the backup was made. This new option provides several powerful uses:

	Individuals can save a snapshot of their personal Process Dashboard instance, and send it to a team leader, coach, or instructor for mentoring or other support.
	Team leaders can save a snapshot of their Team Dashboard instance, and send it to a launch coach for mentoring / support. The coach can open the resulting file with the Quick Launcher, see their team plan, open their WBS, and even edit the WBS - all without modifying the "real plan," and without needing access to the shared network directory where team data is stored.
	Team leaders can save snapshots of their entire Team Dashboard instance on a periodic basis. Unlike the current plan summary snapshots, these data backups capture the complete state of the team plan at an instant in time, with full interactivity. This makes it possible to open a historical version of the team dashboard, and see exactly what the team plan looked like at some time in the past.
	A team leader can save a backup of their team data directory, then open that backup to perform limited "what-if" analyses, without altering the real team plan.

Additional enhancements:

	A new visual indicator has been added to the main Process Dashboard toolbar, displaying the percent spent for the current task. This makes it simple for individuals to notice that they are overrunning the cost estimate for a given task.
	For convenience, the dashboard's LOC accounting tool has been added to the Tools menu.
	When a user manually enters interrupt time in their time log, the delta time is now adjusted accordingly.
	It is now possible to select time log entries in the personal Time Log Editor or team Time Log Viewer, and copy these to the clipboard for analysis in another program like Excel.
	The PROBE Wizard is now displayed in a larger, resizable window to address width problems with the "Historical Data" page. Also, when the user has mismatched size and time estimates, the final page of the wizard now includes a hyperlink allowing them to accept those estimates and quit anyway.
	A bug in the PSP(SM) for Engineers template was preventing students from adding phases to their Interim Report and Final Report tasks. This bug has been corrected.
	The injection phase of a fix defect is now initialized by default to the removal phase of the causative defect.
	Bugfix: some users on Windows Vista were receiving an error when starting the dashboard, complaining that the time log file could not be read. This error has been corrected.

September 28, 2006

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.7 RC1 of the Process Dashboard!

This version of the dashboard is a release candidate:

Multilingual users are invited to create translations using the new Localization Tool, and send them to the Process Dashboard development team for inclusion in the final release.

Please report defects to the Process Dashboard development team for attention before the final release.

Version 1.7 RC1 includes these significant new features:

The Process Dashboard now contains extensive, powerful functionality to support project teams, including:

	Support for team projects (to roll-up metrics and schedule data from several individuals) and master projects (to roll-up metrics and schedule data from several teams)
	Streamlined project planning tools enable rapid creation of balanced, top-down team project plans
	Powerful reporting tools allow the creation of custom forms, charts, and reports that analyze project metrics and earned value at the team level
	Tracking of task dependencies assists with coordination of work within and across project teams

The Process Dashboard now contains extensive support for internationalization. A Localization Tool is provided to help users translate dashboard messages into their native language, and share those translations with other users.

Memory usage and startup time have been reduced dramatically for individuals with many historical projects.

The dashboard contains several enhancements to earned value functionality:

	A new task navigation option makes it easier to work through the tasks in an earned value plan.
	The plan and forecast lines on the earned value charts can be toggled off.
	The earned value report can display your task list hierarchically, and display rolled-up calculations such as "percent complete" at various levels.
	Export a GANTT chart of an earned value plan to MS Project
	Export an HTML snapshot of an earned value plan, for status reporting and collaboration

The Data Analysis center has been enhanced to support custom processes. Users who define a custom process will see customized versions of Report 3, 4, and 5 for their process.

The dashboard can be opened in read-only mode, making it possible for a mentor/coach to look at dashboard data without worrying about accidentally changing data.

It is now very safe to use a networked directory for storage of dashboard data; the logic that saves changes will detect and recover from sporadic network outages.

Time values are displayed on dashboard forms in hours and minutes.

December 29, 2005

Version 1.6.5 provides support for a broader range of web browsers on all platforms. Users who are not experiencing problems viewing dashboard forms in their web browser do not need to upgrade.

October 17, 2003

Version 1.6.1 was released to address two bugs present in version 1.6. Most users will not need to upgrade. For more information, read the two bug reports: #825752 and #825757.

September 1, 2003

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.6 of the Process Dashboard! Version 1.6 includes these significant new features:

	Earned Value Prediction Intervals - The earned value tool in the dashboard can now calculate estimated prediction intervals for forecast completion date and forecast cost. These intervals compare your planned progress to your actual progress using numerical methods and approximate pivotal statistics, computing a range of dates within which your project is likely to finish. The dashboard can calculate these ranges both for individual earned value schedules and for rolled-up team schedules.
	Level of Effort Tasks - Traditional PSP^SM earned value planning addresses only "direct time," omitting time spent on recurring activities (such as weekly meetings) and ongoing activities (such as communicating with customers and management, or participating on committees). Unfortunately, "direct time" is an unfamiliar metric for many organizations, which are accustomed to tracking "project time" instead. As a result, senior managers in some organizations take issue with earned value plans that reflect only 15-20 direct hours per week. To help development teams avoid this potential misunderstanding, the dashboard now provides an innovative new feature: "level of effort" tasks can be added to earned value task lists. Although these tasks don't affect the earned value calculations, they do allow you to create a schedule that accounts for all of your "project time" - and this can help when you present plans to management for approval. To add "level of effort" tasks to an earned value plan, just enter percentages for these tasks in the "planned time" column instead of durations. (Planned direct time for the periods in the schedule is then calculated automatically by reducing the planned total time by the appropriate percentage.) To help you enhance the accuracy of future estimates, "actual time" for "level of effort" tasks is also displayed as a percentage.
	Task List Restructuring - Earned value task lists in the dashboard have always been hierarchically organized. When the list of tasks for a particular project differs from the structure of your dashboard hierarchy, new features in the earned value tool allow you to "prune" and reorder tasks to better describe the work that needs to be done.
	Restart Earned Value - At times in the middle of a project, you may decide that you wish to "re-plan" the remaining tasks and start with a fresh earned value schedule. The dashboard now makes this simple: just change the starting date on your earned value schedule to the current date. All work performed before the starting date of the schedule will be factored out of earned value calculations automatically.
	The "Data Analysis" center now allows you to generate custom charts and reports, simply by selecting options from drop-down lists. The data in these custom charts and reports can also be exported to Excel for further custom analysis.
	Time Log Comments - The time log now includes a column for the entry of optional comments.
	It is now possible to create and edit custom defect type standards.

October 3, 2002

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.5 of the Process Dashboard! Version 1.5 includes these significant new features:

	The dashboard is now compatible with version 1.4 and higher of the Java Runtime Environment from Sun Microsystems.
	The dashboard now contains support for Netscape 6 and higher on Windows platforms, and is also compatible with the Sun Java Plug-in in Internet Explorer.
	The task and schedule planning tool now contains built-in support for collaboration! You can share your schedules with your co-workers, your manager, and/or your customer, and keep them up-to-date on your progress. If you are working on a project with other people, you can roll up your individual schedules to create an earned value schedule for the project.
	The task and schedule planning tool helps you to avoid several common planning mistakes.
	The hierarchy editor now includes a toolbar to facilitate the editing of your work breakdown structure.
	Numerous user interface enhancements make the hierarchy editor, the time log editor, and the defect log editor easier to use.

March 18, 2002

We have been working with Addison-Wesley, and have been granted permission to distribute the dashboard once again. If you have an earlier version of the dashboard, please download version 1.4.1, which contains the copyright notice requested by Addison-Wesley.

February 22, 2002

Watts Humphrey, the creator of the Personal Software Process, has requested that we not distribute the Process Dashboard until further notice.

Also, in accordance with Watts' direction, "anyone who has previously downloaded copies of the Dashboard is no longer authorized to use, copy, modify, distribute, or otherwise handle this material in any way."

Please direct questions to the development team. If the dashboard becomes available again, we will send email to the announcements mailing list.

February 19, 2002

The development team for the Software Process Dashboard Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of version 1.4 of the Process Dashboard! Version 1.4 includes these significant new features:

Custom process definition - now you can create your own process definitions for use with the dashboard by writing a simple XML file.

Earned Value - Task and schedule features help you to track your work using earned value, and calculate forecasts for cost and schedule.

Data Rollup - New "data rollup" templates allow you to roll-up data from multiple projects. This feature makes it possible to:

	Roll up PSP data to the project level.
	Create multiple subsets of "To Date" data (for example, representing different programming languages). The "To Date" data mechanism now allows you to select, for each project, which subset should be used for automatic calculations.

External documents are now integrated into the process scripts - click on hyperlinks for documents like the PIP form, the Issue Tracking Log, etc. and the appropriate document will be opened for the project you're working on.

PROBE - A new "PROBE Wizard" simplifies the PROBE process, and provides advice on which PROBE method is most appropriate.

Excel export - You can now export forms (like the Project Plan Summary or the Size Estimating Template) to Excel for additional, custom analysis. If you want to show your data to others, or save copies of forms for project documentation, you can also export these forms to static HTML documents.

Time card view - If you have to fill in a daily time card, a new "time card view" can show you how much time you have logged, by day, to the tasks in your hierarchy.

Data Unlocking - You can now "unlock" the read-only data on forms if you want to override any of the calculations that the dashboard automatically performs for you.

Other changes incorporated in version 1.4:

	The hierarchy editor now allows you to move nodes/projects. Cut and paste operations make it possible to reorganize your work breakdown structure.
	The drop-down list on the script button now displays choices like "Project Plan Summary" instead of listing the names of process phases. In addition, a "script browser" makes it easy to open a script/form for any project in your hierarchy without needing to navigate to that project first.
	Checkmarks in the hierarchy menus make it easy to see which phases / projects have been marked complete.
	The "pspdiff" program (which calculates added / deleted / modified physical LOC counts) is now incorporated into the dashboard.
	A major overhaul of the internal data calculation engine allows the dashboard to recalculate data up to 10 times faster.
	If you insert "Design Review" or "Code Review" phases into a PSP0 - PSP1.1 project, these phases will automatically appear on the project plan summary and in the process scripts.

January 7, 2002

The Process Dashboard Development team has been hard at work on a new version of the dashboard, containing the following new features:

	Earned value tracking
	Custom process definition via XML
	Multiple subsets of "To Date" data
	External document integration
	Export "Project Plan Summary" to Excel
	Unlock read-only data on forms
	Better hierarchy editing support
	Internal "pspdiff" LOC-accounting program
	Easier access to scripts and forms

This represents a significant step forward in functionality! While v1.3 of the dashboard contained about 16 KLOC, v1.4 currently contains about 27 KLOC. Needless to say, this represents a significant addition/modification to the Process Dashboard.

We have, of course, used PSP to develop these features. Although we have performed individual design and code reviews, our team is unfortunately not large enough to conduct effective inspections. Based upon our current yield calculations, we estimate that there are still about 2-3 latent defects per KLOC in the new and changed dashboard code.

Therefore, we would like to solicit the help of the Process Dashboard user community, and invite current users to participate in a large-scale user acceptance testing phase. Interested users are welcome to download and evaluate a beta release of Process Dashboard v1.4, and report any defects they find. When yield calculations indicate satisfactory levels of quality, we will distribute the production release of Process Dashboard v1.4.

August 14, 2001

Version 1.3.1 was released to address a high-priority bug present in version 1.3. You should upgrade to 1.3.1 if you have added nodes or templates to your hierarchy and given them names containing the following characters:

()?*+{}[

For more information, read this bug report.

July 16, 2001

Version 1.3 of the Process Dashboard is now available! Version 1.3 includes

Online Help - The dashboard now includes greatly enhanced online help! Improved help has been the #1 requested feature by you, the user community. We are therefore pleased to offer indexed, searchable online help with ten times the content of version 1.2.

Generic Process Support - The dashboard now includes a "Generic" process. When you use the generic process to perform a task, it allows you to:

	Choose any list of phases, with custom names
	Decide whether or not it makes sense to track defects for the task
	Decide whether or not it makes sense to measure size for the task, and choose a custom unit of size measurement.

The dashboard then provides a customized Project Plan Summary Form for your custom process.

Data freezing - The dashboard now contains a mechanism for freezing baselined data. When you mark the planning phase of a project complete, all the data in the "Plan" column of the Project Plan Summary form will freeze and stop recalculating. Similarly, when you mark the project complete, all the data in the "To Date" column will freeze and stop recalculating. This makes it possible to view the report again in the future without having the numbers changing in the report.

Usability/robustness enhancements - version 1.3 includes dozens of enhancements that make it easier to use the time log editor, the defect log editor, the defect entry dialog, the PROBE tool, and the main dashboard itself (see the list below for highlights).

Other changes also incorporated in version 1.3:

	Auto Update Checking Mechanism - the dashboard can now notify you when updates are released, either to the dashboard itself or to the add-on process sets you have installed. (This feature will only work for users who can access the internet without going through an HTTP proxy server.)
	The PROBE tool now contains a drop-down box for quickly exploring PROBE methods A, B, and C.
	The Play/Pause button now has a drop-down menu for quickly jumping to a task where you have recently logged time. If you often bounce back and forth between tasks for different projects, this feature makes your life easier.
	Numerous bug fixes make the Time Log Editor more robust.
	The Time Log Editor now makes it easy to quickly filter your view of the time log to "Today", "This Week", or "This Month". Forward and backward buttons let you scroll to look at different time periods.
	The play/pause button and the hierarchy menus now provide audible feedback to help you keep track of whether the dashboard is timing or paused.
	Time Logging - The previous version of the dashboard would only write entries to the time log when you changed phases; now, the time log is updated continually. The data in your time log and your project plan summary forms is never more than a minute old.
	Multiple Defect Support - When you find yourself fixing several defects at once (which can happen often due to "fix defects" and "related defects"), the dashboard provides better assistance. It automatically ensures that only one defect timer is running at a time, and maintains a stack of "interrupted" defects.
	The Defect Log Editor now allows defects to be deleted. It also supports quick filtering to see the defects which were injected or removed in a given phase.

April 20, 2001

Version 1.2 of the Process Dashboard was released. Version 1.2 included two significant new features:

	PSP Process Support - The dashboard now includes support for ALL the standard PSP processes (PSP0, PSP0.1, PSP1.0, PSP1.1, PSP2.0, PSP2.1, and PSP3.0). All of the online PSP process scripts and forms have been edited to conform as closely as possible to the originals in the PSP book.
	Charting and Reporting - The dashboard now displays charts and reports! Choose the "Data Analysis" option on the "C" menu, and dozens of standard charts and reports are available (including ALL the tables required by reports R3, R4, and R5, and ALL the charts currently drawn by the SEI's "Student Workbook" Excel spreadsheet). With a single click, export data to Excel for further analysis.

Other changes also incorporated in version 1.2:

	The PROBE tool is now simpler to use. Previously, it would allow you to explore the correlation between any two data items; unfortunately, this made it cumbersome for everyday use. Now, by default, it only displays the data items traditionally used by the PSP PROBE methodology.
	The PSP0 - PSP1.1 processes now support optional "Design Review" and "Code Review" phases.
	Errors in several calculations have been corrected. Also, the "To Date" data calculations have been completely revamped and are now working properly.
	Data calculation efficiency has been improved.
	With the addition of the standard PSP processes, the SCR/DCR processes are no longer shipped with the dashboard. If are a current dashboard user, and you have been using the SCR/DCR processes, your existing SCR/DCR projects WILL still work. If you wish to continue creating projects that use the SCR/DCR processes in the future, please download the SCR/DCR process separately.

February 9, 2001

Version 1.1 of the Process Dashboard was released. Version 1.1 contained enhancements that made the tool significantly easier to install.

Software Process Dashboard Initiative Homepage

Personal Software Process^(SM), PSP^(SM), Team Software Process^(SM), and TSP^(SM) are service marks of Carnegie Mellon University. The open source team that writes the Process Dashboard is not affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University.

On-the-job use of the Process Dashboard is not intended to replace formal PSP training or TSP coaching. Engineers interested in using the PSP should complete a PSP training course. Teams interested in using the TSP should contact the SEI or an SEI Partner for TSP support.