Amplify's Scenario Planner helps you find out which projects work best for your business. You can now get more out of this feature, thanks to the ability to evaluate different outcomes by adjusting the project start date.

Try out different project start dates

A new column, 'Scenario Start Date' will enable you to adjust the project start date to evaluate the effect of changing the start dates of one or more projects in the overall scenario. If you think moving the start date would ensure higher utilization of resources or would accommodate an external dependency, you can verify it using the latest Scenario Planner. 

Double-click in the Scenario Start Date cell to display a context menu and select another date. If benefits are available for the initiative, the interval by which you will be allowed to reschedule will be based on the benefits resolution:

• When all benefits are monthly, projects can be rescheduled in monthly increments.
• If a project contains monthly or quarterly benefits, the project can only be rescheduled in quarterly increments.
• If a project has a yearly benefit, the project will only be reschedulable in financial year increments.

Amplify will use the adjusted date for comparison purposes while the actual original start date will be intact and visible until the scenario is activated. Once you decide to activate a selected scenario, it is automatically applied to the project. The costs, schedule tasks and the benefits that do not have actuals are automatically updated by the offset.

Optionally, you will be able to archive all projects that are not part of the selected scenario.

Reorganised user interface

We have also made some changes to the layout of this interface, making it possible to display the maximum number of widgets and more data with minimal need for scrolling. Across the top half of the page, you will find the criteria widgets. The selection table is placed below the widgets. It takes up the entire width of the screen displaying more columns in the default visible workspace.          

Editable Tasks in My Tasks table

From this release onwards, if you want to edit any task owned by you, you can do that by accessing the My Tasks table. The Tasks table will show tasks owned by you across all projects that you are part of. You don't need to navigate to individual project dashboards to access your tasks.

Stop the Workflow if Any Approver Rejects

It will now be possible to configure your workflow in such a way that if one of the approvers rejects, the workflow stops. Any Approval Advances workflow has been redesigned to work in this fashion. Previously, all approvers were required to reject, for the request to be rejected. Read more here.

Enhanced Baseline Configurations

Previously, when a user recorded a baseline, Amplify internally maintained two copies of data. The first stored values at the time of the baseline, which could never be updated.  The second copy of the baseline, allowed the user to apply updates. Storing both copies by default resulted in long-baseline capture times and performance penalties when using Amplify. Our analysis showed that it was very uncommon for an organisation to be making use of both versions of the baseline. This release introduces a configuration to allow the user to nominate which versions of the baseline they are using. With this new configuration setting, you can configure the initiative classification to stop maintaining two copies of the baselined values and just have one set of values to be stored.

Let's look at the outcome of each configuration. If the baseline:

• Allows update: you will be able to add or update baseline of the benefit, initiative or schedule. 
• Does not allow updates: you will not be able to add or update baseline of the benefit, initiative or schedule. You can set a single baseline which cant be modified.

If you selected both the above options, the initial baseline will not be modified but maintained as a separate record. Updates will be applied to the version of the baseline that allows updates. Using the baseline configuration screen, the user may choose to report against the initial baseline that could never be changed or the updatable version of this baseline. Read more here.

Note: Your instance will be migrated with both versions of the baseline enabled, which maintains the current Amplify behaviour. If you are not making use of the initial baseline (does not allow updates), you may wish to disable it on the Classification under Administration. If you are not making use of the baseline update workflows, you may want to disable this functionality. 

Thousand Separators for Custom Number Fields

By default, the value that you type in a custom number type field will be formatted with thousand separators once it increments by three figures.

View CostUpdate History

You will now be able to view the cost update history on the initiative's History page. The history comment will show which user updated the cost, what data series was updated and the date and time of change.

 Issues Resolved