Gant for .NET 3.0 Includes Scheduling Engine for Custom Application Development
ILOG®, a leading provider of enterprise-class program components and services,
has announced ILOG Gant for .NETT 3.0, the industry's first
Gant chart graphics tool for the .NET environment with a customizable
pre-built project management capability. The latest addition to its
award-winning visualization suite, Gant for .NET 3.0 will increase flexibility
in the design of custom, feature-rich project management applications that meet
the budget and business requirements.
Today, thousands of businesses rely on project management programmed solutions
for project timeline management, allocation of resources, and reporting of
information. To deliver these applications, application developers have been
relying on pre-built, off-the-shelf software that may not adapt to their unique
organizational needs or budgets; or have been forced to build home-grown
applications that can be costly and time-consuming. ILOG Gant for .NET was
created to help attend to this critical need.
Custom Project Management
The new "planning and scheduling of projects Option" in Gant for .NET provides a
comprehensive tool set for designing a visually-rich user interface and a
scheduling engine that adds project scheduling capabilities to a Gant chart.
This functionality provides the foundation for a pre-built project
administration automated solution that can be deployed across the entire
enterprise "as-is" or customized to the organization's own specifications in
Visual Basic or C#. It also allows developers to effortlessly devise and deploy
custom project programmed solutionsin a more cost-effective and time-efficient
manner. For example, a developer can easily implement a new way of managing
custom calendars for special working hours and days (i.e. vacations, holidays),
so that tasks are automatically adjusted and assigned to available people.
Through seamless integration with Visual Studio .NET, software developers can
now modify the data connection, scheduling algorithms, user interface and
interaction and rapidly configure and deploy the appropriate project management
solution. The "Project Management Option" in ILOG Gant for .NET 3.0 also
includes server-side and client-side support allowing deployment to the Web or
the desktop, so the software application can be shared with customers,
partners, or suppliers -- a feature not available in the off-the-shelf
software.
More Intuitive and More Interactive Gant Charts
In addition to the custom "project planning Option", other key new features in
ILOG Gantt for .NET 3.0 include flexible "TreeTables" -- a new interface option
which makes the grouping of tasks easier because users can group rows according
to user preferences. In addition, new workforce scheduling and reservation
controls allow resources to be aligned with available working hours and project
time. The new version also includes more expressive styles, for example when
the project reservation unit takes less than 100% of the assigned resource the
activity bar can become semi- transparent, making it clearer for the end-user.
More Services with Less Code
Interactions in the Gant chart are now based on the style definition enabling
easier editing of data with less code. For example, when a style defines a bar
for displaying the "PercentComplete" property, no code is required to edit this
property, the interaction is set automatically. In addition, ILOG Gant for .NET
3.0 now enables user-defined properties to be added to the model so that it is
automatically supported by the SDXL format. This facilitates easier
localization of the final software solution so when it is deployed to different
countries, the provided resource files can be translated with a tool that
automatically creates the satellite assemblies for that location.
W2G, a leading provider of building design automation, developed a new
construction management software, Integra(TM), using ILOG Gant for .NET to
chart and schedule every aspect of the complex building process.
"ILOG's Gant for .NET overwhelmingly reduced the time and cost required to build
the Integra programmed solution," said W2G Development Manager, Paul Usher. "In
addition to the product's rich functionality, ease of use, real-time charting
capabilities and overall quality, we've been able to save at least six months'
development time just in not having to worry about doing feature control. It's
an absolutely awesome product!"
ILOG has invested more than a decade creating sophisticated graphics tools and
engines that enhance decision making speed and ability by making vast
quantities of complex data more comprehensible and manageable for users.
Through its Java, .NET and C++ graphics libraries and components, ILOG provides
the industry's most comprehensive set of graphics tools that support everything
from air traffic control and homeland security, to ensuring the reliability of
the most demanding telecommunications networks. With each of ILOG's
visualization products, software engineers can save 50 to 80 percent of
development time in creating user displays.
Launched in January 2004, ILOG Gant for .NET was the first Gant chart available
for the C# programming language. ILOG Gant for .NET 3.0 is available
immediately.
