We posted a video about this feature back in January, but wanted to make sure everyone clearly understands what this means: OnePager users no longer need Microsoft Project on their desktop in order to create OnePager visuals using their data on Project Server or Project Online!
Back in April, we asked for your help in lobbying Microsoft to complete the technology that allows OnePager to import data from Project Server and Project Online. We are pleased to say that with your help, we have succeeded in convincing Microsoft to change course.
Our petition has to date received 298 votes, making it the top vote-getter among the petitions posted for all editions of Microsoft Project (Project Server, Project Online, and Project Desktop). A number of OnePager users left comments alongside their signatures, telling Microsoft of the importance of OnePager to their business and the criticality of the needed fix. We can’t thank you enough for your help. There is no doubt that this unprecedented outpouring of support from our user community got Microsoft’s attention and elevated the priority of our request.
We are now pleased to announce that beginning with OnePager Pro version 5.3.11, OnePager will be able use the following custom fields to create timelines in Microsoft Project Server and Online. Previously, these fields were available only if Project was installed on the desktop.
We will send a separate notification to everyone as soon as 5.3.11 is available for download, which should be very soon.
If you’re a frequent user of OnePager, many of these fields will look familiar. For instance, many users employ these fields to filter which tasks from their Project plans they want to display in OnePager — it’s how you turn a 1,000-line Project plan into a 25-line OnePager. The Text fields are also crucial, because they allow users to import custom data for use in OnePager’s conditional formatting feature. For instance, if I was collaborating with ABC Pharma and I wanted all tasks in the ABC Pharma workstream called out on my chart, I would put “ABC Pharma” in the Text30 field, then conditionally format all tasks with ABC Pharma in Text30 to be red.
Microsoft’s omission of these fields left a gaping hole in our usability that could only be worked around by installing Project on the user’s desktop — which, of course, defeats the purpose of using a cloud app like Project Server or Online in the first place. We are delighted that Microsoft listened to our customers and closed the gaps, which will make for a better user experience not only in OnePager but also in Project, and in other apps that integrate with Project.
We continue to work with Microsoft on a small number of fields that are still inaccessible to OnePager in Project Server/Online, including Baseline1 – Baseline10 (Baseline Start and Baseline Finish can be read), and Duration1 – Duration10 (likewise, Duration can be read). If you are having difficulty because of an inability to use these fields from Project Server/Online, please reach out to us at [email protected] and we will pass your concerns on to the appropriate Microsoft engineers.
Once again, we truly appreciate your support, and we hope you are as inspired as we are about what a few (hundred) good project managers can do! Please keep the feedback coming.
OnePager has been a proud Microsoft Partner for many years. We both build and integrate with Microsoft technology. So we are generally pretty pro-Microsoft. But in this case, we think Microsoft has messed up big time, and it will negatively impact thousands of our customers. That’s why we’re asking you to get involved.
To make a long story short, starting this year, it may no longer be possible to use OnePager to make graphics from Project Server 2016 without also doing a desktop installation of Microsoft Project Professional. That means our customers who want to pull project data directly into OnePager from Project Server or Project Online, without using Microsoft Project on the desktop, will be out of luck. If that bothers you, good — we discuss at the bottom of this post what to do about it. First, a little detail.
We have been posting videos over the last several weeks outlining the changes that have come with OnePager version 5.3. If you missed the videos, you can watch again below.
If your subscription to Maintenance & Support is current, you may upgrade to version 5.3 at no additional cost. If your Maintenance & Support has lapsed, you will need to renew your subscription or pay for a one-time upgrade.
We have already begun sending all users instructions to upgrade. However, sometimes email filters will not let our message through.
If you would like us to send you the upgrade, and/or confirm your Maintenance & Support subscription status, please send an email to [email protected], and we’ll be happy to assist you.
Our last introductory video for version 5.3 covers one of the most exciting new features of the release.
OnePager now has the ability to create OnePager Project Views using data directly from Microsoft Project Server without having to open any files in Microsoft Project on your desktop (if you have credentials for the server).
For those of you who are Project Online users, we had planned to release this feature for Project Online data as well, however, we’re now waiting for Microsoft to complete a fix before we can complete things on our end. If you are interested in being notified when this is available, please send a note to [email protected] and we’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.
Last week we presented the first video in a series outlining the new improvements to OnePager in version 5.3. If you missed it, you can watch it by clicking this link.
This week is Part 2 and can be viewed below.
We’ll be reaching out to all existing users very soon with more information about how to upgrade to OnePager version 5.3, so please hold tight!
We are very excited to announce the latest release of OnePager, version 5.3.
The enhancements reviewed in the below video (Part 1 of 3) are:
Have a look!
Check out Part 2 next week!