the best option would be two-way integration/synchronisation of iCals, such that when tasks are marked as completed in iCal (or another ical application), the project management software would pick this up and update the project status similarly
Spotlight: ability to search (all) the content of project files, such as dates, resources, tasks, etc.
Mail:
automatically send mails at defined events (although this could just as easily be done via the calendar application)
manually send mails to resources from actions, tasks, etc. with filled-in action, task etc. info
Address Book
resources should be taken from the address book, as well as e-mail addresses,
(even) more is better
scheduled, revised and actual performance
subprojects/superprojects
import/export of MS Project + XML format; more is better
useful defaults or good templates
clear organisation/layout of views
low barrier to enter (especially for newcomers)
time and task reporting by team members
integrated risk management
requirements specification tied to tasks and milestones (internal or interactively from another app)
each requirement should be expressable as a test case with acceptance limits; the test case should be exportable/integratable with a real test environment (problem: many of our tests may not be standardised or standardisable to software development tools - namely the linguistic testing)
not too impressive. It is a cross-platform product (Win/Mac), with the constraints regarding proper integration that typically follows from that.
scheduling:
standard; there’s a lot of possibilities in there, and FTS has many fancy tools and dialogues to adjust existing and create new types of schedules and dependencies. This comes at the cost of an unwieldy interface, and a lot of work to get a reasonable standard setup in place (and quite ugly bars)
subprojects:
FTS supports nested tasks, but has no notion of projects within projects. Also, each project is a separate file, and linking and resource sharing among projects is not possible, as far as I can tell.
import/export:
can import and export to the most central formats
defaults and templates:
not impressive
visual organisation and presentation:
a lot of Windows in the UI, and the UI feels cluttered and overused.
barrier to enter:
relatively high, based on some tests
reporting
risk management:
nothing (the word risk isn’t found in the index of the user manual, and not by grepping for the same string in the user documentation either)
requirements specification:
has no built-in provision for it
requirements tied to testing:
has no built-in provision for it
other pluses:
seems fast
other minuses:
conclusion:
Although we have paid for it already, recent development within the Mac community makes FTS look less and less attractive. 2 years ago there were no real competitors to FTS, but today the situation is almost radically different. This is also the reason for the new look into this software category before we start project management for real.
also subtasks are supported, in practice creating the project hierarchy we need
no support for cross-linking between projects, but see below
no support for resource sharing among projects, but see below
import/export:
the native file format is XML (not a good one: Apple’s property list format)
can export to some basic formats
can import a couple more
defaults and templates:
templates: ok
defaults: quite good
visual organisation and presentation:
clear OS X style
barrier to enter:
good integration with OS X, reuse of resources and standard GUI
Still a lot to learn
reporting hours and tasks
this software is not multiuser or server-client-based, and thus requires all users to have one licensed copy if they want to edit the files, e.g. for entering task status, or to physically access one shared computer (but see below)
risk management:
one of the advertised strengths of the application
requirements specification:
not really integrated, but can be specified through so-called elements
requirements tied to testing:
it is possible to export an item list Element to XML, which can then be converted to some test file. The potential is there, but it is very cumbersome.
other pluses:
speedy
other minuses:
conclusion:
So far the best application tested, despite the drawbacks. I’ve received feedback that most of our concerns will be targeted by the next major release early next year.