Altus General Availability Release - April 23rd, 2024

Updates to Altus are deployed quarterly. The updates outlined below have now moved into General Release. If you have automatic updates switched on, the changes will have moved into your Altus production environment. If you deploy updates manually, the changes will not move into your Altus production environment until you are ready for them.

General Updates

#15714	In key data grids, any custom column can be used to group line items. This works with lookup and option set custom columns on the finance, resource plan, and resource demand grids.
#23558	The summary and dashboard widgets have been extended to support: Basic numeric sequential calculations (plus, minus, multiply, divide); Values can be sourced by OData query (existing), form field (listens for changes) or static value; Currency values can be set to render symbol according to current entity, with fallback to environment currency. To edit window for Numeric Adjustment:
#21675	The resource picker result list now shows the breakdown of available hours for a resource based on the current view of the resource grid.

NEW: Baseline Feature

A completely new baselining feature has been introduced to Altus in this release with the following functionality in its first instalment:

Set and manage multiple baselines for a project.
Choose which baseline to view when viewing a project.
Variances from baseline available in schedule view.
Select which baseline should be used for general reporting purposes.
Baseline data is available in the Altus Reporting Data Model if your organisation would like to incorporate this data into your Power BI reports.

#22883

We have introduced a major new baseline feature which can be used to measure project schedule variance and progress through the project lifecycle.

Note:

Altus can still be set to use the older Status Update baseline functionality, but this will need to be toggled back on for those organisations who wish to continue using it. We strongly recommend testing the functionality of the Status Update page if it has been modified to suit your needs.

*Click image above to view animated screen capture

Timesheets and Timesheet Integrations

Various enhancements have been made to how Altus displays and processes timesheets as well as how Altus integrates timesheet information with other parts of the system.

#22900	The default setting for the Timesheet Actuals to Schedule import has been changed to ON when the timesheet mode is Task mode, unless explicitly set otherwise. Note: This avoids the need for PMs to request administrators to switch this feature on manually.
#22908	Date column header for timesheets now displays the day of the week. Note: This reduces confusion for those entering timesheets and lowers the risk that data will be entered into the wrong day column.
#22626	The Timesheet to Finance import is now an import process like the Resource to Finance import process. A banner notification in the Finance app tab alerts users that there are timesheet actuals to import. The import data preview window displays a breakdown of the overall actuals and variances, as well as a breakdown by financial category, with transaction details. *Click image above to view animated screen capture
#23258	Bulk timesheet approval functionality was temporarily removed to avoid some conflicting issues. These issues have now been resolved and bulk timesheet approval has been restored in this release.
#15796	Enhanced timesheet notes interaction for improved workflow efficiency Persistent Comment Drafts: Comments within timesheet notes are now automatically saved, ensuring no loss of data when toast notifications appear. Clicking outside the note callout will now maintain the entered text, instead of dropping the changes. Toast notifications arriving will no longer force the note callout to close, which caused changes to be lost. Intuitive Content Reversion: An ‘Undo’ feature has been introduced, allowing users to quickly revert to the last saved state of their comment. Simplified Interface: The tick and cross icons have been removed to declutter the comment box interface. Confirmation of comment submission and the option to dismiss are now intuitively handled with a simple click away action. The functionality of the former cross icon is replaced with a more recognizable undo icon.

Additional Updates

#22260

The enterprise calendar field has been hidden for generic resources as it could cause confusion for users.

Note:

Recommend that there is some check that enterprise calendars for generic resources are not used.

Bug Fixes:

The following bug fixes have been included in this release and can be reviewed as part of your normal testing process.

#22847	Fixed an issue where opening the same timesheet in multiple browser windows/tabs and performing save would create duplicate rows. Concurrent saves on the same timesheet will now display an error to prevent duplication of timesheet rows and, in instances where duplicate rows are present, a banner is displayed to notify the user to consolidate the data. In instances where duplicate rows are present, a banner is displayed to notify the user to consolidate the data:
#23490	Fixed an edge case issue where timesheet can be closed prior to the save being completed, added a prompt to alert user when attempting to close a browser window/tab with saving process in progress.
#23237	Resolved an issue with Projects when unlinked from their external system and their tasks are deleted that the project effort and percent complete are reset to 0.
#8660	Fixed an issue with calculated project effort and percent complete when project is unlinked from their external system and their tasks are deleted.
#14311	Resolved an issue wherein deleting dependencies does not work in some cases.
#23261	Resolved an issue where empty spaces could appear on the right side of Gantt chart when the task timeline is zoomed out in some situations.
#22877	Fixed an issue with the finance export to CSV which was ignoring rows with a 0 total.
#21639	Resolved an issue with show/hide functionality for the task grid columns.
#22298	Resolved an issue in the Altus Schedule where summary tasks would double count effort from child tasks. Matches effort on the form:
#22849	Fixed an edge case problem where the solution could fail to deploy because of Locale issue.
#22687	The status update duplication functionality now supports portfolios.
#21614	Export to PDF is restored on the task grid with various choices of paper sizes, the default being A0.
#16194	Resolved an issue where fulfilling re-submitted resource requests were not showing as Set by approver on the tooltip.
#21846	Resolved an issue where the task type of external tasks was forced to be Fixed Duration.
#21847	Resolved an issue where external task field values on the Altus Schedule do not match the values in the external system. Gantt tool now will not recalculate the schedule.
#22294	Altus schedule changes when discarded will now return the project form to a saved state. *Click image above to view animated screen capture
#22834	Updated Project for the Web Project Dataflow to fix an issue with Percent Complete values not syncing correctly. This Dataflow fix will not automatically update any environment, it can be downloaded from this page.
#8977	Resolved an issue preventing Project level fields from being updated after unlinking an external project.
#10978	Resolved a bug where changing the positioning of a Bucket in Project for the Web was not reflected in Altus.
#11212	Resolved an issue with text overflow on the Status Summary control.
#14391	When the KPI is configured to show more than the default rows, the visual now spans 100% of the available horizontal space.
#15298	Resolved an issue where tasks synchronised from Project for the web were not being correctly updated into Altus if they were outdented to become top level tasks.
#22587	Resolved an issue where Unassigned Resource assignments were not being filtered out correctly in the Project Online Task Dataflow, causing Unassigned Resource to be created.
#22591	The Delete button is now hidden on the task form when viewing a task published from MS Project.
#9904	The percent complete on the task list now renders as a progress bar.
#10861	Resolved an issue where tasks synchronised from external systems could be marked as complete from the Kanban task view.
#13164	Resolved an issue whereby effort values were not being reset on a Project upon linking it to a Planner Plan.
#15298	Resolved an issue where tasks synchronised from Project for the web were not being correctly updated into Altus if they were outdented to become top level tasks.
#18607	Addressed minor style issue in Timesheet search box overlapping status banner.
#22086	Addressed an issue where editing a newly added task to the Altus schedule would not open the correct task in the dialog after saving.
#22273	Resolved an issue where the expand/collapse header button was defaulting to the wrong state in the Add Task dialog for Timesheets.
#22274	Resolved an issue where long project names were breaking the formatting of the Add Task dialog in Timesheets.
#22276	Configured Projects tab on the Program form to show all aligned Projects regardless of their Status value.
#22277	Configured Projects tab on the Portfolio form to show all aligned Projects regardless of their Status value.
#22279	Configured Programs tab on the Portfolio form to show all aligned Programs regardless of their Status value.
#22619	Resolved an issue whereby Resource to Finance Sync was failing when Fiscal Periods were present in an environment but did not cover in entirety the dates of a Resource Plan.
#24087	Fixed an issue where Submit for Approval button in Timesheet would sometimes flicker when typing values in Timesheet grid.
#24095	Resolved an issue where assigning a resource to a task via form in some situations could cause resource assignment to get removed.