Altus Quarterly Release - October 18, 2023

Updates to Altus are deployed quarterly. The next release will feature the following updates:

General Updates

#15869

Views and grids throughout the application have been updated to use the new Power Apps Grid Control. This underlying functionality brings performance improvements, and features pageless infinite loading. This provides organisation administrators with enhanced visualisation configuration options, expanding upon the existing grid customisation features.

Note – Click to enlarge

Finance Grid Improvements

Many significant improvements have been made to the Finance Grid in this release of Altus including making data entry easier and more intuitive, giving grid users more of a spreadsheet experience.

Resource Plan and Demand Screens

Project Status Page

Timesheets

#8576

The [+ New] button has enhanced visibility, and its availability can now be configured based on specific roles in an organisation. Configuration in settings can limit who has access to the feature and, if disabled, will only be available to Altus Admin users. This provides greater control and a smoother experience in managing timesheets.

Project

#16662

When creating a new project, entering a person in the Project Manager field will automatically attempt to reassign the project to that selected person. This simplifies the ownership of the project after creation. This can be disabled in the configuration settings if required.

Additional Updates

#19935	Portfolio Effort tooltip has been updated for clarity.
#19441	Simplified warning message when changing sync mode setting.

Bug fixes

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

#15549	When finishing the Idea Process, the Approval Process is now automatically triggered. To ensure the Approval Process runs correctly, the Sponsor field has been added to the Selection Stage of the Idea Process.
#19158	Fixed an issue where searching for a resource with an ‘&’ in the name when assigning resources to Project Task will cause infinite spinner.
#19205	Fixed an issue where two tooltips are displayed for long resource names in Project Task Details.
#19464	Fixed an issue where creating a second child task using the Altus scheduling tool causes a blank screen.
#20006	Fixed an issue where Bookable Resource with an ‘&’ in the name cannot be added to a Resource Plan.
#20392	Fixed an issue where, when converting a risk to an issue, the new issue doesn’t appear in the linked issues subgrid.
#18859	Fixed an issue where, on a Timesheets page, the buttons could appear off the page.
#19005	Fixed an issue where, on the Resource Demand screen, the buttons could appear off the page.
#19206	Fixed an issue where the Task form now properly updates saved state and displays unsaved dialog when updating resources. Previously, when editing a task and adding or removing a resource, the form incorrectly remained in the “Saved” state. With this fix, the form now correctly changes to the “Unsaved” state after adding or removing a resource, and an unsaved warning dialog will appear when closing the form, ensuring changes are not lost unintentionally.
#19933	Fixed an issue where Settings pages were not loading data intermittently.
#19899	Updated the Program Effort tooltip to say “Effort completed by all projects in this program”.
#20005	Recalling Timesheet affects other finance actuals in the same Month. An issue was found and fixed where resubmitting/approving a timesheet will cause that actual to appear but other previous actual transactions in the same month were lost. This update will ensure that when a timesheet is recalled, only the finance transactions relevant to the affected timesheet period and resource are removed.
#19914	Fix for a scenario where the main landing page wouldn’t load or appeared blank for some customers.
#17880	Ensure rollup % is correct in Portfolio list view and Display Names have been relabelled.
#19573	Fixed an issue where adding a resource without effort was not functioning correctly. Additionally, we have fixed an error where toggling the milestone status did not update the task type display properly. Furthermore, when entering 0 for effort in tasks, unless in fixed duration mode, the duration will now be set to 0, automatically converting the task into a milestone.

#11543	Any cells available to be entered or updated by the user can now be filled in from within the grid itself. Cells can be navigated through using the arrow keys (up/down/left/right) as well as using <Enter> <Shift-Enter> and <Tab> <Shift-Tab> keys. Note – Click image to view GIF
#19939	When using arrow keys to navigate the Finance Grid, navigating to the right or left of the visible time block will automatically shift the visible time block so that you can continue data entry or navigation to a specific time period.
#17872	Arrow keys can also be used in the Transaction grid if the user is entering or editing multiple transactions for a single time period.
#19198	Additional enhancements to the Finance Grid include: – Support for ungrouped mode and ability for category column to be visible – Default view is ungrouped – Styling changes to improve usability and consistency – Totals moved to bottom of grid – Totals of visible columns removed (as these could be misinterpreted) Note – Click image to view GIF
#19199	Custom columns can now be added to the Finance Grid. The grid will reflect the view that is passed to it by its Dynamics context. These new columns will also be supported in the Finance Grid export.

#8468	The Resource Screens now include an “Export to CSV” function that generates a comma separated value file based on the visible timescale of the grid. This allows a user to further analyse this data in Excel or an application of their choice. Note – Click to enlarge
#19228	The FTE% mode of viewing resources has been removed as it was prone to confusion, especially when being totalled. The figures were identical to the FTE (which remains) mode, only converted to a percentage.