Proteus Update – V2.3 Release
06/09/2022
What's new!
Single Sign On (SSO)
You can now sign in with Azure SSO. This means if you are using Microsoft you can use your MS login to sign into Proteus. Whilst it might not help you develop proposals faster, and it doesn’t improve the margins on your projects, it is one of our most requested features and our clients already love it.
Baseline and Forecasting Tool
If you have been keeping up to date, you will know that the Proteus project controls features have had a major upgrade this year. This has not stopped and we have now added a baseline and forecasting set of features.
Baseline
Baselining what is it? Previously you would add a resource to each work package. The resource would then be allocated the number of hours in the work package. Now you can allocate every individual resource separately with a specific number of hours per week for each resource. This introduces some really powerful functionality for detailed planning. There are a couple of neat features here to make it easy to back, front S-curve or linear load the project.
This makes it easy to setup the baseline for the project and we have also made it really easy for you to compare the baseline with the original proposal or a new baseline.
Once the baseline has been submitted and locked this becomes the basis for the data used in the Project Controls calculations which were released in V2.2, such as earned values, actuals, etc.
Re-baseline
The baseline can be updated to provide a new baseline, or a re-baseline. Change management or variations, which were added in v2.2 has been fully integrated with the baseline system and project controls. Newly approved variations are added to form the new baseline, which is then used in Project Controls
Forecast
The baseline or re-baseline of the work profile is used in the “forecast” calculations. The project controls calculations use the forecast to give Estimate at Completion (EAC) & Variance at Completion (VAC) forecasts.
Curve Based Work Package Profiling
When you add time to a work package you can select how this time will be used through the project; linear loaded, front end loaded, back end loaded or S curve loaded. This information is then added to the baseline which can then be used in the forecasting and the future resource scheduling tool.
Work Package (or CTR) Code Wizard
We like to keep things simple but our WBS number was too simple for larger projects. Proteus defaulted to a nested work package (or CTR) numbering such as 1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1, etc. We now allow you to really go to town and build bespoke Work Package ID’s generator. For example, you might want this to take account of your business classification, the phase of the project, task identifiers, assets, disciplines, capabilities, activities etc, etc. Remember there is a good chance this work package identifier will appear in the timesheet system and/ or the ERP.
Proposal Resource Histogram Export
We definitely missed this in earlier versions of Proteus. You can now look at the potential resource load on project at the proposal stage and the project stage. This data can be exported to Excel for further manipulation or use in reports.
Workday Integration
If you use Workday as your finance ERP and / or for HR then you will be pleased to know Proteus can now integrate with them. Proteus does have its own timesheet functionality, however it is equally happy getting this information from an existing ERP system. And as Workday is one of the world’s leading enterprise ERP systems, we are extremely happy to have completed this integration.
Feature Flags
This is more back of house, however it is super important. As Proteus develops and our client base increases, we have realised that not every client wants every single feature in Proteus. So we have added a flag to every feature which can be switched on or off depending on each client’s specific requirements This allows us to customise Proteus for everybody, while at the same time ensuring everybody has the same core Proteus.
Tenant API Availability
We’ve been working with several of our clients to provide them with API access for all their data needs. Whether you have an internal tool that requires a custom integration or want to connect your Proteus data to Power BI or Tableau we can provide a suitable API.
All API access is protected with industry-standard OAuth2 authentication, and controlled to a fine-grain to protect against data leakage and reduce attack vectors.
Tenant Database Replication
Some of our clients have data processing needs that APIs just aren’t suitable for, for those cases we can provision a standby database to which Proteus will replicate your tenant data. You’re then free to query or integrate this database to satisfy any requirements. This solution is fantastic for connecting to a data-warehousing tool.
Proteus for Word Add In Lite
Our much loved Word Addin, which pulls your Proposal/Project data built in proteus into templated documents in a standardised way, has also been updated. Now you no longer have to integrate Sharepoint to use this feature – the Addin can now be accessed directly from Word and connect back to the Proteus Rate Table / Billing Type Filters.
We have refined the user experience when building proposals based on billing type e.g “Time & Material” or “Lump Sum”. You can now tag rate tables by billing type, and define markups functionality.
