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Having said that, the only real game changers are the ability to take advantage of mobile technology and the inclusion of BIM capabilities. The Version 13 release, therefore, comes with some useful enhancements to its core Project Management application, the popular and widely used Asta Powerproject, along with access to Asta Powerproject BIM, which combines 3D planning and scheduling in one application to give users an affordable entry into 4D planning - complete with 3D model representation for visual confirmation of project development.

The two main parts of project development concern the handling of project resources - a euphemism, perhaps, for those employed on the project - classified by their skills, which are allocated to different cost centres, and the tasks upon which they are employed.

The relationships between each are recorded in both chart and spreadsheet format, the former to provide a rapid tool for evaluating the progress of a project over a period of time, and the latter to tabulate, quantify and calculate the state of the project, in terms of cost and other, similar factors.

VERSION 13 ENHANCEMENTS
One of the first enhancements that you come across in Asta Powerproject Version 13 is the ability to allocate resources or costs on a non-linear basis, reflecting the fact that neither of them always remains constant throughout a task, but can fluctuate or occur sporadically. Version 13 allows project managers to plan non-linear assignments by breaking down tasks into discrete segments or points, each of which defines a percentage of duration and a corresponding level of allocation.

The resulting resource curve reflects the different levels of resources, effort, quantity and cost throughout the duration of the curve. Permanent resource allocations can also be used together with individual allocation profiles - like a resource curve, but applicable to just one individual; and consisting of a number of discrete segments, each of which defines a duration and level of effort.

The advantage of such a distinction is that, instead of breaking down tasks into shorter time scales to reflect the different allocation of costs and resources, complete tasks can be accommodated in their entirety, simplifying the accumulation of cost and other data.

Resources can be actual for planned or real assignments on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis, providing period-by-period work plans for resources, as well as a retrospective view of actual effort, and can be used to compare cost centres in different projects.

RESOURCE ANALYSIS BY SKILLS
In the same way that resource allocation can fluctuate, resources can come multi-skilled. A resource can be categorised as available for one skill at, say, 60% of the time, and for 40% of the time with a second skill. Version 13 enables the availability of resources of resources as a whole, and also the availability of resources under each skill.

Complications can occur, however, if one or more permanent resources are multi-skilled, and resources allocations have been made under a second skill, whilst you are attempting to allocate someone as using their first skill. This could lead to a warning of over-allocation of resources. In order to counter this Asta Powerproject can be configured to take into account only permanent resource allocations that have been made under the same skill.

RESOURCE ANALYSIS BY COST
Within the spreadsheet, the type of cost can be specified more accurately - the cost of pending allocations only, scheduled allocations only, fixed costs only, and so on. A new Cost Type field has been added to the Table Definition Properties dialogue box that allows users to specify additional cost types.

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