A Partnership with Bamboo Solutions

TeamDirection is very pleased to have inked a partnership agreement with Bamboo Solutions. We provide desktop connectivity to SharePoint. Bamboo offers a wealth of web parts to enhance your SharePoint experience.

We will soon be making 'Project Share for IntelliGantt' available for everyone. Pricing for the web parts and site templates will be determined by Bamboo, with TeamDirection able to resell and support it.

What will Project Share for IntelliGantt do?



The Project.Share Productivity Pack includes three of Bamboo's most popular Web Parts: Calendar Plus, List Rollup and Alert Plus. These three Web Parts together are used in many organizations today to allow SharePoint users to effectively manage their projects. Providing features such as:

* Ability to aggregate multiple project tasks from multiple project lists into a single view
* Ability to display the project tasks in a single calendar with color coding
* Allows users to manage effective alerts when a tasks is about due or overdue

This is right on the heels of our partnership with Softalot and their GanttPoint solution. TeamDirection is very pleased the complementary nature of our desktop-based solutions combined with SharePoint solutions is being recognized by leading vendors in the SharePoint market.

If you have a web part or two, solve a piece of the project management pie and would like to showcase it, contact us at TeamDirection. We are enhancing our SharePoint Solutions page to include web part and template offerings from our partners.

IntelliGantt SharePoint Web Parts

[21 February 2011 Update - We now have the IntelliGantt Web Part available for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010]


We've had a huge response to the release of our boffo customization of SharePoint Task Lists. Our accountant had some work to do last week! Expect to see a few TeamDirection IntelliGantt ads to start popping up here and there-- all very tasteful and informative, of course.

But we're not done yet!

We have a new product in BETA testing geared strictly for SharePoint. If you haven't noticed, business are really responding to the value proposition of SharePoint. TeamDirection has certainly noticed, and we are proud to let you know of a new set of web parts for your SharePoint server that work with IntelliGantt.

The goal? Project rollups of course.



IntelliGantt has provided the plumbing from your desktop to SharePoint, now its getting ready to fill the aqueducts and let the information across all your projects flow to your team. Here is a page introducing the GanttPoint web parts you can deploy on your SharePoint server that automatically finds IntelliGantt projects you've published and aggregates them in one view-- personalized for the current user.

The really great thing about this solution? TeamDirection worked with a great new partner to bring it to you-- a project management company also here in Seattle, Softalot LLC. With IntelliGantt on the desktop and Softalot on the server, its a natural way for both of us to bring our strengths to the table for a better comprehensive solution for you.

You can also expect another exciting announcement with another great SharePoint solution provider in the very near future.

IntelliGantt Custom Fields for SharePoint Released

We posted the release to the servers last night with the new features that many people have been asking for. The biggest by far is the ability to work with over 70 custom fields in your SharePoint task list.

Whether you're using IntelliGantt Plus or the IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project, now those 30 Text fields, 20 Number fields, 10 Cost fields and 10 Date fields can be added dynamically to the SharePoint task list you publish. What's more, you can control the synchronization switches for each field. For example, you might have one field support two-way synchronization, while other fields are only published to SharePoint. Best of all, you can make these changes at runtime, so you may start out with a 2-way field and then later make it publish only.

Let's say a project manager can publish a simple project and enable Start Date and Due Date as 2-way synchronizable. Team members can then put their scheduling $.02 in and collaboratively adjust the timeline. When the project manager wants to set the schedule 'in stone', he or she can call up the IntelliGantt Collaboration Settings and change the Start Date and Due Date fields to publish only.

We have a screencast with IntelliGantt Plus and a screencast with the Microsoft Project Add In showing custom fields in action.

We think this will help shepherd projects through their many phases-- from collaborative planning to collaborative updating. Furthermore, with IntelliGantt's rich custom field support, you can now model your projects with your company's nomenclature and keep everyone on the same page, using the same terminology, that much better.

Finally, TeamDirection is investing a bit more in to SharePoint and its offerings. We've just opened a SharePoint section to the site that will expand in the days and weeks ahead to show how best to maximize this great collaboration platform.

IntelliGantt Synchronization with Outlook and SharePoint

Many people don't realize there is a great synchronization feature available to keep your tasks on track with MOSS 2007 and Outlook 2007. If you spend your day within MS Outlook, are constantly on the go or just simply like working on the desktop more than through your web browser, then check out how easy it is to bring the SharePoint task list to you.

Say your project manager has scheduled out a few tasks on a SharePoint site. He or she may have used a tool like IntelliGantt to quickly publish a project, invited SharePoint members to the site and is now expecting these tasks to get done. If you'd rather work with them in Outlook, here's how:

First, on the SharePoint site, go to the task list in question and select 'Connect to Outlook'. Remember, this is an Office 2007 only feature.



MS Outlook pops up a dialog asking if you really want to do this.



If you say yes, Outlook goes and gets the SharePoint task list data and creates a view for you.



But its much more than a simple import. Outlook remembers where these tasks came from. As a result, you can edit these tasks and the changes will be synchronized back to SharePoint. The really cool thing is, because Outlook is on your PC, you can unplug from the office, go about your day, update on the move and Outlook will take care of the rest-- synchronizing your changes back to that SharePoint task list.

We use a similar philosophy with our IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. Much like the Outlook to SharePoint connection, TeamDirection connects MS Project to SharePoint and lets the project manager have this feature too.



In many ways its even more powerful for the project manager because not only do they receive everyone's updates within the MS Project plan, they also can easily make schedule changes with a real project management tool. For example, it's much easier to reset the start date of a project and let a scheduling engine do the work of updating all the task changes then doing it by hand with a click-happy web browser.

The Perfect Graphic for that AH! Moment

You know the moment I'm talking about-- the one where a mystery has been cleared up for you. I usually experience after I've been trying 1023 permutations of the wrong way to do something. Maybe you receive a cryptic email from tech-support that tangentially applies to the question at hand, but seems like an accident. Perhaps you've wondered why everyone was going the wrong way on a street except you. You might have even wondered what compelled that person sitting next to you to eat your cookies.

And then it's magically explained and the 'Ah!' moment occurs.

I'm pleased to present the Ah! graphic:



Feel free to pass it around so everyone can share the moment :)

SharePoint MVP Community

There is an interesting information resource forming around SharePoint that fellow MVP Bob Mixon is spearheading-- the SharePoint Beagle Newsletter. My understanding is the Beagle will be a conduit for SharePoint MVPs to share with everyone their opinions and experiences on real-life SharePoint solutions.

When you look at the the profiles of every SharePoint MVP, its a bit humbling-- to the point where you ask yourself 'what can I bring to the group?' Well, TeamDirection does know project management in a collaborative environment. I'd love to contribute an article explaining how you can turn a WSS 2.0 or WSS 3.0 server into a real project management solution. (cue writer's block :)

I know Groove did an internal study a few years ago and found over 50% percent of their customers used Groove for project management. I can't point to a specific study, but anecdotal evidence is making me think similar percentages are at work with SharePoint as well.

And I have to think IntelliGantt, of any non-Microsoft application, is in the top 10 for exploiting SharePoint web services. Sharing our trials and travails getting web services to reliably work with WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0, while maybe not quite as gripping as The DaVinci Code, should certainly be interesting.

I look forward to sharing our experiences and learning so much more from the SharePoint MVP group. Instead of the proverbial firehose, the Beagle looks like a great way to get started.

IntelliGantt and SharePoint Help a Boatbuilder

Unsolicited testimonials are always the best. Unsolicited testimonials you find and share with the group are even better.

Thorwald Westmaas was searching for a better way to share projects (tasks, schedules, content, etc) the other day when he found TeamDirection and SharePoint. Not a project manager by trade (but an excellent boatbuilder judging by his blog), Thorwald was able to quickly get IntelliGantt Plus running with a hosted SharePoint provider and begin publishing projects.

With our team members, vendors and other stakeholders in 7 different countries, an online data repository with workflow and project management tools is a great aid to keep this conversion project on track.

From not knowing about IntelliGantt Plus or SharePoint to up and running in a day, Thorwald was able to solve his project management/collaboration issues and get back to his real task-- planning his next expedition.

I'm a SharePoint MVP!

Talk about a nice surprise.



I knew I was nominated, but I never figured I'd actually receive a SharePoint MVP award. Of course, I doubt there are too many people not working at Microsoft that know as much about SharePoint and Groove web services and behavior as yours truly. What's more, all of that knowledge has been earned the hard way-- making it work for shipping products.

Call me a curmudgeon still living in the past 5 years, but I actually believe people are just starting to deduce both the benefits of desktop/web synergy and the best way to go about it. In fact, I think the interaction between the desktop and web applications (way beyond the generic web browser) will define the next 5 years or so of computing. Well, that and virtual machines.

So how strong a position is Microsoft in for the next 5 years? Well, they have the best collaboration platforms (SharePoint and Groove), a strong web service strategy and quite possibly the best (potential) virtual machine with .NET.

It's nice to know they like me too :)

Thank you to whomever nominated me and to April over at Microsoft. I really appreciate it.

IntelliGantt Enhances SharePoint Integration

TeamDirection will be releasing a beta (most likely on Oct 2.) of its newest version of IntelliGantt, IntelliGantt Plus and IntelliGantt Add In for MS Project. Over the next week or so I'll be highlighting some of the cool features specific to every collaboration platform, but the one we're most excited about I'm happy to preview first.

In the 'old' IntelliGantt days, you could publish tasks to a SharePoint task list, but the range of fields was limited to the defaults SharePoint provided. And, of course, you could update the % complete and notes, but nothing else.

We just made project management with SharePoint a whole lot more powerful. Check this out:



If you're asking what that is, the answer is its all the fields you can now create, use, modify and synchronize. Thirty text fields. Twenty number fields. Ten cost and date/time fields. And each field is customizable-- set the display name you prefer, add a helpful comment and even set whether the fields supports 2-way synchronization or not.

We put together a short 'enhanced SharePoint' screencast to show it off. This barely touches on the extent of the functionality, but we couldn't wait. A couple things that aren't obvious in the screencast:

1) You can changed the synchronization settings at any time. For example, you may want to start out by giving SharePoint users the ability to update task start and finish dates, but once the project gets going, you can unclick the 'From SharePoint' setting for Start Date and Due Date. This puts the project manager in full control of the schedule.

2) You don't have to share every field that you use. You may use Text1 for Client Code, as we do in the demo, but you can also use Text2 as 'Super Secret' in IntelliGantt Plus and NOT share that to SharePoint. This can be very handy with those cost fields.

3) We will be publishing all the field names we are using so that 3rd party web part developers can take advantage of this feature. We feel this lays the foundation for a real workflow system based on the customized fields your business needs to run.

And finally, these settings are available even after you share a project to SharePoint.



Better yet, you can save any project published to SharePoint as a template that will include the collaboration settings as well.

We look forward to introducing more about this release in the days ahead.

Looking for Partners in Australia

A bit of a double-entendre, but we are looking for partners in Australia who are smart and enjoy helping people with their projects. Outside of the US, we receive more downloads from Australia than any other nation (though Germany has been on the upswing recently). And while we have excellent European partners and Mindlogik in New Zealand, Australia really does represent a land of opportunity.

If you're a reseller of Microsoft Project and/or Mindjet MindManager products, or if you're looking for straightforward ways to bring collaboration to your customers, give me a shout at j.o.h.n.m [at] teamdirection.com. We would be happy to make your acquaintance and see if we're a match.

And bonus points if you happen to be from Frankston, Victoria. It could very well be a family myth, but apparently Frankston was named after a relative of mine (yes, named Frank) who jumped in to the sea and saved someone who had great influence in naming towns. I'm sure it's a lovely place!

Thanks mate.

Local Workgroups and Security

As my previous post mentioned, people are catching on to IntelliGantt's Local Workgroup as a way to easily manage projects with colleagues in the office or connected via the corporate network. Today we were talking with a company about using IntelliGantt and the Local Workgroup to help a team in the US work with a development group in India. They are a large company with resources at hand, but basically it's just a fast connection between Mumbai and California with a file server visible to both.

The question that came up is security. As in 'how secure is IntelliGantt?' While we hang our hat with pride on our multi-user project management solution for teams, TeamDirection is not about to claim we have solved your security issues too. We'd much rather pass that requirement to the underlying collaboration systems like SharePoint, Groove.... and your file server.

You see, in order for IntelliGantt to work on a File Server, the person using IntelliGantt must have permissions on that file server. Specifically read/write permissions. No permissions; no joining a project; no way to be malicious. If you really don't want people outside of the project to be able to change anything, you can use the security of a Windows server to grant access only to people who need to be members of the project.

It works like this: IntelliGantt uses a folder that has been shared on the file server. When you share a folder, by default users can read from it but not write. You could grant 'Users' the permission to write as well, but this means every user account on the file server would have this permission for this folder. This can be a good thing, if you want everyone in the company to use a single shared folder for all local workgroups (it certainly makes backups easier). Or you may want to be more restrictive.

If you have a project you wish to invite only a handful of named users to, then rather than granting the generic 'Users' group read and write permissions, you can grant particular individuals read and write permissions. When someone tries to join a project, they are first asked for their email and display name. IntelliGantt then connects to the file server and asks for permission to talk. If the file server needs authentication, IntelliGantt uses the built in Windows Authentication libraries and challenges for a user name and password. If the user fails the user name and password challenge, they are not allowed in to the project.

What this means is even if someone got ahold of an IntelliGantt invitation and happened to know the email address of a member, they still could not get into the project because the basic security of the file server would prevent it.

Which really is a good way to go, we think. Which would you rather have, a project management company rolling their own security solution, or a project management company that uses what the underlying systems have to offer? SharePoint, Groove... and in this case the under-appreciated file server.

IntelliGantt Update -- Local Workgroup Catching On

We just posted an update to IntelliGantt on our server tonight, mainly for maintenance reasons. I'll list some of the bug fixes shortly but also wanted to touch on which platforms are garnering the most attention. As you might expect, most IntelliGantt customers are using it with SharePoint. And the trend is accelerating (stay tuned to this space for exciting SharePoint developments in the near future).

But you knew that already.

So what do you think is the second most used collaboration platform? If you think the title of this post gives it away, you are right-- the Local Workgroup.

We've recently had a wave of people looking for a simple way to collaborate on a project schedule with their colleagues-- even simpler than setting up a web server. Because IntelliGantt can use a humble file server to collaborate (essentially a 'multi-user' mode) people have been dusting off some basic hardware and letting the tasks fly on their intranets. With IntelliGantt's Local Workgroup, you don't have to repeatedly send email to everyone or copy files hither and yon. It's one location that everyone synchronizes. I'll have to get a better screencast showing it off, but in the meantime here is a peek at it, and an FAQ.

Project management with a file server... who knew? :)

Here are the major fixes/improvements in this update:

1) The Local Workgroup wasn't providing useful error messages when one or more users did not have permission on the file server to update projects. This has been corrected with better reporting when you join and synchronize projects.

2) When using SharePoint, IntelliGantt wasn't handling the absence of a column very well. For example, many people don't need the 'Priority' column int the basic SharePoint task list. When they removed that column, IntelliGantt got confused. Now it looks at the task list schema to see which columns are available and nimbly stays on top of things. (This also lays a bit of foundation for our next SharePoint features).

3) Both the MS Project and MindManager Add Ins had a problem getting user lists from the WSS 2.0 or SharePoint Portal Server 2003 collection. It only affected MS Project 2007 and MindManager 7. The problem would manifest itself by acting as if a project is being published to a SharePoint site, but then falling back to the Share wizard screen. Thanks very much to our friends in the Netherlands for helping us track this one down!

4) If a member was listed as "last name" comma "first name" (ie. Smith, John), MS Project didn't like this. As a result we look for resources with commas and make them acceptable to MS Project so Export and Synchronize work correctly.

5) Finally, we seriously improved the help files for all the products. Thank you Jeff! Visit this page for help file reading pleasure.

Now we're off working on the next great IntelliGantt features. It will be geared toward SharePoint since that is our burgeoning market, but we'll see if we can throw a few things into the Local Workgroup community as well, since that is our fastest growing.

SharePoint and Multiple Resource Assignments

While IntelliGantt works with both WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0, I'm developing a marked affinity towards the latter. I'm sure under the hood it scales better and such, but I like the fact it models the real world just a little better. Today's case in point, assigning multiple resources to tasks.



If you are (or were) using WSS 2.0, IntelliGantt updates were done with a heavy heart as tasks with multiple resources dropped every assignment after the first-- blocked at the WSS 2.0 single assignment gate. Your sorrow over all these lost assignments may have even spurred you to upgrade to WSS 3.0. All set for the new multiple assignment feature, you probably had a bit of a shock when the task list, after publishing, looked like this:



Fear not, WSS 3.0 does indeed support multiple resource assignments, just not by default. Why, I don't know. But I do know how to activate this feature. To do so, we must modify the list settings for this task list:



Within the list settings page are all the columns available for modification. We want to change the Assigned To column:



The details for this columns shows us that it does indeed allow 'multiple selections', which because its a SharePoint member or group field translates to multiple assignments.



A quick click to make the change we want (don't forget to press 'OK')...



... and the next time you update your task list, you'll see IntelliGantt and SharePoint working with multiple assignments in harmony.

Early Reviews for MindManager Add In

We're still finalizing the press release, but two early reviews for the IntelliGantt Add In for MindManager are in. Chuck Frey and Brian Friedlander, Ph.D, have both taken a look and have liked what they've seen. We are really pleased here at TeamDirection that our Add-In is hitting the mark.

Dr. Friedlander hits the nail on the head by observing

"one of the key features that came into sharp focus and that differentiates IntelliGantt from some of the other project management software with links to MindManager, is the ability to share and collaborate on your projects with your project management team."

We do believe IntelliGantt software takes project management to the next level by including the team. What's more, we are very happy to use either our own rich desktop application or an industry leading web solution like SharePoint. Whichever works for your team.

We're especially happy to have a Mind Mapping expert like Chuck Frey give us what we consider to be the ultimate compliment:

"The application's design is simple and straightforward; you don't have to be be a project software guru to figure out how to use it."

What good is a whiz-bang tool if nobody knows how to use it? It's the same theory that Mind Maps are based on, we've just given it a little nudge into the collaborative project management realm.

Thank you Mr. Frey and Dr. Friedlander. We look forward to working with you and the Mind Mapping community.

Resource Management Versus Communication

IntelliGantt started out with a focus on communication. We felt this was the most underserved piece of the project management market, especially since everyone is more or less connected now. However, while communication is great, we're getting feedback from users that they need a few 'traditional' tools. The one we're thinking about right now is Resource Allocation.

Now, just so you know, in my opinion no one has really solved resource allocation problems to date-- and that's just for resources working in a single organization. Throw in the fact that IntelliGantt can work across firewalls and with ad-hoc contractors and I don't think TeamDirection will be able to solve it either. In fact, there is a certain class of problems computers just don't do very well, if at all. One of them is keeping track of every hyperlink in the World Wide Web and making sure nothing points to a broken URL. And the other is resource allocation for tasks performed in a physical world. There's probably a few others :)

This is not to say one can't try to dump millions of users, billions of tasks and trillions of assignments in to a giant 'ultimate solution' database and cross reference everyone's allotted tasks, level of effort and calendars and synchronize all updates. It's just that it will never happen. It's too complex a problem set and as a result is easily (almost comically) broken by Rule Number 1: Stuff Happens. Instead of the proverbial butterfly in China, it will be sedentary Joe down the hall who gets sick, neglects to update his tasks and sets off an unforeseen chain of events resulting in the next blackout of the Eastern Seaboard.

Is it so awful to pick up the phone, or nowadays send an IM? Is it realistic to schedule someone so precisely that 39.93 hours are planned per user across 7 projects with 99.9% level of effort efficiency? This sounds a lot like what airlines have been trying to for the past few years with their airplanes. What do you think the human equivalent is for sitting on a tarmac 8 hours-- buckled in your seat? In the airlines case I'd wager that the proposed schedules were proven to be mathematically correct only to bow under the weight of our culumative randomness.

So which costs more? Creating an environment for a single project manager to schedule and level resources in utopia, or an environment that fosters communication allowing the group to self-balances with the aid of a project manager? I think one looks prettier at the start, but the other is more likely to adapt.

That being said, TeamDirection will strive to bridge both worlds and you can expect more resource allocation features in the near future. But remember those communication pieces-- they just might prevent the next blackout, or at least keep you off the tarmac.

IntelliGantt MindManager Add In Released

We started thinking about an Add In for MindManager way back in January. Call it a 'New Years Resolution'. I'm very pleased to announce this is one resolution we have kept!

We just released our Add In for MindManager and the results are quite impressive. Not only can you schedule topics like some of the other MindManager Add Ins, but you can Share them with your team and Synchronize the updates in your map. We think its a perfect left-brain/right-brain marriage.

We have a few screencasts, of course. You'll also notice this Add In is treated as a 'top tier' product-- meaning all our web navigation had to be updated.

Many thanks to the team for putting in an outstanding effort with this one. It's a very nice complement to our MS Project Add In. MindManager, MS Project and our own IntelliGantt application all represent different ways to create rich project content. Where we bring the added value is by adding a multiplier: making that rich project content interactive for your team. The larger the team, the larger the multiplier.

Consider a team of ten. How much easier will it be when you can create and schedule in the tool of your choice and include your team without having to constantly be on the phone, walking the halls or even recovering from double-entry (or worse, overwrite) mistakes?

We think enhancing team productivity is hugely valuable too. Now I suppose the question is, what Add In should we do next? :)

IntelliGantt MindManager Add-In Release Candidate

TeamDirection is just about ready to release its IntelliGantt Add In for MindManager 7 Pro, but we'd like a few volunteers. So far we've confirmed it works in the Netherlands and in South Africa, but there are a lot more countries and PCs out there.

If you'd like to try it out, you can first see what the Add In is about. I could describe it, but the visuals are much more compelling.

OK, I will describe it-- Take you basic MindMap, add an intuitive, interactive Task List and Gantt Chart, mix SharePoint Workspaces and Members and fold in the ability to bi-directionally synchronize updates. Voila, you have an IntelliGantt MindManager Add In.

Hmm... maybe its better to check out the screencast.

Then download it from our site. We do ask you to register, but we will do a 25% discount to all downloaders when we release next week.

Thank you very much for your interest!

Cooking with SharePoint -- The Gantt View

[August 2010 Update -- IntelliGantt Web Part for SharePoint 2007 and 2010 is now available. Something we like to call 'The Worlds Greatest Gantt Chart']

WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 (which we'll call SharePoint in this post) have a great feature that lets you view any task list as a Gantt chart-- and a pretty one too. Here are the steps to make it happen:

1) Start with the basic Task List view



2) Next, click on the menu item 'Create a View'



3) Choose the Gantt View



4) Name it (and make it your default view, if you'd like)



5) Almost done, just have to set a few columns



6) Click 'OK' and enjoy the view



Of course, if you really want to get cooking with SharePoint services, I heartily recommend adding IntelliGantt Plus or an IntelliGantt Add-In for MS Project to the mix. It slices tasks and dices the amount of time it takes to serve projects to your whole team.

You'll be the hit of the party!

Bad Sign for Groove?

It's always the little things, isn't it.

I visited the Microsoft Office discussion board yesterday to put in a few posts about our new release. I wrote up a beautiful description of our synchronization between MS Project and Groove-- even brought a tear to me eye :)

But when I attempted to post it, the discussion board required me to select the office discussion group. OK, simple dropdown of all the office apps. Let's see... Groove starts with G... G.... Hmmm... could it be Microsoft Groove? No.... MS Groove... Hmmm... I had to settle for General Office Questions.

There is no Groove topic to be found. There is Visio. I certainly see Excel, Word, Project, etc., but no Groove.

Hopefully its all a simple oversight that, when the person running the office discussion group reads this blog post will slap there head and exclaim 'Ach, voy!'

Connecting Groove with MS Project

Now there's a task for you! Figuring out how to combine a solitary scheduling tool with a highly distributed, cross-firewall collaboration platform (disguised as an Office 2007 application). Thankfully we've been doing this kind of thing since 2003.

Even better, we've just updated our product to make the link between MS Project and Groove event tighter. We've had more than a few customers download our free Groove workspace that includes a Task List. As a result, we've had more than a few customers ask how they can get the tasks they've been working on in Groove in to MS Project. Tasks lists typically start out small, and then grow.

Here's our screencast showing how to create an MS Project plan from a Groove task list. As you can see, it's eerily similar to creating an MS Project plan from a SharePoint task list.

Also like the SharePoint demonstration, you'll notice the 'Add New Tasks Created in Groove' checkbox. This feature allows IntelliGantt to recognize new tasks added via Groove and have them show up in MS Project, ready to be scheduled by the project manager. We feel this will be a handy workflow solution whereby people can enter their tasks or issues and project managers can put them on a timeline.

The free Groove task list has been available for a few months now. I think a few thousand of you are using it. This feature is absolutely compatible with the TeamDirection Groove task list-- you can start using it today (it's almost like we planned it :).