Adobe Showcases @task AtTask helps companies get work done. A market leader in on-demand project and project portfolio management software, the company’s unique and effective planning tools give organizations the power to request, plan, reconcile, and execute projects in real time. Its flagship product, @task, places business intelligence tools in the hands of executives, promotes team collaboration, and enables organizations to bring projects in on time and on budget. Benefits
Project Details Adobe Flash CS3 Professional software and ActionScript 3.0 programming language enable the powerful web-based @task business application to address customers’ project management needs with speed and flexibility. Intuitive worksheets, chart views, and resource grids visually and dynamically display the information users need to quickly manage complex project schedules across an organization. Enterprise project management made easy Industry-leading corporations benefiting from AtTask’s solutions include Apple Computer, Adobe, CBS, Johnson & Johnson, Chevron, Fujitsu, Hanes, HBO, GE, Louis Vuitton, McDonalds, NASA, Toyota, UCLA, and Disney, as well as numerous mid-market companies. AtTask’s goal is to maximize organizational efficiency and increase collaboration without making people sit through meeting after meeting. @task Enterprise, the company’s latest product release, accomplishes this goal by addressing all phases of a project’s lifecycle—including requesting, planning, reconciling, and execution. By creating a comprehensive enterprise level application, AtTask gives various stakeholders on-demand access to the timelines, resources, and trade-offs associated with each project. To create a rich, interactive enterprise application, AtTask developers used ActionScript 3.0. Many of the charts and reports available on the site are dynamically created using data from the @task system and delivered via the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player 9. Using the @task Capacity Planner, a key feature in the latest release, C-level executives can compare which projects have the highest cost, benefit, and risk, and how they fit with their company’s overall corporate goals and objectives. “Adobe Flash CS3 Professional is well known for its graphical abilities, but what really impressed us is the ability to use ActionScript 3.0 to compute real-time information that directly impacts our clients businesses,” says Joshua Custer, product manager on the @task development team. “ActionScript 3.0 helped us create a rich, interactive enterprise-level application that lets our clients accomplish their work with a ‘wow’ factor.” ActionScript 3.0—a powerful development tool As long-time users of Flash and ActionScript, AtTask took advantage of speed and performance enhancements in Flash CS3 Professional and ActionScript 3.0 to develop the @task Capacity Planner. “We were able to easily fix problems within our own code because ActionScript 3.0 reported useful runtime exceptions,” explains Jason Waters, software engineer for AtTask. “Strong variable typing also made it easier to keep our objects in order and our garbage collected.” ActionScript 3.0 enabled @task to handle large data sets with ease and deliver information in a user-friendly way. One of the goals with the application was to present a user interface with features normally only seen in desktop applications, such as drag-and-drop capabilities, spreadsheet-like functionality, on-the-fly charts, and flexible week- or month-based aggregates. The conversion to ActionScript 3.0 not only made this possible but also increased AtTask’s efficiency in developing new features with its much-improved, truly object-oriented API. The use of ActionScript 3.0 also benefited developers by providing improved event handling and revealing, and painless debugging. The Capacity Planner uses many display objects, making the display list in ActionScript 3.0 very valuable. ActionScript 3.0 also quickly and efficiently handled the large quantities of raw math required by the Capacity Planner, speeding the applications ability to show the impacts of resource, deadline, and budget constraints on various projects. The results of converting to Flash CS3 Professional and ActionScript 3.0 were extraordinary, improving the application’s speed and performance by more than 10 times and demonstrating that developers can effectively use Flash CS3 Professional and ActionScript 3.0 as a powerful development tool for business applications. A better planning solution The Capacity Planner shows project managers how many resources they have, how resources affect other projects, and how much particular projects will cost. “Executives can change the priorities within complex, multi-year projects with hundreds of interrelated tasks, and receive visual feedback on how the changes cascade through the project,” explains Custer. Users easily explore what-if scenarios and manipulate schedules to see how they might work. Project managers can mouse over information, drill down, and scroll through up to two years of project timelines. With Flash CS3 Professional content constantly running in the application’s background, users can work with the data in real time without the application dictating what they need to do next or putting limits on their activities. “The asynchronous client-server communication model of the Adobe Flash Player 9 client overcomes many of the restrictions of static, web-based applications and enables thousands of users to access and interact with the same project information,” says Custer. Customers realize process lifecycle improvements For AtTask’s client, Hanesbrands, Inc., creating a process-oriented environment is important to helping streamline its apparel manufacturing operations and increase profitability. Prior to @task, planning, adjusting timelines, and producing reports all presented challenges that often resulted in time-consuming meetings. Hanes uses @task in several departments, including the Intimates group—which features brands like Playtex, Bali, and Hanes Her Way—to track design, manufacturing, shipping, and delivery processes. “Because many of the charts and graphs are authored in Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, users can scroll back and forth and interact with the tool without worrying about page refreshes or losing information,” says Custer. “The dynamic @task application has helped Hanes increase the number of projects delivered on time from 72% to 92% and shorten the process lifecycle from 52 weeks to 46 weeks.” Now, with its Capacity Planner, AtTask has also won the business of customers seeking a higher level project management view that incorporates planning and forecasting. Additionally, the company has been able to retain the business of existing customers that wanted enhanced planning, requesting, and budgeting functionality. “Adobe Flash CS3 Professional and ActionScript 3.0 enabled us to create a solution that meets our customers’ needs and, at the end of the day, that means everything,” concludes Custer. —————————————– Learn more about AtTask’s online project management software and popular project management tools. |
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