New Resource Scheduling Capability: Extended XLS Upload

Here comes the next major enhancement of our just plan it software to achieve an easy time and resource scheduling for SMB manufacturers. This time we significantly enhanced the xls upload facilities (especially) for our ENTERPRISE users. This post illustrates the operating mode of this new functionality and furthermore points out three other additional features of the new release  

New #1 – Extended XLS Upload

It took us a little while, but we finally made it: We are proud to announce that we extended the xls upload as follows:

• Define all your job templates in Excel and upload them into just plan it.
• Successfully upload new jobs just referencing to an existing template.

Sounds quite trivial at first, but if you watch the videos you‘ll quickly recognize the powerfulness this extension brings to all our ENTERPRISE users:

• Upload job templates: just do with templates what you are used to do with resources and jobs long ago. Easily define them in Excel and directly upload them into just plan it.

• Upload new jobs just referencing to a template: if you have inserted templates (or even if you do so by the current upload) you can create new jobs with all related tasks and the fully defined routing just by referencing to the respective template name. That´s it!

You want to utilize the extended upload instantly? Then download the new extended XLS template here.

New #2 – Keeping the link to a template

If you have successfully created a job via template (no matter if by xls upload or directly out of the application), the link to the underlying template will be kept. So if you change the respective template then all jobs that are linked to the template will be automatically modified as a matter of course. 

The link to the template will be kept as long as you don´t make any modifications in the manage task details-dialogue of tasks of the respective jobs. So, if you create a job via template and change e.g. the production time per unit (or any other task detail) afterwards, then the link will be cut.

To get an easy overview of jobs that are linked to and which templates you can make use of a new filter functionality: here we added "template" as a criteria to focus on certain template linked jobs at one glance.

New #3 – Smart Mapping

As is well-known, the Mapping dialog of just plan it lets you define your own individual xls-interface.

Up to now, you had to completely re-define the settings of this dialog for every new mapping. You will be pleased to hear that we added a smart functionality to facilitate this process: From now on successful settings will be saved and reactivated when a new mapping is started. This functionality will help all our customers that appreciate uploading from individual sheets.

New #4 – Saving of Report Settings

Last but not least, we also enhanced our report generator. Since we noticed that most of you modify the standard report settings, we made your settings permanent per user account. This means that when a certain user defines his set of favorite reports, the related settings will be saved an activated for the upcoming just plan it sessions.

Looking Ahead: Things to Come (Rather Sooner Than Later)

We won’t stop sharing the things our development team is working on, even though we are still not yet in a position to simply make our entire roadmap public.

So I am happy to give you a brief overview of what you should expect us to ship in the upcoming releases.

Send-ahead quantity 

This is a functionality suggested by many users of the Enterprise package, that offers the capability to plan with quantities. "Send-ahead quantity" means allowing to define overlapping of tasks so that successing tasks can already start after a certain amount of units of the predecessing step have been processed.

Operator app with real-time feedback from shopfloor 

This will be a big thing and it is meant to close the gap between a pure scheduling software and some type of manufacturing execution functionality. So, we will introduce

• the new job & task statuses finished and started, which will have direct impact on scheduling
• the new user role "operator" 
• a new view for the operator to provide live feedback to the scheduler
• a stand-alone app for the operator to be able to provide this feedback without the need of having access to a PC
• provide functionality for the planner to approve the data from the shop floor and directly enter it into just plan it.

There is more to come, and more in our minds to build. However, the best ideas are those ideas that you have. So, why not share them in the comments below?

Next Steps

Not yet using just plan it? Why not giving it a try? We offer a 30 minutes meeting to find out if and how just plan it could be a great fit for you. Book this meeting now!