[UPDATE, 12.17.2010] PM Central™ 2.0 for SharePoint 2010 is now also available. You can try out the 2.0 release of PM Central either for SharePoint 2007 or 2010 today for a 30-day free trial.

With the release of version 2.0 of PM Central™, Bamboo's turn-key application for project management using SharePoint, the PM Central team announces a greatly expanded feature set to further empower SharePoint users to perform and manage their daily work and projects. These powerful new features and enhancements arrive based on our product roadmap for project management-related enhancements, in conjunction with the invaluable feedback provided by current PM Central users. A detailed summary of the new features and enhancements available in PM Central 2.0 is available below, but some of the highlights include: baselining for a schedule and incurred costs; budgeting tools for complex projects, including resource cost-monitoring and status alerts for impending overages; improved reporting, with new charts dedicated to resource allocation, risk reports detailing probability and impact, and more; and a comprehensive set of user experience improvements throughout the product.

The complete summary of the new features available in PM Central 2.0 is as follows:

Multi-Level Tracking and Reporting via 3-Tiered Architecture –
Existing customers can view data such as status, resource allocation, and reports at the top level and at the project level. With PM Central 2.0, you can also view all of this data at the department level.

Managing Budget, Schedule, and Progress –

Budget Work and Cost – You can now set the Budget Work and Budget Cost for the project in the Project Health list.
Progress Management – The application will update the Actual Start Date and Actual Due Date based on the % Complete progress. The application will update the Project Actual Duration, Project Actual Cost, and Project Actual Work when you select Update Project Cost & Schedule.

Baseline – Once you have finalized the schedule and cost, you can baseline the task, the project, and the project cost. This will help you monitor if there are any changes from the baseline, as the project and the tasks are in progress.

Create tasks using Start Date & Due Date, Start Date & Duration, or Start Date & Work – Users can now create a task using the Start Date and Work if they know when the resource can start, and how long it will take the resource to complete the task. Users can also create a task using the Start Date and Duration if they know when the task can start and the length of the task.

Multi-line Editing – You can now modify many task items at one time.

 

Resource Management –
Task and Project Allocation – You know that a resource typically doesn’t work on just one task or one project. Now, you can assign the percentage of the time the resource is working on a particular project and on a particular task.
Adding resource – Users can add resources to the project using the Enterprise Resource Pool (ERP) or add a SharePoint account as a resource to the list.

New Reports –

Monthly Resource Cost/Work Allocation – You can now see the resource cost/work allocation for each month in a line graph. You can also save this information to a list to reference it later on.

Risk Reports for the project and for all the projects – Risk bubble charts are available at the project and at the top level. This helps you keep track of the risks, and the projects that are at risk.

Some Admin Tools –

Healthcheck – The healthcheck report lets you know which components of PM Central were not installed.
Monitoring the Upgrade of Sites – To help the users know what sites have been successfully upgraded to the new version, a monitoring page is available in Central Administration under Operations > Bamboo Project Management Central.
Timer job – The timer job to update the project health list runs every 30 minutes. If you want to update it sooner, you can manually run the job.
Tooltips/Descriptions – To help users know what’s what with the components and fields, we have added descriptions to each section, as well as to the lists and fields.

Usability and Customization –

Site Creation – During the project site or department site creation, users can choose which template to use from the drop down selection. 
Customization – Additional "nested" master pages and "nested" CSS files are available for users to keep their customization, including modifications to logos or color, so that in future upgrades post-R2.0, they will be retained.

Our tech writer, Katie Packard, will follow up with blogs on a series of use cases to help you configure your organization portfolio, department portfolio and your projects using these new features and tools from within the PM Central 2.0 application.

Within a few weeks, we will also make PM Central R2.0 available for SharePoint 2010. Please stay tuned!

As always, our team is committed to making PM Central the most useful and beneficial project management and collaboration tool for SharePoint available. We are always open to your feedback, and welcome your questions and comments in the PM Central forum.

You can try out the 2.0 release of PM Central today for a 30-day free trial.