Do you ever have a need to create a schedule or a project management plan? Do you need to calculate and include timeline information in a business plan? Do you need graphical, as well as text, output in bar (Gantt) chart or PERT format output? Do you find most PERT chart software hard to use? Do you want to avoid spending hundreds of dollars for one of the "big name/big buck" project management programs like Microsoft Project, full of features that 99% of people will never use?

For that 99%, PlanBee is a good alternative at a fraction of the price. For the first 30 days nobody can beat the price unless they pay you, because you get a 30 day free trial.

PlanBee is easy to because it's intuitive. If you can use a computer, you can set up a project in PlanBee. It's even easier than most spreadsheet applications, yet with a similar interface. All you have to do is enter the task names, task durations and linkages in the grid and the project is created for you - with the program assuming the most prevalent values about task and linkage characteristics. Of course, you can overrule these with your own parameters. For example, the program starts off assuming that no work proceeds on Saturdays and Sundays but that it does on every other day.

You can specify that some or all tasks must proceed without a break once started (like a continuous pour for concrete). You can define a different working day calendar for any or all years from 1900 to 2100. You can define several standard calendars for use with similar projects in different jurisdictions. You can define several standard calendars for use with similar projects in different jurisdictions.

Did you know that while Americans take off the Fourth of July, Canadians take off the First of July and the French take off the Fourteenth of July as national holidays? You can create an American, a Canadian and a French holiday calendar and any others you want to use. For those who like to think visually, you can design your project directly in the PERT view, adding tasks and linkages with "point and click".

• Calculates Early Start, Late Start, Early Finish, Late Finish, Float (Slack) and identifeis Critical Path activities.
• Shows all project management data in a "spreadsheet" pattern for ease of understanding.
• Task data may be entered manually or imported from a file or the clipboard.
  Independent re-sizeable and hideable windows show PERT views and Gantt (bar chart) views of the project in addition to the "spreadsheet" view.
• Activities and links may be set up and edited in either spreadsheet or PERT views or both at once, since all views are kept synchronized.
• Network file sharing permits other users on a network to have read-only access to a plan file while one user has it open for exclusive update. They may modify it and save it to a different file name if they wish.
• Up to 1,000 activities with up to three levels of sub-project or departmental grouping.
• No limit on links per activity (within total of 2,000 links).
• Links may be Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start or Finish-to-Finish to handle overlapping activities.
• Links may have minimum time lags specified.
• Individual activities may have their dates "fixed".
• Pop up "working day" calendar with 200 year range. Easy to change working/non-working days.
• Activity durations and lags may be specified as either "working days" or "calendar days" - both types may be used in the same plan.
• Scale of PERT and Gantt charts are adjustable both on-screen and for printing (to make best use of pages).
• Reports, PERT charts and Gantt charts may be either printed, or copied to the clipboard for pasting into other programs.

PlanBee Pro adds features for large plans and for use in a corporate environment:

• Resource Allocation and Leveling.
• Costing Functions.
• Administrative Detail Editing (Notes assigned to tasks, Cost Account Codes,
• Manager Names, Unique Key for use in exporting to external databases).
• Choice of Language for Dates.
• Automatic Emphasis - an aid in selecting exporting details.
• Hiding and Inactivating Dependency Links Grouped into "Families".
• Specifying "Marginal" Criticality.
• Each project may have its own resources list, or master resource lists may be maintained for use across projects.
• Activities may be grouped into up to three levels, with resource cost summaries available at each level.

You can download a Trial version to test if it will suit your needs.

• Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT 3.x, WinNT 4.x, Windows2000 or WinXP

US$29.98 PlanBee Critical Path Project Management