Viewpath Introduces Online Project Management Solution Featuring a Rich Visual Approach, Collaborative Gantt Charting and Google Apps Integration That Simplifies Daily Management of Projects

Business Wire, May 29, 2008

Viewpath 2.0 Beta's Visual Planning Framework Enables Better Decision Making When Managing Multiple Projects and Events

SAN FRANCISCO -- Today at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco, Viewpath, a provider of on-demand and easy-to-use project management solutions, introduced Viewpath 2.0 featuring intuitive drag-and-drop visual planning tools and a new Gantt Gadget that integrates with Google Apps to let users easily create, share or publish Gantt charts online. Viewpath's visual approach to distributed project management enables individuals and teams literally to view the big picture in managing both planned and unplanned daily activities.

"Project collaboration across departments, organizations, and time zones is a productivity-defining issue for today's knowledge-based workforce. Long gone is the business environment in which most workgroups could concentrate on a single project or process silo. As such, collaboration these days is often gated by the schedule availability of internal and/or external members of dispersed teams," said Dean Carlson, Viewpath founder and CEO. "This requires a new generation of tools that let individuals realistically manage professional and personal time commitments among numerous projects and events. Smart business people know that it's important to set day-to-day priorities in the context of the big picture, and that's exactly what Viewpath helps them do."

Viewpath 2.0 is the product of more than two years of development by experts in project management and visually oriented Web applications. The result is an intuitive solution for managing the real-world demands of project collaboration on dispersed teams, while also giving people a clear picture of all their non-project-specific activities in one integrated view.

Viewpath has many design innovations that are based on the way people actually work. For example, its smart Gantt charts combine both linear and nonlinear planning strategies to provide significant flexibility in managing projects even when scheduling details may still be unknown. This contrasts to traditional project planning tools that force people into rigid planning steps that require every activity to have a start and finish date, and fit into a linear schedule. There are many occasions when the constraints of linear planning can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially in the early stages of a project when it is difficult to accurately guess many scheduling and resource issues in advance.

Viewpath's enterprise-class architecture uses advanced Web technologies, such as SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and AJAX (Asynchronous Java and XML) to provide an interactive user experience that is very similar to using a professional desktop application.

Viewpath 2.0 Beta Feature Highlights:

* Secure Online Collaboration - Accessible from any Internet connection, with real-time sharing across multiple team and project workspaces

* Flexible Planning Formats - Get started on projects instantly and easily accommodate unplanned action-items as they arise

* Fast Drag-and-Drop - Intuitive interface with many quick ways to edit schedules and customize columns, both onscreen and printing

* Smart Gantt Charting - Literally presents a visual view of multiple projects and allows for rapid schedule changes with dependency linking

* Multiple Access Levels - Automatically adjusts activity viewing and editing according to access permissions set on a team-by-team basis

* Daily Activity Dashboard - Simplify day-to-day time management by organizing and prioritizing tasks, issues and events among all teams

Viewpath 2.0 beta is free for any size team at: www.viewpath.com. For a video overview of Viewpath 2.0 beta's innovative features, please visit: http://www.viewpath.net/Website/Support/VideoTutorials/Full/Overview Files/SOV/SOV.html (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Viewpath's Google Apps Integration

Viewpath has been selected to be a featured Google Apps partner for its new Gantt Gadget, which integrates Viewpath 2.0 Gantt charting features within Google Apps. Any user can now quickly create dynamic Gantt charts within Google Spreadsheet in just a few clicks. Notably, Viewpath ported a subset of its pre-existing AJAX code into the Google Apps framework.

Today, Kris Nye, Viewpath chief architect, will present as part of the "Google Visualization" panel at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Prior to joining Viewpath, Kris led development on various Microsoft projects including the Mobile Internet Toolkit, the Surface Initiative and a modular robotics platform.

About Viewpath

Viewpath is an on-demand, visually oriented project management solution that empowers individuals to take control of their daily workflow. Designed by project management experts to reflect the way people actually work, Viewpath offers a flexible, distributed approach to project management that aligns longer-term objectives with day-by-day action plans. Viewpath's intuitive, visual approach -- featuring smart Gantt charting -- lets individuals and teams visualize, organize, prioritize and actualize all of the projects and events that intersect in both their work and personal lives. For more information, visit: http://www.viewpath.com