PPO has always supported bi-directional integration to any version of Microsoft Project (MSP) to allow our project managers to use a scheduling tool that they already have access to, feel comfortable using and probably already have existing project plans in place for their projects.

Over time however we saw more and more users moving away from complex scheduling tools like MSP and thus we allowed users to make use of an Excel template to create simple project plans and import this into PPO. We wanted to keep the import as simple as possible, but we made it too complicated for users. After having used the template users had to save as an XML file and import.

More recently users are making use of Excel for Mac on Apple Devices and Google Sheets and the existing template didn’t work for them.

Today we are releasing a new template for Google Sheet users and a dramatically simplified Excel template that can be used by both Window and Apple users in a much simpler way.

Users now no longer have to worry about:

• Saving to XML, just save the template in its current XLSX format;
• Matching the employee or resource keys, just ensure that you have the right Name and Surname (Joe Bloggs) and PPO will match it; or
• Holidays, unless you still want to do fancy duration-based planning.

If you’re a Google Sheet or Apple user, download our new template today and let us know how it goes.

For those making use of some of the more advanced features on the Excel Template, don’t worry, you can still make use of it all, we haven’t retired it.

We do our very best to make PPO better every day, so we’d love to hear your feedback on these latest enhancements.

Don’t forget to let us know if you have any other product enhancement ideas! Drop us an email or log an idea on our community portal please. More importantly, keep up to date with all our new product information by subscribing to our blog and joining our quarterly product webinars.