Product Release: Project History, Re-Launching the Add, Delete, Update (ADU) Report, and More

An interview with Naomi Cash, director of product.

Your team recently announced a big product release — can you tell us what is new and exciting?

Yes! Project History is now live in PLAN-IT. Project History reports across all project object adds, edits and deletes (inactivations/redactions).

The in-app History tables include:

• Item History Table: Tracks the history records for the selected item
• Project History Table: Tracks all history events for all project object (project, building, level, department, room, item)
• Quick filters on all adds, all edits, and all deletes (inactivations / redactions)
• Plus, all history tables are filterable and exportable

We’ve also released seven new history Excel reports:

• ADU report
• Project History
• Building History
• Level History
• Department History
• Room History
• Item History

As part of this product release, we have also re-launched the Add, Delete, Update (ADU) report. Some of our long-time clients will remember this report — we actually had the ADU report as part of our legacy platform in the early 2000’s, and it was very popular with our clients. In fact, that’s why we brought it back — the clients asked, and we answered!

What is the ADU report?

The new PLAN-IT ADU report takes a snapshot of an item at the beginning of a specified timeframe, and compares it to a snapshot of that item at the end of the timeframe — and captures and displays all the changes to that item on a single row of a report. This gives visibility into all of the values that were modified — for instance, the price or quantity of the item. The ADU report shows both the previous value and the new value.

An important enhancement we’ve made to the ADU report is that we’ve also added the concept of change notes to capture why changes were made. For instance, a user can now note and track that, in a user group meeting, the project stakeholders indicated they wanted to change to a new equipment model because that is their standard. This will be a great feature for our clients to help track and enable conversations around change management. 

One more feature to note: the ADU is also customizable. Users can filter the report to show a specific period of time, and to specify which field or action they want to report on.

What would the use case be for a medical equipment planner to use the ADU report?

There are two main use cases:

1. To identify changes to mechanical, electrical and plumbing requirements. When changes to an equipment model occur, the equipment planner can run the ADU report, analyze the changes to the MEP requirements, and notify the architects and engineers as needed.
2. To aid in budget conversations. If there’s a change that impacts the budget such as an item quantity update, the equipment planner will be able to easily locate those budget variations in order to obtain necessary approvals. They can now easily report on where and when the budget was altered as well as “why” if the planner is using the change notes feature.

Why should our clients be excited about the ADU report?

This is going to make our clients’ jobs easier. Clients have been exporting our legacy History report and running macros against it to create their own reports to serve this purpose. Now, there’s an ability to create this report without leaving the application. 

Our team is always working to present solutions for tasks that require our clients to leave the platform to accomplish what they need to do. Thus, providing more features and functionality to limit the number of times they have to exit the tool to perform their daily tasks.

How is the ADU Report different than Project Object History?

• The ADU Report contains a record of all ITEM changes within the project. It does not have a line item of all changes; it takes a snapshot of each item at the beginning of the selected date range and compares it to a snapshot at the end of the selected date range and shows the difference between the two.
• Project Object History Reports show all changes made to the selected object type during the selected date range. There is a line item row for each change made (either by a user or an automated Attainia change). The Project Object History Reports are also not limited to just item reporting, but have a separate report for all project object types.

What else is on the horizon for PLAN-IT?

We are looking forward to the next set of features, which will provide clients with the ability to: 

1. Override product fields 
2. Create and manage true custom fields 
3. Manage options and accessories
4. Manage procurement!

Review full notes from the 4/9/21 product release here.