TouchBase-PM provides extensive project planning and execution  capabilities. Multiple projects can be managed simultaneously, each one having its WBS structure, schedules, deliverables, issues, documents, team members and costs. All team members can update their status and project manager can track schedules and costs in real time.

TouchBase-PM allows you to implement phases and gates within a program. Phase is corresponding to one stage in the development process like design phase or prototyping phase. Gate is like a high level review meeting after completing a phase. The review meeting decides if the project is on the right track and project should go into next phase. Otherwise some corrective actions are listed and progress into the next phase is subject to successful completion of those corrective action items. This brings in the discipline and quality required for the product development process. TouchBase-PM supports this methodology in a very elegant manner.

Gantt Chart is a graphical representation of project WBS plan. TouchBase-PM has a extensive Gantt Chart feature for viewing and editing. Project Manager can use this tool to plan, schedule and analyze the complete project. The Gantt Chart shows the scheduled and actual dates as shown below.

During the course of project execution, there are several issues and risks. The Project Manager's task is to identify these issues and risks ahead of time and resolve them at the earliest. Normally these issues and risks are not found until the very last moment due to lack of visibility. TouchBase-PM helps project team to capture these issues and track them until they are resolved through an action item.

TouchBase-PM tracks all the resources based on their roles, skill sets, departments, hierarchical structure and their availability. The Project Manager can see the resource utilization and resource loading. The graphical and tabular reports helps the management in resource planning.

 

TouchBase-PM has inbuilt extensive document management capabilities. It supports various file types including all CAD formats. It further supports versioning and revision control. User can save meta data information with each attribute and search on these attributes.

TouchBase-PM supports best practices program templates. The Project Manager can use these templates to speed up the processes and ensure that company processes are being followed. Any completed program can also be saved as a template for future use. TouchBase-PM also supports parametric program creation from templates.

TouchBase-PM has a very innovative way of designing and creating dashboards and views. Administrator can create default views for all users and each user can also create his/her own views. The advanced capability allows you to filter information to the last attribute and see what you want to see and what helps you in making better decisions.

TouchBase-PM tracks time for each task and every user. Timesheets are generated for each user and can be submitted to the manager for approvals. The approved times can then be used to do project costing based on man-power.

TouchBase-PM supports user defined metrics to collect and analyze information. The metrics help an organization to evaluate its product development process and make improvements as and when required.

TouchBase-PM supports a two way integration with XML. Entire program data can be imported from an XML file and exported to an XML file. This makes TouchBase-PM an open architecture where we can communicate with any other application like Microsoft Project, Primavera, ERP applications like SAP etc.

TouchBase-PM data can be exported to excel sheets. Users can create export templates of the data they want to export to excel sheets. For example project manager can export entire project costing to an excel sheet and send it to people who don't have access to TouchBase. This is an extremely powerful capability.

TouchBase-PM manages budget allocation for a project and then sub allocate at each phase level. Actual costs of the project (material + labor) can be tracked. Alarms are generated whenever actual costs overshoot budgetary costs.