ProjectEngine v1.3.0 — New Excel Ribbon, Project Migration & Major Usability Improvements

[TMailletFR]

ProjectEngine v1.3.0 is one of the largest updates since the first stable release, introducing a redesigned Excel interface, project migration, improved Gantt navigation, significant performance optimizations, and numerous reliability fixes.

This release focuses on making ProjectEngine easier to use, more responsive, and more reliable for real-world project scheduling.

✨ A New ProjectEngine Ribbon

ProjectEngine now features its own fully integrated Excel Ribbon tab, bringing the main commands together in a single interface.

What's new:

• 18 commands with custom-designed icons embedded directly in the workbook.
• Dedicated controls for Planning Update, Gantt Update, S-Curve Update, Forced Planning Update, and Full Update.
• Contextual Gantt actions for Test, Scenario, Lock, and Reset.
• Quick access to Settings, project import, navigation, and reset operations.
• Context-sensitive commands that adapt to the active worksheet.
• English and French labels and tooltips.

The old redundant command buttons have been removed from the WBS and Gantt sheets, providing a cleaner workspace.

The ProjectEngine tab is automatically selected when navigating between worksheets within the workbook, keeping the main tools readily accessible.

No add-in, separate installation, or external icon files are required. Everything is embedded directly into the Excel workbook.

📂 Project Migration — Upgrade Without Rebuilding Your Schedule

ProjectEngine now allows users to import existing project data from previous versions into the latest workbook.

Instead of manually recreating tasks, dependencies, and project settings, users can transfer their supported project information through a guided import process.

Supported data includes:

• WBS structure, tasks, and project information.
• Baseline, Actual, and Forecast inputs.
• Task dependencies, progress, and scheduling parameters.
• Constraints, deadlines, and associated comments.
• Project settings and language preferences.
• Warning acknowledgements.
• Historical Dashboard snapshots.
• Compatible Event History records.
• Supported custom formulas in WBS input fields.

The original source workbook remains unchanged.

After importing, users can review the transferred WBS and Constraints before deciding when to run Planning Update or Full Update.

Calculated results and visualizations are generated by the new version rather than copied from the previous workbook.

This provides a much easier upgrade path for users managing active projects with ProjectEngine.

🚀 New Welcome Screen

Starting a project is now more straightforward.

When opening an empty ProjectEngine workbook, a new welcome screen offers two choices:

Start New Project

Begin working with a clean ProjectEngine workbook.

Import Previous Project

Select an existing ProjectEngine workbook and transfer its supported project data.

The welcome screen remembers the user's choice and does not repeatedly appear when reopening an existing project.

After a Full Reset, it becomes available again immediately, making it easier to start another project.

📊 New Gantt Navigation Tools

Navigating large Gantt charts is now easier with two dedicated commands.

Show Full Timeline

Return to an overview of the project timeline with a single click.

The command adjusts the view to display as much of the timeline as Excel allows. When the entire chart cannot physically fit, ProjectEngine provides the widest practical view available.

Go to Selected Task

Select a task in the WBS or Gantt sheet and jump directly to its corresponding position in the Gantt chart.

Additional improvements include:

• Better zoom and scrolling across Day, Week, and Month views.
• Navigation to tasks, milestones, and summary tasks.
• Improved handling of hidden tasks and invalid selections.
• Navigation that preserves Summary mode without unexpectedly switching to Detail.
• Automatic preparation of the Gantt display when necessary, without unnecessarily recalculating the planning engine.
• Clearer feedback when a selected task cannot be displayed.

These improvements are particularly useful when working with schedules containing hundreds or thousands of tasks.

⚡ Major Performance Improvements

ProjectEngine now avoids more unnecessary Excel operations while preserving scheduling accuracy and the existing calculation logic.

Smarter Full Update — Avoiding Unnecessary Rewrites

Full Update continues to perform a complete recalculation of the schedule and its analytics.

The improvement concerns how calculated results are written back to Excel.

Previously, Full Update rewrote calculated worksheet results even when they were identical to the values already present.

ProjectEngine now compares newly calculated results with the existing worksheet values before updating them.

• No changes: Identical results are preserved without unnecessary worksheet rewrites.
• Partial changes: Only result columns that require updating are rewritten.
• Complete rebuild: Full Update still performs the necessary operations to reconstruct the results.

This makes repeated Full Updates more efficient when the schedule has not changed, while preserving their complete recalculation behavior.

This is an optimization of unnecessary Excel operations, not a general acceleration of the scheduling engine. Updates requiring substantial reconstruction may take approximately the same time as before.

More Efficient Gantt Rendering

The Gantt renderer now makes better use of existing graphics and previously calculated dependency routes.

Improvements include:

• Unchanged tasks and dependency graphics can be retained instead of rebuilt.
• Small planning changes can update only affected tasks and dependency routes.
• Large structural or layout changes still trigger a complete rebuild when necessary.
• More efficient worksheet formatting and task-panel updates.
• Reduced unnecessary Shape and visibility operations.
• Better reuse of existing graphical data during repeated updates.

In a controlled test involving an unchanged standard Gantt, deferred rendering time decreased from approximately 3.1 seconds to 0.4 seconds, an improvement of nearly 88%.

These gains apply to the measured reuse scenario, not to every Gantt rebuild. Rendering an entirely new or substantially modified schedule still requires the corresponding work.

Faster Project Import

Project import has been designed to minimize unnecessary processing while preserving the supported project data.

In a representative 30-task scenario, the complete import operation took approximately 5 seconds.

More Efficient Event History

Event History now uses more efficient worksheet updates and avoids redundant refreshes during planning workflows.

This reduces processing overhead, particularly when working with longer event histories.

Performance results vary depending on project size, schedule complexity, workbook state, and Excel configuration.

🌍 More Consistent English and French Localization

ProjectEngine's user-facing messages now use a more consistent shared multilingual text system.

Improvements cover:

• Ribbon commands, labels, and tooltips.
• Planning warnings and validation messages.
• Gantt navigation and simulation feedback.
• Settings, resets, and confirmation messages.
• Event History and warning presentation.
• Other user-facing workbook interactions.

English and French translations are now managed more consistently throughout the application.

The existing independent language settings remain available, allowing users to customize individual ProjectEngine areas or use the global language setting.

🛠️ Gantt Stability and Dependency Fixes

Several issues affecting Gantt rendering, navigation, and interaction have been corrected.

Dependency Rendering

• Fixed short dependency arrows that could cross task bars or milestones.
• Improved arrow positioning when dependencies approach a task from below.
• Improved Finish-to-Finish dependency termination at milestones.
• Improved dependency alignment after changing worksheet column widths.
• Preserved task selection and interaction with dependency links displayed in front of task bars.
• Improved consistency between incremental updates and complete Gantt rebuilds.

Gantt Behavior

• Fixed unintended Drag & Drop simulations triggered by resizing worksheet columns.
• Fixed missing timeline headers after resetting a project, entering new tasks, and updating the Gantt.
• Improved the initial Gantt rendering of newly created schedules.
• Improved navigation and rendering consistency in Summary mode.
• Prevented navigation from unexpectedly revealing hidden Summary-mode tasks.
• Improved restoration of the full timeline after navigating to individual tasks.
• Improved Gantt readiness and display recovery when previously rendered elements are missing or outdated.

📈 Planning and Analytics Improvements

This release also includes several corrections to planning analytics and reporting.

Summary-Task Dependencies

Start-to-Start and Finish-to-Finish relationships involving summary tasks are handled consistently with their aggregated start and finish dates.

• Summary SS relationships use the earliest start of the summary.
• Summary FF relationships use the latest finish of the summary.
• Existing Finish-to-Start behavior is preserved.

This helps prevent misleading Free Float calculations and keeps scheduling and analytics results consistent.

Baseline-Based REX Analytics

When a valid Baseline-based REX analysis cannot be calculated, outdated REX values are cleared instead of remaining visible from a previous calculation.

Normal schedule analytics remain available whenever their calculation is valid.

Negative Float Warnings

Warnings about negative float in the current schedule now evaluate current Total Float and Free Float independently of Baseline-based REX results.

This prevents misleading current-schedule warnings caused only by negative REX float values.

📉 Dashboard Improvements

Fixed an issue where the Dashboard's From and To snapshot selectors could stop displaying available snapshots.

Snapshot selection and comparison now work correctly when the underlying snapshot list is restored, including after importing historical project data.

Existing compatible Dashboard snapshots can be transferred from previous ProjectEngine versions.

💬 More Reliable Messages and Warning Acknowledgements

Planning messages and warning management have received additional improvements.

• Warning acknowledgements now use more stable event identities that are independent of message wording and language.
• Improved consistency between planning messages and Event History.
• Better handling of grouped warnings and their associated events.
• Clearer, more actionable messages for Gantt navigation and other planning operations.
• Improved error handling to prevent failed imports from being incorrectly reported as successful.
• Improved message-window closing behavior and interaction stability.

These changes make ProjectEngine's diagnostics more predictable and easier to use during everyday planning.

🔄 Upgrading from an Older Version

For users currently working with an older ProjectEngine workbook:

1. Download and open ProjectEngine v1.3.0.
2. Select Import Previous Project from the welcome screen or the ProjectEngine Ribbon.
3. Choose your existing ProjectEngine workbook.
4. Confirm the import and review the transferred WBS, Constraints, and settings.
5. Run Planning Update or Full Update when ready.

Important: Import replaces the supported project data in the destination workbook. Keep a backup of the destination before importing. Your original source workbook is not modified.

Some unsupported or incompatible workbook structures, custom formulas, or historical data may prevent an import. ProjectEngine does not automatically transfer old VBA code, Gantt graphics, Test/Scenario states, or calculated outputs.

✅ Validation and Compatibility

This release has been validated using:

• Standard project schedules.
• Large planning scenarios containing approximately 1,200 tasks.
• Analytics-focused project datasets.
• English and French workbook configurations.

Validation covered:

• Planning Update, Forced Update, and Full Update.
• Project import and preservation of supported data.
• Gantt navigation, rendering, and dependency visualization.
• Test, Scenario, Reset, and Lock workflows.
• Ribbon controls and worksheet navigation.
• Language switching and localized messages.
• Dashboard snapshot selection.
• Save, close, and reopen behavior.

Testing was performed using Microsoft Excel for Windows. Not every Excel version, architecture, or display configuration has been tested.

ProjectEngine remains:

• Free and open source under GPL v3.
• Fully integrated into Microsoft Excel.
• Available in English and French.
• Usable locally and offline.
• Free of external add-ins, servers, installers, and user accounts.

Summary

ProjectEngine v1.3.0 represents a major step forward in usability, performance, and reliability.

The new Excel Ribbon makes the application easier to navigate, project migration simplifies upgrading existing schedules, and the welcome screen makes starting a project more intuitive.

Combined with improved Gantt navigation, smarter Full Updates, more efficient rendering, and numerous stability fixes, this release delivers a more responsive and polished project scheduling experience.

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded ProjectEngine, tested it on real projects, and shared feedback. Your reports and suggestions continue to help improve the project.

ProjectEngine — Free, open-source project scheduling in Excel.

[GitHub Repository](https://github.com/TMailletFR/ProjectEngine)

[Project Website](https://tmailletfr.github.io/ProjectEngine/)

---

This discussion was created from the release ProjectEngine v1.3.0 — New Excel Ribbon, Project Migration & Major Usability Improvements.