SharedPlan Pro for Windows

Project management software is a cornerstone of today's business world. Managers, executives, engineers, and administrators depend on it to organize their projects, manage their teams, keep clients and suppliers in the loop, and measure progress toward defined goals. SharedPlan Pro is SharedPlan's enterprise suite of project management tools, and it integrates with the developer's other editions, such as SharedPlan Personal. It's designed to be easy to understand and use, collaborative, and flexible in options and execution, while still having the power and scope to manage large, complex projects with critical deadlines. To that end, it offers sophisticated tracking and graphing tools like network diagram and Gantt chart editors, subproject import and export, and advanced reporting and project analysis capabilities.

SharedPlan's stated goals include software that is "elegant," exuding the intangible but definite feeling of quality, efficiency, and intuitiveness of well-designed solutions; "collaborative," in facilitating communication between all project levels and elements; and "robust," meaning capable of handling large projects and growing with your needs. SharedPlan Pro meets those goals. It's quite a large download, but the well-configured installer suggests back-to-front thoughtfulness in design and execution, and the interface bears this out: Though hardly unusual or unfamiliar, it's one of the cleanest, most efficient, and most intuitive designs we've encountered, another indicator of attention to detail. The Help files, documentation, and Web site also offer clear, concise language with a minimum of manager-speak.

SharedPlan Pro is free for a seven-day trial and costs $99.95. It's fully compatible with Vista and Windows 7.

• maintenance release with a number of bug fixes
• improved performance of critical path calculation