Changelog

Welcome to the Mach-AI changelog. Here you'll find a chronological list of updates, new features, and improvements to our project portfolio management platform.

January 12, 2025 - Updated App Speed

Enhancements:

• Made a variety of adjustments to the project portfolio views to increasing loading speed of the pages and improving responsiveness/smoothness of scrolling through the projects lists.
• Additionally, adjusted the height of the projects lists in the portfolio views.

January 5, 2025 - Added Preview of 2025 AI Features

Enhancements:

• Included brief explainer of video of AI automation features planned for 2025. Video can be viewed in the www.mach-ai.com website and also within the app itself.

December 29, 2024 - Creation of new Program and Portfolio Views

Enhancements:

• Introduced two new portfolio vies for Program and Product. Users can now see the list of their projects organized by Program and by Product.

December 22, 2024 - Start of New AI Concept R&D

New Feature Development:

• Development has started on a new AI Assistant for project management. The new AI Assistant will allow users to input a description of their project and then the AI will generate proposed project plans. Users can refine with further prompting. When ready to finalize, users can import into their Mach-AI project management system.

December 15, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Added ability to drag and drop the parent-child (aka nesting) relationships between projects. You can click and drag projects within other projects to establish the parent-child relationship at any point.

December 8, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Set the Gantt chart's sort to chronological, instead of sort based on project creation date.
• Added capability to export Gantt chart to PDF or PNG.
• Added tooltips to the Gantt chart so users can hover over project to see key details such as project name, owner, and start- & end-date.

December 1, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Enabled the ability for the user to set an owner of a project in the Gantt chart and project creation pop-up. When a project is created with an owner, a task is assigned to the owner automatically. The owner will then be responsible to executing that project.
• Made additional improvements to the UI such that the initiatives, projects, and milestones have better visual distinguishment in terms of shape, borders, shadows, etc.

November 24, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Enabled
  the ability for the user to set custom colors for activities in the Gantt
  chart. Initiatives, projects, and milestones use pink, blue, and green as
  default colors, but when users can decide to use custom colors and change
  the colors at any time.

November 17, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Enabled the ability for users to create infinitely nested parent-child relationships in the project portfolio. Previously, the hierarchy was set such that the top level was the Initiative, with child projects and child milestones, but no more layers below. In the latest release users can now set infinitive additional layers of hierarchy in which projects can have child projects and milestones, and milestones can have child projects and milestones.

November 10, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Add a new filtering system to the Gantt char so that the user can now filter projects by the standard list of project tags including: team, program, product, customer, health, progress level, phase, OKR, and roadmap.
• The user can select "All" to show all everything. This is the default setting.
• Note that progress can be filtered by 0-25%, 25-50%, 50-75%, and 75%, as well as set to show only projects that are in-progress and only projects that are complete.
  
• Filtering settings for Gantt charts are defined for each individual user, meaning the filtering saved by the user are applied the next the user visits the Gantt chart.

November 3, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

Enhancements:

• Updated the Gantt chart so that it no longer shows the tutorial project. The tutorial project can now only be accessed using the tutorial.

October 27, 2024 - UI Improvements

Bug Fixes:

• Zoom and Page Scaling: Completed additional updates to the responsiveness of pages so that they dynamically zoom and scale based on the user's computer and browser settings.

October 20, 2024 - UI Improvements

Bug Fixes:

• Zoom and Page Scaling: Enabled improved responsive zoom and scaling so that the user interface fills the horizontal width of the page regardless of the zoom setting set by the user's computer or browser.

September 30, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Initial Onboarding: Added the ability for the user to clear all sample initiatives, projects, and milestones at the end of the onboarding tutorial. Users can then start with a clean project portfolio. Alternatively, users can skip this step and manually delete all projects.
• User Interface: Updated the application so that the Project Portfolio views and Progress Summary view now fill the entire width of the browser window. This change fills empty horizontal real estate on the page so the user will not have to scroll as much.

September 22, 2024 - UX Improvements

Bug Fixes:

• Gantt Chart: Updated the application's logic to ensure the Gantt chart is updated with the unique ID of each new initiative, project, and milestone immediately after creation. This ensures that upon creating a new entry in the Gantt chart, all subsequent edits to its links to other projects and parent-child relationships are correctly recorded.
• Gantt Chart: Updated the application so that links between projects are set to "finish-to-start" by default. In later updates, we will introduce the ability to set links to "start-to-start", "finish-to-finish", and "start-to-finish".

September 15, 2024 - UX Improvements

Bug Fixes:

• Project Creation: Updated the initiative creation lightbox so that it prevents the user from setting an initiative as its own parent initiative. Doing so would cause the application to enter a logic loop. This is no longer permitted.
• Gantt Chart: Included logic to check whether a new entry's name is already being used by an existing initiative, project, or milestone. Duplicate names are not allowed in the system.

September 8, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Gantt Chart: Updated the Gantt chart with the ability to delete initiatives, projects, and milestones using the 'delete' key on the keyboard. Previously, the user would need to open up an entry and click on a delete button.

September 1, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Gantt Chart: Added keyboards shortcuts to the Gantt chart so that users can navigate and operate the Gantt chart using their keyboard, in addition to the mouse/touch. The Gantt chart will display a short menu that explains each shortcut on the right side. Users can click on this explanation to hide it.

August 25, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Gantt Chart: Added the ability for the user to set the level of zoom for the X-axis. The user can now click on radial buttons to view their Gantt chart at the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly level.

August 18, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Gantt Chart: Updated the lightbox to refine the way users can create new entries. E.g., Users can nest projects and milestones under initiatives, but cannot create initiatives nested under initiatives in order to prevent a logic loop.

August 11, 2024 - UX Improvements

Enhancements:

• Project Creation: Updated the workflows so that it is no longer required for projects to have initiating teams. Users can now create projects without initiating teams and then add it later if they wish.

July 29, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements - continued

Enhancements:

• Gantt chart improvements: Updated the functionality of the "Add" button so that users can create child projects under parent Initiatives. When, creating a new project, the app distinguishes between projects that have a parent and those that don't.
• Gantt chart link functionality: Updated the functionality of links to enable users to create and delete links, which are visual lines that represent the dependencies between projects.

July 22, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements - continued

Enhancements:

• Lightbox UI improvements: Adjusted the popup lightbox to correctly disable entries for project name and type (i.e., Project, Initiative, or Milestone) if user is editing an existing project. All data fields are enabled when user is creating new projects.
  
• Project data I/O: Updated the API call to update the projects database simultaneously with the creation of a Initiative, Project, or Milestone in the Gantt chart.

July 15, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements - continued

Enhancements:

• Lightbox UI improvements: Updated the popup lightbox to display the project's name, description, type (i.e., Project, Initiative, or Milestone), start date, and duration. Customized the lightbox so that data fields can now have any customized name set by admin (or by client on enterprise-level account). For example, if admin or client wants the project name data field changed from "Project" to "Name", this can now be accomplished.

Bug Fixes:

• Lightbox: Updated the lightbox so that the default nomenclature of Project and Task is updated to match Mach-AI's nomenclature of Initiative and Project. Updated Mach-AI's nomenclature of Stage Gate to Milestone (this change is a global change for Mach-AI).

July 8, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements - continued

New Features:

• New Gantt Chart System - Continuing to upgrade the Gantt chart system. Newly added features (in devo) included: 1) Showing initiatives, projects, and milestones in their correct colors, 2) Showing project names with text wrapping, 3) Enabling users to delete projects directly in the Gantt chart UI, 4) Enabling users to update the project database when they drag-and-drop project start dates, end dates, and progress %.

Enhancements:

• Updated UX for creating Milestones: 1) "Milestone" is the new name that replaces "Stage Gate". The "Stage Gate" term is now deprecated. 2) Updated the UX so that the user no longer needs to input an end-date for Milestones. User only now needs to input a "Due Date". The end-date for a Milestone is automatically set to be the same as the start-date. This is because milestones do not have a duration. They are instead a point in time.
  

July 1, 2024 - Gantt Chart Improvements

New Features:

• New Gantt Chart System - Initiated overhaul to the Gantt chart system. Target features of the new Gantt chart include: 1) Drag-and-drop of start dates, end dates, and progress % directly in the UI, 2) Directly creating new projects in the Gantt chart's rows without having to use the Project Creation pop-up, 3) Nesting of projects under parent projects to n-levels without limits to how large n gets, 4) General visual and useability improvements.

June 24, 2024 - Simplification of Projects Creation - continued

Enhancements:

• Minor Adjustment to Landing Page: Adjusted the sign-in experience so that users land on the Gantt chart after signing in vs. landing on the "Home Dashboard" page.

June 10, 2024 - Improved Onboarding Experience - continued

Enhancements:

• Updated Tutorial System's Graphics: Added animated arrows to the onboarding tutorial system to more easily visually guide users to their next interaction to advance the tutorial.
• Skippable Onboarding Tutorial: Created the option for users to skip Step 4 (Capacity and Utilization Heatmap) and Step 5 (Progress and Risk Assessment) in the onboarding tutorial. This will let users more quickly complete the tutorials and start creating projects if Step 4 and Step 5 are not relevant to their project and/or portfolio management use-cases.

June 3, 2024 - Improved Onboarding Experience - continued

New Features:

• Easy and Expert Mode: Simplified the process of creating projects with a new "Easy Mode" set as the default. "Easy Mode" requires the user to input only a few data inputs to create projects: 1) Project name, 2) Project description, 3) Start- and end-dates, 4) Project Owner, and 5) Initiating team. Optional inputs are hidden in "Easy Mode". This is a simplification vs. the previous version, which allowed for (but did not require) many more inputs such as Project's client, phase, OKR, health, teammate allocations, 3rd party vendors, etc. These additional input fields are still available but are now accessible to the user only if they select "Expert Mode". The onboarding tutorial is always set to "Easy Mode" to reduce friction for first-time users.

Enhancements:

• Graphics: Added animated GIFs to various UI elements to make the experience more dynamic for users.

May 27, 2024 - Improved Onboarding Experience - continued

New Features:

• Expanded Onboarding Tutorial: Created a new simplified onboarding tutorial to quickly get new users up-to-speed on how to use Mach-AI. The new tutorial system walks new users through how to 1) Create their first project, 2) Operate the Gantt chart, 3) Assign tasks to teammates, 4) View capacity and utilization heatmaps, and 5) Assess projects' risk and progress.

Enhancements:

• Updated Tutorial Descriptions: Updated the language used in the tutorial system to better reflect the latest UX flow of operating Mach-AI. Eliminated tutorial actions that can no longer be executed in the latest UX.

May 20, 2024 - Improved Onboarding Experience

New Features:

• New Onboarding Survey: Added a brief survey at first-time sign-in by a new user to inquire a few high-level datapoints to customize the Mach-AI experience: 1) Org Name, 2) Org size (in terms of number of employees), 3) Industry (can be a direct text input by the user or selected from a drop-down list), and 4) Use-cases for Mach-AI.

Enhancements:

• Tutorial Simplification: Reduced the number of steps in the tutorial system to improve speed of learning.
  

May 20, 2024 - Updated Tutorial System - continued

New Features:

• Updated Gantt Chart System: 1) Updated the Gantt chart system to show nested projects for those projects with parent-child relationships. 2) Added link lines for projects for which there are inter-dependencies. 3) Add a vertical line to indicate today.

Enhancements:

• Context-Appropriate Initial Projects: Replaced generic projects and initiatives that are created at account sign-up with new ones related to learning how to operate the Mach-AI tool. Previous projects and initiatives were simply labeled "Sample Project #" and "Sample Initiative #". In the latest version, project names and descriptions are designed to educate new users on how to use Mach-AI. Example project names are "Learn How Mach-AI Integrates Project and Portfolio Management" and "Explore Mach-AI's Gantt Chart".
  
• Published Latest Version App to Prod: Published latest version to www.app.mach-ai.com. Existing users will need to sign-up with a new account to access tutorials.
  

May 13, 2024 - Updated Tutorial System

New Features:

• Pre-populated Tutorial Sample Data: Updated the tutorial system so that new users are provided sample projects, parent initiatives, and milestones in their projects portfolio at account creation.
• Published Latest Version App to Prod: Published latest version to www.app.mach-ai.com.

Bug Fixes:

• Permanent Immutable Tutorial Projects and Tasks: Corrected a gap in the UX in which a user who deletes all sample projects and initiatives may be unable to view/complete tutorials that require at least one sample task or project. In the latest iteration, Mach-AI now creates a "Tutorial" scenario for all users that can only be accessed via the tutorial mode. The "Tutorial" scenario cannot be modified. This ensures that any user can access the tutorial system with its complete set of sample projects and tasks at any time, while being unable to affect the experience for subsequent tutorial users.

May 13, 2024 - Dynamic Resizing - continued

Enhancements:

• Dynamic Resizing of UI Elements: Resumed making updates to dynamically resize UI. Updated UI elements now include: 1) All pop-ups and lightboxes, 2) Project Portfolio and Program Summary views, 3) Progress Summary view, 4) All Financial Planning views, 5) all Resourcing Planning views, and 6) all Settings views.
• Published Latest Version App to Prod: Published latest version to be accessible to users at www.app.mach-ai.com. Existing users' UI are automatically updated to the latest version.
• Analytics: Added server-side analytics to help product teams better understand user behavior, feature usage, and dwell time, etc.

Bug Fixes:

• Horizontal Selector: Updated the horizontal selector to dynamically resize based on user's computer's level of zoom and browser's level zoom. Horizontal selector maintains correct proportions regardless of level of zoom and users' selected inputs are correctly registered. This update improves the UX for inputting values that use a horizontal selector such as percentage of progress, prioritization scores, and level of scaling for Gantt charts.

April 22, 2024 - Dynamic Resizing

Enhancements:

• Dynamic Resizing of UI Elements: Initiated overhaul of app's UI to dynamically scale size of elements, dashboards, and pop-ups based on user's computer's level of zoom and browser's level of zoom. UI elements with dynamic resizing now include: 1) Left and top nav bars, 2) Sign-up and sign-in pages, 3) Home dashboard, and 4) Various pop-up elements.

April 15, 2024 - Simplified Account Creation - continued

Enhancements:

• Google Auth Sign-up: Further simplified the account creation process to enable users to sign up using their existing Google accounts.
• Google Auth Sign-in: Users who previously signed up using their Google accounts can also sign in with Google, as well.
• Published Latest Version App to Prod: Published latest version to www.app.mach-ai.com.

April 15, 2024 - Simplified Account Creation

Enhancements:

• Instant Sign-up: New sign-up process allows new users to sign-up for Mach-AI with an email and password combination without leaving the sign-up page. This replaces the previous sign-up flow in which the user would sign-up using an email, to which a temporary password is issued. The new sign-up flow eliminates the extra steps. Sign-up is improved to just 2 seconds.

April 8, 2024 - Multi-tenant and Free Trial Access - continued

Enhancements:

• Speed Enhancement for Data Retrieval: Significantly improved load-times to retrieve data on projects in views such as projects portfolio, progress/risk assessment, program summary, etc.
• Speed Enhancement for UI: Significantly reduced improved load-times to retrieve data on individual projects when in the portfolio or Gantt chart views. Average load-time of projects have been reduced to 1 second vs. 4 seconds previously.
  
• Dashboards updates: Updated business dashboards and analytics to support multi-tenant access. Some features that require 3P business logic remain as premium features, but approximately 90% of commonly used features are now accessible to free trial users.
• Updated Business Logic to run locally on Client Machine: Migrated majority of business logic to run locally on client-side browser. Usage of 3rd party business logic and API calls are reduced.

April 1, 2024 - Multi-tenant and Free Trial Access

Enhancements:

• Multi-tenant Access: Initiated a series of updates across multiple fronts to enable multi-tenant access.
• Free Trial Access: Users can now sign-up for a free account on www.app.mach-ai.com without having to contact sales team. Accounts enable up to 4 users with an unlimited volume of projects and tasks.
• Multi-tenant Security: Updated Mach-AI's data privacy and security to support multi-tenant access. Client data is sequestered.