Product
What's New in Aphex: January 2024
Copy Tasks Between Projects, Advanced Printing, Show Clashes on the Map & Performance Improvements
February marks a breakthrough month for us! The star of today's update is undeniably the new Blockers feature.
It’s one thing to track why you didn’t hit the plan, but it’s even better to stop issues before they happen.
Use Blockers to keep on top of open or overdue RFIs & permits and shine the spotlight on tasks that need attention, before they spiral into delays.
Plus! The all new Tags feature makes categorising & organising tasks dead easy. And bonus - you can now choose to publish the plan silently, without flooding everyone with notifications.
Track and Resolve Blockers
Stay one step ahead and catch issues before they happen, with Blockers.
With customisable due dates & overdue alerts, you can make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Use the new Blockers Panel to keep track of everything in one spot, or turn on the new overlay to highlight overdue Blockers on the Gantt.
And heads up! If you haven't resolved your Blockers by the next Publish Target Date, you might find your name on the naughty list 😛
1. Blocker Categories
You can set up as many Blockers as your team may need. Create the Blocker Name, colour and choose a Blocker Category from the following list:
- Design
- Environmental
- Other Permit
- External Stakeholder
- Quality
- Resource
- N / A
2. Automatic Blocker Rules
To simplify and maintain consistency across your plan, Blockers introduces two new handy (optional) rules:
- Automatic Due Dates
- Automatically add to all New Tasks
Activate this toggle to ensure every new task created within the plan carries a specific Blocker.
Ideal for when a uniform check or item needs attention before any task kickstarts. Forget the hassle of your team manually assigning it—let our system take care of it automatically for you!
3. Blocker Permissions
We know that each team has their own unique dynamic - some teams prefer all users to create and manage their Blockers, while others will want to restrict this privilege to only Admin Users.
So say hello to Blocker Permissions — decide who holds the right to create and manage the list of Blockers; Admins Only, or Standard & Admins.
4. Allocate Blockers to Tasks
You can assign as many Blockers to a single task as needed. Stick with the auto-assigned due date, or set a custom one.
Easily allocate Blockers individually, or use our multi-select editors to add loads of Blockers to tasks in one go.
5. Blocker Status
In order to know what's outstanding vs upcoming, each Blocker will hold one of the following Statuses:
- Open
- Overdue
- Resolved
6. Track Blockers
Creating Blockers is one thing, but tracking their progress within the plan is just as important. So we're stoked to introduce loads of new ways to keep an eye on how Blockers are progressing:
Summarise Blockers: Hide Blocker names and focus solely on their status by activating Summarise Blockers on the Blockers Column or Board property. Ideal for teams with multiple Blockers per task to optimise Gantt space
Blockers Overlay: Switch on the Blockers Overlay for an instant visual of overdue Blockers next to the Task Bar on the Gantt
Blockers Panel: Access the new Blockers Panel to view, resolve, and export all Blockers within the plan—whether they're yours or project-wide.
7. Make Ready Issue Type
Plus, Overdue Blockers are now included in your Make Ready checks, and Publish Version Summaries - so if you don't complete your Blockers by the time of the next weekly update, you'll find yourself flagged as having outstanding issues!
Task Tags.
Tags allow your team to organise tasks into simple categories, without busting up the Project’s structure.
There are no rules - create and use Tags in any way that makes sense to your team.
Tasks can hold as many Tags as you need, and can be customised to your project’s unique workflow
There are no rules - create and use Tags in any way that makes sense to your team.
Tasks can hold as many Tags as you need, and can be customised to your project’s unique workflow
1. Tags
Create a unique set of Tags for your team to allocate to their Project. Once assigned, leverage the new Tags Filter to streamline your view, focusing only on the tasks that matter
And to take your organisation to the next level, you can colour code your tags to make the plan even easier to read & understand.
2. Permissions
Just like Blockers, Tags come with their own level of Permission controls. As a project, you have the flexibility to decide whether Tag creation is open to all Project Users or reserved exclusively for Admin Users.
Publish Without Notifications
Admins, we hear you! Not every update requires a team-wide notification.
Now, you have the control to publish your plan without firing an email around to everyone.
It's a small switch that packs a big punch - make sure your updates hit the right inboxes at the right moments.
1. Send Notification Toggle
When you go to create a Published Version, you can now toggle on and off the control to 'Send Notification'. Switching this off will create the Version as usual, but the team won't receive an email or in-app notification.
More Printing Improvements
Just when you thought that printing on Aphex couldn’t get any better, we have released more printing settings to customise the way you print.
1. Customise column data when printing the Map
Customise your Map printing by selecting any 3 columns of data to display - making sure you see the data that is important to you.
2. Change the bar colour
Swap between Owner, Subcontractor or Shift. Choose the Bar Colour to see when you print the live plan.
3. Toggle on and off the Footer
Want to free up some extra space in your PDFs? Give the footer the boot by using the Include Footer toggle - leave more room for the things you want to see.