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Boston, MA - December 13, 2007 -  BrightWork, Inc. the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for Collaborative Project management and Enterprise Rollup Reporting, today announced its launch of a new online TrialZone that offers users the opportunity to go hands-on in a live environment with its solutions on SharePoint 2007.  The new TrialZone provides access to the pmPoint and Reporter applications and includes a detailed evaluation guide that provides a roadmap to find and experience the features of these solutions. 
Access to the TrialZone is free and available by visiting the BrightWork website: www.brightwork.com

About BrightWork:

BrightWork is the leading provider of innovative SharePoint applications for collaborative project management and enterprise rollup reporting. Leading companies and government organizations around the world rely on BrightWork solutions to help them better manage their work, projects, and processes including FedEx, Microsoft, Tetley Teas, Skanska and University of Chicago.  For more information, please visit www.brightwork.com.

Press Contact:
Claire Keane
ckeane@brightwork.com

BrightWork is delighted to announce new releases of our two flagship products, BrightWork pmPoint and BrightWork Reporter.

BrightWork pmPoint 2007 Version 5 Release Announcement

BrightWork pmPoint  v5.0 is in the final stages of system testing and is set for release on the week ending the 9th November. The response to date from Beta Testers has been very positive.

This release includes major functionality such as:

Project Schedule List

The Project Schedule list allows you to quickly and easily create a hierarchical (phases, milestones, iterations, summary tasks and project tasks) work breakdown structure that allows values (% Complete, Late flag, Planned and Actual Durations, Costs and Dates) to be propagated, aggregated and auto-calculated up the hierarchy as the project progresses.  The new instance of the list can be populated by importing a Microsoft Project file or using the supplied datasheet views in a pmPoint template.

The list includes integration with a Project Calendar for exceptions days (e.g. public holidays). Tailored views include standard views with indenting and bolded titles to aid with visualizing the project hierarchy, datasheet views for rapid updating and Gantt views for understanding timelines.

BrightWork Reporter Updates

All the below BrightWork Reporter updates also apply to BrightWork pmPoint. BrightWork Reporter updates that apply to pmPoint only include:

• Project List Join
  BrightWork Reporter can now merge columns from the Project Statement with lists belonging to the project web that the Project Statement also belongs to.
  The advantages of this include:
  • Being able to group and sort list items by columns (e.g. Project Manager, Project Type etc) in the Project Statement
  • Being able to display columns from the Project Statement alongside columns from another list
• Gantt Report Time Scales
  The ability to configure the time scales used in Gantt Reports
• Additional Reports for the Project Schedule list

BrightWork Reporter Updates

BrightWork Reporter v5.0 is in the final stages of system testing and is set for release on the week ending the 9th November. All BrightWork Reporter updates also apply to BrightWork pmPoint.

This release includes major functionality such as:

• Column Aggregation
  BrightWork Reporter now had the same totaling functionality as a standard SharePoint view. This allows you to perform a calculation on a column of data and return a result (e.g. Count, Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum, Standard Deviation and Variance) which is displayed in the report.
• Mouseover messages for icons in reports
  BrightWork Reporter now displays mouseover messages on all the icons (e.g. Status, Priority etc) displayed in reports.
• List Name and Web Name captions
  Previously, the column heading captions for List Name and Web Name were hard coded. It is now possible to specify a caption for display in the report.
• Emailed Reports Sent From Logged in User Account
  Reports that are emailed are now sent from the address of the logged-in user.

Sheppard Mullin, an AmLaw 100 firm with a global client base,  choose BrightWork pmPoint to manage their IT projects and implement the Microsoft Solutions Framework.

Problem

Sheppard Mullin is an AmLaw 100 firm with approximately 480 attorneys located worldwide delivering prompt, high-quality and cost-effective legal services. Sheppard Mullin needed a solution to bring their IT Projects and initiatives to a collaborative audience. They required a process to gather all project information under a single solution where it could be managed according to a standard, repeatable project management discipline across the entire portfolio of projects.

Solution

Sheppard Mullin chose BrightWork pmPoint because it provided them with a straightforward and cost-effective solution to meet their IT Project requirements. The SharePoint-based solution enabled collaboration between the Project Managers and the project teams and also fit inside their existing technology infrastructure. In addition, pmPoint also enabled them to rapidly deploy a standard project management Methodology (Microsoft Solutions Framework) across the firm, allowing all project information to be centralized, resulting in greater structure, visibility and achievement.

BrightWork are delighted to announce the latest release of our SharePoint based Project Management templates.  There are five templates for managing single projects and three templates for managing across multiple projects.  The templates are described in general here.

The templates allow BrightWork to give our customers:

1. New functionality without having to upgrade pmPoint
2. Great examples of how to manage one or more projects with SharePoint and BrightWork
3. Templates that can be used as starting points, saving lots of development thinking and effort

Highlights of this release include:

• Agile template got a major revision
• All templates were upgraded with new features, including:
  • Resource Management, including Out of Office report
  • More flexible and stable report navigation
• New Commitment Manager template with Outlook integration in the Tasks list

Receiving these templates for free is one of the benefits of a support contract with BrightWork!  The TrialZone demo site has also been updated with these templates – so groups who are not yet BrightWork customers can see same.  TrialZone can be accessed from this page http://www.brightwork.com/pmpoint/evaluate.htm

Matt Light and Dan Stang are the two analysts at Gartner responsible for producing the magic quadrant (and other notable research pieces) in the market niche that is Project and Portfolio Management. Matt and Dan delivered the most recent version of the MQ on June 15th. Two items from this report worth highlighting are that Microsoft Project has earned a spot in the much coveted Leaders quarter on the quadrant and that BrightWork was cited in the report. The report can be downloaded from here.

BrightWork has been invited by Microsoft to present at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Denver in July on the topic of SharePoint 2007.  The first presentation is titled "Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services: Revealing Untapped Opportunities to Grow Your Revenues".  It explains to Microsoft Infrastructure partners how a new business line can be opened in the area of collaboration using SharePoint as the door opener.  The second session is titled "Partner Opportunities in Information Worker Solutions Customer Campaigns".  This second session explains to partners how to co-market SharePoint solutions with Microsoft.  In both presentations BrightWork spoke about experiences with marketing project management templates and solutions on SharePoint.  A subset of the sessions at WPC 2007 will be recorded and both of these sessions that BrightWork were involved in were selected to be recorded. The session titles are labeled NI004 and IW006 respectively and can be downloaded from CommNet for registered attendees of the conference (https://www1.wpc07commnet.com/)

BrightWork are today delighted to announce the publication of evaluation guides for BrightWork pmPoint and BrightWork Reporter for SharePoint 2007.

These evaluation guides act as an excellent introduction to both products. The guides walk you through our TrialZone evaluation sites (one per product).

The guides, and information on accessing TrialZone, can be found at:

• BrightWork pmPoint
• BrightWork Reporter

Today, BrightWork is pleased to announce the release of its product line of innovative solutions for SharePoint 2007 - pmPoint, and Reporter. The products are available for immediate purchase and download.

"BrightWork provides their customers with an evolutionary path for project management execution. Providing tools for project management based on how they work today and evolving to where they want to be."

Gary Dickinson, Senior Marketing Manager - Microsoft.

Rev Up Your Work and Project Management

Our new solution for project, portfolio, and process management on SharePoint 2007, now called BrightWork pmPoint, takes advantage of many enhancements to SharePoint 2007 as well as adding other unique functionality such as Gantt charts. An upgrade tool and white paper are also available to assist migrations from previous versions of BrightWork.

BrightWork Reporter continues as the leading reporting application for SharePoint. It includes integration with many new SharePoint 2007 features such as content sources, site columns, multi-value lookup fields, and list sub-folders. In addition, with a new capability to dynamically link project data from BrightWork into Excel, you can create more advanced analysis using pivot tables and charts in Excel.

BrightWork is pleased to announce its selection by Microsoft to participate in a specialized ISV Partner Profile. BrightWork was nominated for this distinction as a result of considerable experience in, and ongoing commitment to, developing high quality project management solutions on Microsoft’s collaboration platform.

Originally a Lotus Notes Premium Partner, in 1998, BrightWork became a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Since then, BrightWork has had a very close relationship with Microsoft, in the process developing project management solutions on every version of Microsoft SharePoint.

“BrightWork is privileged to have been chosen by Microsoft to participate in an ISV Partner Profile” said Eamonn McGuinness, CEO of BrightWork. “We welcome this recognition of our efforts in providing innovative project management solutions on the SharePoint platform and are confident that BrightWork for SharePoint 2007 will continue that trend.”
 
Click here to view the complete Microsoft ISV Partner Profile of BrightWork.

BrightWork, the leading global provider of standards-based solutions for managing work and projects on the Microsoft SharePoint platform today announced that BrightWork Beta 2 for SharePoint 2007 will be released in February. As well as incorporating all the functionality currently available in Beta 1, BrightWork Beta 2 will present a number of new features including:

• New standalone version of BrightWork Reporter for SharePoint 2007
• Addition of the BrightWork Gantt Chart
• New 'My Alerts' web part for SharePoint 2007

Additionally, BrightWork Beta 2 for SharePoint 2007 can be deployed locally on top of existing SharePoint 2007 installations, enabling BrightWork Beta users to evaluate in their own environment. All BrightWork Beta Program participants are eligible to download and deploy BrightWork Beta 2 and will be immediately notified upon its release.

If you are interested in participating in the BrightWork 2007 Beta Program or need more information on BrightWork for SharePoint 2007, please email 2007betaprogram@brightwork.com.

Already a BrightWork Beta Program participant?

• Visit the New 2007 Beta Program user forum
• Sign up for a BrightWork 2007 Beta Program advanced training webcast

BrightWork, the leading global provider of standards-based solutions for managing work and projects on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, are pleased to announce the launch of the BrightWork 2007 Beta Program.

All BrightWork Beta Program participants receive access to their own individual top level site collection, hosted by BrightWork, combined with access to a fully deployed sample site and technical support for the duration of the program. A locally installable version of the BrightWork beta for SharePoint 2007 will also be made available for download to all participants in early Q1 2007.

Check out how BrightWork & SharePoint 2007 can make a difference in your organization - join the BrightWork 2007 Beta Program today by emailing 2007betaprogram@brightwork.com