Microsoft Project is a project management software program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analyzing workloads.

Project creates budgets based on assignment work and resource rates. As resources are assigned to tasks and assignment work estimated, the program calculates the cost, equal to the work times the rate, which rolls up to the task level and then to any summary tasks and finally to the project level.

Projects adlib is an iPad app – the first of its kind – capable of opening Microsoft Project files in its native format.  The app has been updated numerous times since launch and now has the ability to read XML files from third-party project management tools compatible with Microsoft Project.

Projects adlib reproduces nearly all of Project’s views, including of course the most important one for every project manager, Gantt chart. For those who use MS Project, Task Usage and Resource Usage will be instantly recognizable, meaning there’s little, if any, learning curve.

The app’s interface resembles the desktop version of MS Project almost perfectly, again negating the need to completely re-learn features within Projects adlib.

In every view the user can pan, zoom in and out using standard iOS gestures, in many ways making it easier to use than MS Projects on a PC.

Projects adlib can open .mpp/.xml files from mail attachments or from file management apps like Dropbox or GoodReader, but what really sets it apart from competition is built-in file syncing. If a user saves the project to his Dropbox folder or to a shared folder on a company’s server (must support WebDAV), the changes are picked up by Projects adlib automatically, removing the need to email yourself or use another app.

What Projects adlib does, it does better than any other MS Project app for the iPad. It should be noted that the app is a reader only, no modification of the file content is possible.

That said, if you use MS Project, Projects adlib is a must-have tool for  your iPad.

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