High-value support during every phase of construction

AASHTOWare Project™ 5.01 Release

February 27, 2024

A lot of work and planning goes into each new AASHTOWare Project™ release. The PTF carefully selects enhancements. The Product Owners and Agile Enhancement Team members carefully prioritize the new features to develop and deliver, the Infotech team develops, tests, and documents the new functionality, and we release every six months. If you think that is a fast pace, it pales in comparison to the rapid pace of the technology upgrade, maintenance, and warranty work that goes on behind the scenes. The team carefully weighs the priority of each TMR against its urgency to determine which release to put it into. Critical patch TMRs are added to the next full release up to the “code lock” date just before the final release testing – just weeks before the release. So if we include a list of TMRs in this news article then there is a good chance it will be out of date. A much better approach is to check out the aashtowareproject.org website! Just a few clicks after logging on and you’ll find a searchable and sortable list of all of the release’s TMRs, and each TMR has a wealth of information.

On release day, we will showcase an on-demand AASHTOWare Project 5.01 Release Webinar. Watch out for an email that will deliver the on-demand webinar in your inbox or view the webinar on the aashtowareproject.org website home page. To ensure you receive email marketing communications, check “General Announcements” in your aashtowareproject.org profile as a topic of interest and follow us on LinkedIn (AASHTOWare®). If you are reading this after the 5.01 release, you can find a recording on the Project Videos page in the Recent Webinars section.

There are a total of 17 enhancements and 7 tech upgrades in this release, with an additional 119 resolved bug-fix TMRs. The collaborative development of enhancement to AASHTOWare Project also includes the recognition of agencies that either independently or jointly funded TMRs for release.  Please join AASHTO, the PTF, and Infotech in thanking the agencies that helped fund the TMRs in this release. They are the New York State Department of Transportation, the Michigan Department of Transportation, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the Ohio Department of Transportation, and the Texas Department of Transportation.

Here’s a quick recap of the enhancements in AASHTOWare Project 5.01.

  • If you don’t have an aashtowareproject.org login then click the “Register” button in the upper-right corner. Your End User Designee will need to approve your request, so if you don’t hear back within a few days you should reach out to them. Not sure who your End User Designee is? Feel free to contact webmaster@aashtowareproject.org to learn who your contact is.
  • Once logged in, go to Support then Releases. You will want to remember this page because this is where you can find information on upcoming patches and releases. The quickest way to find the 5.01 release is to simply type “5.01” in the search box. Once you click to open the 5.01 release you’ll see the details, including the 3/22/2024 Release Date. Then click the “Resolves TMRs” tab to see ALL of the TMRs in this release. There you can search for keywords (e.g., agency view), sort by Request Type to quickly scan the Enhancements, or even Export to CSV to really dig into the data. Once you find and open a TMR you’re interested in, you can see a plethora of information including Linked TMRs, a Summary of Changes (under Release Info), and for Enhancements TMRs the Agile Product Owner and Business Stakeholders. All Enhancement TMRs include a recorded demonstration, and you can find a link to the recording in the TMR comments (at the bottom). Or, if you want to see all of the TMR videos together, navigate to Resources, then Videos, then Project Videos, then expand Current Releases.
  • Another way to search for TMRs, whether they’re in a release or not, is on the Support / Ticketed Modification Requests (TMR) page. There you can filter by Product (e.g., Construction & Materials), Functional Area (e.g., Daily Work Report), and more.

By: Charlie Groshens, Project Data Management Section Director / Engineering Services Division / Minnesota Department of Transportation and Russ Barron, ‌Director, Infotech AASHTOWare Products / Program & Project Management Department