May 28, 2020

Collaboration between Nexvia & Bryntum

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Collaboration between Nexvia & Bryntum

For over 10 years our team has been developing construction project management software. To help our clients succeed, we built a range of tools so they can manage everything from their finances to their workflows to their communications. Our goal was to create one centralised platform for all their needs. 

This meant our software needed to include a built-in scheduling component. This would allow our clients to create workflows and manage their site crews from within our app. The tool needed to be customisable and enable them to perform essential project management functions such as adjust task relationships, manage task periods, update progress statuses, insert milestones, assign resources, and more.  

We knew our internal development team could write our own scheduling code from scratch. However, the hours of work required to do this – and do it really well – prevented us from going down this route. Instead, we decided to research other alternatives. We were looking for an existing solution that ticked all the boxes and could be integrated into our environment.  

That’s how we discovered Bryntum. Bryntum is a high performance scheduling UI component that can be easily added to any web app. Their mission is to provide powerful tools to help companies build web applications that deliver a great user experience.

Why did we choose Bryntum?

After looking at a number of options, Bryntum was the only product that fit our software’s exact technical and functional needs. Offering multiple themes, custom constraints and a customisable task editor, Bryntum gave us the flexibility we were looking for in a scheduler. The product’s adaptability meant its framework could be easily inserted into our own code-base and modified to suit our software’s existing functionality. This extendibility and customisation potential was incredibly important to us. 

Manage, track & create

We also knew the product would be a great match for our clients. With one-click they can instantly create visual gantt charts to monitor, track, and create whole schedules without ever leaving our app. Moreover, the program’s fast-scrolling and rescheduling performance means they can get their work done quickly and efficiently. This feature is particularly useful when considering the large data sets they often deal with.

Support & Connect

As well as having a great product offering, we also loved that Bryntum had a strong development team working behind the scenes to continually improve and upgrade their code. The Bryntum developers are very active on their company forums (including the CEO) and there are a large number of customisation samples available on their website (what they call the Kitchen Sink). These samples are extremely handy and set Bryntum apart from many of their competitors. For example, our development team recently had to find a way to import Microsoft Project files into our software’s “Project Schedule” (gantt chart) after receiving several client requests. As Bryntum already had similar examples available on their website it saved our developers a great deal of time and headache. The extensive documentation available for all their products also makes it easy for our developers to get fast answers if they’re ever stuck. 

Easy customisation

Another aspect that’s been well-received by our clients is the printing feature which is built into Bryntum’s gantt chart. Not only was this incredibly easy to implement, it also enabled our clients to customise the header – a feature that was much sought-after. Our developers were able to simply pass through a HTML template and Bryntum’s built-in functionality handled the rest. 

The snippet for implementing the printing function was as simple as this:

<pre><code> onPrint : function () {

        var gantt = this.getGantt();

        gantt.print();

    } <pre><code>

In addition, the snippet below shows how easy it was to pass the header template in when defining the settings for the printing function, where the variable “headerTpl” is just a string of HTML pulled from the server:

 <pre><code> {

            ptype: ‘gantt_printable’,

            headerTpl: headerTpl,

            exportDialogConfig : {

                showDPIField         : true,

                showColumnPicker     : true,

                showResizePicker     : false,

                dateRangeRestriction : false,

                stateful             : true,

                stateId              : ‘gntprint’

            }

        } <pre><code>

Long-term partnership

All in all we have been, and continue to be, very happy with our partnership with Bryntum. The product truly ticks all the boxes for us: it looks good, performs well, is highly responsive and works effectively on both mobile and tablet devices. Together with the great service we’ve received, we’re confident the Bryntum team will continue delivering reliable easy-to-use solutions for us and many others for years to come.

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