PlanWin -- History

A powerful design with program staff in mind PlanWin was designed by a senior program staff member working in international relief and development. PlanWin was designed with program staff in mind. Programming for a PlanWin began in 2004 by Daniel Herr and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). By mid- 2005, a beta version was released. And in November 2005, Version 1.0 was released. This database was developed to provide structure for a new planning system that was being implemented at MCC. This project was a proactive response to the challenge that MCC was experiencing in managing and responding to an ever growing flow of information about their programs and to the increasingly insightful questions being asked by their key supporters. Phil Horst joined the project in 2005. He re-engineered the original release and built PlanWin 2.0 with a Tree Structure at its core. This made PlanWin easier to envision for the staff at the MCC. Today, PlanWin is at version 3.0. Major releases are made in response to the evolving needs of our clients, usually twice a year. Expanding to meet the unique needs of not-for-profit organizations In 2007, after a thorough review of their Strategic Planning process, The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) began a search for an application that could meet their emerging Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) needs. In that search they found PlanWin. Just before Christmas, 2007, a small team from AFSC visited the MCC for a full tour and a peek behind the scenes of PlanWin. They were impressed by the functionality and effectiveness of the software platform and even more impressed with the thought and care the MC had put into PlanWin's design. In the spring of 2008 the Phil Horst formed Integral Design Software, LLC and purchased the rights of PlanWin from, and with the blessings of, MCC. Soon after that, AFSC purchased a license from Integral Design Software, LLC. AFSC is currently in the process of implementing PlanWin for their international and domestic programs. In the process of developing PlanWin and then adapting it for other organizations, Integral Design Software, LLC has learned that each organization’s culture and language are unique and strongly held. Although these organizations feel akin and do similar work, some terminology and concepts overlap, but not completely. PlanWin provides the adaptability needed to meet these concerns by the addition of a Tree Structure and generalizing the product to make it adaptable for any organization. The beauty of Replication, the power of Reporting A milestone in the evolution of PlanWin was the introduction of 2-way Replication. Replication allows PlanWin users to maintain their own local copy of PlanWin and work on it wherever they are, with or without Internet Connection. The next time they Replicate, their recent work is synchronized with the Central PlanWin database and the entire organization is brought up to date. PlanWin also includes a powerful reporting tool, which is integrated with the PlanWin database so that reports are generated dynamically. The process is modular; you create or select a Report Filter, select the appropriate Report Template, and generate the Report. Reports are customizable to meet your various reporting needs. With the additions of 2-way Replication, Report definitions stored internally in the database, and the program being configurable to accommodate our customers’ specifications, the PlanWin design has become a powerful tool to manage any organization’s information effectively.

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PlanWin Success The Tree Structure provides flexibility to help you decide what makes sense for your organization.

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