NEW SOFTWARE AUTOMATES PROJECT PLANNING, BUDGETING & FORECASTING IN PROJECT BASED ORGANIZATIONS.

Deltek Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: DLTK), has announced the general release of Deltek Project Planner for project-specific planning, budgeting and forecasting in project- oriented organizations.

Deltek Project Planner also integrates with Deltek Corporate Planner and with Deltek Costpoint, combining versatile macro-level and project specific planning and forecasting with feature-rich back office automation for dynamically planning an entire project business. These planning applications are powered by Adaytum Software's proprietary calculation engine under a strategic technology alliance with Deltek announced last year.

"Speed counts in today's highly competitive market for professional services," observes R. David Hofferberth, P.E., Research Director for The Aberdeen Group's Professional Services Automation (PSA) Service, "and an increasing number of companies are recognizing that their future and profitability depend on deploying the right software for out-planning and out- executing their rivals. By enhancing the ability to plan, budget and forecast at the project level, and by delivering accurate, timely and multidimensional data views, Deltek Project Planner is precisely the type of PSA application that project managers and senior executives can use to make the best use of their resources, reduce costs and increase revenues."

"Accelerated schedules and increased competition are definitely pressuring project managers to speed up the budgeting and forecasting process to stay on top," observes Deltek's Product Director for Planning and Budgeting Solutions, Rick Miller. "Deltek Project Planner helps organizations meet this challenge by quickly collecting the most current data at the project level, and then by consolidating the information into interactive staffing and performance reports that senior management can use in making more informed and effective decisions."

Deltek Project Planner clients provide project services across several vertical industries, including government contracting, research and development, engineering and design, as well as software development and testing, and systems integration. Current clients include: American Institutes for Research; The Brookings Institution; Concurrent Technologies Corporation; Planergy International Inc.; SCIREX Corporation; and Syracuse Research Corporation.

By replacing traditionally cumbersome, homegrown spreadsheets with simple and customizable templates, Deltek Project Planner makes it easier for project managers to create and modify project budgets and do forecasts of employees, hours and costs. Accurate project forecasting is essential for long term planning, and Deltek Project Planner helps ensure accurate forecasting by giving project managers the combination of hours and cost already spent with ability to staff their projects and forecast hours and costs through project completion.

To help companies meet the challenges of maximizing billable time, Deltek Project Planner combines forecasts from all project plans into a series of consolidated staffing reports by employee or generic labor categories. These reports give management the data essential for reviewing and adjusting employee utilization across a department, an office or an entire company.

Although an efficient staff, good coordination and quality work are all essential to the successful completion of a project, sustaining profitability across all projects is the fundamental objective. Deltek Project Planner helps track project profitability by summarizing individual project forecasts into consolidated reports for viewing anticipated performance trends, as well as profitability and potential downturns at all organizational levels. The application's other forward-looking capabilities include tools for doing forecasts based upon specific revenue methodologies, and "slicing and dicing" data for multi-dimensional views of information.