Pathways V6

The newest version of Pathways is here, released in May, 2023!

20 Year Anniversary of Pathways!

Pathways V1 was first released in 2002. Over the years, many wishes for additional features have been granted! Now Pathways V6 is the most comprehensive suite of FREE planning tools ever. Moreover, it has some unique features that you absolutely cannot BUY anywhere.

What's new

New scoring method for rational decision-making that optimizes the happiness of all plan participants, based on motivational fulfilment. This facilitates cooperation and is part of an ethical decision-making methodology.
New features for academic planning: Track credits and learning achieved from completing courses; identify pre-requisites and verify that they are met. (This feature can be used for managing any kind of eligibility or worthiness requirement--not just in school.)
New search feature, to make it easier to find transactions or scheduled activities in a large plan.
The Person and address book is enhanced with genealogy tracking: keep track not only of who lives with whom, but who is related to whom, and how. Navigate a genealogy tree.
Improvements to the report viewer, enabling you to enlarge text (useful if you have a small screen set to a high resolution).
Improved ability to import financial transactions from online banking.
New Wizards for creating plans from templates (and for planning professionals: the product enables them to create their own wizards).

Ease of use

Any product with many features suffers from one challenge: complexity. Learning how to do everything you can do with Pathways could be daunting. In fact, that is the biggest complaint that users have presented to me over the years! But with Pathways V6, it's easier than ever to get going with it:

Do you want to make a plan without figuring out how? Just select the New Plan Wizard in Pathways or choose "new" from the file menu, and select a template. The most popular of these is the home budget. It will ask a few questions and create a plan for you.
Do you want to "stick to the basics" at first? Use Beginner Mode, that hides all the complex features. In Pathways, choose Beginner Mode from the Options menu, or use the icon at the lower-right corner of the window to toggle between Beginner and Advanced modes.
Many components of the product function as stand-alone entities. You don't have to make a Pathways plan at all if you simply want to use the person-and-address book, track genealogy, calculate NPV with the financial calculator, get an "idea for the day," or use the handy filer.
A set of how-to videos is being produced, which will be expanded over time. Look on the tutorial videos web page.
There is a step-by-step getting started tutorial included with the product.
No matter what window you are on within the Pathways toolset, there is a help page for that window! Click the Help icon, choose Help from the menu, or press F1, and you will the help for that screen. It's integrated with a complete manual that covers all features.
Every field on every window contains tool-tip-help. Just hover the mouse over any text-box, button, or drop-down list, and you will see it.

What Pathways V6 doesn't have is a redesign of the user interface. If you are familiar with it already, you won't have to guess where to find things. There's just more items to choose from! After 20 years, it's a bit dated, but on the other hand, it's pretty easy to guess where to look for menu items (very standard placement for opening files, printing, help, etc.). Because I am earning absolutely nothing for this product, I can't afford to revamp everything just to stay in style, so please accept that limitation.

Beyond Basic Planning

Pathways was originally designed to support a rational decision-making methodology, and the new version does so in a more comprehensive way than any previous release. All of these features become available when you switch into Advanced Mode. When you plan the "outcomes" to be achieved, you can rate how each outcome impacts the happiness of those involved. Happiness is broken down into various success factors or "motivators," and with Pathways V6 you can score the results in a very explicit and precise way.

The assumption is that when you develop a plan for a group of people, you are adopting an "all-for-one and one-for-all" philosophy, in which you wish to optimize satisfaction. Moreover, the group further undertakes to protect the rights of those outside the group, as well as those within it. They commit to meet their responsibilities to the outside world, and to use their surplus resources to help make the world a better place.

Pathways V6 has more detailed and specific ways of rating satisfaction that previous editions, as well as new reports. It supports a more complex model, where each person can set values of what's important to him (or her). And it includes a new "group estimate" report that calculates the expected happiness of a group for any proposed course of action. In short, it is the best tool yet to support rational decision making.

My hope is that people will try out Pathways for simple things at first, such as home budgeting, or managing their schedule. Those things by themselves are reason enough to get Pathways. Furthermore, it offers the potential to go beyond that to more professional kinds of planning, such as project management, or financial management of a small organization such as a local charity. And if people use the product to its full capability, that means that they will be thinking of how their decisions affect other people. That is essential if people wish to "cast their vote" to make the world a better place.

- Arthur de Leyssac (author of Pathways)

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