Project Tracking

 

Introduction	Project Overview
Project Financial Follow-up	Checking Project Status and Progress
Checking Tasks and Assignment Progress (Workload and Deadlines)	Checking Deliverable Status / Milestone Follow-up
Deadline Follow-up

 

Introduction

 

Depending on what a user’s role is on a project or in an organization, project progress can be tracked from various different points of view or needs, such as:

• Financial follow-up
  A project leader might need to check the financial status of a project at any given time. This is covered in the "Budget & Cost Tracking" chapter.
  
  Planned costs can be compared to actual and/or billable costs.
  
• Workload follow-up
  A project leader will need to track the actual work done on his/her project at any given time.
  The planned workload can be compared to the actual work performed on tasks/assignments.
  
• Deadline follow-up
  The progress of a project can be measured in terms of completed deliverables (milestones).
  The statuses of project deliverables are useful when tracking whether deadlines are being met and if the project is on schedule.
  
• Activity follow-up
  The project leaders can review and approve time spent on tasks belonging to their projects.
  The team lead needs to review and approve a resource's entire timesheet.
  
• Risk follow-up
  Project leaders have evaluated the potential risks to their projects and now need to track the progress of the actions undertaken to reduce the risks.
  
• General follow-up
  Project leaders look to pro-actively write monthly progress reports for their projects.

This chapter presents some examples of reports of how to track projects. Please note that more project tracking capabilities are available at the portfolio level.

There are many views and reports available to track your projects. Navigate to the Project tab, and click Progress status in the contextual navigation menu to have an overview of project tracking views.

Review monthly progress overviews using the Progress status --> Overview by month view and see high-level indicators about each project’s status.

You will see the current status for the Budget, Problems, Risks, and Issues, Delayed tasks and Deliverables. These indicators are computed monthly, and the system stores the history at the end of each month in order to have an easy visual understanding of the project trend over time. The current month displays the current status. A background agent updates the indicators daily.

By clicking the Update Menu you can select the project and month you want to update or create the monthly indicators, called "Project overview".

By clicking one of the indicators in the view, the project overview opens. Many indicators and indexes are available for budget, workload as well as earned value analysis. Please refer to the help file to learn more about "Project overviews".

Many of the Project Tracking views are based on the "Project overviews".

Graphical displays of data are a nice way to get a quick glance at a project's status. A series of charts are available for each of the different views. Select a document in the view; the details of the selected document will be the parameters for the chart. For example, see the selected project below. Clicking on the "chart" icon in the menu bar and a pop-up window with a list of predefined charts will open. Select the one you would like to display.

All charts are predefined in the application setup. You can define and configure your own charts, as well as customize the existing ones.

 

Project Overview

 

There are many views and reports available to track project progress. A number of these views are based on data found in a key Geniusproject document titled, "Project Overview".

Project Overviews are setup to be generated automatically, however they can also be generated or updated manually, directly from the project description document or from the overviews view.

To learn how to generate a Project Overview from the Project Description document, see the chapter titled "Create Project – Project definition / Create Project Overview".

To manage project overviews from the view:

• Navigate to the Projects tab.
• Click Progress status in the contextual navigation menu and select Overview by month.

• All existing overviews will appear in the content window categorized by project name.
• To update an existing report, locate the desired project and period, and open the report in edit mode.

The "Project overviews" report project health using traffic light indicators, providing a quick visual into the monthly progress of a project at the labor and financial level. The green traffic light indicates that everything is fine; orange indicates 'attention' might be needed and red displays problem areas.

The Overviews group data together on a monthly basis; the following documents are used to generate a project overview:

• Project description budget details
• Task
• Assignment
• Timesheet detail
• Deliverable
• Cost
• Progress report
• Risk
• Issue report

 

The Project Overview Header

 

 

 

The General Tab

 

 

Progress	Various indicators showing the project progress. Costs - Budget %: Actual cost (from the Tasks and Costs records) divided by the budgeted costs. Costs - Planned %: Actual cost divided by the planned cost (from the 'Task' and 'Cost' documents). Costs - EAC %: Actual cost divided by the total cost estimated at completion. Labor - Budget %: Actual work (i.e. the time spent since the beginning of the project) divided by the budgeted workload. Labor - Planned %: Actual work divided by the planned workload (from the 'Task' documents). Workload - Economic %: 100% - (the remaining work divided by the planned work). Labor- EAC %: Actual work divided by the total work estimated at completion. For example, if the budgeted workload is 15 days, the planned work is 16 days, the actual work is 10 days, the remaining work is 8 days, and so the re-estimated work is 18 days: Labor - Budget %: 66.6% Labor - Planned %: 62.5% Labor - EAC %: 55.5%
Current Status	The cost value comes from the Budget section of the Project description, the 'Tasks' records and the 'Cost' documents. The currency is the reference currency as defined in the General setup document. Green: Good. By default, the actual costs are still within the budget. Yellow: Medium. By default, the actual costs are over budget but not by more than 120% of the budget. Red: Bad. By default, the actual costs are over budget by more than 120%. The default thresholds can be changed in the 'General' setup document. The Labor values come from the 'Task' and 'Timesheet details' records. The unit is the workload unit as defined in the 'General' setup document, i.e. hours or days Green: Good. By default, the actual workload is still within budget. Yellow: Medium. By default, the actual workload is over budget but not by more than  120% of the budget. Red: Bad. By default, the actual workload is over budget by more than 120%. The default thresholds can be changed in the 'General' setup document.
Last project progress report	Displays the date of the last progress report; if a project’s Progress report document does not yet exist for the calculated period or for previous periods, then it is indicated with the icon and the period 0-0 is displayed. The following indicators are related to the ‘Unsolved problems' and the 'Solved problems' fields in the 'Progress report' document. Green: Good. This icon is displayed if no problems have been found. i.e. If the 'Found problems' field is set to 'No' in the last 'Progress report' document. Yellow: Medium. This icon indicates that problems are resolved. i.e. If the 'Found problems' and 'Solved problems' fields are both set to "Yes" in the last 'Progress report' document. Red: Bad. One or several problems are described without any solution. i.e. The 'Found problems' is set to "Yes" and the 'Solved problems' field is set to 'No' in the last 'Progress report' document.
Risks (Maximal severity)	Displays the maximal severity among the risks defined for the project. If no Risk document is available for the project then it is indicated with the icon and the number 0 is displayed. The icon displayed to the left of the severity depends on the place of the risks in the matrix: White:         No risk defined. Green: All defined risks are in the green part of the matrix. Yellow: All defined risks are at the most in the orange part of the matrix. Red: There is at least one risk in the red part of the matrix.
Open issue reports	Displays the number of Issue report documents that are still open. Green: Good. By default, no reported issues remain open, i.e. the 'Issue report' all have a completed status. Yellow: Medium. By default, at most three issues remain open. Red: Bad. More than three open issues remaining. i.e. the 'Issue report' documents still have a status of ‘open’. The default thresholds can be changed in the 'General' setup document.
Delayed tasks	Displays the percentage of delayed tasks in the project. Green: Good. By default, less than 10% of delayed tasks. Yellow: Medium. By default, less than 20% of delayed tasks. Red: Bad. By default, more than 20% of delayed tasks. The default thresholds can be changed in the 'General' setup document.
Delayed deliverables	Displays the percentage of delayed deliverables in the project. Green: Good. By default, less than 10% of delayed deliverables. Yellow: Medium. By default, less than 20% of delayed deliverables. Red: Bad. By default, more than 20% of delayed deliverables.   The default thresholds can be changed in the 'General' setup document.

 

The Costs Tab

 

 

All of the calculations for the 'Period' columns are either done according to the timesheet lines (if any exist on the project), or in a differential way (in comparison to the previous period).

The calculation from the timesheet lines is always correct, whatever the calculation date of the overview, as the timesheet lines are identified by period (provided that all Timesheets records were filled in by the time they were due).

The differential way implies a calculation of overviews each day to ensure that the information is up-to-date (this can be done through the corresponding scheduled agent, as set by the administrator).

 

The Workload

 

All calculations done for the 'Period' columns are either done according to the timesheet lines (if any exist on the project), or in a differential way (in comparison to the previous period).

The calculation from the timesheet lines is always correct, whatever the calculation date of the overview, as the timesheet lines are identified by period (provided that all Timesheets records were filled in by the time they were due).

The differential way implies a calculation of overviews each day to ensure that the information is up-to-date (this can be done through the corresponding scheduled agent, as set by the administrator).

 

 

The Risk Tab

 

The risks matrix displays the number of risks that exist for each corresponding cell. If none exists, then nothing is displayed. The size and color areas of the matrix are defined in the Risks labels setup document.

Please note that the 'General' section also contains important information relevant to the 'Risk (maximum severity)' field.

Clicking on the number in a cell will automatically open the corresponding risks. If there is only one, it is opened directly. If there is more than one risk, an intermediary window opens allowing users to select which risk to open.

 

 

The Earned Value Tab

 

 

 

 

 

Project Financial Follow-up

 

See Budget & Cost Tracking.

 

Checking Project Status and Progress

 

A project Manager wants to know the status of his(her) project(s). Project managers want to have a clear view of project status, and deadlines?  Are they on time?  Budget?  Any risk or quality problems?  What is the project’s trend?

Geniusproject provides a long list of reports helping project managers track projects.

The main project list gives a clear snapshot of a project’s status, including Project Health, deadline, Priority, Progress, start and end dates.

To get more details about project status, go to the contextual navigation Progress Status or Dashboards and charts in the Project module.

 

Project Monthly Overview - A Clear View of the Project Status and Trend

 

The Project status/Overview by month view based on project overview records, shows project status and progress visual indicators month by month, allowing project managers to see the evolution of the different indicators over periods of time.

 

Project Progress per Phase 

 

This chart shows, actual, remaining, planned effort for each project phase.

 

Monthly Progress Reports

Despite Geniusproject various automatic indicators, a good project status report requires a project manager’s input.

The 'Progress report' is the document that allows the project leader to give a report on the progress of a project thus far. Beyond the automatic indicators found in the Project overview, these documents allow the Project leader to submit a personal assessment. This is also where he/she is going to give an account of encountered problems, as well as found solutions, if any.

 

The Progress Report Header

 

 

The General Tab

 

 

The KPI Tab

 

This section only appears if the option 'By month' is checked in the field, 'Metric capture mode' of the General setup of the 'Portfolio' database.

 

The Monthly Progress Report View

 

The view "Progress reports" shows a clear view of the project manager’s problems reports on a monthly basis.

 

Earned Value Tracking

 

Earned value management is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress. It has the ability to combine measurements of:  Scope, Schedule and Costs.

In a single integrated system, Earned Value Management is able to provide accurate forecasts of project performance problems, which is an important contribution for project management.

Earned Value Management (EVM) helps project managers to measure project performance. It is a systematic project management process used to find variances in projects based on the comparison of worked performed and work planned. EVM is used on the cost and schedule control and can be very useful in project forecasting. The project baseline is an essential component of EVM and serves as a reference point for all EVM related activities. EVM provides quantitative data for project decision making.

 

EVM Measures  

 

EVM consists of the following primary and derived data elements. Each data point value is based on the time or date an EVM measure is performed on the project.

Primary Data Points:

•Budget At Completion (BAC) - Total cost of the project.

•Budgeted Cost for Work Scheduled (BCWS) / Planned Value (PV) - The amount expressed in Money (or hours) of work to be performed as per the schedule plan.
PV = BAC * % of planned work.

•Budgeted Cost for Work Performed (BCWP) / Earned Value (EV) - The amount expressed in Money (or hours) on the actual worked performed.
EV = BAC * % of Actual work.

•Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) / Actual Cost (AC) - The sum of all costs (in Pounds) actually accrued for a task to date.

For example, say we should have completed $800 of work by today. However, we only completed $600 worth of work. The BCWP is $600. The BCWS is $800. And if we actually paid $700 then (ACWP) = $700

Derived Data Points - Cost Forecasting:

•Estimate At Completion (EAC) - The expected TOTAL cost required to finish completed work.
EAC

= BAC / CPI  = AC + ETC = AC + ((BAC - EV) / CPI) (typical case)
= AC + (BAC - EV) (atypical case)

Here atypical means it is assumed that similar variances will not occur in the future.

•Estimate to complete (ETC) -The expected cost required to finish all the REMAINING work.
ETC = EAC - AC = (BAC / CPI) - (EV/CPI) = (BAC - EV) / CPI

Derived Data Points - Variances:

•Cost Variances (CV) - How much under or over budget.
CV = EV-AC - NEGATIVE is over budget, POSITIVE is under budget.

•Schedule Variances (SV) - How much ahead or behind schedule.
SV = EV-PV - NEGATIVE is behind schedule, POSITIVE is ahead of schedule.

•Variance At Completion (VAC) - Variance of TOTAL cost of the work and expected cost.
VAC = BAC – EAC.

Performance Indices:

•Cost Performance Index.
CPI = EV / AC - Over (< 1) or under (> 1) budget.

•Schedule Performance Index.
SPI = EV / PV - Ahead (> 1) or behind (< 1) schedule.

The view "Progress status/Earned value" shows earned value indicators by month. This report is based on project’s overview records.

 

Checking Tasks and Assignment Progress (Workload and Deadlines)

 

A project leader will need to track the actual work done on his/her project at any given time. The planned workload can be compared to the actual work performed on tasks/assignments. Most of the tasks and assignments tracking reports are part of the contextual Tasks & Plan navigation menu  of the Projects module. Here are some examples.

To check a task’s workload status, use the report view on task displaying planned, actual, remaining, re-estimated at completion workload, as workload delta (the difference between planned and re-estimated).

To check a resource assignment’s progress check for instance the Assignments view of the contextual Task & Plans navigation menu (Task & Plans-->Assignments) of the Project module.

Project status reports also give an overview of task’s status. See below.

To check a project’s workload status on a monthly basis, use the report view on the project overview to display planned, actual, remaining, re-estimated at completion workload.

To check a resource’s workload status, use the report view on assignments displaying planned, actual, remaining, re-estimated at completion workload, as workload delta (the difference between planned and re-estimated).

Visit also the list of Geniusproject built-in reports for more reports on those topics. For instance, the Tasks by status report.

 

 

Checking Deliverable Status / Milestone Follow-up

 

Deliverables are one of the project leader’s best tools to check the project’s progress. They summarize the result of several tasks and give the project leader an immediate view of the project's status.

Deliverables can be created directly in the application or from a planning tool. See, "Tasks and plans principles" for more information about deliverables.

The basic life cycle of deliverables could be described as follows:

• The project leader must plan the deliverables, possibly link them together, and then follow them up.
• The deliverable responsible must ensure that the deliverables are completed within the planned date.
• The deliverable approvers must check that the deliverables correspond to what was expected. The project leader and deliverable approver can be one and the same.

This corresponds to the default workflow. The basic life cycle can be modified as needed through the workflow definition.

Several views and reports help you to track deliverable and millstone by status, for instance the Deliverables view, (Tasks & Plans --> Deliverables of the Project Module.

Or the Deliverables by status by projects chart.

 

To get an overview if a project’s deliverables delivery schedules are aligned with the plan on a monthly basis, use the report view on project overview.

 

Geniusproject provides a large set of reports to follow-up on deliverables and milestones. Check the Report module for a complete list of available pre-defined reports.

 

Deadline Follow-up

 

Are Projects on Time?

 

The main project list already delivers some key information. The Deadline icon indicators as well actual progress and start and dates, give a very good overview of project deadlines at a glance.

 

Project is on time.

Actual expected End date is after planned End date

Actual date is after Expected End date and / or planned End date

Opening a project description, a project manager can have much more information concerning project delays.

See the "Project description" record description above for more information.

 

Project Deadline Calculation

 

The project deadline, which appears in the project header is computed as described below.

General

The project deadline is only computed for active projects. No deadline is computed for stand-by, cancelled or postponed projects. Once a project is completed, the deadline is not computed anymore, so the state at the project’s completion is kept.

Two deadlines are calculated:

• One based on initial dates.
• The other based on planned dates.

A parameter in the setup allows indicating which one is displayed. In the project description, a tooltip shows which one is displayed when hovering the mouse over it. The parameter can be found in the first tab of the General setup document, Projects table. By default, the deadline based on the planned dates is displayed. The existing projects are not updated when migrating. But once they are updated, the modification of the parameter is applied at once. There is no need to synchronize the dates of the project once again.

The project deadline is updated when synchronizing the plan, or directly from within the project description, by clicking on the refresh icon in the "Plan" table.

Project not yet started

As long as an active project has no actual start date:

• if the initial / planned end date is in the past, the deadline is red,
• if the initial / planned start date is in the past, the deadline is orange,
• otherwise, it is green.

Project started

As soon as a project has an actual start date, the calculation is performed by comparing the initial / planned end date to the current end date (EAC date found in Genius Planner).

▪if the EAC end date is in the past, the deadline is red,

▪as long as the EAC end date is not in the past, and equals or is earlier than the initial / planned end date, the deadline is green,

▪When the EAC end date is after the initial/planned end date,

▪the initial/planned end date is in the past, the deadline is red,

▪otherwise, it is orange.

If it is impossible to calculate the deadline, because the project is not active, or dates are missing, then a white dot is displayed.

Modifications in the project description

The start date of the project is no longer displayed in the Plan table, but was moved to the "Description" table.

The "Plan" table now contains a planned start date, that can be locked or not. When the dates are locked, it is then also calculated from the data in Genius Planner.

This initial and EAC dates were added in the Plan table, but are not displayed by default. A link allows hiding them or displaying them again.

The dates of a new project are locked by default.

The EAC dates can never be unlocked.

 

Delayed Milestones (Deliverables) and Tasks

 

The progress of a project and its respective delays can be measured in terms of completed and delayed deliverables (milestones), as well completed and delayed tasks. The view on project overview provides good report of this.