You are a project manager and must provide updates to key stakeholders and team members on budgets and project margin percentages. The Project Performance Dashboard enables you to view and assess the health of your projects at a glance.
In this demonstration, you will see how to analyze the information on the Project Performance Dashboard.
Steps:
Using the Project Performance Dashboard you can view information such as missing timecards, unprocessed transactions, outdated KPIs, and transactions which failed due to errors. To access your project information easily, you can make the Project Performance Dashboard your homepage.
By default, the dashboard displays six regions that enable you to view the financial results of your project.
Step 1The Scheduled Processes region or the Process Monitor is added to the dashboard using the Personalization menu options, and helps you monitor the results of processes you have run from the dashboard.
Step 2The Project List region lists all the projects you are assigned to manage. The project list displays the project name, number, overall project health status, indicates if recent data updates are available, displays the percentage of completed work, important dates, and related contracts.
Step 3You first look at the Current Status and compare it with the Prior Quarter status.
InFusion Constructions does not show a status indicator for the prior quarter. This means that project data for the previous quarter has not been summarized.
Martin Pharmaceuticals does not show any status indicators, meaning that this project was never summarized. If you want to evaluate performance of a project, you must first run summarization and generate KPI values.
Step 4Green Bros. Electronics has status icons displayed for both the current and prior quarters. This means project data is summarized and KPI values are generated.
In this demonstration, you will analyze the information generated in the Green Bros. Electronics project.
Step 5The health of Green Bros. Electronics has been critical for the prior quarter and is currently also critical. This means that the key performance indicators (KPIs) in the project have deviated from the set thresholds. If KPIs have deviated, your project has exceeded the planned budgets because of unplanned expenses.
You use the information in the Project Performance Dashboard to find out why your project is in a critical status.
Step 6Before you drill down, you see that there are data updates available for this project. You must click on the Yes link to see the updates.
Click the Yes link.
Step 7The Data Updates dialog box shows transactions that have not been included in summarization. Thus, your dashboard data is not updated.
The information indicates that budget data and new cost transactions exist that are not reflected in the performance results displayed.
There are some missing timecards that your team members need to update. You also have unprocessed transactions that have to be reviewed and released from the Unprocessed Transactions page in Oracle Fusion Projects Costing.
Step 8After you have reviewed the information, click Done.
Step 9You can now do two things to ensure you have up-to-date information shown on the dashboard.
You can run the Update Project Performance Data process from the Actions menu, or, you can view the Important Dates dialog box and explicitly run updates for each type of data that is out-of-date.
Step 10You decide to run summarization explicitly for each type of data.
Click the Important Dates icon.
Step 11The Important Dates dialog box, shows you budgeting and forecasting dates, billing information, progress published dates, and performance reporting information for the project.
Step 12The Performance Reporting section indicates that your cost and budget data is out-of-date and also provides you with the option to update the data. Using the Update button you can run summarization explictly for each type of data that is not updated.
Step 13Your budget and forecast data was last updated on May 17. This means that you are seeing information on your dashboard as of May 17 and not the current date. You will now update your budget and forecast information.
Click Update at the end of the Budget and Forecast Data Last Updated line.
Step 14An Information dialog box notifies you that your process was submitted and displays the process request ID. Your Request ID is 73293.
Click OK.
Step 15Scroll down to the Scheduled Processes region to view the status of your request.
Step 16To view the status of your request, click the Refresh icon in the Scheduled Processes region.
Step 17The process is running.
Click the Refresh icon again.
Step 18The Update Project Performance Data process is successfully completed.
Step 19On viewing the Important Dates dialog box again, you see that the update button is inactive.
You must now run the update project performance data process for the Cost Data Last Updated since the cost data has changed.
Step 20After you have updated performance data, the Update button in the Key Performance Indicator Last Updated is active.
So that your KPIs have the most current data, you must generate KPI values by clicking the Update button. After you run generate KPI values, all the buttons are inactive indicating your dashboard is displaying the latest performance data.
Step 21The Project Comparison graphs enable you to view financial performance across multiple projects. The graph contents are based on your projects in your project list. You can view a high-level summary of where your projects need most attention.
The size of the bubble on the graph is proportional to the ITD budget cost and the color reflects the overall health of the project. Since the project is critical, the bubble is red.
Step 22Placing the mouse over the bubble in the graph gives you the project details, such as name, overall health, percentage of work complete, and the critical KPIs.
Place the mouse over the bubble.
Step 23You can also drill down to the Analyze KPI Categories page by clicking the bubble.
You can view the Analyze KPI Categories demonstration to learn how to use that page.
Step 24Scroll down to see an overview of the Green Bros. Electronics project.
Step 25The Project Overview region shows the reporting options used for generating the performance data you see.
Green Bros. Electronics uses the Project Ledger currency type, USD for currency, accounting calendar, and data for the reporting period as of May 2011.
Step 26The KPI watchlist displays KPIs that are in a critical status and KPIs that you have enabled to track on the watchlist.
If even a single KPI in a project is critical, your project status appears as critical. You need to analyze the data in the KPI to find out what is causing your project to be critical. To do further research on a particular KPI, click the Current Status icon in the KPI watchlist to view the Analyze KPIs page.
The Analyze KPIs page is covered in another demonstration.
Step 27The Overall Project Health Notes can be a valuable tool for recording important information and help you to identify and address the cause of the issues. Over time, the notes serve as a historical record of comments and actions about the project health. You can act on the problems causing your project financial data to deviate.
Step 28The Cost region shows you the actual costs and the budgeted and forecasted costs along with the original budget cost. This gives you an idea about how much you had planned and how much was actually spent in the project.
Step 29Scroll down to view the Financial Performance region.
Step 30You use the Financial Performance region to understand the budgeting and forecasting information in your project. You can access the budget and forecast page by clicking on the budget and forecast amounts in the table. This enables you to drill down to the budget and forecast page and view the source from which the budget or forecast was created.
Step 31In this demonstration, you saw how to analyze the information on the Project Performance Dashboard.