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Audience
Executives, project managers and resource managers
Description
Designed for executive management, project managers and power users, this training walks you through how to run powerful portfolio and project reports and dashboards in Project Insight. Learn how to create, save and share your own customized reports and dashboards.
Benefits
- Know the usefulness of each report section
- Understand how to create, save and share your own customized reports
Key Points
Transcript
Run a Canned Project Report
The first topic in today’s sessions is running a default report.
You can run a report by clicking the Reports icon with one click from anywhere you are in the system.
When you do that, the reports form is displayed.
The reports form contains a number of different tabs that correspond to the different types of reports you are able to run.
Project Insight will remember whatever tab you were on last and return to that tab when you navigate to the reports.
Project and Portfolio Reports
Some of the most common types of reports you run are project reports.
Project reports let you view your entire portfolio at a summary or project level.
Other reports, such as a task report, let you view your projects in more detail.
To create a new project report, click on Create New Project Report.
Each report type has been setup with default options to make it easy for you.
You can create a report using the default options or you can change the options for this report.
For example, click the Run Report icon without changing any of the Display Options.
This gives you the default project report which is a list of all the active projects in the system.
From here, you may click on the Cross Project Gantt Chart to show the list of your active projects in a timeline view.
Click the back icon to return to the Display Options for this report.
Use Display Options to Create New Reports
You can use the Display Options layer to change the default information that is displayed.
Anyone that has access to Project Insight has the ability to change the Display Options on a report. You don’t need to be a system administrator or an IT person. You can change the display options to adapt the report to display the information you need.
Of course, you will only be able to run the reports and see the data that you have permissions to see.
Dates Option
On project reports as well as many of the other report types, the first option you can change is the dates.
The default for the project reports is All Dates, which means all projects will be listed regardless of the dates.
For the project report, the date range applies to the start and end dates of tasks within the project.
It does not apply to the Project Scheduled Start Date or Created Date.
The project report selects projects to print based on the start and end dates of the tasks within the project.
Click on the drop down in the Date Range Type.
You can see two other options, Dynamic Dates and Specific Dates.
Select Dynamic Dates to start with.
Utilize Dynamic Dates
Dynamic Dates means that you are selecting a predetermined or preconfigured date range.
Click on the Dynamic Date Range drop down, and you can see the list of dynamic date options.
The beauty of using dynamic dates is that if you save this report and run it later on, the date ranges for the report will change automatically based on the dynamic date range you entered.
For example, select the Current Month option.
If you save this report and run it today or in fact, run it anytime this month, it will select all projects that have at least one task in the range of October 1 to October 31st.
If you run this same saved report in November without changing anything, it will select all projects that have at least one task in the range of November 1 to November 30th because November would then be the current month.
With the Dynamic Dates option, Project Insight will change the dates automatically without you having to change them each time.
This reduces the time it takes you to create and run reports. You can create the report you want with dynamic dates, save it and then easily run it when you need to without having to change the information each time.
Specific Dates
You can also select specific dates instead of dynamic dates.
To do that, change the Date Range Type to Specific Dates.
Now instead of selecting a dynamic date range, you can enter a specific Start Date and a specific End Date.
Enter a Start Date of October 1st, by clicking on the calendar icon and selecting October 1st.
Enter an End Date of October 31st, by clicking on the calendar icon and selecting October 31st.
If you saved this report with these settings and ran it in October, it would be the same as running it with the Current Month Dynamic Date option.
However, if you ran it in November or any other month or year, it would also still run for the specific dates you set which were October 1 to October 31st.
That’s the difference between the dynamic dates and the specific dates. Dynamic dates change automatically whereas specific dates are hard-coded in and don’t change.
This is important to understand primarily when you save reports. If you save a report, you want to ensure that when that report is run in the future, it is displays the correct information.
If you are not saving this report, then just use whatever date option works best for the situation.
Report Date Filter Type
The other option that is available when you select a Specific or Dynamic Date Range is the Filter Type.
Click on the drop down list for the Filter Type to see the different options that are available.
There are four of them.
“Occurs In,” means that if any task on the project has a start date or an end date that occurs within the date range entered, the project will be selected. Note that it could be that either the start date or the end date of the task occurs within the range. It doesn’t have to be both. It only needs to be one or the other.
“Starts In,” means that if any task on the project has a start date that occurs within the date range entered, the project will be selected.
“Ends In,” means that if any task on the project has an end date that occurs within the date range entered, the project will be selected.
“Contained Within,” means that if any task on the project has both the start and end date occurring within the date range entered, the project will be selected. In other words, if the project has a task that both starts and ends within the date range, then select the project.
The most common type is the “Occurs In,” which means select the project to print if any of its tasks start or end within that date range.
For now, just set the Date Range type to All Dates.
Other Display Options
The other Display Options are grouped together under different sections.
To expand out a section to see the options available, click on the blue header bar.
To collapse a section, click on the blue header bar again.
There are a lot of different filters you can apply.
If you need more information on some of the options that we don’t cover in this session, click the Help icon while you’re on this layer. Or you may always click F1 for help on the specific page.
You can click on each section to expand it out and see more detail.
Close the Help by clicking on the X.
Project Status and Condition Filtering Options
For project reports, there is one option that is set by default.
To see that, click on the Project Status & Condition Filtering Options.
You can see that it’s set to Include Projects Marked Active.
If you run this report, without changing any of the Display Options, it will list only active projects.
If you want to change that, click on a project state to check or uncheck it.
Click the Project Status & Condition Filtering Options to collapse that section.
The system will remember what you set.
Click the Run Report icon to see the results.
Select New Columns or Remove Columns
This is the default columns of project data that display. You may always change the default columns to present the information you need.
To this, you can click the Display Options again.
Or you can right click on any white space and from the menu options, select Display Options.
Click the Column Selection Options to expand out that section.
There is a list of all the Available Columns that you can choose from and there is also the Selected Columns, which are the ones that are going to display on the report.
To get more information about a column, click on it and click on Show Tooltip For Selected Columns.
You’ll see additional information about the column is available. Click Ok to close the Tool Tip layer.
You can double click on a field to move it from the Available Columns to the Selected Columns.
For example, you may want to see the total actual hours that have been recorded for this project.
Double click on the Actual Hours field.
It moves it from the Available Columns to the Selected Columns.
You could also single click on a field and click the right arrow button to move it.
For example, you want the Actual Total, click on the Actual Total column and click the arrow button to move it over.
Double clicking on a column or single clicking on a column and clicking the right arrow accomplishes the same thing; Moving the field from one column to the other.
If you want to move the fields around on the display, select them and use the up and down arrow keys to move them around.
For example, to move the Actual Hours column, click on it and click the up arrow key to move it up by the Work Hours.
If you wanted to move multiple columns, you can do that.
Hold down the control button on your keyboard and columns you want to select.
In this case, click on Duration, then hold down the control button and also select Start Date and End Date.
Now click on the down arrow to move all three down after the Actual Total.
If you didn’t want these columns to display on the report, leave them all selected and click the left arrow.
This removes them from the Selected Columns and puts them back in the Available Columns.
There are two additional options here, the double arrow icons. These double arrow icons move all the fields, so be careful when using that.
Click on the Column Selection Options to collapse that section.
The system will remember the columns you selected.
Now click the Run Report icon to see the results of these changes.
You can now see on the display that you have Work Hours, Actual Hours and Actual Total columns.
To make the columns on your report wider or smaller, position the cursor in the blue header bar of the column and drag it bigger or smaller.
You can also see that you have totals for all the projects that are listed.
Group By and Sub Total Your Portfolio
In addition to selecting the columns you want to display, you can group the information and sub total it.
Right now you are seeing the total values for each project and then the entire portfolio totals.
You can group that information to also see sub totals by other criteria such as customer and project type.
Group By
To do that, click the Display Options icon.
Expand out the Portfolio Group By / Sub Total Options
The Type drop down controls how the information is displayed on the report.
Leave the Type set as Group By for now. You’ll see how the information displays with the Type set to that option.
In the Column drop down, select the Company Default column.
This will group the report by the default Company assigned to the Project.
Leave the Sort Direction as Ascending. You could set it to descending if required.
Click the plus sign icon.
This is important; you have to remember to click the plus sign to create the grouping.
You can tell you’ve done that, because the Company Default Grouping is listed.
Click the Run Report icon to see the results.
Using the Group By Type, shows all the data in a collapsed mode, organized by the Group you selected.
You grouped by company, so it shows all the companies that have active Projects.
Next to each company is the number of active projects that company has.
You can also see the total Work Hours, Actual Hours and the dollar value Actual Total for each company.
Sub totalling by Customer lets you see the financials associated with that customer. For example, you could change the columns to show profitability figures by customer. That way you could see who the most profitable customer is.
If you’re not doing projects for external customers, you may choose to group by project type instead or department instead.
Click on the triangle by the customer name to expand out that section and you can see the list of individual projects for the customer.
It is recommended that if you are using a column for a group, that you don’t show that column in the details line because you are replicating information. In this case, you are grouping by the Company so you don’t want the company in the detail section, because you already have it in the grouping section. If you chose to group by Type, then you would remove the Type from the Selected Columns because it will show in the column header.
Click on the triangle again to collapse a section.
That’s one way to group and display information.
Sub Total
To group and display the information in a different way, click the Display Options again.
Remove the current grouping by clicking the Remove Group icon,
Now click the Type drop down list.
You’ll see two other options, Sub Total and Both.
Remember, the Group By type showed the information in a collapsed mode with the grouping header at the top of the detail information.
Sub Totals shows the information in a reverse manner with the group totals at the bottom of the details. This option is often used for displaying numerical amounts, like actual totals, profitability and revenue.
To see what that looks like, click on Sub Total
In the Column, leave the Company Default so we still group by Company.
Click the plus sign icon.
Click the Run Report Icon to see how this option displays differently from the Group By option.
Instead of having just one summary line for each item in the group the details show by default with a sub total below.
There is no expand and collapse.
Everything is always just expanded with the sub totals as a different color background line you can easily see which is the sub total line.
Using Both Group By and Sub Total
You can actually have the report show with both a group header that can be collapsed and a group footer that shows the total.
To set that, click back on the Display Options.
If you click on the drop down for the Type, the last option is Both. If you choose that, then you will have both a summary line by customer that you can expand or collapse and if you expand it, then within that group, you will also see a total line.
You can experiment with that and see how it looks.
Multiple Group Bys
You are able to add multiple groupings. The first group you add will be the main grouping category. The second group you add will be a sub-group within the first one and so on.
So you need to know the order that you want to group in and add the main groups first.
You’ve already added the Company Default as a Group. Because it’s the first group added, it will be the main group.
Then within each company, you want to further group by project type.
For the Type, set to it to Sub Total.
In the Column, select Type.
Select the plus sign to add that grouping.
Click the Run Report icon.
You can see the report is now grouped by project type, then by customer.
Save Your Own Custom Reports
You can save reports so that you can quickly re-run them at any time.
This will save you time and ensure consistency of reporting.
To save a report, click the Save Report icon at the bottom of the report.
You need to enter the name of the report. Type that in.
Click Save.
You’ll receive a message that your report has been saved. Click Ok.
Once you have saved a report, it is easily accessible with one click from anywhere in the system.
To access your saved report, hover your cursor on the Reports menu option.
You’ll see a sub-menu option called Project Reports, hover on that.
You’ll see the name of the report you saved. Just click the name of the report to run it.
Sometimes it takes a few seconds for your saved report to appear, so we’ll come back to that and show you when that happens.
Any report that you save can be accessed this way. It will be stored in a sub-menu according to the type of report it is. They are listed in alphabetical order.
This one click access enables you to easily access the reports you save so you don’t have to click down into several sub-menus and wait for the screen to refresh each time.
Accessing the Report from My Reports
Saved reports can also be accessed through the Reports form.
Click on Reports.
The Project tab is open, because the system remembered that’s where you set it last.
Click on My Saved reports to expand out that section.
You’ll see the name of the report.
Click on the name of the report to run the report.
Share Saved Reports with Others
You can share reports that you create with other project managers, executives or team members.
They can also share reports with you.
To share this report with another resource, click the Save Report icon again.
In the drop down for the User, click the name of the User you want to share the report with.
If you just click Save, this report will be resaved with the same name, and now it’s also shared with that user and they can see it in their reports list.
If you didn’t want to write over the previous report, then click on the Save as New Report option.
This will leave the existing report as it is and create a new report.
If you do this, you should also change the name at the same time to avoid confusion.
Unclick the save as new report because you don’t want to do that right now.
You just want to leave it the same and share it with others.
Click Save.
The report is now available for that resource to run with one click from the Reports menu.
It’s important to know that even though the resource can run the report, they will still only see the information that they have permissions to see. For example, a team member in Project Insight does not have access to the budget columns, so those columns will simply not appear.
Accessing Reports Shared with You
If a report was created by another resource and shared with you, you will see it on the Reports pull down menu.
The list of reports above the line shows the report you saved.
The list of reports below the line are reports saved by others and shared with you.
Both sections will be listed in alphabetical order.
You can just click on the your saved reports or the shared reports to run them.
The shared reports are also listed on the Reports form. Click on the Reports icon to see them.
Click on the Shared Project Reports option to expand it out and see a list of the shared reports.
Click on the report name to run that report.
Managing Reports
Of course, you can delete or modify the reports that you saved.
In the My Saved reports section, hover on the name of the report that you saved.
You can see an edit icon and a delete icon.
These options are available because it’s a report that you saved.
However, if you hover over the report that was shared out by another resource, the edit and delete icons aren’t available.
You aren’t able to modify or delete a report that was shared by another resource. So it’s very safe to share reports with other resources.
If you want to make changes to a report that was shared by another resource, run the report and save it with a different report name.
Click on the name of the shared report to run it.
Click the Save Report icon.
You’ll see that the option to Save As A New Report is automatically checked and you can’t uncheck it. So even if you saved it now with the same name, it will create a brand new report that shows in your saved reports list, but the original report will still also be listed in the shared reports section. You haven’t modified that original one.
Click Cancel because you don’t want to save this report again.
Leverage the Dashboard to Show Your Favorite Reports
If you have a saved a report that you access often, you may want to display that report on your Dashboard.
Click on the My Insight icon to navigate to your Dashboard.
Hover on the Dashboard Options icon and hover on Reports.
You can see you can put up to four different reports on the dashboard.
A report needs to be saved before it’s accessible from the Dashboard.
Click on Report 1 to put a report section on the dashboard
You can now see that report component on your Dashboard.
Click on the Click Here to Select a Report link
The report Display Options layer opens.
In the Report drop down list, select the name of the saved report you want to display.
Click Save.
The report will now show on your dashboard. You can click on the report section header and drag and drop it to reposition it on your dashboard if you need to.
Create Graphical Reports
With Project Insight, you may create bar charts, pies, donuts, line graphs, and area charts. These may also be placed on your dashboard.
To start, you need to create that graph or chart.
Click on the Reports icon.
Click Create new Project Report.
Click on the Charting Display Options section to expand it out.
You are able to put up to four different charts or graphs on one report. For now you are just going to put one chart on the report.
Click on the drop down area to select the type of chart.
For some reports types, there are Predefined charts that you can choose from and you can also create your own Custom Chart.
You’ll see some of the pre-defined charts later, so for now select Custom Chart.
Click on the drop down in the Chart Type.
You can see that there are various types of charts available such as a line, area, donut or pie charts.
Choose Bar for this Chart.
You can choose to aggregative by various different fields
By default if you leave the aggregate by blank, it will automatically aggregate by project because we are running a project report.
You want to change this, so click in the drop down in the Aggregate By.
You can see the other various options available.
Click on Company Default because you want to see the data aggregated to a company level instead of an individual project level.
Then choose the columns that you want on the chart.
Click in the Chart Columns drop down to do that.
For this chart, you want three columns of data. The first being the Target Budget Billable or what we thought we were going to bill this client right at the start of this project.
You could scroll down to the Ts section to find the Target Budget Billable or you can start typing Target into the field and the choices will be narrowed down to those that have the word target in them.
Click on Target Billable Total to select it
There are some other options that you can leave as the default for now.
Click the plus sign to add that column to the chart.
Now, add a second column, erase the information that you typed in and type in A.
It’s now showing columns associated with actuals.
Click on Actual Total to select it
Click the plus sign to add that column to the chart.
The last column to select is Profit – Actual.
This time, click on the drop down list on the Chart Columns and scroll down to the Ps section and click on Profit – Actual.
Click the plus sign to add that column to the chart.
Click the Run Report icon.
You’ll see it’s aggregated or sectioned by company and then bar shows the Target Billable Total, the Actual Total and the Profit – Actual.
By being able to create some of the charts and graphs directly in Project Insight and being able to run them instantly with real time data, you’ll save time rather than having to manually gather information, put it in an Excel spreadsheet and then generate a graph from that.
Your executives will also have the information they want when they need it, instead of having to wait for a weekly or monthly report, delaying important decisions.
To put this chart on the Dashboard, you need to save it.
Click Save Report.
Enter a Report Name.
Make it as descriptive as possible such as Profitability Bar Chart by Company.
Click Save.
You’ll get a message telling you that the Report has been saved. Click Okay.
To add this chart to your Dashboard, click the My Insight icon.
Hover on the Dashboard Options icon and hover on Reports.
Click on Report 2 to put a report second section on the dashboard
Scroll down to the bottom of your Dashboard to see the new report section.
Click on the Click Here to Select a Report link
In the Report drop down, select the name of the bar chart you just created.
Click Save.
The report will now show on your dashboard. Again, you can click on the report section header and drag and drop it to reposition it on your dashboard if you need to.
Interpret Health Indicators
The last topic we have to cover is using and interpreting health indicators.
You have created your own custom reports and charts. Project Insight also has predefined charts and reports that you can run as well.
Click on the Reports icon.
Click on the Predefined Charts Reports – Active Projects section to expand it out.
You can see the different predefined charts that are available.
Click on the Predefined Charts Reports – Active Projects section to collapse that section.
Click on the General Project Reports section to expand it out.
Here is a list of predefined reports you can run.
Click on Project Dashboard (All Active State Projects) to run that report.
As you can see, there are health indicators displayed next to each project.
These indicators that let you know if your project is running behind schedule or are you spending too much time or are you spending too much money.
The software will know automatically if that is happening and will let you know with these indicators.
By looking at this report, you will know whether or not there are problems. This allows you to proactively identify and address problems before it’s too late.
If you are a project manager, you may want to create a custom report with these indicators on the projects you manage. Save that report and put it on your dashboard so it is always visible.
Other training sessions go into more detail about these indicators if you need more help on that.
And that’s all the agenda items for this session.