6 Tracking Projects

This chapter covers status tracking and reporting options for project or program managers.

6.1 Status Tracking

Agile PPM enables project status tracking according to criteria set up within Agile Java Client Administrator. Health Status values are rolled up for all objects that are configured to report health status. To ensure health status values are rolled up, the Rollup Health Status attribute must be set to Yes in the object's General Info tab.

The following status elements are rolled upward:

Overall
Schedule
Cost
Resource
Quality

Parent objects derive their status from the status of their child objects. If any one child of a project object is Off Track, the parent project is set to Off Track. If the Quality Status of a child object is Below Quality, the parent object is also set to Below Quality. Health attributes are maintained in Java Client Administrator settings, and each value has an activation period or value.

6.1.1 Default Health Statuses

The following table shows default schedule, cost, resource, and quality health statuses.

Status	Values	What triggers change?
Overall	On Track (green), Needs Attention (yellow), Off Track (red)	Corresponds to the most negative setting of the four health statuses for any project. If any one of the other statuses is red, Overall status will be red.
Schedule	On Track (green), Needs Attention (yellow), Off Track (red)	Within the Java Client you can create a setting to trigger a health status change if there is schedule slippage of a certain number of days. The default setting for the Health Status to change from Not Started or On Track to Needs Attention is 1-5 days. If the task is overdue for more than 5 days, the status changes to Off Track. To learn how to configure these settings, see the Agile Administrator Guide.
Cost	On Budget (green), Off Budget (yellow), Over Budget (red)	Cost status is calculated based on the percentage of deviation from the original cost as set in the cost status node in Agile Administrator.
Resource	Staffed (green), Understaffed (yellow), Not Staffed (red)	Resource status is an editable field in the General Info tab of a project object which can be edited by a user with appropriate privileges, usually the project owner.
Quality	Meets (green), Below (yellow), Poor (red)	Quality status is an editable field in the General Info tab of a project object which can be edited by a user with appropriate privileges, usually the project owner.

6.1.2 How Status Roll-Up works

Several attributes are passed upward from child objects to parents, in a process called rolling up.

The attributes that are rolled up include:

Activity workflow status
Health statuses
Scheduled dates and scheduled duration
Actual start/end dates and actual duration
Estimated start/end dates and estimated duration
Days effort
Percent complete

The rolling up of values starts with leaf nodes (child objects that have no children) that are not either Complete or Canceled, and moves upward to parent objects. If any leaf node object is determined to be Off Track, the parent object is considered to be Off Track.

Parent object fields that reflect rolled-up status of child objects, such as Days Effort or Scheduled Dates, cannot be edited because it is automatically rolled up from lower levels in the hierarchy. Status can only be edited at the lowest levels (leaf nodes).

The only way you can change the status of a parent object at the project level is to cancel the project using the Actions > Change to Canceled menu command. Once canceled, a project can be reset to the Not Started state, using Actions > Change to Not Started.

6.1.3 Workflow Status

Agile Web Client uses a workflow stamp in the upper right of the General Info tab to indicate the workflow status of an activity. The Agile administrator defines the name of each status in each workflow.

The default project workflow statuses are:

Not Started
In Process
Complete
Canceled

Your company may have its own customized workflows and status stamps, as displayed in the Workflow tab. For further information see "Workflow Routings Tab."

If a user has the appropriate privileges, they can use the Change Status button to change an activity's status, promoting it to the next lifecycle state.

Important:

Since lifecycle status of parent objects is rolled up from lower levels, you can only use the Change Status button to change status on individual leaf node objects, or objects with no children. You cannot promote an activity whose Template field setting is Template or Proposed.

6.1.4 Rules for Parent Status

The following rules apply for parent object status change:

Parent object workflows are affected when any of the related child workflows start. For example, if one child activity is in the In Process state, then Parent status is In Process.
Parent object workflows are affected when all related child objects workflows complete. For example, if all activities are Complete, then parent status is Complete.
When custom workflows are used, the rollup is governed by the transition between the Status Type, not necessarily a change in the step. For example, a workflow with seven steps can roll up to a parent with three steps because each has only one transition between the "Pending" and "Review" type (Pending, Review, Complete, and Cancel are the Status Types).

Note:

It is not recommended to use multiple review states on parent tasks, as the review status on the parent is driven by the status of the child tasks.

For leaf-node objects, you can click the Change Status button to change the workflow status (provided you have the required role).

To change the workflow status of the parent activity, open a leaf-level child activity and click the Change Status button to change the workflow status of the leaf-level activity.

You cannot use the Change Status button to change the workflow status of an activity that has children (subordinate activities).

For more information about workflows, see Getting Started with Agile PLM and the Agile PLM Administrator Guide.

6.1.5 Cost Status

Agile PPM enables you to calculate four types of project costs as listed below. Each of these costs have Actual, Budgeted and Estimated categories. There are 12 cost fields in total; all appear on the General Info tab.

Labor Costs - Actual and Budgeted Labor costs are automatically calculated. Budgeted Labor Cost uses scheduled duration, % allocation, and the users' resource pool rate, and man hours (8 hours per day) to calculate labor cost per resource assignment. These are summed for multiple resources assigned to an activity.

If an activity has a resource assigned, and has lower-level objects with Labor costs, then it is summed at the parent level and not replaced. Budgeted and Actual Labor Costs are always calculated in this way. However, Estimated Labor Cost can be editable at all levels. If not edited, it is rolled up by default.

Capital Expenses - Can be both rolled up values and edited values, depending on whether the Agile administrator has enabled the Calculate/Roll-up flag on each cost field.
Fixed Costs - Works in the same way as Capital Expenses.
Flex Costs - These cost fields can be customized according to your business requirement in Administrator. For example, you could call it Setup Costs, and use it for calculation of project setup costs. Works in the same way as Capital Expenses and Fixed Costs.

While calculating labor costs, if a Resource is not assigned to a Resource Pool, the user's individual Labor Rate is used. The labor rate must be defined for the resource in the User Settings before you add the resource to a project.

6.1.6 How Total Cost is Determined

Total Cost fields that appear on the General Info tab are calculated values and cannot be edited. Total Cost is the sum of the four cost types: Labor Cost, Capital Expenses, Fixed Cost and Flex Cost.

For example, Total Actual Cost is the sum of:

Actual Labor Cost
Actual Capital Expenses
Actual Fixed Cost
Actual Flex Cost

In the same manner, Total Estimated Cost is the sum of Estimated Labor Cost, Estimated Capital Expenses, Estimated Fixed Cost, and Estimated Flex Cost. Total Budgeted Cost is the sum of Budgeted Labor Cost, Budgeted Capital Expenses, Budgeted Fixed Cost, and Budgeted Flex Cost.

By default, cost information for each field will be rolled up through the project structure such that cost at the summary or parent task is a summation of the cost values of its child objects. If cost (Budgeted Labor Cost and Actual Labor Cost) is incurred at the Summary task level, then the cost is the summation of costs at the summary task level and the child levels below the summary task.There are flags (not visible by default) that can be enabled to allow users to determine whether they want the parent/summary task's values to be calculated/rolled up or edited manually.

As you can see in the example below, if a cost is associated with the leaf node it gets added to the parent node. The total cost of the entire Program can be obtained in this manner.

Example 6-1 Program Cost Rollup

In this diagram, the cost for Phase 2 is $30, which is the sum of the costs for its leaf-level objects. You can also edit Cost at the parent node level for Phase 2.

6.1.7 Costs Included in Baselines

All Cost fields are part of the baseline. Ten Calculate flags are also baselined. Budgeted and Actual Labor costs do not have the calculate/roll-up flags as they are always calculated and rolled up. See also "Enabling the Calculate Attributes."

Use the Baseline Comparison Report in the Agile Standard Reports to compare these values.

6.2 Reports

Reports allow you to display the values of your Agile projects and product records. By accessing this information and summarizing it in a meaningful way, reports provide insight into your business processes and can help guide better-informed decisions.

6.2.1 About Agile Standard Reports

Agile PLM provides a robust reporting platform that enables you to:

Measure and monitor business performance using standard out-of-the-box reports. These standard reports capture the best practices in product lifecycle management business processes.
Configure reports with Agile's custom reporting to obtain the specific information you need.
Use a single point of access to all relevant reports-even those developed outside of the Agile PLM application- through Agile's external reporting capability.

For detailed information about using all types of Agile reports, see the Getting Started with Agile PLM Guide, which includes information about:

How your roles and privileges affect reports
Report object tabs
Creating and modifying report layouts
Creating custom and external reports
Running, scheduling, saving, and deleting reports
Report output window

Your browser may have default security settings that compromise report display. If you are using Internet Explorer with Windows XP, add the Agile site URL as a trusted site within the Tools > Internet Options > Security tab to enable proper downloading of reports.

6.2.2 Agile Standard Reports for PPM

This section discusses the Agile standard reports that are included as part of Agile Product Portfolio Management.

To access project reports:

In the left pane, click Reports to display the Reports folder structure.
Expand the Reports and Analytics tree and navigate to Standard Reports > Program & Portfolio Reports. Agile PPM standard reports are organized into subfolder under the Program and Portfolio Reports folder.
Click the report you want to view. Available reports are listed here for your reference. For details on selecting report parameters, using searches, and executing reports, see the Getting Started with Agile PLM Guide.

Reports for projects that are Complete or Canceled are not listed for selection.

Project Reports	Description
Project Schedule	The schedule report of all the activities of the selected root project.
Project Off Track Activities	Report of all the activities based on the selected health status within the selected root project.
Project Top Discussions	Report of all open discussions with priority you select, within the root project you select.
Project Open Action Items	Report of all the open action items associated with discussions and tasks of the selected root project.
Project Actual vs. Budgeted Cost	Report of the Actual Cost and Budgeted Cost for the selected project.
Project User Assignments	Report of assignments of a selected user within a selected root project.
Project Documents	Report of all the documents of the selected root project.
Project Deliverable Gate	Report of all the Gates and their dependent tasks and deliverables in the selected root projects.
Baseline Comparison	Report of comparison of the baselines for the selected project.
All Cancelled Activities	Report of all canceled activities that have been recorded in the system.

End User Reports	Description
My Discussions	All open discussions owned by you with the priority selected when you execute the report.
My Open Action Items	All the open action items associated with issues and tasks that are assigned to you.
User Time	All the projects where the specified user has entered Actual Time.
My Documents	All the documents for which you are the Creator or Checkout User.
My Activities and Utilization	All your task assignments.

Resource Pool Reports	Description
Pool Member Report	Report of all the resources of the selected resource pool.
Resource Pool Consumption	Report of the resource pool consumption during the specified time period.
Resource Pool Utilization	Report of all your task assignments for all root projects and projects.

Portfolio Reports	Description
Portfolio Status	Status report of all the root projects to which you have access.
Portfolio Cost	Cost report of all the root projects to which you have access.
Portfolio Cross Program Dependencies	Report of all the activities that have external dependencies.
Portfolio Deliverable Gate	Report of all the Gates and their dependent tasks and deliverables in the portfolio of root projects.
Portfolio Priority Discussions	Report of all the open discussions in your portfolio of projects.