The Portfolio Manager is where the budget forecast planners in your company can gather cost and schedule information on projects (both planned and in execution) and perform analyses on "what if" scenarios. These scenarios are used to propose an optimal mix of projects for a portfolio, based on available budget targets and the strategic goals of the company.
As a planner, you can create a portfolio for a specific "planning horizon" (for example, from 2014 through 2020) and then create multiple scenarios in that portfolio. Each scenario can use forecast numbers and actuals, as well as schedule dates, for both planned and active projects in a specific shell type across a hierarchy in the company.
You create these scenarios on sheets, one for each scenario. The scenario sheets can pull in the following data from any shell type in a hierarchy:
- Project information from the shell attribute form or single-record business process
- Project start and end dates from the shell attribute form or single-record business process
- Cash flow data (both forecasted and actual) from each project’s Cost Manager
With this data, you can forecast costs over a specific time period (called a "period structure"). You can then manipulate scenarios by:
- Including or excluding projects
- Pushing start dates for planned projects into the future
- Modifying project end dates to change the project’s duration
- Proposing different cash flow distribution numbers by manually editing the cash flow columns
- Negotiating proposed budgets with project managers
Once these scenario analyses have been completed, the best (or several best) scenario(s) can be sent to the executive decision makers for approval.
Once a scenario has been approved, Unifier:
- Marks the approved scenario "shared" so that project managers can see the approved dates and numbers. The scenario is set to read-only mode and can no longer be modified or deleted.
- Updates each projects’ original budget numbers with the proposed numbers on the approved scenario.
- Updates each projects’ monthly or yearly cash flow numbers with the proposed numbers on the approved scenario.
- Updates the project start date (if it was changed) for any planned projects that will begin during the portfolio’s planning period.
- Locks the budget and cash flow numbers to prevent any further changes.