Evaluating Projects

Now that the project is running, John as the project planner as well as the other members of the department want to know the current status and progress of the project and the overall situation. John discovers several options in SAP Portfolio and Project Management that help him to achieve these goals.

Dashboards are the starting point to create, edit, or display projects in detail. However, dashboards display a lot of information, such as the status and costs of projects. You can filter and sort projects listed in a dashboard. Therefore, dashboards are a tool for reporting as well. A dashboard refreshes automatically when you save a project. You can select and open multiple projects in the dashboard. On the All Projects tab page, you can see all the projects you have been authorized to access.

You can access the following functions from dashboards:

• Edit projects
• Create projects
• Compare projects
• Import and export projects
• Export dashboard to Microsoft Excel
• Search for projects
• Filter
• User-defined setting for columns, sort, and filter of projects

Evaluations provide you with an overview of the data of your project. You can use the current project data as the basis, or the last version of the data that was stored in the background. You can create evaluations for operational projects and for project versions.

The evaluations delivered with SAP Project Management cover the following topics:

• Tasks and task assignments
• Completed checklist items
• Completed documents
• Project resources and project role staffing
• Project roles and project role staffing
• SAP S/4HANA objects
• SAP S/4HANA project progress
• SAP S/4HANA project costs and revenues
• Project dates with SAP S/4HANA objects
• Deadlines and expenses
• Project element-orientated costs
• Cost and revenue costing for projects

You can export the data of an evaluation to display this data in a spreadsheet. The system exports data in the comma separated values (CSV) format and saves it in a file or opens it directly in Microsoft Excel.

Additional icons can appear in the navigation area of an evaluation. These icons indicate special features or discrepancies in the project. They are defined as threshold values or severity levels in the system. If a threshold value is exceeded, the system displays a corresponding symbol to warn you. The system can also create e-mail notifications (called alerts) for certain threshold values.

You can use project status reports to record important project data and comment on it at any time. Project status reports can be sent as e-mail attachments.

Project status reports are based on Adobe interactive forms (AIF). Project status reports are displayed in a report folder within the project. In addition to project status reports, you can also assign additional documents here.

To edit a project, you can navigate to the Status Reports tab page. Depending on the project type, you can choose different templates for a project status report. The templates determine the procedure of the project status report. When you have selected a template, you can look at it and supplement it using the Preview function.

You can store a status report in SAP Project Management, or by using the SAP Document Management System (SAP DMS) of SAP S/4HANA. You define the type of storage in the project type in the configuration of SAP Project Management.

Project status reports are structured hierarchically. The report folder is used to navigate between individual reports. There are also options available to create new project status reports, send out reports, or delete them. You can use the New Document function to include any data that is saved on your hard disk, for example, as documents in the report folder in SAP Project Management.

With SAP S/4HANA, SAP delivers several SAP Fiori applications that offer an additional overview and detailed reporting options for the projects managed by you.

An example of this is the SAP Fiori app called My Projects - Active Projects.

With this app you can display all active projects to which your user is assigned as a project manager. A project is active if it has been released but neither been completed nor canceled.

As a project manager you need to be assigned to the project as the responsible resource or as one of the resources the responsible role is staffed with.

Key features of project progress are:

• Get an overview of all active projects for which you are responsible as a project manager
• See the most important project details at a glance such as name, type, and dates of the project
• Drill down to further apps to display and edit the following details of a selected project:
  • Project progress
  • Project structure including project elements such as phases and tasks, as well as all project details, for example basic data, authorizations, or assigned objects
  • Persons who are assigned to the project as resources and further details of staffing and resourcing
  • If the project refers to a portfolio item:
    • Financial planning data
    • Capacity planning data
    • Details of the assigned portfolio item
• Change the appearance of the list displayed for your user:
  • Search for projects in the list
  • Filter the list data
  • Sort or group the list data
  • Export the list data to a spreadsheet