Project Attributes

The details page of Projects is divided into the following sections:

Basic	Holds all the required inputs like Title, Start Date and Template. The number on top is generated automatically. The Priority indicator is based on inputs in section 'Priority Assessment':
Details	Optional data can be managed in here for filtering and reporting purposes: Select a Parent Project if this project should be added to the Gantt of another project. Field Product may be linked to your Products workspace to reference the given product to be developed. Update Schedule will be ticked automatically if it is also ticked in the selected 'Project Template'. If this checkbox is ticked, the schedule of this project will be updated automatically upon gate completion. This will change the schedule of following phases and tasks to a later or earlier point in time!
KPIs	Automatic indicators are listed in here. They are useful to enrich your Projects workspaces views. The first column, Progress, is based on the state of each Phase. The squares follow a specific color coding: Grey - Not started Green – Complete Orange – In progress Red – Awaiting gate approval The next column 'Budget Consumption' is also a color-coded field. It uses values entered in the Budget section displaying a percentage of the total actual cost to the total planned cost. If the planned cost is below the actual cost, the field is shown in green, if the actual cost is greater than the planned cost, the field is red. If values are not entered, the field is grey. The Status column is based on the values entered in the section 'Status Report' The 'Current Phase' field reflects the current status of the project. The 'Phase Progress' field shows a progress bar to indicate the percentage of completed tasks within the current phase.
Project Phases	The schedule of the projects’ phases can be reviewed in here: 'Planned Completion' dates are set based on the selected 'Project Template' and 'Start Date'. While the project is in status Planning, these dates will get updated if either the template or the date changes. These planned dates get fixed when the project enters the first phase to enable comparison of planned vs. expected vs. actual dates later on. 'Expected Dates' are calculated when the project’s schedule changes after the project started by entering the first phase. These dates are used to provide and up-to-date plan of expected phase completion dates. 'Actual Completion' dates are captured when the given phases are set to complete 'Plan Deviation' compares the Planned Completion dates against the Actual Date or the current date, depending on the phase completion status Phases provides links to the given phase records which are also accessible by the Gantt view. The link to the project’s current Phase is also available in the KPI section (which gets updated automatically).
Next Gate Review	This section is used to control the next gate review & approval. As the project enters a new phase, the list of 'Required Approvers' will be set to match the Project Template’s list of approvers for this phase’s gate review. Additional Approvers can be added in the given field. As the given gate review status is reached, the required and additional approvers will be requested to approve the project and will therefore be copied to the list of 'Remaining Approvers'. If neither required nor additional approvers are defined, the project owner will be set as the only remaining approver.
Gate Reviews	If project buffers are used for the transition process from one phase to another, the phase completion dates will be different than the ones of the related gate reviews. This is reflected in this given section which works in a similar manner as the date fields in section 'Project Phases'. The project scheduling will take into account the gate review durations / buffers defined in the selected 'Project Template' and shown in here: If these buffers are not set to 0, the gantt will also block a given timeframe for these reviews based on the duration defined. These buffers become important when the schedule gets changed later on: If a gate review has a buffer of 5 days defined and the preceding phase finishes late by 2 days, the gate review’s duration will be reduced to 3 and thus not impact the schedule of succeeding phases. However, if the given phase finishes late by 7 days, the gate review will be reduced to 1 day and as the buffer cannot compensate the delay, the succeeding phases’ dates will be postponed. The remaining delay of 3 days (7 days delay - 5 days buffer + 1 day for the gate review) may be compensated by the next phase’s buffer (if defined). Often times, gate reviews fail and require rework. This is indicated by the Review Counters which get increased every time a given gate review status is reached.
Priority Assessment	To define the priority of a project compared to others, certain criteria can be assessed. The priorities listed in here drive the overall Priority of the project shown in the Basic section.
Project Members	This section can be used to automate the task assignment process. If tasks are assigned to teams within the Project Template or the Task Planning tabs of Project Phases, but not to assignees yet - and if there is a project member defined for this team in this given section, then the task will be assigned to this member automatically. It is recommended to only have one person per team defined as this given user will become the assignee of all tasks for this team. Further users of the same team are not taken into account.
Efforts Tracking	This section is fully automated and can be used to track the total effort of a project, but also to compare the planned vs. actual efforts. While the project is in Planning status, the 'Planned Efforts' will be calculated automatically based on the Planned Efforts of tasks listed in the Task Planning of related Project Phases. Once the project leaves the Planning status, all changes to the Task Planning will result in updated total efforts in the Expected Efforts row. As Project Tasks are set complete, the efforts that have been entered for the task will be added to the Actual Efforts of the related phase on project level. The Deviation row automatically compares the Planned Effort against Actual Efforts (once available) or the Expected Efforts.
Budget	Budget information can be provided in this section to determine the total planned and actual cost of a project. Deviations from plan will be calculated and highlighted in the KPIs section.
Status Report	This section can be used to frequently report on the status of the project in regard to Schedule, Resources, Budget and Risks. The current status will be highlighted in the KPIs section.
Deliverables	Key deliverables of the NPI project can be referenced in this section, including the Specification document, Bill of Materials, Design Reviews and others. If you downloaded this template from the Template Library, these fields will have to be set as linking picklist fields first by the tenant administrator