HELP needed to filter ACTIVE Projects in Portfolio Analyzer

[kas]

Our Project Portfolio has many projects for the year 2006. As I create
views/reports to display information in Portfolio Analyzer, a lot of unneeded
data is generated cluttering the views/reports such that I spend additional
time exporting to Excel, deleting the unnecessary information. Currently, I
am not able to save the information as a View because of this.

Most of the reports/views require data from "active" projects. I would think
this could be satisfied by the Project Status Field.
The lookup table for project status is:
- Approved
- Canceled
- Complete
- In Progress

I query on Approved and In Progress. Unfortunately, there are a lot of
projects with status "approved" or "In Progress" but are not active (results
for work actuals is 0).

This is extremely time consuming, especially because of the time I spend
deleting rows and rows from Resource Allocation (Demand vs. Capacity)
reports. Note, the data is broken down by resource availability and then
projects' resource demands. All of the approved/in progress projects are
listed for each resource with the majority of the projects having no work
value.

I have tried to add the "Work" field in the filter section of the Pivot
Table within the Portfolio Analyzer View, but it only allows me to put this
in a "Data" section of the view. I thought I could just filter on field
Work, with a test value of "greater than"
the value 0. But it doesn't let me do this.
I suspect it has something to do with the OLAP cube and the way it's
currently defined. Maybe not.

I'm not all that technical and my technical resources here are limited, So,
I turn to all of you...my friends for some expertise.

Does anyone know how to accomplish pulling in projects that have current
activity (e.g., Actual Work has values and are not zero). I am sure there
are probably multiple ways to accomplish this which I would love to hear
about. This will be a huge step for me as I would like to present all
Enterprise Program reports as an electronic dashboard instead of sending
hardcopy/softcopy.

Thank you in advance for any help / advice / suggestions you can offer!!!

 

[Marc Soester]

Hi Kas,

Here are a couple of assumptions I take:

- You want to be able to run all reports in Portfolio Analyser
- The reports you generate at this stage are to big becuase you can not
filter by active Projects etc.
- you dont have a Project Outline code that defines the project Status (
like Active, closed, canceled etc.)

OK, lets try to solve this "out of the box". What I always do is generate an
Project Outline code called - Project Status - This outline code defines
whether this is an active project or completed project etc.
The reason why I use a Project outline code is becuase this outline code is
part of the Portfolio Analyser "cube build" and therefore allows you to
filter by project Status.

What I would do is create a Project outline code (called Project status) and
assign a status to each Project and republish your projects.
Once you have done this ( which can be timeconsuming, dependign on the
amount of Projects you have), rebuild the Cube and you will have a new
Dimension in your Portfolio View allowing you to filter on the Project Status.

I hope this will help you

 

[kas]

Thanks, Marc.
I do have a Project Status Field already defined. They are included in the
view, however, there are many projects classified as "In progress" or
"Approved" but right now do not have activity which would be indicated by
some values in "Actual Work." How can I get that field "Actual Work" to
filter. Currently, it does not allow me to filter but only allows me to
include as a data field. When I attempt to put it in a filter area, the
Filter selection is grayed out.

Thanks again, Marc, for your response. It is much appreciated.

kas

 

[Marc Soester]

Hi Kas,

Actual Work is defined as a field in the Portfolio Analyser and not as a
Dimension, thats why you cannot filter based on Actual Work.

Just that I understand this correctly, do you have a Project Outline code
defined that allows you to change the Status of a Project to "Active"?

If so you will see this Project Outline Code in the Portfolio Analyser and
will be able to filter by this outline code.