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Create A Program Dashboard
Create A Program Dashboard
When you develop your program or portfolio status and milestone charts, what
tool do you use? Usually I'm forced into Visio or Powerpoint because the
default Gantt charts in MS Project never really helped convey when a specific
workstream or project in my portfolio was red, yellow or pleasantly enough "on
target". I've been working with MS Project 2007 custom Gantt chart formatting
features and developed a technique to use graphical indicators to change the
colors of the Gantt chart bars.
When I try to create a simple dashboard in Microsoft Project 2007 to report program
status, I find it lacking. I often need to resort to Microsoft PowerPoint to develop a
program or portfolio summary scorecard. Drawing tools such as PowerPoint or Visio
become an administrative burden when you need to reproduce project data separately
from MIcrosoft Project. Each week, the drawing elements need to be updated to reflect
the project’s traffic light summary status of Red, Yellow, or Green in the portfolio or
program.
After exploring Microsoft Project 2007’s formulas and bar styles, I developed a
dashboard that displays the colors of the project status by simply changing a custom
indicator field in the schedule. This tutorial walks you through how to create the
dashboard (Figure A).
Figure A
8. Add three tests for the Project Status field by entering “equals” and Red, Yellow, and
Green for the appropriate value. Add a red, yellow, and green Image indicator as
appropriate.
9. Click OK.
By inserting the ProjectStatus field into the Gantt Chart view, you can select from the
Red, Yellow, or Green drop-down values, and the appropriate traffic light will be
displayed. The next step is to modify custom flag fields based on the ProjectStatus
indicator.
6. Select the Flag1 field, click the Formula button, and enter the
formulaIIf([Text29]=’Red’,Yes,No) (Figure D).
Figure D
7. Click ok
8. Click the Flag2 field, click the Formula button, and enter the
formulaIIf([Text29]=’Yellow’,Yes,No).
9. Click the Flag3 field, click the Formula button, and enter the
formulaIIf([Text29]=’Green’,Yes,No).
10. Click OK.By changing the ProjectStatus graphical indicator field, the Flag1,
You can modify the Gantt chart bar styles to suite your preferences. In this example, we
will add three new bar styles to match the ProjectStatus indicator and the three flags.
2. Insert three rows and name the rows Red, Yellow, and Green.
3. On the Red row, click the Color drop-down menu and change it to Red.
4. Change the Show For … Tasks field to the Flag1 field. Repeat the step for Yellow
and Green and assign Flag2 and Flag3 respectively. Remember to assign the
yellow and green colors as appropriate.
Figure E
By following these first three steps, you’ve created a set of customized fields that will
change the color of the Gantt Chart bar, depending on the Red, Yellow, or Green status.
I recommend hiding the Flag1, Flag2, and Flag3 fields.
In this example, every project in your program or portfolio will be represented as a single
task in the portfolio; also, the individual tasks are not integrated with a sub-project and
represent only a basic scorecard. For a typical program or set of projects in the portfolio,
I recommend entering the following data:
1. Project Name
The main benefit is creating a scorecard that uses Microsoft Project data instead of
drawing a separate Gantt chart in PowerPoint or another tool. The dashboard can also
be extended to assess new portfolio opportunities or identify specific projects that are
funded, not started, or cancelled. The formatting features in Microsoft Project are flexible
to customization if you can write a few simple formulas.
Objective extensions
If you are familiar with Microsoft Project’s formulas, you can create additional objective
formulas that will calculate the status rather than rely on purely subjective interpretation.
This tutorial also requires that you enter the basic project data into a Microsoft Project file
that tracks the summarize status. Future applications of bar styles and formulas can be
applied to the actual project schedules that are integrated and rolled up into a summary-
level plan.
By TechRepublic