User guide · Portfolio
Portfolio and health
Portfolio is the delivery picture above one project: what was promised, what has shipped, who is on it and what it costs, across the accounts, programmes and projects you answer for.
Account rolesProject leads and ownersAllocation approversAdmin A plain project member works from their project and their dashboard instead.
Choosing what it covers
While the Portfolio is open, the sidebar shows its sections. Under the Portfolio heading sits what it covers: All 24 projects, or an account's name. Click it to tick accounts, programmes or projects. Every section then shows the same set, and the address carries it, so a link you share opens on the same projects.
The pages
| Page | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Overview | The same panels as a dashboard, in a fixed order, the same for everyone. |
| Needs attention | Everything wrong, with filters by severity and kind, and what you put away. |
| Health | Each project's rating, reason, how long, each dimension and the next step. Filter by rating and delivery model; sort worst first, longest in a state, by account or name. Changed this week narrows to projects whose rating turned. |
| Milestones | Every milestone in scope, with filters for status, health and how soon it is due. |
| Releases | Planned or released; only the late or those due soon; sorted by date, progress or project. |
| Sprints | Active sprints, riskiest first or ending soonest. |
| Blockers | What is blocked, for how long, and what waits on it. |
| Trends | A small velocity or flow chart for every project, worst first. |
| Budget | How far through its budget or allocation each project is. |
| Staffing | Hours needed against reserved over 4, 8 or 12 weeks; below, who is free and who rolls off soon. |
| Exceptions | Overbooked allocations waiting on you as a line manager. |
| Weekly status | Every project's weekly report side by side. See Weekly status. |
Add to dashboard, at the top of most pages, turns the page into a panel on one of your dashboards.
How health is rated
| Dimension | Measures | Off track | At risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule | Milestones against their baselines | Any milestone overdue | Any at risk |
| Staffing | Hours reserved against hours needed, next four weeks | Short by a quarter or more, or nobody allocated | Short by less, or people reserved with no planned work |
| Flow | Open work items past their due date | 30% or more overdue | 10% or more |
- The delivery model picks the deciding dimension: fixed price on schedule, dedicated capacity on staffing, time and materials and managed service on flow. A red anywhere else pulls green down to amber.
- An item with no due date is due when its sprint ends. When fewer than half of a project's open items have a date, flow reads Not enough data.
- The rating is kept once a day. Each says how long it has stood and what it was before, with a trail of the last twelve weekly readings.
- When a rating gets worse and lands on At risk or Off track, the project's lead and its account's managers are notified once. Turn it off under notification preferences (Project health turned).
- Next step: an amber or red rating links the page that answers it, if you can open that page.
Warnings
| Warning | When |
|---|---|
| Due soon | An open milestone's baseline is within 7 days; it asks for action in the last 3. |
| Still moving | A milestone's expected date slipped at each of the last three weekly readings, or it was re-baselined twice or more. |
| Release at risk | The next release is due within 14 days and behind its bar: 40% done two weeks out, rising to 90% on the day. |
| Stale blocker | The same item is a blocker in the two latest published weekly reports. |
| Gone quiet | No weekly status published in 14 days, or no time logged in 7 working days. |
| Report out of date | The last delivery report called a better status than health reads now. |
A warning never changes the rating. Amber chips need somebody this week; blue ones are worth knowing.
Staffing
Lists your projects with hours needed against hours reserved, worst first. Each row agrees with the project's Team page. Below, People lists who has a day a week or more free every week of the window and who rolls off a commitment inside it, for whoever reads every resource. Projects imported from Azure DevOps usually carry no allocations, and the page says so.
Exceptions
An allocation that would overbook someone, or that policy won't confirm directly, becomes an exception. It counts as forecast only until the person's own manager decides.
- Open Portfolio › Exceptions. It lists exceptions for your own direct reports, with week-by-week detail.
- Approve or reject, with an optional note. Approving books it; rejecting cancels it.
Budget
Each project is read on what its delivery model is paid on. Dedicated capacity compares hours delivered with hours allocated over four weeks, in hours only. Fixed price and time and materials show spend against a budget, rated by its alert thresholds, where a budget has been recorded. A managed service is measured on service levels, and a project with no delivery model is only counted.
PMO Assist 2.5.2 has no screen to enter a project's budget. Each project's Team cost gives planned and actual cost from allocations.