What is  Project Status Dashboard?
Project Status Dashboards are considered monitoring tools and are used by project leaders and executives to track how well the delivery teams are doing with active projects. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it is parameter driven so the user can run the report for the current period or any historical months. The dashboard itself is very simple but powerful as it uses graphics to display the following: 1) Percent of all project with red, yellow and green status. Red means there are significant issues, yellow means there are some issues, and green means everything is on track, 2) The middle chart shows specifically which clients has red status, and 3) The right chart shows which clients has yellow status. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.
Purpose of Project Status Dashboards
Professional Services organizations use Project Status Dashboards to give managers a snapshot of the general health of their projects using simple indicators like red, yellow and green. When used as part of good business practices in Project Management Offices (PMO) and in consulting departments, a company can improve its project strategies and profitability, and it can reduce the chances that a number of projects go off track without any well known warning signals.
Example of a Project Status Dashboard
Here is an example of a Project Status Report with metrics for overall project health across all clients as well as percentage of projects with red and yellow status.
You can find hundreds of additional examples here
Who Uses This Type of Dashboard?
The typical users of this type of dashboard are: Service Leaders, Project Managers.
Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with Project Status Dashboards
Progressive Project Management departments sometimes use several different Project Status Dashboards, along with detailed project reports, project dashboards, project budgets, project forecast models, utilization reports, billing reports, financial statements and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From?
The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others.
In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards?
Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
- View 100’s of reporting, consolidations, planning, budgeting, forecasting and dashboard examples here
- View a Professional Services white paper and other industry-specific information here
- See how reports are designed in a modern report writer using a cloud-connected Excel add-in writer
- Discover how the Solver CPM solution delivers financial and operational reporting
- Discover how the Solver CPM solution delivers planning, budgeting and forecasting
- Watch demo videos of reporting, planning and dashboards
