📊 Project Dashboard

What Is It?

The Project Dashboard is the application that allows you to track the financial performance of a project. It does so by providing the project teams with simple yet powerful KPIs on Labor and Expenses.

Key Concepts

Margin

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Daily Rates

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Labor

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Expenses / Direct Costs

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Budget

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Capacity

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Contract

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Project

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Key Performance Indicators

Main KPIs

Labor - Execution Rate ⭐

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Labor - Execution Efficiency ⭐

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Expenses - Margin Accrual Efficiency ⭐

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Intermediate KPIs

Labor - Execution Budget

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Labor - Expected Execution Budget

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Labor - Expected Margin

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Expenses - Margin Accrued

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Expenses - Expected Margin

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Using The Application

Typical Workflow

Project Setup

These steps are performed once at the beginning of the project.

1. You fill in the Project Sheet with the financial data from the contract and/or the Budget Builder.
2. You fill in the Contact List with the contact information of the most important project stakeholders.
3. You update the Labor and Expenses Tracking tabs with the initial data from the Budget Builder.
4. You make sure that the Rates tab has the correct Unloaded Rates.

Project Execution

These steps are executed on a regular basis by the Project Manager in order to update the project resourcing and financials.

1. Labor Tracking Tab
   • The Project Manager updates the period to reflect the ones that in the past, current and in the future.
   • The Project Manager pulls the spent time from your time tracking system and updates the spent column of the Labor Tracking Time.
   • The Project Manager updates the resourcing for the future periods.
   • The project Manager looks at the KPIs (in particular %EX, EE) and decides how to adjust (or not) the project execution strategy. This can lead to an update of the Margin Objective for Labor.
2. Expenses tab
   • The Project Manager updates the number of items invoiced since the beginning of the project for each expense item.
   • The Project Manager updates the estimated number of items to be invoices for expense item until the end of the project.
   • The project Manager looks at the KPIs (in particular MAE) and decides how to adjust (or not) the project execution strategy. This can lead to an update of the Margin Objective for Expenses / Direct Costs.
3. Performance Tab
   • The Project Manager looks at the consolidated performance of the his/her project.
   • S/He can decide to adjust the execution strategy and eventually update the Margin Objectives for Labor and/or Expenses.
4. Project Report Out
   • The Project Manager sends a Project Report Out (🐙 Conduite Menu) and provides context on the current values of the project KPIs and strategy adjustments.

Structure & Features

Project Sheet

This tab contains project administrative information as well as all the financial configuration.

Project Section

Attribute	Description
Project Name	The name of the project.
Client	The name of the client.
Project Manager Email	The email of the Project Manager. This is required to receive the PRO Update.
Task Management Tool	The link to the task management tool (Asana, Trello, Basecamp, ...) used to coordinate work on the project.
Budget Builder	The link to the Budget Builder. This is required to automatically seed the financial sections of this sheet. See the Seed From Budget Builder menu option.

Planning Section

Attribute	Description
Period Type	Choose whether the project is planned over months or weeks.
Period Start	The number of the month or week on which the project execution starts (ex: May is 5, last week of the year is 52).

Contract Financials Section

This section contains the financial data as per the contract or the Budget Builder. This is the baseline data at the moment the project starts (or at the signature of the contract).

These values are not expected to change during the execution of the project (unless there was a data entry error).

Attribute	Description
Contract - Value	The total value of the contract. 💡Computed Field
Contract - Margin (%)	The overall margin percentage of the contract at signature 💡Computed Field
Contract - Margin ($)	The overall margin value of the contract at signature 💡Computed Field
Labor - Value	The amount of the labor component of the contract.
Labor - Margin (%)	The margin percentage on the labor component of the contract.
Labor - Margin ($)	The margin value on the labor component of the contract. 💡Computed Field
Expenses / Direct Costs - Value	The amount of the expenses component of the contract.
Expenses / Direct Costs - Margin (%)	The margin percentage on the expenses component of the contract.
Expenses / Direct Costs - Margin ($)	The margin value on the expenses component of the contract. 💡Computed Field

Financial Objective Section

This section defines the Margin Objectives for both Labor and Expenses / Direct Costs.

The Margin Objectives (%) are expected to change during the execution of the project as the project strategy is adjusted.

Attribute	Description
Labor - Margin Objective (%)	The Margin Objective percentage on Labor.
Labor - Margin Objective ($)	The Margin Objective amount on Labor. 💡Computed Field
Labor - Execution Budget	The value of the Execution Budget. 💡Computed Field
Expenses / Direct Costs - Margin Objective (%)	The Margin Objective percentage on Expenses / Direct Costs.
Expenses / Direct Costs - Margin Objective ($)	The Margin Objective amount on Expenses / Direct Costs. 💡Computed Field

Contact List

This tab contains the contact information of the main project stakeholders. It notably important to identify the Project Manager on the client side.

Attribute	Description
Name	The name of the stakeholder.
Email	The email of the stakeholder.
Role	The role of the stakeholder in the project
SPoC	Is that stakeholder the Single Point of Contact on the client side?

Labor Tracking

This tab allows you to track the amount of labor spent and forecasted for each staff member allocated to the project. One line corresponds to a staff member.

Attribute	Description
Staff	The name of the staff member allocated to the project.
Role	The role of the staff member.
Unloaded Rate	The Unloaded Rate associated to the role of the staff member. 💡Computed Field
Spent (h)	The number of hours spent on the project to date by the staff member. This comes from your time tracking system. Make sure that the period types are up-to-date.
Spent ($)	The monetary value of the hours spent to date by the staff member on the project (function of the Unloaded Rate). 💡Computed Field
Remaining ($)	The monetary value of the number of remaining days planned for the Forecast period (function of the Unloaded Rate).  Make sure that the period types are up-to-date. 💡Computed Field
Periods	The number of days planned for the staff member on the project. Each period has a type: Past - Period that is in the past Current - The current period Forecast - Period in the future Only the Forecast periods and taken into consideration to compute the remaining work. Make sure to keep the period types always up-to-date.

It also provides the labor related KPIs:

• Budget Tracking
  • Expected Execution Budget
  • Execution Rate
  • Execution Efficiency
• Margin Tracking
  • Expected Margin ($, %)

⛑️ Adding An Staff Member

In order to add an staff member you simply need to:

1. Insert a row where ever you want in the table (Right Click > Insert row above / below).
2. Copy the formulas for the computed fields.

Validation conditions will be copied automatically.

Expenses Tracking

This tab allows you to track the invoicing of Expenses / Direct Costs. One line corresponds to one expense item.

Attribute	Description
Workstream	The workstream to which this expense is related.
Item	The name of the expense item.
Unit Cost - Sold	The Unitary Cost of the expense item as charged to the client.
Margin	The percentage of margin done on the expense item.
Invoiced	The number of items invoiced to date. Make sure that the period types are up-to-date.
Remaining	The number of items remaining to invoice as per the current and forecasted periods. Make sure that the period types are up-to-date.
Periods	The number of items that are expected to be invoiced for each period. Make sure that the period types are up-to-date.

It also provides the expenses related KPIs:

• Margin Accrual
  • Accrued Margin ($, %)
  • Margin Accrual Efficiency
• Expected Margin ($, %)
  
• Invoiced
  • Invoiced
  • Invoicing Rate

⛑️ Adding An Expense Item

In order to add an expense item you simply need to:

1. Insert a row where ever you want in the table (Right Click > Insert row above / below).
2. Copy the formulas for the computed fields.

Validation conditions will be copied automatically.

Performance

This is a read-only (protected) tab. Do not modify it.

This tab is a consolidated view of the financial performance of the project based on the overall Expected Margin of the project (also broken down for Labor and Expenses / Direct Costs). It compares it to the current margin objective and  margin at the time of contract signature.

This view is useful to understand how the project is doing based on initial objectives.

Rates

This is a read-only (protected) tab. Do not modify it.

This tab contains the list of Unloaded Rate for each role at your organization.

Configuration

This is a hidden and read-only (protected tab). This tab should remain hidden. Do not modify it.

This tab contains the ID of the Conduite configuration file and other computed configuration parameters. 

Conduite Menu

Seed From Budget Builder

This menu item allows you to seed the Project Sheet tab financial and planning sections with the data from the Budget Builder. This feature requires you to specific the link to the Budget Builder file.

Submit Project Report Out

This menu item opens the sidebar and allows you to submit a Project Report Out (PRO) form. This is usually done by the Project Manager. It is preloaded with the data from the Project Dashboard.

Make sure to update the Project Dashboard with the most up-to-date data before submitting a PRO.

Do not edit the preloaded fields.

The form has the following fields:

Field	Description
Project ID	This is a unique identifier for the project. This is the ID of the Google Spreadsheet file. 💡This field is preloaded.
Project Name	The name of the project 💡This field is preloaded.
Project Status	A traffic light indicator that reflects the current overall status of the project. Tip: Make sure to set a clear definition for each color in order to have consistence across PROs and projects.
Labor - Execution Rate	The current Execution Rate of the project. 💡This field is preloaded.
Labor - Execution Efficiency	The current Execution Efficiency of the project. 💡This field is preloaded.
Expenses - Margin Accrued	The current Accrued Margin on expenses of the project. 💡This field is preloaded.
Expenses - Margin Accrual Efficiency	The current Margin Accrual Efficiency on expenses of the project. 💡This field is preloaded.
What happened in the last 2 weeks?	A summary of what has been done in the last 2 weeks or since the last PRO was submitted. Tip: Make sure to include any context that helps understand the values of the project KPIs.
What is planned for the next 2 weeks?	A summary that details what the project team expects to do in the next 2 weeks. Tip: Make sure to include any strategy adjustment details.

The PRO will be added to the PRO Database and an email will be sent to the user submitting the PRO from, Project Manager and any other person specified in the Conduite Global Configuration File. That email also contains the resourcing forecast from the Labor Tracking tab.

Help

This menu item opens the sidebar and loads this help page.