Project portfolios in Primavera P6 EPPM are a named list or group of projects that can be made available to users.
Administrators and Users with privileges, can create portfolios to suite their specific needs. Portfolios are helpful in limiting the number of projects that can be viewed in many pick lists, views, dashboards, and dialogs. In systems with a large number of projects this can be very powerful.
For example, users may create project portfolios for just the projects with which they are working. In this way schedulers can focus in on those projects that are most relevant. And limit the scope of the effort in a way that significantly reduces the required computing capacity.
This article demonstrates the creation and Dashboard assignment of project portfolios in Primavera P6 EPPM.
Let’s present the creation and assignment process for a portfolio of projects. We begin by clicking on the down arrow of the Portfolios tab, Figure 1.
Figure 1
This activates the portfolio management dialog, Figure 2.
Figure 2
Left click on the gear and choose Add from the pop-up menu, Figure 3.
Figure 3
In the new portfolio field that appears type in a suitable name, Figure 4.
Figure 4
We name our demonstration portfolio, Steve’s Projects. Portfolios can be selected manually or generated from a filter. A manual portfolio allows you to select specific projects from the EPS. A filtered portfolio will allow you to select criteria that will control what projects appear in your portfolio without having to manually update it.
Proceeding we opt for the manual selection of projects. Then it becomes a simple matter of choosing your respective projects from the EPS hierarchy of available projects and using the arrow to move the selection to the list of selected projects, Figure 5.
Figure 5
Finally, save your portfolio list of projects. In Figure 6 we have our recently saved Steve’s Projects portfolio.
Figure 6
Now we want to demonstrate the creation of a portfolio using a filter. Again, left click on the gear and enter a portfolio name. We name our filtered portfolio Planned Projects, Figure 7.
Figure 7
This time we elect the By Filter selection option and click + Add to enter a filter condition, Figure 8.
Figure 8
Our condition is all projects that have a project status equal to the planned stage of schedule development, Figure 9.
Figure 9
Note that there are two project status options in the list of available options, and you want the project status listed in the General category. After entering a line item condition, we click save, again, Figure 9.
The filter then captures all projects currently in the planned phase of development. If you want to view these projects click the manual button, and all the recently filtered projects appear in the list of selected projects, Figure 10.
Figure 10
You can also remove any projects you do not want included with your portfolio of planned projects, but this will revert your filtered portfolio back to a manual portfolio. Note that the filter condition goes away after reverting a filtered portfolio back to manual.
Now we want to demonstrate the assignment of Steve’s Projects portfolio to the personal Dashboard, Steve’s Workspace. Continuing we click the Dashboards tab, Figure 11.
Figure 11
On the upper far right of the screen we click the Filter by structure button , Figure 12.
Figure 12
In the Filter by dialog we select portfolio and select Steve’s Projects portfolio and click apply, Figure 13.
Figure 13
Now we must refresh our current Dashboard for the new portfolio to take effect. Click the Dashboards tab to refresh the data, Figure 14.
Figure 14
Figure 15 displays the Dashboard filtered using the Steve’s Project portfolio.
Figure 15
Summary
When computer resources are limited, or you want your schedulers to focus in on a subset of all your organizations projects, create and assign them project portfolios. Again, portfolios are like baskets of projects that the administrator can create and assign to respective team members. Portfolios can also be made global or made available to one or a few Primavera P6 EPPM users.