To put it simply, Deltek PM Compass is an easy to use, web-based project and cost portal for managers and executives. It provides easy access to data that currently exists in a Cobra and/or Open Plan database through the use of dashboard, project and reporting pages.
By integrating Deltek PM Compass with your Cobra/Open Plan database, you open up a world of possibilities for those consumers of project/cost data who don’t have time to learn the sophisticated tools that generate them.
This article takes a high-level look at PM Compass and discusses its key features and capabilities to provide you with a broad overview. Many of the features mentioned here deserve a more in-depth look and will therefore be covered in future articles. In the meantime, we hope the following will give you an interesting first look at Deltek PM Compass and give you a good idea of what it looks like, how it works and what it has to offer all the members of your project team.
Let’s start by taking a look at some of the key features of PM Compass.
- Seamless Integration with Cobra 5.1 and Open Plan 3.3.2
- Configurable Dashboards that organize and display a vast selection of project data elements
- Configurable Dashparts for displaying all aspects of project/cost data in the dashboards
- Project, schedule and cost reporting for graphs, charts and tables in industry standard formats
- Workflow management tools with email notifications for project statusing
- Variance explanation and corrective action narrative entry and reporting
- Project creation and management features
- Project tracking, statusing and update features
- Data mining processes with configurable rule sets
- Cobra notes, Statement Of Work (SOW) and Work Authorization functions integrated with Cobra
Deltek PM Compass Architecture
Deltek PM Compass Architecture
Deltek PM Compass works by adding an extension schema to your existing Cobra 5.1 or Open Plan 3.3.2 database during the installation process. The Deltek PM Compass Process Server uses Microsoft IIS and .NET technology to provide a web-based tool that can be made generally available on the network or over the Internet.
Note: click images to see them full size.
Appearance and Interaction
Here’s a screen shot of PM Compass showing a typical dashboard view, where you can see examples of the configurable Dashparts (the portals within each dashboard). These Dashparts allow you create your own dashboards and define exactly what data views and reports you can see in each.
At Ten Six we’ve been putting PM Compass through its paces and continue to be impressed with its concepts, usability and high-quality reporting capabilities. Further to this, we found it was easy to install and then distribute to users, thanks to good installation instructions and its use of standard Microsoft tools such as .NET, IIS and SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services.
The interface is well set out and logical to navigate. You don’t need to interact with the online help too often because things are very easy to find and it’s intuitive enough to figure out as you go. The Dashboards are easy to create and populate with dashparts configured to your specific requirements, giving you precisely the information you need and arranged exactly how you want.
And there’s much more. Not only is PM Compass a powerful tool for a manager’s desktop viewing, but it also allows projects to be created, data to be entered, projects to be statused and reports to be run. For example, Control Account Managers (CAMs) can identify and then enter variance narratives directly into a Cobra project using the PM Compass interface.
Of course we can’t cover everything about PM Compass in this overview article, so if a picture paints a thousand words, then take a look at the following images to see examples and explanations of some of the coolest features and reports available in Deltek PM Compass. Keep in mind that some of the data you are seeing originated in Cobra 5.1. We simply installed PM Compass into the Cobra 5.1 database and obtained immediate access to all the existing project data, PM Compass style.
Dashparts
You can use existing dashboards configured by the administrators or create your own dashboards that will meet your exact needs.
Dashparts are the portals to the data you want to see in your dashboard.
Each dashpart can be configured from a range of options including Alerts, Cost Analysis, Items, Reports and Schedule Analysis to name a few. You can also point dashparts to files, web pages, Web Outlook and even Deltek eSupport Alerts.
If you wanted a particular report as the content of one of your dashparts, you can configure any personal or global report and display it within your dashpart.
Reporting
The Reports navigation menu offers four reporting categories for Cost Analysis reports, Item reports, Progress reports and Schedule reports.
The Cost Analysis Reporting page in this next example shows the options for a Control Account Plan (CAP) report being selected.
The resulting report appeared as follows.
Here are some other report examples.
Earned Value Curve Report
Earned Value Histogram
Cost and Schedule Variance Report
Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) Report
And finally, a particular favorite of ours, the Control Account CPI and SPI Report; a true dashpart ‘must have’ for all your dashboards.
Variance Reporting
With PM Compass, CAMs can report their variance narratives directly into the Cobra project database without getting their feet wet in Cobra at all. Among other useful things, the Items navigation menu offers Explanation of Variance and Corrective Action options for VAR reporting. Here, CAMs can look at the Cost Details table and then enter explanation, impact and corrective action narratives directly into the system via a well-designed, easy to navigate form as shown in the following figure.
Projects
You can create a new project in PM Compass, enter contract information, WBS and Work Package codes, enter progress information, define thresholds and much more using the Projects page. In this next figure you can see the General tab where a new project is being setup.
The Fields tab for example, allows you to define control account fields and codes and work package fields and codes.
Summary
If you’re using Deltek Cobra or Open Plan as part of your project solution, you should definitely look into extending that system with the addition of PM Compass. The reports and dashboards alone make it a worthy investment for any busy project team. It finally addresses an issue that has come up on virtually every implementation of Cobra that we’ve ever worked on: that managers, CAMs and executives need data from the system, but rarely have the time or inclination to learn their way around the tools that generate them. This puts further burdens on the project team to satisfy endless requests for reports, graphs and spreadsheet exports to keep management fully in the loop. With PM Compass, the managers, CAMs and executives can intuitively build their own dashboards and configure their own reports, keeping the latest data at hand, and without having to interrupt a busy project team to get it.
We hope that this overview has been helpful in familiarizing you with some of the main areas of Deltek PM Compass. There’s a lot more to this system than we’ve covered here so we will be writing further blogs on the topic over the next few months.
For more details you should contact Deltek.
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