Reporting: How to Create Status Reports, Variance Reports, Timesheet Reports & More

 

 

Eight reports can be made and shared in minutes: portfolio status, project status, project plan, tasks, timesheets, availability, workload and variance.

Reports are customizable, so you can easily see the information you are looking for and hide the information you don’t need. View a preview version of the report in your browser or save it in a PDF or Excel format.

Watch our short reports video below or keep reading to find out more.

 

Navigating to the Reports Page

To find reports, click "Portfolio" on the left-hand menu. Then click "Reports" in the top menu. There you'll see all possible project reports in the system.

 

Portfolio Status Report

The portfolio status report shows you the health of your portfolio based on time, budget, resources and tasks. The notes column will appear in this report if selected. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you wish to call the report.
• Sort by: Projects can be sorted by project name, percent complete, start date or finish date.
• Groups: Select from custom folders containing the projects you place in them. These folders are located on the portfolio projects page.
• Manager: Choose to report on all, one or multiple managers. Set project managers on the portfolio projects page or in project settings.
• Customer: Choose to report on all, one or multiple customers. Assign a customer to a project on portfolio projects or in project settings.
• Priority: You can include all priority levels, one priority level or multiple priority levels. You will see custom priority levels in the list.
• Status: Choose to filter the portfolio report by your project status, including any custom statuses you have created. Select the statuses you want to include in your report.
• Include: You can include the health chart, cost or custom columns.
• Columns: You can include custom columns from the portfolio projects page in the report.

Once you have defined the parameters for the report, click view to see the report in your web browser or click PDF or Excel to download.

Once you run the report, you'll see the health chart by project if you've chosen to include it. The colors on the health correspond to the colors on the dashboard. After the health summary, you'll see the list of projects and columns you've chosen to include.

 

The project status report provides a detailed overview of the status of your project. Using a health chart helps you determine whether your project is currently on time and under budget, including tasks due this week and overdue.

It also includes the status of milestones and summary tasks, if you indicate you would like to include these tasks. The notes column will appear in this report if selected under columns. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you wish to call the report. 
• Project: Choose the project you would like to see in the report. Underneath this field, you will see an option to include closed projects. Closed projects will be clearly marked as follows: CLOSED: PROJECT NAME.
• Include: You can choose to include the summary information health chart, cost and more.
• Columns: You can choose to include columns in your report including custom columns.

Once you have defined the parameters for the report, click view to see the report in your web browser or click PDF or Excel to download.

If you have selected the health box, you will see time, workload and cost. The colors on the health correspond to the colors on the dashboard.

Next, you'll see the summary information. If you've selected the workload, effort, schedule, budget and cost boxes, you will see high-level metrics for the project below the health section. These metrics include status, percent complete, customer, charge code, start, actual effort, actual cost, remaining, priority, schedule, project manager, budget, finish, planned effort and planned cost.

 

 

If you see blank data, you haven't entered data for that metric. You can deselect metrics that don't apply to your projects, such as budget and cost, in the parameters for the report.

After the summary information, you will see the types of tasks that you've selected including overdue, due this week, milestones and summary. If you uncheck any of these boxes as you're building the report, you won't see that type of task when you run the report.

Similar to the project status, the project plan report is an overview of a single project. Unlike the project status report, it doesn’t include summary tasks and a health chart. It also doesn’t separate tasks that are due, like the project status report.

The project plan report allows you to choose specific dates versus the entire project so it is helpful if you only want to see a portion of a project. If you want to export your data from the tool and filter it in Excel, the project plan report makes it easy. The notes column will appear in this report if selected. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you want to call the report. 
• Project: Choose the project you would like to see in the report. Underneath this field, you will see an option to include closed projects. Closed projects will be marked as follows: CLOSED: PROJECT NAME.
• Include: You can choose to include the actuals, budget, cost to date, target date or milestones only.
• Dates: Choose the dates you would like included in the report.
• Columns: You can choose to include columns in your report including custom columns.

Once you've defined the parameters for the report, click view to see the report in your web browser or click PDF or Excel to download.

Once run, you will see the tasks that fall within the date range you selected along with any columns that you have selected. If any columns selected are blank, it means you haven't entered information on the project.

 

Tasks Report

The tasks report lists all the tasks included within the project or projects you select. You are also able to pull tasks that are not part of a project in this report. The notes column will appear in this report if selected. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the title you want to give the report. 
• Project: Choose the project or projects you would like to see in the report. If you would like to see non-project tasks, you can select them here. Underneath this field, you will see an option to include Closed Projects. Closed Projects will be marked as follows: CLOSED: PROJECT NAME.
• Tags: You can choose to include all tasks with tags or only certain tags by checking the tags you would like to include. If tags aren’t selected, tasks without tags will be included in the report.
• Include: You can choose to include special tasks, tasks due and task status. The definitions of each type of task are included here. 

  • Milestones: Includes milestones tasks.

  • Summary: Includes summary tasks.

  • Tasks due: Choose to see tasks based on when they are due such as due today, this week, this month, any time or a custom date range.

  • Started: Include tasks that have started (must be between 1-99% complete).

  • Not started: Include tasks that have not yet started (must be 0% complete).

  • Complete: Include tasks that are 100% complete.

  • Overdue: Include tasks that are not complete and missed their due date.

• Columns: You can choose specific columns to include in your report including custom columns. 
• People: You can choose which Team Members you want to report on. If you choose a specific team member, the report will only show their assigned tasks.

This report can be previewed or exported to PDF, Microsoft Excel, or CSV as well as viewed offline. If you select the offline option, you'll be emailed the report.

 

Timesheets Report

This report allows you to export the timesheets for selected users and projects over a date range that you specify. This is helpful if you are exporting your Timesheet data to another software such as Quickbooks or your payroll software.

• Title: This is the name you wish to give the report. 
• Project: Choose the project you would like to see in the report. You can also choose to see all projects, non-project tasks and admin tasks. Underneath this field, you will see an option to include closed projects. Closed projects will be clearly marked as follows: CLOSED: PROJECT NAME.
• Dates: Choose the dates you would like included in the report.
• Group by: You can group by project, person, date or none. For example, if you choose to group by project, the project names will be the header followed by the people.
• Report: You can run this report for no time recorded to check on missing timesheets. If you select no time recorded, you will only see the project, person, date and individual hours columns and all other columns will be hidden.
• Columns: Choose which columns you want to include in your report including custom columns. You will see columns unique to this report such as approved by, approval status, etc. The notes column refers to timesheet notes.
• People: Choose which users' timesheets you would like to be included in this report.

This report can be previewed or exported to PDF, Microsoft Excel, or CSV as well as viewed offline. If you select the offline option, you will be emailed the report.

Once run, you will see the hours logged per task for the users selected within the desired date range. You will also see any columns that you choose to include.

 

Availability

This report shows who's available and who's too busy to take on more work based on the number of tasks and the amount of effort assigned. If you've assigned less work than a person has in their calendar, then they're available for more work over that period. Every time you assign a person to a task it will affect their availability in this report. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you wish to call the report.
• Availability summary: Shows how many hours a user has available, how many hours were assigned to tasks and therefore, how many hours are available for more work. 
• Availability detail: Shows availability on a week-by-week basis. You can see how many calendar hours they had each week, how many hours were assigned to tasks and how many hours are available for more work.
• Project: Choose the project you would like to see in the report.
• Dates: Choose the dates you would like included in the report.

Once you have defined the parameters for the report, click view to see the report in your web browser or click PDF or Excel to download. Please note that the availability detail is only available in Excel. Here's an example of the availability summary and availability detail reports.

 

Availability Detail Report:

 

 

Availability Summary Report:

 

Workload

If portfolio features are a part of your plan, you'll see the workload page in overview. This report shows you the planned effort of each user you select in an exportable format. This report differs from the availability report because it shows hours assigned in a calendar day-by-day view.

You can see the total number of hours that each person is assigned to tasks across projects. You can then quickly and easily see who's under or over-allocated on any day in the week and change their assigned tasks on the Workload page. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you want to call the report.
• Level: The summary level shows you a daily view of the total number of hours that each person has assigned to tasks across all projects. You can see the detailed number of hours per project per day, that each person is assigned. The task level shows an even more detailed breakdown of the summary level. You can see the detailed number of hours assigned per task per day.
• View: You can choose to see a daily, weekly or monthly view.
• Dates: Choose the dates you would like included in the report.
• People: Choose which team members you want to report on.

Once you have defined the parameters for the report, you can either view it offline or in Excel. Here's an example of the report on the summary level, viewed monthly.

 

Variance Report

The variance report shows you how your actual progress compares to the planned and baseline views of your project. This will help you determine if your project is slipping off schedule. You can configure the following parameters:

• Title: This is the name you wish to call the report.
• Project: Choose the project you would like to see in the report. Underneath this field, you will see an option to include closed projects. Closed projects will be clearly marked as follows: CLOSED: PROJECT NAME.
• Include: You can choose to see summary tasks only or include the percent complete in the report.
• Actual to planned: The difference between the actual and planned progress.
• Actual to baseline: The difference between the actual and baseline progress.
• Planned to baseline: The difference between the planned and baseline progress.

The options "actual to baseline" and "planned to baseline" only appear if you added a baseline to your project. You can add a baseline to your project in the Gantt view by clicking the gear icon to the right of the lock.

Once you have defined the parameters for the report, click view to see the report in your web browser or click PDF or Excel to download.

Once pulled, you will see the start and finish dates along with hours and duration. S1 and S2 will be defined on the report to help you interpret the data.

For even more on our reports, watch our Listen & Learn video.

Additional Help

Don't hesitate to email support@projectmanager.com if you have any lingering questions about our reporting features!