Differences between Portfolios, Programs and Projects

Portfolios are lightweight by design to hold Projects and Programs and can roll up any of their data in Reports or using Relations Summary fields.

Programs are Work Items, and provide Program Managers top-level aggregated views of projects, with additional capabilities for visibility and reporting.

With Programs, a Program Manager can oversee items related to all projects in the Program. The items roll up from sub-projects and their sub-items, specifically:

1. Requests (Aggregated)
2. Issues (Aggregated)
3. Risks (Aggregated)
4. Bugs (Aggregated)
5. Files (Aggregated)
6. Resources

Note: As Portfolios and Projects have different fields, to ensure there is no unintentional loss of data, there is no standard functionality to change a Project or Program into a Portfolio. Create a Custom Action to migrate a Project-type Portfolio to a Program or to a new Portfolio, where you can copy the relevant fields needed.

Scheduling & Progress

Unlike Projects and Programs, Portfolios do not have a mandatory start date or end date. If dates are defined, they can assist with reporting and workflow automation but do not have any automatic effect on scheduling.

Progress Method

Projects and Programs have expectations of progress according to their scheduled work and milestone dates. Portfolios do not expect progress, however, they do have a simple counter of On Track and Off Track projects which rolls up schedule status of Projects and Programs.

Also, Portfolios have no automatic completion rules. They do not complete if all of their Programs and Projects have completed.

Can a Project or Program be in multiple Portfolios?

Projects and Programs can be in multiple Portfolios. You can track allocated funding by project on the Portfolio-Project link that can be displayed in the Projects list.

Can a Portfolio be nested in another Portfolio?

Portfolios are “top-level” items. Nesting Portfolios is not planned at this time.
Using a custom reference-to-object field, it is possible to mimic a parent & sub-Portfolio structure.

Portfolio Roadmap & Gantt

Click here to read more about the new Portfolio Roadmaps.

To use the legacy Roadmap functionality to create a Roadmap or Gantt of Portfolio Projects, select multiple or all Projects in a Portfolio, and use the Gantt and Roadmap capabilities in the Utilities menu.

Resourcing

You can view Resource Load and Resource Planning for Portfolio Projects Resources from the Utilities menu.

Adding Projects and Programs

Once you have chosen whether Projects and/or Programs should display on the Portfolio detail page, you can start adding Projects and Programs from Add Related.

Alternatively, add the Portfolios field to a Project grid and add Projects (or Programs).

Can I change a Portfolio-flagged Project to a new Portfolio?
New Portfolios are not Work Items, so it’s not possible to convert an older Portfolio Project into a new Portfolio.

However, if you already have portfolio projects and would like to migrate to new Portfolios, it is possible to run both old and new portfolios in parallel while you update reports, views and dashboards, and plan any other new changes.

To move multiple projects over to a new portfolio, you can create a custom action to create new Portfolio Project Links, or adapt this simple application to add Projects to a new Portfolio.

Roadmaps

See Portfolio Roadmaps

Slide Publisher

Use Slide Publisher with Portfolios to create Portfolio presentations with repeating slides from the Portfolio projects.

A reference template can be downloaded from the Apps Marketplace Slide Publisher page.

If your organization is already using Slide Publisher, you can install the incremental upgrade App and get started with the sample Portfolio Projects template

Slide Publisher for Portfolio supports 3 options for publishing repeating detail slides:

1. Projects
2. Programs
3. Programs and Projects - a special hierarchy that groups by Programs and Projects
   (e.g. Program 1, Project 1.1, Project 1.2, Project 1.3, Program 2, Project 2.1, Project 2.2, etc.).
   

To generate a presentation with repeating Programs and their Projects, use the 2 options (2 & 3 in the image below).

Repeating Slide - Programs with Projects type (3) slides should always follow Repeating Slide - Programs type (2) slides. A header notification on the Template Wizard screen will identify which type you have selected.

Note that as a Powerpoint Presentation is a flat set of slides, the hierarchy structure is flattened when published as:

Portfolio 1, Project 1, Project 2, Project 3, Program 1, Project 4, Project 5, Program 2, Project 6, Project 7

Click here to download Slide Publisher and sample templates.

Permissions

A Portfolio has an Owner and can be updated by Super Users.

By enabling Permission Access Levels system setting, you can add Groups, Profiles or Users with Editor or Viewer permission to Portfolios.

Data Warehouse Export & API

Portfolios and their linkages with Projects & Programs (Portfolio Project Link and Portfolio Program Link) are open to API and available in Data Warehouse Export.

Mobile

Portfolios can be added to Mobile profiles from where you can review and update standard and custom fields, navigate through to portfolio Projects, collaborate on discussion threads, and review attached files.

Configuration

Portfolio is fully supported in configuration with support for Custom Panels, Custom Fields, Custom Actions, Workflow Rules, Validations, and more.

With custom actions or workflow rules you can add Projects and Programs to Portfolios by adding Portfolio Project Links or Portfolio Program Links.

Extending your Portfolios' related items will allow you to display new related panels in Portfolio views and access the related data in configuration and reporting.

Extend Portfolios' related items by:

1. linking Custom Objects
2. using Reference to Object fields from other standard objects (e.g. Risks, Issues, Customers).

Reporting

Portfolios and their related items are available in reports and their filters.

You can also add Financial Resource data to your report.

For example, add project funding data alongside portfolio funding budget to evaluate whether the projects' planned work use all their funding, or can funds be re-allocated, and, does the portfolio have enough funding to meet upcoming project costs.