Variance Analysis

This article will walk you through the process of setting up a variance analysis for a portfolio in Planview Advisor. Variance analysis is useful for comparing the change in a portfolio's value, costs, spends, or schedule relative to reference point that you select.

The portfolio where you are setting up the variance analysis is called the base portfolio. The portfolio you compare against is called the reference portfolio.

Click here to see our video tutorial on variance analysis.

To set up a variance analysis:

Click on the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the Portfolio Summary.
Select a reference portfolio or set of snapshots to compare your current portfolio against. There are four tabs in the selector:
- another portfolio - Select another portfolio from the drop down menu. In general, the best reference portfolios to use are those with dated snapshots.
  
  NOTE
  
  Reference portfolios cannot have more than one snapshot per project in the portfolio.
- specific snapshots - Use the options in this tab to define a set of snapshots to compare against.
- another scenario - Select one of the scenarios you created for this portfolio.
Enter a Label for snapshots in the base portfolio. By default, this label is Present.
Click Save and Reload.

Once a reference portfolio is selected, Planview Advisor automatically calculates the variance between metrics and the Portfolio Summary changes to show the variance.

Variance in the Project List

Turning variance analysis mode on in a portfolio changes the Project list table in the following ways:

Projects that are in the reference portfolio but not in the base portfolio appear in the table, in red text.
Projects that are in the base portfolio but not in the reference portfolio appear in blue text.
The bars in the table will be underlined in either red or green if there is a variance in the values between the base and reference portfolio in that column.
Variance columns are added to the field chooser. Variance columns display value or size of the difference between the base and reference portfolio. All variance columns have the word "variance" added to the end of the field name. These can be added to the table as you would any other column. In the table, they are highlighted in either red or green.
The filter at the top of some columns changes to a slider. You can use the slider to define a range of differences. The table will adjust to exclude projects that fall outside of the range of differences. This also changes which projects are visible in the charts above the table.
When you click on a project row to drill into a project, any differences in values will be highlighted in red or green if the variance comparison is against another portfolio. Hovering over a highlighted value will reveal the size of the difference, expressed as a percentage and the total values for that field in base and reference portfolios. If the variance comparison is against specific snapshots, you need to select the snapshot before you can see the differences.

Variance in Portfolio Dashboards

Turning variance analysis mode on in a portfolio changes the Project Dashboards in the following ways:

Variance columns from the Project list are added to fields you can select include in each chart. Adding a variance column to the chart allows you to directly visualize the magnitude of the differences.
When you click on an element of the chart, any differences in values will be highlighted in red or green. Hovering over a highlighted value will reveal the size of the difference, expressed as a percentage and the total values for that field in base and reference portfolios.
Variance series are added to the By Years metrics. These series show the difference between the base and reference portfolios.