Creating and using project evaluations

Project Evaluations can be used to track and evaluate quantitative data that deals with project management for elements like Initiatives, Milestones, Action Items, or Risks.

Setting up a project evaluation has never been easier. If you are an admin, you can enable it for others within your organization to use on their elements. We’ll first walk through the admin-only part, Enabling Project Evaluations.

Enabling Project Evaluations

From System Settings, click into Admin Options.

Scroll down and click on the Project Evaluations tile. A new window will open.

The first step is to click on the plus icon to add a new series. You can change the data type, add a calculation, or set an evaluation for all series. See the below sections for common calculations and evaluations for projects. You can add as many series as you need. These will be the default series for when you decide to use Project Evaluations for this specific element. When you are finished adding series, click Enable Initiative Evaluations and Save when done.

This is the basics of Project Evaluations, adding quantitative tracking to other elements besides measures. Other users in your organization can now use these series you have created to better report on their Initiatives, Action Items, and more. Continue reading below to learn about popular and effective applications of Project Evaluations.

Setting up calculations and evaluations for projects

Reference series can be used to pull in quantitative data for Initiatives, Milestones, Action Items, and Risks that can be used for project evaluations. In this example, we will use the Percent Complete field to create a reference series for an Initiative. For more information on calculated series, please see this article: Creating a reference series.

From Project Evaluations, the first step is to add a new series which will become our reference series for Percent Complete. To do this, click the plus icon in the top right corner.

Name the series and click into the Calculation tab. From the Series Calculation Type dropdown, select Reference Series. Select which Element you want to reference from, and then select the Reference Field to display in this series. Click Save.

You can also set up automatic evaluations from the Project Evaluations menu in Admin Options. By creating evaluation criteria on a series, Initiative, Milestone, Action Item, and Risk performance can be automatically evaluated.

From Project Evaluations, add or edit an existing series. Click on the Evaluation tab and select evaluation criteria. Check Use this series for overall element evaluation to set up automatic evaluations on any newly added elements.

Editing an Initiative that is using Project Evaluations

Once the Project Evaluation is set up, you can continue to edit the element individually. You can add more series, edit or update any of the fields, and more. In this example, we’ll edit the chart before pulling it out onto the initiative detail page.

Editing an Initiative detail page layout that is using Project Evaluations

Once the project evaluation is set up, you can Edit the Layout of the element. In this example, we’ll display the chart and series evaluations on the detail page.  You can also add the data table or series status fields, just like you can with measures!