Editing Project/Program Meta-data

To get great reporting out of Fluid - there needs to be quality project meta-data!

The top section of the Project Workspace contains all the core meta-data for the project or program. 

It is important that this information is accurate as it influences the inclusion (or exclusion!) of a project in the dynamic reporting. 

This section also includes a snapshot of life-to-date financials and financials for the current financial year.

To edit a project's settings, click on the Edit Details.

Only Project Managers, Project Editors and Project Administrators are able to edit the projects settings.

Note: The field descriptions in this article are generic to support an understanding of what the fields are for. 

All meta-data fields are fully customisable so the options available for selection from the drop downs will be specific to how an organisation’s instance has been configured and the business rules on how projects should be categorised for reporting. 

If unsure of something, speak to your PMO or Fluid Administrator. 

Use the anchors in the left hand panel to easily navigate to the different sections of the settings page.

Under Tools you can:

• Copy the financials and resource plan from one project to the next
• Navigate to the Workspace
• Archive the project

Archiving a project will effectively delete it from Fluid so that it is no longer in any reporting or accessible via search. Only users with Project Administrator role on their account are able to ARCHIVE projects.

KEY DETAILS

• Title: The name of the project. This will be included in ALL the reporting so make sure it is accurate and descriptive.
• Code: All your risks, issues and schedule items are given unique identifiers in Fluid. This field allows you to specify the prefix you want applied to the unique identifiers for the project.
• Portfolio: Defining portfolio's allows you isolate projects around a theme or ownership - portfolio's can be business units, products, or any other grouping the business decides on.
• Sub-Portfolio: Allows further grouping of projects within the portfolio's for more granular reporting. 
• Business Driver: The strategic drivers for the organisation as a whole. This allows you to link projects to a strategic intent.
• Tier: Tiering allows you to set business rules around the importance and complexity of projects. Typically Tier 1 is the most complex/most important/most expensive (whatever has been defined for your organisation) down to Tier 5 which is the least.
• Discretionary Vs Non-discretionary: There will always be projects you have to do (non-discretionary) and projects you want to do (discretionary). When looking to trim a portfolio or look for cost savings - generally only discretionary projects would be assessed.
• Show Promoted Items on Parent Dashboards: If the project is linked to a 'parent' project you can specify here whether the promoted items you create on the project should be reported up to the parent.
• Cost Centre: The reference for where the project is being funded from.

PROJECT ADMINISTRATION

• Project Type: Often defined as Standard Project, Business As Usual, Small Enhancement, Task - but again, organisations can configure to any selection criteria they require.
• Project Category: Often defined as Business, Infrastructure, Support Services... but organisations can configure to any selection criteria they require.
• Funding Source: If your organisation has various funding 'buckets' where projects are paid from, they can be defined here.
• Methodology: Your organisation will have various execution methodologies running - each with their own defined phases and deliverables. Selecting a 'Methodology' will add the phases to the Milestone Date section under your project settings where you can set a start and end date for each phase.
• External Reference: This field can be used to populate any unique identifiers for your project for the upload of information from other systems in the organisation.
• Alternate Reference: This field can be used to populate any unique identifiers specifically for your project that is different from your external reference id. 
• Status: The overall executing status of the project - Active, Pipeline, On-Hold, Cancelled, etc. THIS IS NOT THE RAG STATUS FOR THE PROJECT - project RAG statuses are managed under the Project Status section of the Project Workspace. 

This section of the settings can be locked so that only Fluid Project Administrators can edit them.

COMMUNITY

• Primary PM: The main PM on the project. There can be more than one defined. PMs' have READ/WRITE access to update and maintain all content on the project.
• Owner: The person in business who's responsible for working with the project team to evaluate outcomes, feedback on requirements, mobilise business, manages business stakeholders and makes the business decisions necessary to keep things moving forward. Owners have READ access to the project information.
• Business Owner: The person in business who's responsible for working with the project team to evaluate outcomes, feedback on requirements, mobilise business, manages business stakeholders and makes the business decisions necessary to keep things moving forward. Business Owners have READ access to the project information.
• Executive: The Executive of the area the project is being delivered for - and who is ultimately responsible for the project and its stated benefits. Executives have READ access to the project information.
• Editors: People (besides the PM) who need to have full READ/WRITE access to update and maintain all content on the project.

PROJECT DATES

All the key milestone dates for the project. The 3 main dates are:

• Start Date: The date the project is starting.
• Implementation Date: The date the changes from the project will be implemented.
• End Date: The date the project is scheduled to finish/close.

Any Phases surfaced here based off the methodology selected under the Project Administration settings discussed earlier in this article. Phases - and Implementation Date - are used for capitalisation of projects and so these dates are set at the month level.

PROGRAMS

Projects can be part of an overall program (Primary Program) and/or can be linked to a Reporting Program. You can find out more on the difference between Primary and Reporting Programs here.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

The Financial Management section is only visible to users who have been set as Financials Administrators.

If the instance has been configured for capitalisation, then the three following fields will be displayed:

• Is Eligible to Capitalise Costs: Set this switch to Yes if the project is capitalisable.
• Capitalisation Profile: Use this field to select which capitalisation profile applies to this project.
• Amortisation Period: The amortisation period value.

You can learn more about capitalisation here.

If the instance has been configured to allow actuals to be generated from forecast, then the following field will be shown:

• Generate Actuals from Forecast: Set the value to yes if you want the project actuals should be automatically created from the forecast values.

PROJECT DETAILS

At the bottom of the settings page are free text fields to capture the detailed description of the project, the requirements and the proposed solution. You can also see who created the project and who last modified it.

PROJECT PROPERTIES

Any 'custom properties' that have been configured by your Fluid Administrator for your instance will be surfaced in separate section of project settings called Project Properties. 

Custom properties are a great way to include additional meta-data fields on projects if they are not catered for under the standard fields.