Status updates

The Information panel in the right section of the KPI Status screen displays the state of the project at the time of the Status Update creation. They are a snapshot in time and cannot be updated via the UI once they are saved, unless you have turned on the Information Panel Locking feature.

Except for the finance values, all the information panels are driven by the system configuration settings. The numbers and the default state for each KPI can be customised via the Status Update - Information Panel Calculations configuration setting.

These settings are shipped blank so that defaults can be adjusted over time. However, each number can be overwritten via the settings, and once overwritten the default configuration will no longer apply.

If you require the default configuration as a basis for customisation, please select the 'Load Defaults' icon at the bottom of the configuration setting form for this Configuration Setting.

Default KPI Settings

The following settings are shipped with the product:

KPI	Info Panel	PBIs	Has Location	Labels	Order	Project Source	Program Source	Warning rule	Defaults KPI for Row	What is active	What is not active
Schedule				Variance	3	Difference between the baseline and forecast in days	Difference between the baseline and forecast in days	Red if more than 20% out; Negative = amber	Y
Financials	Variance	4471	Y	Variance	3	Roll up over all the financial transactions in the project	Roll up over all the financial transactions in the programs projects	Greater than 10% out	Y
Work				Variance	3	the difference between the baseline effort and the forecast effort	the difference between the baseline effort and the forecast effort	Red if more than 20% out; Negative = amber	Y
Deliverables	Overdue	4471	Y	Overdue	2	Count of all active Deliverables with a due date in the past	N/A	Greater than 0	Y	Not Started, In Progress	Completed, Cancelled, Inactive
Issues	Overdue	4471	Y	Overdue	2	Count of all active Issues with a due date in the past	Count of all active Issues with a due date in the past	Greater than 0	Y	Active	Postponed, Closed, Inactive
Risks	Overdue	4471	Y	Overdue	2	Count of all active Risks with a due date in the past	Count of all active Risks with a due date in the past	Greater than 0	Y	Active	Postponed, Closed, Inactive
Change Requests				Submitted	1	Sum of all submitted change requests cost estimate	Sum of all submitted change requests cost estimate	Greater than 0	Y	submitted

Information Panel Locking

Usually when you create a Status Update it calculates the values that show in the Information panel and they are never updated once the record is saved for the first time.

A feature has been released that allows these KPI calculations and the information panel to be refreshed. To turn this on, navigate to the Information Panel Locking setting.

By switching Allow Locking of Information Panels to yes, you turn on the function that allows PMs to create their Status Updates early and refresh them before they need to submit them.

The Lock Notification Banner text displays when the Information Panel is locked, you can change this to display any text that is relevant to the client's process.

When it has been turned on two new buttons will appear on the Status Update form.

• Update KPI this refreshes all the KPIs and Information panel within this Status Update
• Lock this locks the Status Update KPIs and Information panel. NOTE: this Locking function can be included in any Status Update Approval flows by toggling the 'Lock Information Panels' field on the Status Update record.

KPI Extensions / New KPIs

If there have been more options added to an existing KPI (e.g., Deliverabes/Schedule/Work/etc) or a new KPI has been created for usage on the Status Updates. Updates will need to be made to the config setting (statusUpdateOptionButtons_IQA) to ensure the KPI Options show up with the correct icons.

Adding a New Option to an Existing KPI

1. Edit an existing KPI
   • 
2. Add a New Option
   • 
3. Add in the required values (Option Value, Select Icon, Unselected Icon)
   • 

Adding a New KPI

1. Add a New Item
   • 
2. Add in the required values (Option Set)
   • 
3. Add a New Option
   • 
4. Add in the required values (Option Value, Select Icon, Unselected Icon)
   • 
5. Repeat 3-5 for as many options as required.

Default Financials values

The Financials section has three fields:

• Budget: this is the Total Budget amount for the project
• Forecast: this is the Total Forecast amount for the project
• Variance: this is a calculated field = Total Budget - Total Actuals - Forecast values for the current and future months

Duplicate status config setting

The statusUpdateConfig configuration setting allows administrators the ability to setup which fields are to be copied and/or cleared by the Duplicate Status Update and Clear Status Update ribbon buttons.

Out of the box, the following fields will be duplicated.

[
  "sensei_deliverablesstatus",
  "sensei_schedulestatus",
  "sensei_workstatus",
  "sensei_financialsstatus",
  "sensei_issuesstatus",
  "sensei_changerequestsstatus",
  "sensei_risksstatus"
]

The statusUpdateConfig configuration will allow for any Status Update field to be copied from the previous status update (previous status is determined by the most recent update sorted by Status Date).

Note

Kaizen version 2024.04.16.3 addressed a bug which prevented Date fields from successfully being duplicated. If you are selecting to include a Date field in the list of fields to duplicate, it will successfully set the default based on the previous status update value. Please note though that fields of type DateTime (Time zone independent) will likely display with an incorrect time component and possibly Date component (depending on time zone). The value copied as part of the duplication process is simply a default value which can then be adjusted by the user as required.

The setting is an array of fields, which is populated by the helper widget to avoid user errors when entering fields.

Information panel calculations setting

The statusUpdateInformationPanels_IQA configuration setting allows the administrator to setup new or override existing information panel calculations in the status report.

If you make changes to the Status Updates please make sure you reference this statusUpdateInformationPanels_IQA setting and not the default statusUpdateInformationPanels_IQ setting.

The Status Update Information Panels appear (as highlighted below) alongside each KPI and which provide summary information relating to that KPI.

The statusUpdateInformationPanels_IQA configuration setting contains the following sections:

• Parent Fields: The status information panels need to know the parent field and target object for their calculations (e.g. the parent entity that the Status Update relates to). By default the sensei_project and sensei_program fields are configured as parents.
• Field Configurations: For the panel to calculate, the bound field needs to have an entry here. Each value maps to a field on the sensei_statusupdate table - and it is that field that will store the calculated value for the Information Panel when the Status Update item is saved. Defaults shipped with the product will be covered automatically, but can be overridden here. To add a new value you will need to create a field or to change a given value you will need to determine which field name is used for a given value.
• Overall KPI Configuration: Specifies the overall KPI field so we can roll up the other default calculations to it.

Control

In the classic form designer for Status Update, you can see which fields the control are bound to. As you can see from the image below each control supports 4 properties as well as linking to one KPI property which determines which KPI to set the default to. This is where the relationship is set between a persisted information panel field and its related KPI.

Field configurations

Once you have identified the field name that you wish to modify, you can then go about the configuration for its calculation. In the active Deliverables example, you can see the field internal name is configured in the Logical Name field and this maps the configuration for its calculation.

Note

The finance field configurations are hard coded as their complexity is too high to make this configurable.

At this level the fields are:

• Value Suffix: This allows you to append a suffix to the value at run time such as hrs or days. This is not saved to the field, it will be automatically added though when rendered via the Information Panel.

• Label Override: By default, the label below the value will come from the table field, however if you wish to customise it for this form, you can do so here.

• Tooltip Description Override: Like the label you can customise the tooltip used here for the value.

• Type Override: By default, we will try and coerce the value to the target field type, however here you can select a type for us to try and convert the value to. Supported types are Date Only, Date and Time, Currency, Decimal as well as Integer.
• Default Colour: To customise the colour of the displayed value when in a normal state (prior to any warning calculations) you can do so here. You can use any valid CSS colour.
• KPI Default: One field on each control can be responsible for setting the KPI default. This is where you determine what the default is. This value needs to one of the valid option set values set for the KPI. The options we ship with are On Track (955000000), On Watch (955000001), Troubled (955000002).

Configurations

Depending on which parent entity (e.g. program or project) the status update is attached to, the calculation for the value may be different. This section allows you to configure how this is calculated, if at all. At run time the control will determine which relationship is active (e.g. the parent type that is related to the current Status Update) and then use the appropriate configuration to calculate the value.

• Parent Field: Identify the field name that relates the Status Update to the parent object (e.g. sensei_project, sensei_program)
• Value Configuration: There are several ways the value is calculated. Each value configuration type is identified below.

Fixed value from parent

This is the most straight forward in that it will save a field value directly from the parent entity. In the above example for the sensei_startdate field it will save the sensei_projectstart date field from the sensei_project relationship.

• Logical Field Name: The name of the field on the parent entity that you wish to retrieve the value from.

Date difference based on values from parent object in days

This will allow you to calculate a date difference (in days) between two specified dates that are retrieved from the parent entity. In the above example, the difference (in days) will be calculated between the sensei_startdate and sensei_finishdate.

• Start Date Logical Field Name: The name of the field on the parent entity that contains the start date that you wish to use in your date diff calculation.
• End Date Logical Field Name: The name odf the field on the parent entity that contains the end date that you wish to use in your date diff calculation.

OData aggregate

This will allow you to execute a query against DataVerse to retrieve and aggregate the data you want. Query data using the Web API (Microsoft Dataverse) - Power Apps | Microsoft Docs

• Odata Url: The relative Odata url that should be used to retrieve the aggregated data.
• Field to Aggregate: Optional field. If left blank, a Count of the rows returned will result. When populated, it will aggregate the field you specify.

In the above example for Active Deliverables, it is querying for all deliverables for a given project and in a given state. As there is no field specified we will simply do a count of the rows returned.

Be careful to use a $select to load only the minimum fields you need to ensure optimal performance.

Note

The tokens {parentId} and {utcNow} will be replaced at execution time, and be sure to correctly URL encode any query parameters provided.

In the above example for Rejected Change Requests it is adding up all the sensei_costestimate fields that are returned by the query of rejected change requests in the project.

/api/data/v9.0/sensei_changerequests?$select=sensei_costestimate&$filter=_sensei_project_value%20eq%20%27{parentId}%27%20and%20statuscode%20eq%20955000002

Note

In this case you can use an aggregate in the next mode, however here we are using it to show you in case you are struggling with the aggregation.

OData query

This option allows you to simply use an odata query and save a given value from the response.

In the above example for Remaining Work for programs, it is using aggregations to do the calculation of summing up all the effort remaining for a program on the server side and then use the total provided.

/api/data/v9.0/sensei_programs({parentId})/sensei_project_sensei_program?$apply=groupby((sensei_program/sensei_programid),aggregate(sensei_effortremaining%20with%20sum%20as%20total))

Note

The tokens {parentId} and {utcNow} will be replaced at execution time.

• Odata Query Url: The odata endpoint that wish to query for your data.
• Value Field Name in Result: The field returned from the odata query that you wish to use for the Information Panel value.

Query Tokens

The list of query tokens can be used in status update queries, within the Value Field Name in Result field are found here.

Variance

The variance option allows you to store a variance between 2 fields on the form. It has 2 modes, a basic numerical variance, as well as a date diff.

• Left Logical Field Name: The field name that you wish to compare.
• Right Logical Field Name: The field that you wish to compare to the field specified in Left Logical Field Name.
• Type of Variance: Choice of Date Diff or Numerical. Determines the type of variance calculation that will be performed.

The above example for Schedule Variance will calculate the difference in days between the calculated scheduled finish and the calculated value provided by the baseline finish field.

In the above example for Work Variance, it will store the numerical difference between the total work field calculation and the baseline total work calculation.

Warnings

Warning calculations allow you to highlight the value at runtime based on its value. They will execute from top to bottom and stop when a warning has been triggered.

• Comparison operator: The comparison operator determines how we will compare the value and hence if the warning has been breached. Most are straight forward (greater than, equal, less than, etc.) “Variance (plus or minus)” is the only one that is a little out of the ordinary in that if the value is within the threshold it will be fine, only if it is greater than this will it be triggered.
• Colour override: The colour used to display the value if this warning is triggered.
• Multiplier / Variance threshold: Allows you provide an allowance or margin before the warning is shown by multiplying the compare value. Value must be between 0 and 1. (e.g. 0.1 = 10%).
• KPI Default: The value to set the related KPI to if this warning is triggered.
• Comparison Configuration: Determines what the value should be compared to. Available options are 'Compare to another information panel on this form.', 'Date diff based on an information panel value on this form.', 'Duration comparison.', 'Compare to a static value.'

In the above example for Work Variance, it is saying if the variance is greater than or less than 20% of the baseline total work, then trigger the warning. (e.g. if the baseline total work is 100 hours, then the warning will trigger if the work variance is + or - 20 hours).

What happens when it is triggered is determined by the Colour Override and KPI Default values as mentioned in their descriptions.

Note: The KPI Default value only needs to be set if the field is the one determining the KPI default.

If you setup Information Panel calculations setting and set a blank default for Risks Overdue or Issues Overdue, it results in a Required Field Error message showing for the field when a new Status Update form is displayed. This can be fixed by setting the KPI Default in the setting, then changing the 950003 value for KPI Default to -1. Then the required field error no longer shows.

Comparison configuration

This is how you determine what the value will be compared to.

Compare to another information panel on this form

In the above example it is comparing to another field on the form. (e.g. if comparison operator was 'Greater than', then the warning would be triggered if the Baseline Total Work was greater than the comparison date).

• Logical Field Name: Identify here the name of the field that should be compared to.

Date diff based on an information panel value on this form

In the above example, it is comparing to a Date field on the form with a day threshold of 7 days. (e.g. if the Baseline Finish Date is 2023-03-01 then the warning would be triggered if the comparison date was greater than 2023-03-08).

• Days Threshold: Day threshold as a number
• Logical Field Name: The date field which should be compared to

Duration comparison

This allows you to compare the value to a calculation of a duration between 2 other fields on the form.

In the above example for Scheduled Finish, we will calculate the duration between the start date and the scheduled finish and the duration between the start date and the baseline finish, then compare the 2. Here, if the scheduled finish duration is greater than 10% over, the warning will be triggered. (e.g. In this case, if the duration between Start Date and Baseline Finish Date was 100 days, the warning will be triggered if the duration between Start Date and Scheduled Finish is greater than 110 days).

• Start Date Logical Field Name: The field which contains the start date.
• End Date Logical Field Name: The field which contains the end date.

Compare to a static value

The simple warning configuration will which compare the field value to a static value.

In this example for Risks Due Date Missing, the warning will be triggered if the count of Risks with Due Date missing is greater than 0.

• Static Value: The static value to compare to.

KPI defaults

The default behavior of the Status Update KPIs are as follows:

KPI	Red - Trouble	Amber - On Watch	Green - On Track
Overall	Any other KPIs are Red	Any other KPIs are Amber	All other KPIs are Green
Deliverables	NA	Any active deliverables are overdue	No active deliverables are overdue
Schedule	NA	The duration between the scheduled finish and start date is more than 10% (+/-), compared to the duration between the baseline scheduled finish and start date	The duration between the scheduled finish and start date is less than 10% (+/-), compared to the duration between the baseline scheduled finish and start date
Work	The work variance to the baseline total work is more than 20% (+/-)	The work variance to the baseline total work is (+/-) 0	There is no variance to the baseline total work
Financials	NA	The financial variance is greater than 10% +/- of the budget	The financial variance is less than 10% +/-of the budget
Issues	NA	Any active issues are overdue	No active issues are overdue
Risks	NA	Any active risks are overdue	No active risks are overdue
Change Requests	NA	Any change requests are in status Submitted	No change requests are in status Submitted

Example OData Queries

For example OData queries click here