Portfolio Reporting

APPLIES TO

  • Smartsheet Advance Package

Display and act on critical portfolio data in real time with easy-to-configure, widget-based views that automatically include data from newly created projects.

Smartsheet Control Center: Set Up a Blueprint Summary Sheet

APPLIES TO

  • Smartsheet Advance Package

Create and view portfolio-level metrics about your projects with a Blueprint Summary sheet.

In a Blueprint Summary sheet, you can also track: 

  • Total number of projects in a particular phase
  • Total budget for all the projects
  • Health and forecast completion date for each project 

This feature helps you create (optional) overviews of all your projects—in one place.

Create a Blueprint Summary sheet

Create a Blueprint Summary sheet before you run the Blueprint Builder.  (More on the Blueprint Builder is available here.)

As you set up a Blueprint Summary sheet, you must create a column for each profile data element you want to include. Here are some things to keep in mind as you do this:

  • The column name must be the same name as the profile data element in your source templates. 
  • For each column, select a type that matches the profile data element type (Text/Number, Contact List, Date, Dropdown list, Checkbox, Symbol, Auto-Number/System). More on this in Use the Best Column Type for Your Data.
  • Do not enable the Restrict to certain values only option in the sheet column properties for dropdowns, contact lists, or symbols; this can cause errors. 

TIP: The Blueprint Summary sheet can include columns that don’t exist in your profile data. This can be useful if you want to create metrics that use multiple data elements. 

Blueprint summary

Organize the Blueprint Summary

Place the Blueprint Summary sheet in your Admin workspace, not in the Blueprint Source Folder. 

NOTES:  

  • If you’ve placed the Blueprint Summary in the Blueprint Source Folder, a new copy of it will be made automatically every time you create a new project. 
  • A Primary Lead must own the Blueprint Summary sheet. Share it to other stakeholders who need to see it with Viewer-level permissions.

Select the Profile Data Elements You Want

You may not want all of the profile data elements from your source templates in the Blueprint Summary sheet.

If an element is used to calculate metrics or shows important project data, it’s a good choice for inclusion in your Blueprint Summary sheet. 

Edit a Blueprint Summary Sheet

How you edit the Blueprint Summary sheet will depend on what you want to do:

  • To add profile data columns, run the Blueprint Builder. (More on Blueprint Builder here.)
  • To add columns that are not related to profile data, you can add those directly to the Blueprint Summary sheet. 
  • To delete or rename a column, edit the Blueprint Summary sheet.

NOTE: If you change the name of a Profile Data element in the Blueprint Source template, you must also change it manually in the Summary Sheet.

Add a Project to the Blueprint Summary Sheet

Create a new project. Each project you create is automatically added to the associated Blueprint Summary. Profile data values from your Project sheets will be cell-linked to matching columns in the Blueprint Summary sheet.

Organize Projects in a Hierarchy

You can create a hierarchy in the Summary sheet and configure the Blueprint (in the Control Center app) to add new projects under the selected heading. (More on Blueprints here.)

To do this, add parent rows to your Summary Sheet. You’ll add this parent profile data element in the hierarchy section of the Blueprint Builder.

Hierarchy in a Blueprint Summary Sheet

NOTE:  Parent rows can include formulas to calculate metrics for the child projects.

Work with Multiple Summary Sheets

You can connect the Blueprint to more than one Summary sheet.

You can have more than one Summary sheet with different profile data columns. Each sheet might serve different audiences. Multiple Summary sheets can help you manage sheet limitations—useful when you are creating large numbers of projects. (Learn more about Control Center Limitations.)

Repair a Summary Sheet

If a cell-link or row is accidentally deleted from the Summary sheet, you can repair the cell-links connecting the project to the summary sheet. 

To repair a Summary sheet:

  1. In Control Center, select Active Projects from the dropdown in the top right corner. 
  2. Select the project that needs repair.
  3. Click Update Reporting at the bottom of the screen. 

You’ll see a confirmation message when the update is complete. 

Display High-Level Data on a Dashboard

Blueprint Summary sheets contain raw data about all the projects, as a portfolio, that are using the specific Blueprint. For a more high-level view:

  1. Create a second sheet for Portfolio Metrics and use cross-sheet formulas to calculate metrics about your projects. (See Formulas: Reference Data from Other Sheets.)
  2. You can then add data from both your Blueprint Summary and your Portfolio Metrics to a dashboard (with the metric widget), making it easy to see important information about your program.
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