Add projects and initiatives to your portfolio

Edit online

◆ Applies to: Apptio planning applications with Project Financial Planning. The tasks below require you to license Project Financial Planning. To enable Project Financial Planning features, see Edit the Company Profile.

The tasks below can only be performed by users assigned to the following roles:

  • Admin
  • Budget Process Owner
  • Cost Center Owner

For additional information on roles, see Frontdoor permissions and roles.

Add a project or initiative to your investment planning portfolio. Details you can capture include business case and financial and labor costs, either as high-level estimates or as detailed projections. You can also configure custom attributes to fill out a business case with attributes such as risk, business priority, and financial benefit.

Tip:

  • As you work in the Add Project dialog, many fields leverage the Project reference data configured in your Apptio instance (see Manage Project reference data).

  • Some of the estimated and summarized values in the Add Project dialog may be labeled FTE or Hours. The label used matches the calculation option chosen on the Summary view: Hours or FTEs.
  • The calculation option you use affects how internal and external labor costs are calculated. When using the Hours calculation option, labor cost is calculated as rate times hours. When using the FTE option, it is rate times duration times FTE.

Complete the following steps.

  1. In the Plan menu, select a plan.

    Learn more about the plan menus

  2. In the Plan section menu, select Projects.
  3. In the Plan sub-section menu, select All Projects.

  4. Click Add Project on the upper right of the window.

    TIP: If the Add Project button is not visible, then Investment Planning has not been made visible in the interface. See Edit the Company Profile.

    img

  5. In the Add Project dialog box, enter the required information. This dialog includes the following panels:
    • The panel on the left side of the dialog box includes options for setting up the project's essential cost tracking and related details:
      • Code - The unique identifier for a project. This value is automatically generated and follows the following structure:
        • YY - Last two digits of a year
        • MM - (1-12), no leading zero
        • DD - (1-31), no leading zero

        • SSSS - Seconds

      • Name -(Required) Enter the project's name, following the naming conventions of your organization.
      • Project Manager - Select the assigned project manager's email address. The available email addresses are limited to authenticated users of your Apptio instance with Enhanced Access Administration user IDs.
      • Group - Select the group in which this project belongs. Groups are defined in Project reference data (see Manage Project Configuration reference data).
      • Cost Center - Select one or more Cost Centers associated with this project.
      • Default Cost Center - Select the default Cost Center that this project's expenses and allocations should use.
      • Allow Any Cost Center - Clear to restrict this project's associated Cost Center to the values selected above.
      • Description - Enter whatever description you wish for this project.
      • Custom Attributes - These fields are reference data values used for business case analysis in portfolio investment planning. The custom attribute fields appear in alphabetical order and cannot be reordered.
      • Status - Chose from the available values. Proposed means this project and its associated costs are not generated (that is, allocated or delegated) to the department's budget. Approved means the project's costs are generated to the department's budget.
      • Rank -(Optional) Enter a numeric ranking of this project relative to all projects.
      • Group Rank - (Optional) Enter a numeric ranking of this project relative to its group as defined above.
      • Score -
        • If the Enable Project Auto-Scoring option has been enabled in the Company Profile, this value is automatically calculated (see Edit the Company Profile and Manage Project reference data).
        • If auto scoring has not been enabled, you can optionally enter whatever score value you wish. A manual score value has no effect on the project, but you can sort by Score in project's data tables.
      • Start Date - Enter the project's start date in MM/DD/YY format. The start date affects when estimated labor and costs start accruing.
      • Duration - Enter the project's expected duration in months. Duration affects the spread of estimated labor and costs.

    • The Financials panel of the right side of the dialog box includes Estimated and Summarized columns. Those columns include the following:

      NOTE: All Labor Rate and Labor Hours values you enter must match the Labor Units of Measure value specified in the Company Profile, Labor Effort Planning fields. See Edit the Company Profile.
      • Estimated - Check if you want to enter estimated values, as described below.
      • Cap. Labor % - Enter the percentage of labor to be capitalized.
      • Internal Labor Hours (or other labor unit of measure) - Enter the project's estimated internal labor value. See the note above.
      • Internal Labor Rate - The rate at which internal labor in this project is to be charged. This field defaults to the value entered in Company Profile. If you wish, you can override this default value.
      • Internal Labor Cost - The calculated value of hours (or other unit of measure) times rate.
      • External Labor Hours (or other labor unit of measure) - The rate at which external labor in this project is to be charged. This field defaults to the value entered in Company Profile. If you wish, you can override this default value.
      • External Labor Rate - Defaults to value entered in Company Profile. If you wish, you can override this default value.
      • External Labor Cost - The calculated value of hours (or other unit of measure) times rate.
      • OpEx (non-labor), CapEx (non-labor) - Enter any non-labor OpEx or CapEx costs expected for this project.
      • Build Cost - This is the Summarized (calculated) value of the sum of delegated costs incurred before the date of delegation.
      • Run Cost - This is the Summarized value of (calculated) value of the sum of delegated costs incurred after date of delegation.
      • Total Cost - This is the Summarized value of all planned costs the project will incur.
    • The lower portion of the Financials panel addresses the project's Return on Investment (ROI) calculation:
      • Benefit Amount - Enter your projected financial benefit expected from this project.
      • Benefit Period - Enter the expected duration in months in which you expect to realize the project's benefit amount. This benefit period begins after project completion.

      • ROI - The project's calculated return on investment (ROI), expressed as a percentage value (see How Project Financial Planning calculates ROI).

        NOTE: The interest rate value used in the ROI calculation is set in the Interest Rate (%) field of the Project Financial Planning section of the Company Profile. See Edit the Company Profile.

  6. Click Add Project.

To continue your project financial analysis, see Analyze project initiatives on the Financial tab. For deeper portfolio investment analysis, see the following: