Project Status
Understanding the Project Status Report: A Complete Overview
In project-based operations, staying on top of multiple moving parts—budget, hours, ticket progress, and financials—is essential. MSPCFO's Project Status Report is a powerful tool that gives project managers, operations teams, and leadership a clear, bird’s-eye view of project health across any subset of work.
Let’s explore what it does, how it works, and why it’s a game-changer for managing project performance.
Purpose: Why Use the Project Status Report?
The Project Status Report offers unparalleled visibility into project-level performance, with a balance of high-level metrics and granular detail. It’s designed not just to report on what’s done, but also to highlight what remains, what’s off track, and what’s at risk, giving you the tools to take proactive action.
The reports primary goal is to enable users to:
- Compare actuals vs. budgeted work
- Track project planning accuracy
Whether you're looking at all projects across your organization or zooming in on a single manager or location, this report allows flexible and insightful analysis.
Filters
1. Date Range - Report time period (complete months).
2. Status - Shows the status of the project/phase/ticket. Example of statuses as defined in the PSA: Open, Work in Progress, Pending, Completed.
3. Manager - Project manager for each project, enabling filtering by ownership.
4. Location - Use the location designation from the PSA to filter on one or more locations.
5. Type - Only provide report information for one or more Project Types as refined in the PSA.
6. Apply Filters - Click on this button to apply filters after filters are set.
7. Clear Filters - Clear filters back to default settings.
Key Report Components
The report has two main sections:
1. SUMMARY METRICS (Top 6 Tiles)
These provide a snapshot of all filtered projects:
- Total Hours Remaining - Sum of hours remaining for all projects in report
- Total Person Days - Total Hours Remaining/8
- Project Count - Number of projects in report
- Total Variance - Budget - Actual
- Overall Ticket Completion % - Percent of tickets completed in all projects in report
- Total Down Payment Remaining - Down Payment that has not been billed to the project
Each figure is calculated from underlying project, phase, and ticket data.
2. DETAILED BREAKDOWN TABLE
This section supports multi-level visibility:
- Client → Project → Phase → Tickets
- Enables identification of issues at any level.
- Allows pinpointing outliers (e.g., a delayed ticket within an otherwise on-track project).
The columns shown in the report are at the project level when the report is opened. Click on the '>' to open the phase level and '>' on the phase to see all tickets in the phase.
The following are the key metrics for the report:
1. Client/Project/Phase/Ticket (Location) - This section of the report shows the Client/Project/Location at the top level. If the project is opened up as shown above, the project shows the additional levels of phases and tickets within each phase.
2. Status
Project level - Overall status of the project
Phase Level - Overall status of the phase
Ticket Level - Status for each ticket within the phase
3. Manager - Shown on the Project level. Lists the project manager for the project, enabling filtering by ownership
4. Budget - Planned hours at ticket/phase/project level
5. Actual - Hours worked to date
6. Variance - Budget minus Actual
Positive = under budget
Negative = over budget
7. Remaining - Shows how many hours are left, only for open projects. Completed items have 0 remaining.
Tip. Use Variance for completed projects. Use Remaining for ongoing ones.
8. Days - A conversion of remaining hours into full-time workdays (8 hours = 1 day)
9. Ticket Completion - Percent of completed tickets per phase; rounds to nearest 10%; helps visualize overall project.
10. Down Payment Remaining - Outstanding payment made for a project/phase/ticket that has not been satisfied.
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