Status Reporting

Status reporting lets the manager of a program or portfolio ask the initiatives beneath it for a regular status report, and collect, review, and approve the reports in one place. Reports are requested from Tools > Manage Status Updates on the requesting initiative's side menu, and completed from Tools > Status Update on each initiative asked for one. Each report keeps a snapshot of the initiative at the time it was published, so reports can be compared over time.

This article covers both the Advanced and Simple Models. Status reporting needs to be set up by an administrator first — see Configuring Status Reporting.

How a reporting cycle works

Each round of status reporting follows the same cycle:

1. Set up — an administrator chooses which initiatives request reports and which submit them, builds the templates the reports use, and, optionally, an approval workflow. This is done once. See Configuring Status Reporting.
2. Request — the requester creates a report period, choosing the initiatives to report, the template, and a due date. This can be done by hand for each round, or automated: a report group with a schedule creates a new report period each week, fortnight, or month, for the initiatives that match its criteria. Each initiative's owner is emailed, and the report becomes available to complete. See Requesting Status Reports.
3. Submit — each initiative's owner completes the report and publishes it before the due date. See Submitting Status Reports.
4. Approve — where the reports have an approval workflow, approvers approve each report, or reject it with feedback for the owner to update and publish again. See Approval Workflow Types.
5. Review and close — the requester reviews the reports, sends reminders for any still outstanding, and closes the period. Closed periods, and their reports, can still be viewed.

Each initiative can have one report period open at a time.

Who does what

• The requester — usually the manager of a program or portfolio. They request reports from the initiatives beneath theirs, follow their progress, and review them. In the Simple Model, programs request reports, and their projects submit them.
• The submitter — usually an initiative's owner or project manager. They complete and publish their initiative's report.
• Approvers — where there's an approval workflow, the people in its steps. They review each report before it's approved.

What each person can do is set by the status reporting permissions in their team role — see Configuring Status Reporting.

Terms

• Status report — one initiative's report for a report period.
• Report period — one round of reporting, with a name, a due date, a template, and the initiatives asked to report.
• Report group — a set of related report periods, such as a monthly portfolio report. A report group can have a schedule, to create its report periods automatically.
• Template — the layout of a status report: which fields and items it includes, such as the initiative's statuses, featured RAID items and tasks, and benefits.
• Snapshot — the copy of a report's values taken when it's published. See Live data and snapshots.

Report statuses

Each status report has a status, shown to the requester and the submitter:

• Not Submitted — requested, but not published yet.
• Overdue — not published, and the due date has passed.
• Submitted — published. Used where the reports have no approval workflow.
• Pending Approval — published, and waiting for approval.
• Rejected — sent back to the owner with feedback, to update and publish again.
• Approved — published and approved.
• Expired — from a closed report period, where it wasn't published, or approved, before the period was closed.

Live data and snapshots

A status report starts with the initiative's current values, and stays live until it's published. Changing a value in the report changes it on the initiative too, such as its status or owner.

When the report is published, a snapshot of its values is taken. The published report always shows those values, even as the initiative changes, so each report is a record of where the initiative stood. Where a report is rejected and published again, the new snapshot replaces the earlier one.

To set up status reporting, see Configuring Status Reporting. To request or complete reports, see Requesting Status Reports and Submitting Status Reports.