Everyone involved in a project needs to see slightly different information based on their specific roles and responsibilities.

A PMO (Project Management Office), for example, has different reporting needs than a project team member. For this reason, a successful Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solution, such as Power Platform, depends on tailored reporting.

Role-Based Project Management Reports

Team members prefer to focus on their tasks on a particular project, while senior executives will hone in on the high-level status of many projects.

Make role-based project reports useful to everyone involved by getting rid of clutter and providing them with the right types of project reports, with relevant data, at the right time.

For the rest of this post, we will look at three main roles in a project team and the key role-based project reports each audience is likely looking for.

3 Project and Portfolio Reports on Power Platform

Effective reporting is essential at every level of project and portfolio management. Different roles require tailored insights to make informed decisions and keep work on track.

The following three types of reports on Power Platform address the specific needs of senior executives, project managers, and team members.

1. Senior Executives

Senior leaders must monitor multiple projects without switching among emails, spreadsheets, and meetings. They need a consolidated view that aligns every initiative with business objectives. Without a centralized dashboard, executives receive inconsistent updates too late to act.

High-Level Portfolio Dashboards

With BrightWork 365, senior executives get more visibility with real-time high-level portfolio dashboards across any combination of projects or portfolios.

Executives see a consolidated status snapshot, can drill into details, or switch to a roadmap view to visualize timelines and dependencies. These views offer a high-level perspective of the entire project pipeline to visualize timelines and dependencies.

Power BI for Portfolio Status Reporting

BrightWork 365 extends portfolio reporting on Power Platform even further with Power BI dashboards.

The BrightWork 365 Power BI dashboard is a pre-built report with dashboards for project and portfolio managers. It serves as a portfolio status report template for consistent updates.

The pack connects to the three BrightWork project data sources – Project Cache, Work Cache, and Project Status Report Cache – and other data sources as needed.

The BrightWork Power BI pack includes:

• Portfolio dashboards with a roll-up summary of all project sites. The dashboard offers four filtering options: “Project Status,” “By Project Manager,” “By Project type,” “By Department,” and “By Priority.
• Portfolio timeline, a Gantt view of all project sites. Drill down by year, quarter, month, week, and day.
• Project and Task Timeline, a Gantt view of projects and tasks. Filter the data by project name, project type, project manager, and task owner.
• Work Reports allow project managers to check the status of tasks, risks, issues, and goals.
• The Status Report Dashboard includes weekly Status updates, overall status summary, highlights, lowlights, and next steps. Project management teams rely on this dashboard, which can be customized to serve as an executive project status report template.
• The Issue Report helps project managers to get further information on issues, including the task owner.

Resource Utilization and Capacity Planning

In addition to project status, executives are concerned with how resources are used. Reports that visualize resource allocation and assist with capacity planning support strategic decision-making.

These insights help identify potential resource constraints before they impact the portfolio and can even include a resource histogram to show workload distribution over time.

2. Project Managers

The responsibility of a project manager is to deliver the project successfully. A key part of this is reporting project progress to stakeholders.

Project managers need a clear set of project management reports to track the status of a project and re-plan easily.

Tracking KPIs Across the Project Life Cycle

When it comes to tracking progress, project managers need a set of dashboards showing items like overdue work, issues, and risks.

These dashboards track key performance indicators (KPIs), such as progress against milestones, the status of key deliverables, and any plan-actual variance. A good project tracking report helps manage the project throughout its entire life cycle.

These project dashboards should be easily editable, so the project manager can re-plan to keep the project running smoothly. This is especially important for managing scope creep and tracking formal change requests against the original project charter.

Efficient Project Report Management

Project managers also need to save time when creating reports. An efficient project reporting process is necessary.

A project manager should be able to create a status report within 3 to 5 minutes, or they just won’t bother. This type of project report is essential for timely communication.

With BrightWork, updates from the project status report automatically roll up to the project homepage and portfolio dashboards for increased visibility.

3. Team Members

Team members sometimes struggle to understand what the point of the project is and what is expected of them. Often, they have no easy way to keep track of their assigned work and when it is due. This is especially challenging for individuals who are juggling multiple projects and day-to-day tasks.

For team members, reports should support their three primary responsibilities on a project:

• View all tasks assigned to them across projects
• See upcoming deadlines and track overdue work
• Update task progress and flag risks or issues immediately

 

Simplifying Tasks with ‘My Work’ Reports

A “My Work” dashboard delivers a focused, actionable task list with filters for Open Work, Due Soon, and Overdue Work. Simple update forms ensure prompt, consistent status reporting.

It’s also important that team members can easily update the progress on a project, and more importantly, flag a risk or issue as soon as it arises. This is a simple but direct way of reporting project status from the ground up, which can inform formal change requests if needed.

Make Project Data Work for Every Audience

Having accurate and up-to-date project management reports supports informed decisions at every level. If you want stakeholders to read reports and act on the information, consider tailoring different types of project management reports for different audiences.

See BrightWork 365 in Action

To see how BrightWork 365 can improve project management reporting, watch our free video demo.

In just 20 minutes, you’ll see key BrightWork 365 features in action, like:

• Project Request Management
• Real-time portfolio dashboards
• Flexible project and portfolio templates
• Automated reporting
• Collaborative team sites.

It’s critical to keep your stakeholders happy, or at the very least, informed. If you have a good communication line with your stakeholders, this can often determine whether a project succeeds or fails.

During the initiation stage of your project (and throughout!), it is key to identify the following about your stakeholders:

• Who are they?
• What requirements do they have?
• How influential are they in making decisions about your project?
• What do they expect from the project?
• What do you need to communicate to them?
• How will you communicate with these stakeholders?
• The level of frequency.

 

Remember that you should gather this information before starting any project work. Keep it updated as the project progresses.

Where to Manage Stakeholder Information

Instead of relying on spreadsheets or disconnected documents, Power Platform offers a centralized, dynamic way to manage stakeholder data using Power Apps. You can build a custom Stakeholder Register app that integrates seamlessly with your project site, making it easy to update and share information in real time.

It’s ideal to have this in one central spot – and there is no better tool than SharePoint to do this. I’ll create this SharePoint during the initiation stage, but it’s not a one-and-done task.

People’s roles will change, new project stakeholders may be identified, new reports will be created, and new meetings might be set up. Your stakeholder register should be flexible and easy to update as needed.

In BrightWork 365 templates, this is called the Teams tab.

Steps to Add a Stakeholder Register to a Project in BrightWork 365

The Team tab in BrightWork 365 intelligently aggregates project team members based on their assigned work items, displaying their earliest start and latest finish dates to give a clear view of resource timelines.

Project Manager and Project Sponsor

Fields for Project Manager and Project Sponsor are visible, each populated with a name.

Team Member Table

Displays a list of project team members with the following columns:

• Access Level: All team members and what level of access they have in this project.
• Start Date and Finish Date: These reflect the earliest and latest dates of assigned work for each team member.
• Business Unit: Which business unit the team member is assigned to (for security purposes).

 

If a stakeholder or team member hasn’t yet been added through task assignment, you can manually include them by selecting + New Project Team Member, ensuring your register remains complete and up to date.

Other Fields to Consider in Your Project Team Member Table

Next, add more columns to fit your project and stakeholder needs. You can use the chart below as a starting point and customize it as needed depending on your level of project and stakeholder management.

• Job Title
• Category
• Company
• Mobile Number
• Business Phone
• Email Address
• Project Role
• Influence
• Requirements
• Expectations
• Interests
• Sign-Off
• Communication Method
• Direct Involvement
• Steering Meeting Attendee
• Notes

 

This is just an example. Feel free to adjust it based on your project needs. Once you have populated this form, you can share it with your stakeholders to confirm the details and ensure everyone is aligned. It’s also a good idea to check in with them regularly in case anything changes.

Keep Stakeholders Aligned with BrightWork 365

A clear and up-to-date Stakeholder Register is a simple but powerful tool for the project manager and project team members. It helps you manage communication, set expectations, and keep everyone aligned throughout the project lifecycle.

Once your Power App is live, you can:

• Share it with your project team and stakeholders
• Use it to track updates and changes
• Embed it in your BrightWork 365 project site
• Automate notifications and reminders using Power Automate

 

A centralized, flexible stakeholder register helps project managers stay proactive and responsive throughout the project lifecycle.

 

What is a Project Charter?

The project charter is a document that formally authorizes a project, assigns a project manager, and provides the authority to apply organizational resources. The approved project charter formally initiates the project.

This document describes the project’s purpose, objectives, and expected benefits.

The project charter should also mention the business case that justifies the project undertaking and required investment.

Different organizations use different names for the same document, for example, Project Statement, Project Definition document, Project Datasheet, Proposal, or Statement of Work.

A Project Charter provides a direct link between the organization’s strategic objectives and anticipated benefits.

The project manager develops this document in collaboration with the sponsor and project requesting organization.

It is advised to start documenting this information early in the project, so everyone is working towards the same goals early on.

Key Elements of a Project Charter

The content of your project statement depends on the size and complexity of your project and whether an internal team or external contractors will deliver the work.

This document should capture high-level information such as:

• Project purpose
• Measurable project objectives and related success criteria
• High-level requirements
• High-level project description, boundaries, and key deliverables
• Overall project risk
• Summary milestone schedule
• Preapproved financial resources
• Key stakeholder list
• Project approval requirements
• Project exit criteria
• The assigned project manager, responsibility, and authority level
• Key deliverables, milestones, and
• The roles and responsibilities of everyone involved in the project.

 

How to Manage Your Project Charter with Power Apps

If there is no single approach to projects in your organization, adding a simple structure to your project using the statement is an ideal starting point.

Why use Power Apps to manage your Project Charter?

Power Apps allows PMOs and project managers to build custom, low-code applications to manage project management processes right into their existing Microsoft 365 and Power Platform environment.

Some of the benefits of using Power Apps to track your Project Charter includes:

• Low-Code Development: Power Apps allows users to create a custom app with minimal coding knowledge, making it accessible for project managers and team members.
• Seamless Integration: the app integrates well with other Microsoft products like Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Excel, and Dynamics 365, ensuring centralized data management and easy access to project data.
• Customization and Flexibility: Power Apps provides a high degree of customization, allowing you to tailor the Project Charter to meet specific project needs and workflows.
• Enhanced Collaboration: By creating a centralized platform for project information, Power Apps facilitates better communication and collaboration among team members.
• Cost Efficiency: As a part of the Microsoft Power Platform, Power Apps can be a cost-effective solution for developing and maintaining project management tools.
• Data-Driven Insights: With built-in analytics and reporting features, Power Apps helps project managers make informed decisions based on real-time data.
• Security and Compliance: Power Apps ensures that your project data is secure with your own Microsoft 365 environment.

 

How to manage your Project Charter in Power Apps

Let’s take a look at you could use a model-driven app form in Power Apps to track and manage the information in your project charter.

As you can see in the BrightWork 365 screenshot above, there are fields to capture all the key elements you may need in your Project Charter directly in Power Apps.

1. Name – a descriptive name of your project
2. Project Reference – a project reference number generated in the system when the project is created
3. Project Manager – who is managing this project
4. Project Sponsor – who sponsored this project
5. Portfolio – link to the portfolio that this project is in
6. Program – link to the program that this project is in
7. Created On – date the project site was created
8. Source Request – link to the original project request (if there was one)
9. Teams Channel – link to the Teams channel associated with this project
10. Schedule Settings – set working days and exception days for the project
11. Project Type – is the project strategic, operational, etc.
12. Description – brief explanation of what the project is all about
13. Exit Criteria – what constitutes “done” for this project
14. Approval Requirements – are there any specific requirements needed to approve the exit criteria
15. Out of Scope – what this project is not intended to accomplish
16. Priority – note project priority low, medium, high, etc.
17. Objectives – what the project is intended to accomplish
18. Overall Project Risk – any known risks for this project
19. Economic Impact – expected value and ROI to be delivered from this project

 

Use BrightWork 365 for Project Charters

The Charter tab in BrightWork 365 contains high level metadata about the project, including the project title, stakeholder information, and other key details about the project.

BrightWork 365 Project Charter Templates

BrightWork 365 has five templates out of the box, which sit on a project management process spectrum ranging from light to more formally structured.

All out-of-the-box templates have a Charter tab by default, but the number of fields and the amount of detail changes based on where the template sits on the process spectrum.

Here is an example of how the project charter looks out of the box in the BrightWork 365 Project Light and Project Structured templates. Note how the Charter tab becomes increasingly detailed as the projects move up in complexity.

Charter tab in Project Light:

Charter tab in Project Structured:

Add or remove fields with the Form Configurator

Your organization may have guidelines or templates for the information that is required to be captured in the Project Charter, and it may be more or fewer fields than in one of the out-of-the-box templates.

Using the Form Configurator tool, you can add or remove any form field to the Charter tab in your selected template.

With the Form Configurator you can begin with a middle-of-the-spectrum template such as Project Standard as a good compromise between using the lower project structure of the Project Light template, and the higher end of management complexity found in the Project Structured template.

The different Tabs, Sections, and Columns that are hidden in Project Starter Templates can be turned on or off via the Form Configurator, giving you great flexibility with regard to project management process.

In the screenshot below, you can see the Form Configurator options for the Charter tab in the Project Light template. You simply tick or untick the box to add or remove a form field in your Charter tab in the Project Light template.

When you navigate back to a project that has been created based on the chosen template, the Charter tab will be updated based on the settings in the Form Configurator.

Bring in information from the Project Request

In BrightWork 365 there is an app called the Requests App that is used for managing project intake and approving new projects.

In the Requests App, the Request Details tab contains fields relevant to moving the request process forward as well as fields that will be copied over to the related new project that eventually gets created.

Back to the Charter tab, one of the fields that can be included in the Charter tab in BrightWork 365 is a link to the Source Request.

This is a benefit of centralizing your project management system in Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform using a tool like BrightWork 365.

If the project was based on a request that went through the Request App and the approval workflow process, it will automatically populate the Charter tab with relevant information and also provide a link to the original request in case that is required.