This article gives a general overview about the Portfolio Designer view in Meisterplan.

• Video: Schedule Projects & Plan Capacity
• View Layout
  • Projects Section
  • Resource Section
  • Financials Section
• Toolbar Actions
  • Save Your Configuration as a Custom View
• Moving Projects or Programs in the Gantt Chart
  • Snapping by Zoom Level

Video: Schedule Projects & Plan Capacity

Learn how to schedule and prioritize projects, staff resources and monitor capacity in Meisterplan's powerful Portfolio Designer View:

View Layout

The Portfolio Designer view is divided into three sections displaying projects, resources, teams, and roles as well as financials:

The resource and financial sections may be collapsed or expanded by clicking the arrow icons. When you change the column width of the left-hand list to display long project names, the changed width will remain after reloading or logging in again.

Project Section

This is where you create, edit, prioritize, schedule and staff projects.

For details about the project section, see the Planning Options in the Portfolio Designer article and the other articles in the Portfolio Designer: Projects section.

Resource Section

This is where the utilization and availability of resources, teams, and roles are displayed. You can group resources and teams by role or OBS in this view and analyze the utilization stack to see where the workload occurs.

For details about the resource section, see the Resource Section Basics article and the other articles in the Portfolio Designer: Resources section.

Financials SectionProPremium

Under Views & Areas in your user group, you need to have the Access Financial Data right to access this function.

The financial section will only be displayed when working with financials, i.e., when one of the following applies:

• Cost per Hour entered for any resource, team, or role in the Resource Pool
• Financial Event entered for any project
• Portfolio Budget or Target Benefit defined

This is where project costs and benefits are displayed and compared to the portfolio's budget and target benefit, if these have been entered for the current portfolio.

Please note that, if your fiscal year doesn't match the calendar year, the timescale of the financial view will not match the timescale of the Gantt chart in the project section.

For details about the financial section, see the Financial Section Basics article and the other articles in the Portfolio Designer: Financials section.

Toolbar Actions

The toolbar for the Portfolio Designer view offers the following actions:

• Add a project or a program: see the Adding, Editing or Viewing a Project and Working with Programs articles for details.
• Search Project: The list will be filtered to display only projects and programs matching your search term.
• Filter: You can filter projects in the Portfolio Designer so that you show only specific projects. You can also use multiple filters at once, to show only the data you really need. Learn more in the article Ad-Hoc Filters.
• Allocation Mode: Choose if you want to view and edit allocations in Flexible or Time Grid mode. See the Adding and Editing Allocations article for more details.  
• Allocation Unit: Select the unit used for displaying and entering allocations between FTE, Days or Hours. Alternatively, you can change the unit by clicking in an allocation and typing a number followed by the first letter of the desired unit (e.g., "40d" for 40 person days). The allocation unit designated in a custom view of the Portfolio Designer is inherited by the Information Panel, Project List, Board View, Goals, the Portfolio Dashboard and the Project Details.
• Zoom Level: Choose between Year, Quarter, Month and Week.
  • The selected Zoom Level affects the precision of moving, extending and shortening projects in the Gantt chart as well as for the Auto-Schedule feature (see the Shortening and Stopping Projects, Extending Projects with or without Allocations and Auto-Schedule articles).
  • The selected Zoom Level affects the precision of displaying allocations and overallocation in the allocation histograms (see the Resource Section Basics article).
  • The selected Zoom Level affects the precision of displaying financial figures, cost budgets and benefit targets in the financial section (see the Financial Section Basics article).
• Settings: see the Portfolio Designer Settings article for details.
• More Actions:
  • Auto-Schedule: see the Auto-Schedule article for details. You need to have the Auto-Schedule Multiple Projects right as described in the Manage User Groups article.
  • Rank & Sort by Priority ScorePro Premium: sorts the list of projects by priority score. Please note that this operation cannot be automatically undone. This feature must be activated per user group by selecting the Change Rank and Rank & Sort All Projects by Their Priority Score option in the Detailed Projects and Program Rights section. See the Rank and Priority Score article for details about the priority score feature.
  • Import from JiraPro Premium: see the Importing Jira Data as Meisterplan Projects article for details.
• Undo: undo the very last action you made to the selected project; choose from the following Gantt chart actions:
  • Reschedule project
  • Extend with allocation
  • Extend without allocation
  • Stretch or shrink
  • Shorten
  • Change milestone date
  • Auto-Schedule

When stretching or shrinking and shortening a project, there may be rare cases where the original state cannot be exactly restored due to rounding.

Reloading the Portfolio Designer (e.g., switching views or logging in again) will reset the Undo button and the last Gantt chart action can no longer be undone.

Save Your Configuration as a Custom View

You can save every configuration of the Portfolio Designer as a Custom View. Click the custom view name next to the title Portfolio Designer to select a different view or add a new view. To edit the view name or delete the view, click the three dots next to the view name. Depending on your user rights, you can also define access rights to the view for users and user groups.
Learn more in the Custom Views article.

Moving Projects or Programs in the Gantt Chart

To move a project or program, you need to have at least the Mine right under the Project & Resource Planning > Edit Project and Programs as well as the Change Project Schedule right.

The resource section shows in real-time how moving affects the utilization levels of resources.

If you want to move a project or program to a date not currently shown in the Gantt chart, you can select a wider Date Range.

1. Click the project or program bar in the Gantt chart, hold the mouse button and drag the project or program to the desired start point. While you are moving the project or program, Meisterplan shows you the new Start and Finish date:
   
2. Release the mouse button.

When moving a project or program, allocation segments of that project or of projects in that program will always retain their allocation values with respect to the selected project allocation unit.

Due to the nature of the FTE calculation, retaining the FTE value when moving a project will change the days and hours when a project is moved into a period with more or less work days during the project duration.

On the other hand, when Days ;or Hours are selected and are therefore retained when a project is moved, this will result in a higher or lower FTE value when a project is moved into a period with more or less work days during the project duration.

Please note that segments displayed in the Time Grid mode will only be saved once values are entered for them. Connected segments with the same FTE value or with the same absolute value per work day (days or hours) will be regarded as a single segment. The entered workload will automatically be distributed equally over the displayed segments. When the associated project is moved, the allocation value of the actual segment will stay the same, depending on the selected unit (FTE or days/hours). Due to the even distribution in the Time Grid mode, when selecting an absolute allocation unit (days or hours), moving, for example, a project spanning multiple weeks from a week with a public holiday to a time-span without any holidays can result in a change of allocation values per period.

The following table shows which values are retained and which may vary when you move a project, depending on the selected project allocation unit:

Snapping by Zoom Level

Depending on your selected zoom level, projects and programs will move with monthly, weekly or daily precision. When moving by month or by week, the start date will snap to the start of each month or week and additionally to the original start date. Optionally, hold the [Shift] key while moving for a different snapping behaviour.