Use portfolios to divide your list of projects into easily manageable sub-portfolios and define who has the right to access which data.
- The Key Facts
- Selecting a Portfolio
- Preconfigured Portfolios
- Adding, Editing or Deleting Portfolios
- Portfolios, Scenarios and Plan of Record
The Key Facts
Portfolios in Meisterplan at a glance:
- Portfolios allow you to reduce complexity by dividing a long list of projects into sub-portfolios, for example by business unit or responsibility.
- Each portfolio contains as many projects of the entire portfolio as needed:
- Essentially, a portfolio in Meisterplan is a filter. You can specify which projects are part of a portfolio and which aren't.
- Each project can be part of as many portfolios as required. When you or your colleagues update a project in one portfolio, it will be updated in all portfolios.
- For meetings, you can configure specific portfolios that contain only those projects that are relevant to the meeting, for example project initiatives ready for review.
- You can also use portfolios to define which users have access to what data.
- You can set a budget for each portfolio for financial planning.
In this article, you'll find the portfolio basics. The articles below will help you broaden your knowledge:
Selecting a Portfolio
In the black header at the top of your screen, you can see which portfolio is currently selected. To select another portfolio, click this part of the header:
Then click either one of the portfolios listed under Recent or click View All Portfolios to select another portfolio.
After you've selected a portfolio, the respective view (in this case the Portfolio Designer) displays only project and resource data that are part of the selected portfolio:
Preconfigured Portfolios
In new Meisterplan systems, you'll find preconfigured portfolios to help you get started, that correspond to our Lean PPM™ Framework. You can adapt the portfolios to your preferences and delete those you don't need.
Find a short overview of the preconfigured portfolios below:
Portfolio | Benefit |
All Projects | Displays all projects in Meisterplan. |
All Software Engineering Projects | Example of a sub-portfolio for a business unit that filters by OBS unit. |
Danielle West's Projects | Example of a sub-portfolio for a multi-project manager. |
1. Pipeline: Ideas |
Displays all new initiatives by filtering by Stage Gate; useful for Lean PPM™ Proposal Coaching. |
1. Pipeline: Review |
Displays all initiatives that are ready for the second review; useful in the Lean PPM™ Pipeline Review Meeting. |
2. Planning: Active + Approved + Seeking Approval + Measuring Success |
Displays all projects that are relevant for preparing the next portfolio decision. |
3. Execution: All Critical Projects | As the name suggests. Useful in the first part of the Lean PPM™ Portfolio Board Meeting or for coordination with project managers. |
3. Execution: All Active Projects |
As the name suggests. Useful in the first part of the Lean PPM™ Portfolio Board Meeting. |
Adding, Editing or Deleting Portfolios
To add portfolios, you need to have the Manage Portfolios right set to "All Portfolios" or "According to Configured Portfolio Rights".
To edit or delete a portfolio, you need to have either access rights to the respective portfolio or the Manage Portfolios right set to "All Portfolios".
Please note that this feature is currently only available in the Portfolio Designer, the Goals and the Reports view.
In the black header at the top of the screen, click Portfolio and select Manage Portfolios.
This opens the Portfolio Manager window:
To add a new portfolio, click Add Portfolio in the top left.
To edit or delete an existing portfolio, move the cursor over the desired portfolio and select the pencil or trashcan icon appearing on the right.
Find more details on how to configure portfolios when adding or editing them in the articles listed below:
Portfolios, Scenarios and Plan of Record
In addition to portfolios, scenarios are one of the central functions in Meisterplan that help you make successful plans. Here are their major differences:
- A portfolio is a filter that lets you view a part of the entire data (e.g., all projects of a particular business unit).
- A scenario is an alternative version of your data (e.g., different planning options for the upcoming quarter).
- The Plan of Record is the current approved plan, and it forms the basis the scenarios. Find more details in the Plan of Record article.
- Because a portfolio is a filtered view of your data, you can select a portfolio and a scenario at the same time:
- The selected portfolio filters the selected scenario or the Plan of Record: