Evaluations

By performing project evaluations, you can extract attributes of project elements, summarize them within the hierarchy of the evaluated project elements, and check whether predefined threshold values have been violated. The evaluation results can be used for the following purposes:

To analyze selected key figures of project elements in the evaluation
To highlight critical projects or project elements in the Project Management dashboards or the structure tree of a project
To make aggregated data available within the project

Project evaluation can be activated and configured for specific project types. You can carry out evaluations for both operational projects and project versions (see Project Versions). If you evaluate tasks and the evaluated project contains a mirrored task (see Working with Mirrored Tasks), this is taken into account during the evaluation.

Prerequisites

If you want to aggregate data within the project structure, you have made an appropriate entry for area 0006 User Interface Settings, setting 0030 Data Aggregation in Projects in Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Basic Settings Override Default Global Settings .
In Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Structure Define Project Types , you have configured your project types for evaluation and project data aggregation as required. You can find the relevant settings on the Details view of project types in the Evaluations and Dashboard screen area. For more information, see the field help of the individual settings.
In Customizing for SAP Portfolio and Project Management under Project Management Evaluations , you have configured the evaluations that you want to carry out for your projects.
If you want to ensure regular evaluation or data aggregation for your projects, you have scheduled an appropriate background job for program DPR_EVE_BATCH_DPO. For more information, see the report documentation.
To ensure that structure tree lines and the matching lines of the attribute table are properly aligned in the project evaluation display, you have made the appropriate entry for area 0006 User Interface Settings, setting 0042 Improved Alignment of Project Evaluation Display.

Features

Starting Evaluation and Data Aggregation

Depending on the configuration of your project types, project evaluation and data aggregation in projects can be carried out as follows:

Regular evaluations and/or data aggregation for multiple projects can be carried out and saved by a background job.
During project editing, evaluation and data aggregation for individual projects can be started as follows in the project’s Structure view in the Detail subview of the project definition:
- By choosing Aggregate Data, you can start data aggregation within the project.
- By choosing Check, you can start all evaluations assigned to the project type in Customizing for evaluations. If assigned, this includes the evaluation used for data aggregation. The evaluation results including the aggregated data is saved when you save the project.
- When you save the project, the system automatically performs the evaluations assigned to the project type in Customizing for evaluations. If assigned, this includes the evaluation used for data aggregation.
You can start an individual evaluation for a project in the Evaluations dashboard. Note, however, that these evaluations are not saved in the evaluations dashboard. For this reason, the results of these evaluations are not available in the project. For more information, see Creating and Displaying Evaluations.

Displaying Evaluation Results in the Evaluations Dashboard

In the Evaluations dashboard, you can start evaluations for individual projects or display the evaluations that have been saved during background processing or within the project. The evaluation result provides the following information:

The project elements included in the evaluation in their hierarchical structure. You can open the project element from the hierarchy tree.
A table with the attribute values that have been extracted and summarized for the individual project elements.
If threshold value violations have been discovered, an icon next to the affected project element indicates the corresponding severity. You can aggregate the severities within the hierarchy.

For more information, see Creating and Displaying Evaluations.

Displaying Aggregated Data in the Project

If data aggregation is active for a project type, attributes of project elements are aggregated within the project structure and displayed in a designated screen area on the Dates and Work tab page of the higher-level project elements. Depending on your Customizing settings, the following attributes can be aggregated:

Duration
Planned, confirmed, and remaining work
Percentage of completion

The aggregated attribute values can be displayed for the project definition, phases, tasks, checklists, and checklist items. If you have excluded one of these attributes from data aggregation in Customizing, the system hides the corresponding field on the Dates and Work tab page. If you have excluded a project element category, the Aggregated Data screen area is not displayed in the corresponding project elements.

Displaying Threshold Values and Severities in the Project

If threshold value violations have been discovered in an evaluation that has been assigned to the project type in Customizing for evaluations, the icon for the corresponding severity is displayed in the project structure tree next to the affected element. You can obtain details on the threshold values by opening the Status Management dialog box on the Basic Data tab page of the project element. By manually setting a severity in this dialog box, you can override the severity determined in the evaluation.

If your project type has been configured accordingly, severities are aggregated in the project structure. This enables you to tell at a glance if threshold value violations exist somewhere in the project. The aggregated severity of a project element is determined as follows:

If a manual severity has been assigned to the project element, the manual severity is the aggregated severity irrespective of whether there are higher automatic severities.
If no manual severity has been assigned to the project element, the aggregated severity of a project element is the highest severity assigned to the project element itself or to its lower-level elements. For lower-level elements with a manual severity, only the manual severity is taken into account.

The following graphic illustrates this logic:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.