Working with Project and Portfolio Management

Version: 2024.3

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM Enterprise includes the following Line of Business (LOB) solution packages:

  • Neurons for Facilities

  • Neurons for GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance)

  • Neurons for HR

  • Neurons for SOM (Security Operations Management)

  • Neurons for PPM (Project and Portfolio Management)

Installation and Configuration

New Customers - ITSM Cloud

Neurons for ITSM Enterprise LOB packages are included as part of onboarding new cloud customers. These customers do not have to do anything with respect to installation and configuration. These solutions are available only to ITSM Enterprise license and above.

Existing Customers - ITSM Cloud

Existing Neurons for ITSM Enterprise cloud customers are automatically upgraded as part of ITSM upgrade if their LOB version is the latest released version at the time of upgrade (for example: If ITSM is upgrading to 2024.3, then the latest LOB version must be 2024.2).

Existing ITSM customers who wish to apply/upgrade to Neurons for ITSM Enterprise will need to engage Ivanti Professional Services (PSO) in order to access the LOB packages. This is applicable for existing customers without LOB or the existing customers with LOB but not the latest version on their tenant (for example: If ITSM is upgrading to 2024.3, but the LOB solution version is older than 2024.2).

  • Customers without Neurons for ITSM Enterprise licensing: The applications are disabled by default and are not available.
  • Customers with Neurons for ITSM Enterprise licensing: The applications are disabled by default; contact Ivanti Cloud Operations to enable.

New Customers - ITSM On-premise

New on-premise ITSM installations do not include the LOB packages by default; contact Ivanti Professional Services to install/upgrade.

Existing Customers - ITSM On-premise

Existing on-premise Neurons for ITSM Enterprise customers are automatically upgraded as part of ITSM upgrade if their LOB package version is the latest released version (for example: If ITSM upgrading version is 2024.3, then LOB version must be 2024.2)

Existing ITSM customers who want to apply/upgrade Neurons for ITSM Enterprise should contact Ivanti Professional Services. This is applicable for the customers without LOB solution or the customers with LOB but not the latest version on their tenant. (for example: If ITSM upgrading version is 2024.3 but LOB solution version is older than 2024.2)

About

Use the Ivanti Neurons for Portfolio and Project Management module to initiate, plan, and manage a variety of IT projects and other projects across your organization.

Features

•Manage Portfolios, and their budgets, and link to Programs and Projects. Refer to Relationships Within PPM.

• Group Projects into logical groups (Programs) or to a specific initiative within the company.

• Manage the health, issues, escalations, and risks for a Project.

•Associate Projects with Phases.

•Use Demand Management to internally collect new ideas, projects, and needs during the creation of a Portfolio.

•Assign resources using Effort and Capacity management.

•Assign tasks to resources in teams across the organization.

•Use Automated Project Tracking to track progress and Completion for each Project, with the Completion % being based on updated Task data and pre-defined weightings.

•Manage and monitor budgets.

•Achieve specific goals within specified time frames to bring the project to completion.

•Create deliverables in the form of Process or Product.

•Use any Project as a template for another Project.

What's New

Neurons for PPM offers several enhancements for 2024.2:

  • New Portfolio Budget Plan and Project Budget Plan workspaces. These were formally the Master Budget Plan and Sub-Budget Plan workspaces. Refer to Creating a Portfolio Budget Plan and Creating a Project Budget Plan.

  • Enhanced Portfolio and Project workspaces.

  • Portfolio Managers have access to the Approvals workspace, and can approve project budgets. Refer to Approve or deny a budget approval request:

  • Search for a Demand in the Demand workspace using a Demand ID. Refer to Search for a Demand.

  • In line with all apps now being part of Ivanti Neurons for ITSM Enterprise, there is now just one section for Neurons for PPM help in the Table of Contents.

Portfolio and Project Management User Roles

The following roles are available in the the Portfolio and Project Management module. Each role accesses different dashboards and workspaces:

•Portfolio Manager: Manages portfolios of projects. Each portfolio can consist of one or more concurrent projects, and each project can be owned by a different project manager. Portfolio Managers can create a project and assign it to a Project Manager. Refer to Working with Portfolio Management and Getting Started with Portfolio and Project Management.

•Project Manager: Manages one or more concurrent projects. A project can be part of a portfolio, but it doesn't need to be. Project Managers can monitor the progress of a project, track budget allocations and expenditures, and view phases. Project Managers can also create and assign a project, but can't create or change some project specifics such as creating tasks for a phase.

The following workspaces are available to create, view, edit, and manage projects, phases, and tasks:

•Project workspace: Create new projects from this workspace. The workspace lists all projects owned by you as a Project Manager. Once a project is created it can be linked to a portfolio.

•Project Calendar workspace: View projects owned by you as a Project Manager. All projects, phases and tasks that have a status of active are displayed. You can search for a project by project number to display only the tasks and phases for that project. Once a task or phase has a status of active, it is displayed even if the status changes at a later date.

Dashboards

The Project dashboard displays an overview of the projects that are in progress. Select a project to edit or change the project phases and tasks.

About Managing Budget Allocations for Portfolios and Projects

Portfolio Managers can set a budget allocation for each portfolio, but this information is not shared with any of the projects that make up the portfolio. This is because each project can have a different budget allocation and is not tied to the single large allocation of the portfolio.

There are two ways to manage budget and costs:

•You can use a lump sum allocation to the portfolio and for each project connected to a portfolio. This requires that you enter the amounts directly into the Allocated field in the Portfolio workspace.

•You can define and enter a budget plan for each portfolio or a project in the budget fields in the Portfolio workspace. For information on how to enter and define a plan, refer to Plan information under Adding Information in the Overview Section.

The budget for a project can only be consumed by the tasks that are created for a project. That is, you must create tasks for each project. The amount consumed by each task on a project is displayed on the Overview tab in the Consumed field. The amounts for the Consumed field are combined for all projects within a portfolio and are displayed as a single figure in the Consumed field in the Portfolio workspace. For information about creating and editing budget plans for projects, refer to Creating a Project Budget Plan.

Example: Portfolio A has a total budget of $20,000.00.

It consists of three projects which have different amounts allocated: Project 1=$6000, Project 2=$5000, and Project 3=$9000. Project 2 has used $1000 of its allocated budget of $5000, and Project 3 has used $2000 of its allocated budget of $9,000. The Consumed field for Portfolio A shows the amount consumed by both projects ($3000), out of the $20,000 that was allocated for all projects in the portfolio.