As organizations grow and evolve, the number of project requests increases, and more projects get approved for execution. This quickly adds complexity, making it hard for portfolio managers and executives to monitor the health of their business. Without visibility into a single source of truth, it’s impossible to make the right decisions around budget, risks, and resource allocation, while also ensuring projects are anchored to the strategic goals and objectives the organization sets out to achieve.
Additionally, as stakeholders jump from task to task and project to project, it’s hard for them to find the work that matters most, execute efficiently, and stay engaged throughout the project lifecycle. Instead they end up searching through folders, emails, and messages to hunt down project plans and tasks that need their attention.
One of our goals at Smartsheet is to improve the way everyone works, and that includes how they work at scale across the organization. In support of this goal, we are excited to announce the general availability of Portfolio WorkApps, a new feature that will help organizations scale and collaborate more effectively.
Portfolio WorkApps streamlines project and portfolio management by combining the power of Control Center, enabling teams to deploy standardized, consistent project plans with a click of a button, with the simplicity of WorkApps, providing one location to access and report on details across your portfolio.
Additionally, all Portfolio WorkApps provide tailored experiences for each team member. Roles, pages, and permissions are centrally managed, so portfolio managers have the flexibility to name and define access by different roles, like Executives, PMO, Vendors, and Contractors. And, they can globally update projects and access requirements as things change down the road.
We went with Portfolio WorkApps for our Global Transformation solution as we have quite a complex Operating Model. Portfolio WorkApps has allowed a view, which makes it very easy for us to assign different levels of the organization their specific Change Portfolio which may span across multiple regions, countries, and segments. This matrix environment across our globe drives a Strategic Execution Roadmap that holds dependencies across multiple enablers in order to achieve the KPI targets.
By leveraging Portfolio WorkApps, we now have a clear line of sight across any given initiative, the dependencies underpinning it, and where risk exists to ensure cohesive effort.
Brandon Stapleton, Sr. Director - Transformation & Program Office - Sodexo
View portfolio-level reporting
Below is an example of a Portfolio WorkApp where you can see a list of project assets in the left navigation. These items could include project sheets, reports, dashboards, Brandfolder links, and resource plans, or even external content like Tableau dashboards.
Including a portfolio-level dashboard in your Portfolio WorkApp enables you to automatically aggregate key performance metrics across a portfolio of projects using standardized data structures.
And, exactly like WorkApps today, portfolio managers can change the branding of the app by adjusting the theme colors and adding their logo.
Create tailored experiences for team members
With Portfolio WorkApps, you can create tailored experiences for every member of your team. Portfolio managers, executives, project managers, and stakeholders can go to a single Portfolio WorkApp but have different experiences depending on the access they've been granted and how they are involved in a project.
In our example below, the list of projects are only viewable by the portfolio owner or those who have been granted the right permission level. And, as new projects are created in Control Center, they’re automatically added as a new project in the Portfolio WorkApp.
Find all your relevant project plans in one place
You can organize and access individual project WorkApps from the projects page. For example, if you click on the first project in the list, New York grid-23, you will see a list of project assets only relevant for this project. You will also notice breadcrumbs at the top to help you navigate from project to project.
Gaining access to Portfolio WorkApps
Portfolio WorkApps is available for new Control Center programs on Smartsheet Advance or an Enterprise plan with Control Center added on.
If you’d like to learn more about Portfolio WorkApps, and how it can help project teams scale and collaborate more effectively, please contact your account team. And lastly, if you’re attending ENGAGE 2022, swing by the Control Center booth to get a demo of Portfolio WorkApps.