360° Project Analytics with Zoho Analytics - Part 1

“Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even though they rarely stick to their plan.” – Winston Churchill

As a project manager, you’re responsible for planning and executing not only your own work but your whole team’s. To plan, all you need is to have a clear visibility on what has to be done. But, for effective execution, it is important that you keep track of your key performance metrics.

Zoho Projects helps you organize complex projects into manageable units so that you can plan and execute each piece in detail. When you pair it with the Zoho Analytics Advanced Analytics Add-on, you gain a 360° perspective on your Zoho Projects data which allows you to see how your plans are working out.

 Let’s look at how a project manager can best use Zoho Analytics to give a new dimension to his/her Zoho Projects execution. Meet Mark.

Mark is a 22-year-old architect who is also a fashion revolutionary and the director of Mark Garments in New York. His business took a difficult turn when he opened his second store in New Jersey. Now that Mark had not one but two stores to take care of, he found it hard to juggle between work and passion.That is where Zoho Projects came into the picture. 

Zoho Projects helped him create tasks and milestones to break down his project into easily manageable units. But Mark wanted to do even more. He wanted to derive insights from his data and put them to use, so he set up Zoho Analytics Advanced Analytics for Zoho Projects. Thanks to this, Mark is now able to slice and dice his data in Zoho Projects, create a bunch of handy reports, and derive actionable insights in minutes.

Let us now see a few reports that helped Mark immensely.

Project Status Overview

The project status overview report gave Mark a quick overview of the current status of each project. This table holds a detailed information on the milestone name, milestone owner, due date, tasks count, the number of open tasks, the percentage of open tasks, tasks on high priority, the number of tasks closed and percentage of tasks closed.

Burndown Report

The burndown report allowed Mark to compare and keep track of the progress of his tasks. It displays the number of planned days that ideally should be remaining versus the actual remaining work days as on date. This gave him and his other managers a clear visualization of the backlogs.

In the above report, the red line denotes the number of planned days that should be remaining while the green denotes the actual number of days remaining in a project as on date. If the green line is above the red line then it means that there is an overshoot and the project needs attention. This report helped Mark view the outstanding work and take the necessary measures to complete the work as planned.

Project Velocity Report

Mark wanted a report to check if the assigned tasks were on track. The project velocity report helped him in this context. The report displays the total tasks to be completed as of date, the total number of tasks completed so far, the total duration planned for each task, the effort spent so far and the velocity.

Velocity indicates the momentum of the project. The below terms are used to denote the velocity of the project.

• On Time – If the milestone is completed as planned.
• Fast – If the milestone is completed much ahead of the planned time.
• Slow – If the milestone is moderately slow but is not exceeded by a great time.
• Critical – If there is an outshoot. Milestones marked as critical needs immediate attention.

This enabled Mark to view the execution efficiency of his projects at a glance. The report gave Mark an immediate overview of the projects that need attention. It helped him review, intervene and re-align his project team to get them back on track.

Task Closure – Late Vs On time

This report shows the number of tasks completed on time versus the ones that are late. This is depicted in a 100% stacked bar such that Mark can clearly see the task completion status in percentage for each project.

Mark has gained a lot more than just the reports that are described in this blog. We have just highlighted one part of it. Watch this space for more exciting insights that Mark gained in the days to come.

Power up your project execution with 360° project management analytics from Zoho Analytics and drive a whole new dimension in planning and execution.

Register for Zoho Projects Advanced Analytics webinar and Try Zoho Projects Advanced Analytics for free!

P.S – Okay, we admit it: we made Mark up. We don’t know any 22-year-old architects (though we do know some 22-year-old fashion revolutionaries). But while his story is fictional, the capabilities of Zoho Analytics are 100% real.
Give it a try!