Projects Hub Applications

The Projects hub is the command center for managing your entire project lifecycle.

In the Projects hub, you'll find a suite of project management applications to help you set up, plan, budget, and monitor the progress of your projects. These applications are linked so that if you select a project in, for example, the Dashboard and then switch to Billing Terms, the previously selected project is selected automatically on the Billing Terms form. In addition, if you are viewing data for a lower-level work breakdown structure (WBS) element in one application and then switch to another application, data for that same WBS element is automatically displayed by the second application. (An exception to this is when you switch to an application, such as the Dashboard, that displays data only at the project level.)

The tabs, fields, and options that are available in your environment in the Projects hub depend on a number of factors, including the Vantagepoint modules that your company has activated, how Vantagepoint is set up, and the access rights that are granted to your security role.

When you select Hubs > Projects you'll see several areas that are located within the Projects hub:

Application	Description
Projects	Projects is the core area of the hub where you enter, view, and maintain core management and accounting data for your projects. This application is the central repository for most of the basic information for a project, including client information, project managers and other key employees, a broad set of accounting options and data, vendors and consultants, major milestones, past and upcoming project meetings and other activities, and much more. Your system administrator can also add custom fields and tabs.
Estimates	Use Estimates to enter service estimate information for labor, expenses, consultants, and units for a project you are pursuing or for a newly won project. (This application is only available if the CRM, CRM Plus, or Resource Planning module is activated.) With Estimates, you can use historical client information and project details to create informed estimates and easily generate high-level estimates without having to create a detailed plan.
Contract Management	Use Contract Management to enter and manage both the negotiated contract amounts for a project and the compensation amounts that you expect to receive for executing that project. You can also specify how you want to allocate the receipt of estimated fee amounts over time on Project Forecast reports. Contract Management helps you coordinate the contract process, keep everyone up to date on its current status, and ensure that the compensation amounts that will be billed and received as you execute the project are in sync with the amounts spelled out in the contract.
Revenue Forecast	Use Revenue Forecast to enter estimate-to-complete (ETC) revenue in summary or across calendar periods at any level of the project structure, for regular projects. You can then compare planned and ETC revenue against your contract, job-to-date (JTD) earned revenue, contract backlog, estimated, or weighted fees to ensure that you allocate revenue properly across the remaining future periods. (This application is only available if the Resource Planning module is activated.) See Using the Revenue Forecast Application for details about revenue forecasting in Vantagepoint.
Plan	Use Plan to enter, review, and maintain planned hours and amounts for project labor, units, expenses, and consultants. If you have the Resource Planning module, you have access to the Contract, Schedule, Labor, Expenses, Consultants, and Units tabs. If you have the Accounting module but not Resource Planning, the Plan tab is available but you do not have access to some areas. On the Contract tab, you can view a detailed analysis of the contract information for the current project. If you have the Resource Planning module, on the Schedule tab, you can view and edit the start and finish dates for the work breakdown structure (WBS) elements for the project in a Gantt chart format. You can create dependency relationships between WBS elements on a project plan and ultimately build your project's critical path. Establishing dependencies and a critical path on a project plan empowers a project manager to quickly understand and adjust for project schedule changes and risks. Schedule dates are also streamlined so that when dates change on one level, all of the dependent levels are automatically updated, not just the parent/child relationship. For more information, see Using the Project Planning Application.
Budget	Use Budget to enter and review labor, expense, and consultant budgets for your projects. Hours and amounts entered on the Budget form display on the Budget Worksheet report and on many other project-related reports, including the Project Progress, Project Detail, and Project Summary reports. You can set up budgets for individual labor codes and expense accounts at both cost and billing rates. You can also update percents complete, ETC hours and amounts, and estimate-at-completion (EAC) hours and amounts. And you can compare your budget entries to expected compensation amounts, as well as to actual JTD posted hours and amounts.
Billing Terms	Use Billing Terms to specify how Vantagepoint should bill for labor, expenses, consultant expenses, fees, retainage, and units for a project. If your project has multiple WBS levels, you have the option to set up separate billing terms for lower-level WBS elements (for individual phases, for example).
Invoices	Use Invoices to review a summary of accounts receivable information and information about individual invoices for a project. You can also enter AR comments for the invoices or the billing client, and if you are responsible for approving draft invoices, you can approve or reject invoices here, rather than switching to the Draft Invoice Approvals application.
Draft Invoice Approvals	If the billing invoice approval feature is enabled for your company and you are responsible for approving invoices for billing, use Draft Invoice Approvals to review submitted invoices, make changes to them, and approve or reject them.
Dashboard	Use Dashboard to display key graphical representations of project data to help you assess performance and identify problems quickly.
Project Review	Use Project Review to compare a project's performance against budget, planned, and actual amounts to make sure that you are staying on track. You can compare actual job-to-date hours and amounts to budget, to plan, or to expected compensation, and you can do that for the project as a whole or for any lower-level work breakdown structure element. You may also be able to view amounts at billing rates or at cost or burdened rates.
Projects PIM	If your enterprise has Deltek Project Information Management (PIM) and has set up the Vantagepoint integration with PIM to include the Projects hub, use Projects PIM to access PIM project information and related documents.