Availability
Overview
Portfolios offer an effective way to organize your projects. A project portfolio is a collection of all the projects that are currently underway or planned within an organization. It typically provides an organized view of the active, ongoing, and proposed projects in terms of their scope, objectives, budget, resources, and timeline. The project portfolio also serves as a tool for decision-making, allowing executives and project managers to compare and prioritize each project based on the organization’s current priorities. Additionally, an effective project portfolio will use an efficient system for sequencing projects and ensuring that resources are allocated according to the organization’s strategies and goals. To efficiently manage portfolios, Birdview offers four portfolio access levels, listed below from weakest to strongest:
- Portfolio participant,
- Portfolio viewer,
- Portfolio editor,
- Portfolio manager.
Warning
To make viewing portfolios possible, "Show portfolios" must be enabled in Company settings > Advanced settings > Visibility settings.
Managing portfolios is governed by portfolio permissions, which are part of an access level's global permissions.
Portfolio elements
The Portfolios screen (Company settings > Portfolios) consists of the following main elements:
- + Add portfolio button.
Warning
You must have the "Add portfolios" global permission to view and use this button.
- Text search bar. This can be used for quickly finding/filtering the portfolios. When the bar is blank, no filter applies.
- Grid with columns being the portfolio name, status, parent portfolio and description. The grid is configurable: you can select which columns with respective data to hide. The grid allows you to see portfolio hierarchy.
- List of available portfolios with clickable portfolio names matching the filter set (in the text search bar). Clicking a name opens the portfolio details panel on the right-hand side of the screen.
- Statuses tab. This is where you manage portfolio statuses.
Portfolio details
Portfolio details open on the portfolio details panel that rolls out the right-hand side of the screen as you click a portfolio name. The portfolio details consist of the following fields/sections:
| Control/Field | Description | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Status selector | Use this to select the status of the portfolio. | See below on how to create Portfolio statuses. |
| More actions (...) | Opens a menu of additional options. |
Currently, the only additional option is Delete. Use it to delete the portfolio. Note: deleting a portfolio does not delete the projects in it, but simply unassigns them from the portfolio. |
| Close button ( |
Use this to close the details panel. | |
| Name | The field contains the name of the portfolio. | Can be edited by a portfolio member with at least the Editor access level. |
| Description | The field contains the description of the portfolio. | Can be edited by a portfolio member with at least the Editor access level. |
| Parent portfolio | The field allows selecting a parent portfolio for the current one. | Can be edited by a portfolio member with the Manager access level. |
| Custom fields | This section contains all available portfolio custom fields. |
Can be edited by a portfolio member with at least the Editor access level. Custom fields are created at Company settings — Custom fields. |
| Portfolio members | The section contains a list of portfolio members. See below. | Can be edited by a portfolio member with the Manager access level, and viewed by all access levels' portfolio members. |
Portfolio members
If you have an appropriate access level (Participant, Viewer, Editor, or Manager) you can view the members of the portfolio. Only the Manager access level members can edit the members.
To add a member, follow these steps:
- Click
.
- Select a member (members) from teams (if available) or non-portfolio members. If you made a mistake, simply click on a member again.
The default portfolio access level is set for each global access level. Accordingly, it determines what portfolio access level will have a portfolio member when it is added.
Warning
Guest users can only be added with the Portfolio participant role.
To edit a member, follow these steps:
- Place the mouse pointer over the member you want to edit.
- Click the edit button
that pops up on the right of the highlighted row.
- In the permissions' editor that opens, select a new access level for the member.
- Click Save to confirm your choice.
Portfolio statuses
You can add custom statuses for your portfolios, edit and delete existing ones.
To access portfolio statuses, follow these steps:
- Open the Portfolios screen.
- Click Statuses tab.
To add a status, follow these steps:
- Click + Add status.
- Type a name for the status being added.
- Press Enter, or click outside the input field, to save the changes.
To edit a status, follow these steps:
- Click the row of the status you want to edit.
- Edit the name as inline editing activates.
- Press Enter, or click outside the input field, to save the changes.
To delete a status, follow these steps:
- Click the delete button
on the row of the status you want to delete.
- Confirm the deletion.
Adding projects to portfolios
To add a project to a portfolio, follow these steps:
- While in the Activity center, locate the project you want to add to a portfolio.
- Hover over the project name and click the pop-up Details button.
- Select a portfolio in the Portfolio field
in the project details.
- Use text search to quickly locate the portfolio you want.
Creating portfolios
To create a portfolio, follow these steps:
- Select Portfolios on Company settings.
- Click + Add portfolio.
- Name the portfolio, set its status, and give it a description.
- Fill in the portfolio custom fields.
- Add portfolio members.
- Edit the members giving them appropriate permissions: Portfolio manager, Portfolio editor, Portfolio viewer, or Portfolio participant.
- Click Save to confirm your choice.
Warning
- Portfolio members with the "Portfolio viewer" permissions can view all projects and activities in that portfolio.
- Portfolio members with the "Editor" permissions can edit the portfolio's details, including the permissions of the portfolio team. Note: be careful not to remove the "Editor" permission from yourself, as this will result in you being unable to edit the portfolio anymore.
- A non-member who is the creator of a portfolio can view the portfolio, with only those projects visible to which he has access to.
- Portfolio members with the "Viewer" and "Editor" permissions can view, open and edit all projects and activities in that portfolio. Editing does NOT include editing project members or assignees.
- Portfolio members granted the "Portfolio manager" permission are given the "View" and "Edit" permissions automatically.
Portfolio member permissions
The table summarizes the portfolio member permissions:
| Actions | Manager | Viewer | Editor | Participant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| View portfolio | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Edit portfolio (w/o managing members) | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Delete portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Manage portfolio members | Yes | No | No | No |
| View portfolio projects | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| View all activities in portfolio | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Add activities to portfolio | Yes | No | No | No |
| Edit all activities in portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Delete all activities from portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| View all time entries in portfolio | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Add time entries for someone else | Yes | No | No | No |
| Edit all time entries in portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Delete all time entries in portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Edit projects in portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Delete projects from portfolio | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| View members & assignees | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Manage members & assignees | Yes | No | No | No |
If a user is assigned to a particular project or an activity – these permissions override the portfolio permissions. In other words, if user is not assigned to project, but assigned to portfolio, his permissions to portfolio projects and tasks are defined by portfolio permissions rather than "Permissions for projects where user is NOT a member of:" permissions.
A portfolio member with the Editor permission is able to modify portfolio details as well as all projects and activities in the portfolio, unless he has "view only" permissions set specifically for a certain project. A portfolio member with the Viewer permission is able to see but not modify portfolio details as well as all projects and activities belonging to this portfolio unless he or she has "edit" permissions set specifically for a certain project.