Capture project group data
The license package Strategic Portfolio Management is required to work with project groups. The use case Project Portfolio Governance must be activated.
Project portfolio management in Alfabet focuses on projects focused on IT transformation. Alfabet 's integrates project management with the IT architecture to ensure that you understand the dependencies between your assets.
In Alfabet, IT projects are bundled in project groups that allow you to evaluate and analyze projects in the context of various project portfolios. A project group may have multiple subordinate project groups. Each project can be assigned to multiple project groups that are relevant to the goals for the portfolio assessment process.
Go to Investment Architecture > Project Groups:
- Add a project group at the top-level of the hierarchy. Click the root node of the explorer and click the New button. The edit panel opens on the right where you can define basic data. The Name attribute is mandatory.
- Create a new project group as a child (subordinate) of this project group. Click the parent project group in the explorer, go to Overview > Subordinate Project Groups view. Click New > Create New Project Group.
- Make an existing project group a child (subordinate) of this project group. Click the parent project group in the explorer, go to Overview > Subordinate Project Groups view. Click New > Move Existing Project Group Here. A selector opens where you can chose a project group and move it to this project group. The project group you chose is now a child of the project group you are working with.
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Edit a project group. Edit the project group directly in the data table. Or select the checkbox
for the project group you want to edit and click the Edit 
button to open the edit panel. -
Navigate to the project group's content area.Click the Navigate
button next to a project to open its content area. Specify the project group's attributes as well as the relationships that the project group has to other assets in the repository.
Try to capture as much information as possible about the project because complete data considerably improves the results of business questions and other analytics.
Once a project group is in the repository, you can define more details about the project groups in the Project Groups data workbench . Or you can select an individual project group and navigate to its content area and specify and analyze the project in detail. All mandatory fields must be defined to create the project group and save it.
Per default, the data workbench displays only a set of basic attributes. You can add more columns to capture other attributes directly in the data workbench via the Structure column or you can navigate to an project group's content area and define it in more detail there. Click to learn about how to use data workbenches.
- Name: (Mandatory) Enter a name for the project group. You can add an abbreviation (3-4 letters) of the name in the Short Name field to use in diagrams and other visualizations
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Type: Select the type of projects that will be assigned to the project group. Possible values are:
- Project: Project group with many similar projects that make up a single focused effort.
- Program: Project group with different projects that together constitute a complete package of work.
- Description: If necessary, enter a meaningful description that will clarify the purpose of the project group.
Projects must already be in the repository in order to assign projects to a project group. Some business questions in Alfabet can only be answered if the relationships between projects and project groups are defined. Click to find out how to capture project data.
Project groups logically structure and bundle the projects and allow you to assess the project portfolio. You can assign projects to multiple project groups in order to analyze your projects from various perspectives.
Click the navigate button of the project group to open the content area. Go to Overview > Asset Grouping. In the Projects field, enter the name of the project you want to assign to the project group. Or click in the field to open the selector and select each project that you want to assign to the project group. Click outside of the selector to close it and update the Asset Grouping field.
Understand the lifecycles of the projects assigned to the project group. Review project monitoring indicators to indicate whether projects are within the budget and resource allotment. Understand project dependencies and keep track that project milestones are met on time.
Click the navigate button of the project group to open the content area. Go to Monitoring > Project Tracking Overview.
Here's how to interpret the information:
- The rows show
projects. To show the entire project hierarchy of programs, projects, work packages, and tasks, click click View > Show Project Hierarchy. - Milestones are displayed on the timeline with traffic signal colors to indicate success, warning, or danger regarding their completion. Point to a milestone to display a tooltip with the milestone name and target date. To add or remove project milestones, click View > Show Project MIlestones.
- The blue vertical line indicates the current date.
- Dependencies between projects are displayed as a black line that starts with a project's end date and points to the start of the dependent project. A dependency exists if a project must first be completed before another project can begin. Point to the black line to view a tooltip explaining the reason for the dependency and the start date of the dependent project.
The license package IT Transformation - Enterprise is required to see and use the Request and Current columns and the Aggregate Cost Along Cost Hierarchy functionality.
Go to the project group's content area > Investment Context > Cost Accrual view and open it. The view shows the requested, budgeted, and current budget of the projects assigned to the project groups.
Set the start and end years of the view. Click the 
local button and change the First Year and Last Year fields.
The following business questions are relevant for the analysis of project groups: