I’m trying to get a clearer overview of my projects at the portfolio level. Specifically, I’d like to roll up or aggregate custom fields—such as a “Review Stage” field (like prep, detail review stage)—so I can quickly see the review stage of all projects in a portfolio.
What I’m trying to do:
Display and possibly summarize a custom “Review Stage” field for all projects in a portfolio, not just numerical fields.
What I’ve tried so far:
I’ve added custom fields to my projects and included them as columns in the portfolio view.
I can see numerical fields aggregated, but for non-numerical fields (like review stage), I only see the value for each project, not a summary or roll-up.
What’s not working or confusing:
Is it possible to aggregate or summarize non-numerical custom fields (such as review stage) at the portfolio level?
Has there been any recent update or workaround that allows for this functionality?
If not, are there recommended best practices or integrations for achieving this kind of summary?
Any insights or updates would be greatly appreciated!
Portfolio-level custom fields (of any type) may appear as columns in a portfolio allowing you to see at a glance, say, the Review Stage of each project on a single page, perhaps viewing around 20 at a time.
If you’re looking for a higher-level view of that, maybe a Dashboard chart in the portfolio is what you’re asking for?
In a portfolio, using Options > Show/hide > Milestone progress is a very powerful feature to help keep track of key details across many projects, whether they’re the same or different miletones for each project.
@lpb To confirm, when you say portfolio-level custom fields (of any type) may appear as columns in a portfolio allowing you to see at a glance the review stage of each project - this would have to be entered manually at the portfolio level, correct? I am looking to see if like the numerical fields can be rolled up, if other custom fields that are not numerical can be rolled up automatically so that I don’t have to manually select what the review stage is for each project in the portfolio level.
My understanding is only numerical fields can be rolled up but I wanted to see if there had been any updates since then. If this is still the case, to your point -maybe a dashboard chart is the way to go.
Agreed that milestone progress is a great way to track projects!
Thank you so much for your insight and help- I really appreciate it!
Portfolio level custom fields can be set in the portfolio for any of the projects or individually while in each project with Project actions menu > Edit project details > scroll down.
Can you explain what you’re expecting by “roll up” of such fields? Because to me, there’s nothing to roll-up; these are like project header-level fields. Roll-up numeric fields are different; those are rolling up task-level values to create a header-level roll up of thoese multiple task values.
@lpb Thank you for your response and for clarifying the distinction between numeric roll-ups and header-level fields.
To clarify what I mean by “roll up”:
I’m hoping to have task-level status (such as review stages: prep, detail review, tech review) automatically reflected at the portfolio level, similar to how numerical roll-ups work. The goal is to avoid manually checking the review stage of each project and then entering it at the portfolio level. Ideally, I’d like to see at a glance which review stage each project is currently in, without manual updates.
For example, while milestones help track progress, the milestone view only shows how many milestones have been completed, not which specific milestone is complete. I’m looking for a way to display the current review status stage for each project at the portfolio level, automatically pulling in the selected review stage from the project.
Since this doesn’t appear to be possible with the current functionality, would utilizing the Portfolio Dashboard be the best alternative for this type of high-level status tracking? Or are there any other recommended approaches or integrations for achieving this?
Actually, you can see the title, due date, and completion state of each milestone, and whether overdue, from the portfolio.
When I read how you describe review stage, I’m still getting the sense you sometimes treat it as a project level field and sometimes a task level field.
There are multiple alternatives for you, but I think we’re reaching the limits of working on this in a Forum context. I work with clients interactively on these things daily in their environments where it’s much easier to make quick headway.