Without a doubt, communication can make or break your project. Yet, with so many channels available – instant message, email, chat tools – it’s easy for key information to get lost or misunderstood!
Video demo: Project and Portfolio Reporting with BrightWork for SharePoint On-Premises
As a project manager, you need to communicate regularly with the team and stakeholders, sharing relevant information in an easy-to-use way.
Unfortunately, you likely don’t have time to create and email reports or updates on a daily or weekly basis! Even if you did – this isn’t a good use of your valuable time!
With a project management tool like BrightWork, you can build and share reports via email quickly to increase project visibility.
Keep reading to learn more about the types of reports you can send to different audiences and how to share project reports via email using BrightWork.
Project Reports By Audience
The project team needs to see different types of information and report formats to make their jobs easier. Below are key reports by team role to consider.
1. Stakeholders
Stakeholders need access to real-time portfolio dashboards with the option to drill-down for more information. Depending on the type of project and how working is progressing, share these reports on a weekly basis or an ad-hoc basis.
2. Project Manager
Daily email reports such as Upcoming Work, Overdue work, and Top Open Issues, will help you to stay on top of progress without spending hours looking for data.
3. Team Member
Team members are likely working on several projects at once. Schedule a weekly ‘My Work’ report to your team, for example, every Monday morning to help everyone focus on their tasks.
This short video shows key BrightWork reports in action.
Now that you have some ideas about what types of reports to use, let’s take a look at sharing this information via email. There are three ways to share reports via email with BrightWork: ad-hoc reports, scheduled email, and dashboards.
3 Ways to Share Project Reports in SharePoint
1. Share Ad-Hoc Reports
Need to share an updated report with a stakeholder ahead of a key meeting?
Using the Reporter ribbon in BrightWork, you can quickly share a report with the necessary people.
Just fill in the form and a copy of the report will soon be in their inbox!
All emailed reports have hyperlinks for the recipient to drill down into each project to get more insight.
2. Share Reports using Scheduled Emails
Setting up a scheduled report can save invaluable time every week!
Firstly, you’ll need to activate the ‘BrightWork Scheduled Report Email’ feature (found in ‘Project Settings’ under ‘Site Settings’). Note – this feature must be activated on a site-by-site basis.
Next, navigate to the relevant report. Select ‘Advanced Share’ and ‘Create Scheduled Email’.
Fill in the form and schedule your email as needed.
The Email Scheduler is security smart – emails will only include items from the sites and lists that users have been granted access to. The information in the email is similar to the information available to a user when logged into the project site.
Over the course of a project, various scheduled reports will be created at different times.
It’s easy to view and manage these emails in the ‘Scheduled Report Email list’, located under ‘Advanced Share’. The report will also detail which emails failed to send and why.
3. Sharing Portfolio Dashboards
While scheduled and ad-hoc emails work for individual reports, what about a series of reports contained in a dashboard? Stakeholders often want a summary overview of the project with charts, scorecards, or reports on various different aspects of the project such as risks.
The easiest way to share these dashboards is to print, or save, the page to .pdf or .xps format.
1. PDF Format
Start by right-clicking on the relevant webpage. Next, select ‘Print’ and use the drop-down options to select ‘print’ or ‘save’ to PDF.
2. .XPS Format
Depending on your printer settings, the option to print to .xps format is typically under ‘See more options’.
Tip: For best results, change the document orientation to “Landscape” in “Preferences”.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
