Projects Dashboard - View Project Performance and Metrics

Article Contents

1. What the Projects Dashboard Is For
2. Whose Projects You See
3. Customising the Table
4. Default Columns
5. Showing Custom Project Fields as Columns
6. Using the Dashboard to See WIP Ready to Bill

What the Projects Dashboard Is For

The Projects Dashboard is designed to put project managers in the driver’s seat. Instead of waiting on admin to export reports, colour spreadsheets or chase up notes, managers can see how their projects are tracking in real time.

It is part of Hiro’s Project-to-Profit Pathway, which is built on the idea that the people closest to the work are best placed to manage its budgets, billing and delivery. With the dashboard, project managers don’t just see tasks, they see the financial picture too, making it easier to keep jobs on track without relying on back and forth.

The result is fewer hand-offs, fewer blind spots, and faster action when something needs attention. It also eliminates the cycle of dumping data into spreadsheets each month, giving teams a live source of truth that reflects actual deliverables. Admin teams still support the process, but they are no longer carrying the load of piecing information together. Everyone can work from the same view.

At a glance, the Projects Dashboard helps you:

• see which jobs are on track or at risk

• spot WIP that is ready to bill

• review both financial and non-financial project details side by side

• drill into any project for more context

Whose Projects You See

By default, the Projects Dashboard shows the projects where you are the captain. This makes it easy for project managers to focus on their own jobs without needing to filter.

Learn more about captains: Project Captains – what and who are they?

If your organisation uses Departments, the dashboard may show multiple rows for the same job. This occurs when a project manager is captaining more than one department within that job.

In the example below, the same job appears twice because the captain is responsible for both the Town Planning (“T”) and Civil Engineering (“C”) departments:

Learn more about setting up departments: Managing Business Units with Departments

If you have access to projects captained by others, you will see a drop-down menu in the top left corner of the Projects Dashboard page. This allows you to toggle the projects table between different captains or teams.

You can:

• select multiple captains at once

• check the boxes for those people you wish to view projects for

• uncheck Show My Dashboard if you wish to exclude your own projects

Who Can View Projects for Other Captains

The following groups of users can access projects captained by others:

• Global Administrators – if you are a Hiro Global Administrator, you have access to projects captained by everyone in the organisation.

• Privileged Users – if you have been granted the “View any Projects Dashboard and project financial information” user privilege, you will also have access to all projects captained by everyone in the organisation. Learn more about configuring user privileges here.

• Managers – if you are configured as a manager of another user in their account settings, you can access that person’s projects.

Customising the Table

You can personalise the dashboard to suit your role:

• Show or hide columns. Open the column picker, tick the fields you want and untick what you don’t.

  

• Reorder columns. Drag a column to place the most important information first.

• Your layout is remembered so you return to the same view next time.

💡 Tip: Many directors create a saved layout with financial metrics up front, while project managers often put scope and location fields first for quicker operational checks.

Default Columns

The default columns provide a quick picture of project identity, status and performance. Your site may include slightly different wording, but the defaults typically include:

• Project - the unique number for the enquiry or job.

• Dept - shows the department code (e.g., T for Town Planning or C for Civil). If a project manager captains multiple departments on one job, multiple rows for the same job are shown.

• Status - whether the project is active or completed.

• Initial Contact - the date configured for when the first contact was received from your client regarding this project. This date is configured when a project is first lodged, and can be updated in the Edit Project Details page.

• Estate - if the project has been linked to an Estate, the Estate name will appear in this column. Whether a project is apart of an Estate is configured when a project is first lodged, and can be updated in the Edit Project Details page.

  A drop down filter is available above the projects table that enables you to filter the projects shown by Estate.

  Learn more about how Estates work in Hiro here.

• Location - the suburb of the project, configured during the Location step when first lodging the project, and editable via the Edit Project Details page.

• Entity - the name of the billing entity of the project, configured during the Billing Entity step when first lodging the project, and editable via the Update Billing Entity page.

  Billing entities are created by entering contacts into the Address Book.

  Learn more about creating and modifying contacts in the Address Book here.

• Last Timesheet - The date when the most recent timesheet was entered for this project. If the row is for a job and department combination, then the last date is relevant to just that department. There might be more recent timesheets entered on that job for other departments attached to that job. The date will be highlighted red if it is more than twelve months ago, to aid identifying old projects that might need to be archived.

• Time & Costs - the total dollar amount of timesheets, disbursements and other costs charged to that project (either enquiry or job & department combination). Click the link to view a popup displaying a full breakdown of those timesheets.

• Claims to Date - a progress bar that shows the total invoice claims made on that project (either enquiry or job & department combination), as a proportion of the budget configured. In the example below, $2,895 (excluding tax) has been claimed on invoices for that project, out of $13,500 total budget available.

  

  The progress bar is clickable, upon which a popup is displayed with a full breakdown of the work schedule for that project, including budget and claims information on a per subtask basis.

  It is possible for the claims amount to be greater than the budget amount. For example, on time charge work schedule tasks, the estimate can be exceeded (learn more about billing types here). In these cases, the progress bar has a red proportion on the right-hand side visually showing how far beyond the budget the total claims are.

  In the below example, $28,094 (excluding tax) has been claimed via invoices, despite there being a $10,000 budget.

  

• Up/Down - this figure shows the performance of claims versus time & costs accrued. In the job 2 example shown at the top of this article, the Up/Down is presented as $22,245.80, because $41,000 (excluding tax) has been claimed on invoices, whilst only $18,754.20 of time & costs have been accrued.

• Billing Ratio - the billing ratio expreses the Up/Down figure as a ratio of total claims divided by total time & costs, which aids quickly identifying the billing performance across multiple projects.

  A billing ratio of 1.0 means that invoice claims equal any time & costs acrrued. The billing ratio becomes greater than 1.0 when claims exceed time & costs, and is below 1.0 if claims are not keeping up with time & costs accrued and needing attention.

  Healthy billing ratios ≥ 1.0 will appear in green. Unhealthy ratios less than 1, but still ≥ 0.8 will appear in orange. Dangerously unhealthy billing ratios less than 0.8 will appear in red for urgent review.

• Remaining Budget - the amount of total budget configured on that project's work schedule that has not yet been claimed on an invoice.

• WIP - "Work in Progress" is the total charge amount of time & costs that have not yet been allocated to an invoice.

Showing Custom Project Fields as Columns

If you capture extra information with Custom Project Fields, those fields can also be added as columns in the Projects Dashboard. This keeps important context visible during weekly reviews and team meetings.

Examples by discipline:

• Town Planning

  • DA Lodgement Date

  • Assessment Manager

  • Public Notification Start/End

• Surveying

  • Fieldwork Booked Date

  • Plan Registered Number

• Environmental

  • Permit Reference

  • Fieldwork Start Date

  • Reporting Due Date

• Engineering

  • Design Phase

  • Drawing Package Issued

Learn how to create these fields: Capture Key Business Information with Custom Project Fields

💡 Tip: Adding these fields to your dashboard layout makes it easy to combine financial and non-financial milestones in the same review.

Using the Dashboard to See WIP Ready to Bill

The right-hand side of the dashboard includes a WIP column, which shows the value of unbilled time and costs currently sitting on each project.

• WIP stands for Work in Progress and refers to timesheets and costs that have been recorded but not yet invoiced.

For an overview of how WIP works in Hiro, see: Work in Progress (WIP) Timesheets

How WIP Works on the Dashboard

• WIP figures are aggregated across the whole project.

• At the bottom right of the dashboard, you’ll also see a Total WIP value for all projects in the current view.

• You can use the “Show only projects with WIP” filter at the top of the dashboard to focus just on jobs that have unbilled time and costs.

• To investigate WIP in detail, you have two shortcuts:

  • Claims to Date progress bar – clicking opens the Work Schedule tab for that project, where you see a detailed breakdown at the scope level (subtasks within the work schedule). This acts as a mini P&L for the project, showing budgets, claims, and remaining work.

  • Time & Costs amount – clicking the dollar figure opens the Time & Costs tab for the project. This tab itemises all timesheets and costs, by default filtered to only show WIP.