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Using Our Analytics Suite (PowerBI)

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This article is a guide to using our Analytics Suite on FastDraft.

This guide contains the following:

Knowing how your teams and projects perform is essential for effective project delivery. Monitoring this becomes more complicated as the number of projects, contracts, users and suppliers grows. Our analytics suite provides a comprehensive set of tools to help you track the right data at the appropriate time. But with hundreds of KPIs and reports to choose from, how do you know which ones will be most beneficial? 

We have compiled a summary of project-critical metrics addressing common issues. You can select the right report for your needs, allowing you to evaluate the performance of the key aspects of your project and make better decisions. In this series of articles, we will help you get up to speed quickly.

Key Reporting Concepts

Before we dive into the reports, here are some key concepts about the design of our reporting that will help get you up to speed:- 

Reporting Designed for Everyone

FastDraft supports managing lots of different types of contracts e.g. construction, minor works, professional services, facilities maintenance and also different form of contracts e.g. NEC3, NEC4, JCT, FIDIC plus bespoke forms of contract. When this data is aggregated we need a neutral language for both workflows and the parties so that it works for everyone. 

How does this work in practice? Here are some examples:-

  1. Supplier - The Contractor under an NEC ECC, FIDIC Red Book and JCT D&B Contract, the Consultant under an NEC PSC Contract and the Subcontractor under a subcontract would all be described as a Supplier.
  2. Contract Administrator - The Engineer under a FIDIC Red book, Architect under a JCT SBC Contract, the Employer’s Agent under an NEC3 PSC and the Project Manager under an NEC4 ECC contract would be described as a contract administrator.
  3. Client - The Employer under NEC3, JCT and FIDIC contracts, the Contractor under subcontracts and the Client under NEC4 contracts are all described as Clients.
  4. Changes - Variations and Extension of Time under a JCT Contract, Compensation Events and Task Orders under NEC Contract and Claims and Variations under FIDIC are all described as Changes in reports.

Understand Your Audience

We designed our reports with people and project teams in mind, and not everyone wants the same things. The same goes for our support articles.  

Depending on your role, you may be someone who designs reports i.e. report designer. You may also be a business or project user who consumes or uses reports. This series of articles are intended for business or project users who consume or use reports. Some of your team members may be directly using the Power BI Desktop or Power BI Service to combine data and create new reports, dashboards, and applications for you and others. They are designers, and we provide them with separate guidance. 

We write our support articles in layers so you can dig deeper into the subject when it suits you. For example, we provide a Contract Management Maturity Model for executives interested in working out where their organisation is currently is, where it wants to be and how to get there.

A Common Language for Project Success

Contract terminology is complicated and varies a lot between contracts. Sometime the value is lost in the detail, so we use a common language and also plain English when describing metrics, KPIs in tooltips and support articles, to help people understand what we are talking about quickly. 

When you see the following terms used across metrics, you know we mean this:-

  • Volume is always the total count of notices (or replies where applicable) in a period and counted on the date sent.
  • Outstanding replies and replies received are described as follows:-
    • Outstanding or pending replies are always counted in the period the reply is due and fall into one of the following categories which align to our RAG reporting 
      • "Pending", not within the next week, means a reply or action is expected but has not yet been received and are not due this week and are not yet overdue. These are shown as green.
      • "Goes overdue this week" means a reply or action is expected but has not yet been received and is not yet overdue but will become due within the next 7 calendar days. These are shown as amber.
      • "Overdue" means a reply or action is expected but has not yet been received and is beyond the expected reply date. These are shown as red.
    • Replies received are always counted in the period the reply was received and fall into one of the following categories
      • "OnTime" means a reply was expected and was received on or before the due date. They are always counted in the period the reply was received because due dates can be extended so we can only determine whether a reply was on time after the reply has been received. Some communications don’t require a reply so if you compare general volume of comms with count of notices dealt with on time they will be different by design. These are green. 
      • "Late" means a reply was expected and was received after the due date and is always counted in the period the reply was actually received. That’s because due dates can be extended so we can only determine whether a reply was late after the reply has been received. Providing there is no agreed extension to the period for reply, responses that are overdue will be counted as late in the period the reply is actually received. These are red. 
      • Extension to the period for reply are factored into the “on time” and “late“ status and correct at the end of the reporting period. Our platform supports extending period for reply after the due date has passed, any extensions agreed after the due date will cause the historical status of communications in previous reporting periods to be recalculated. The ability to allow extension to the period of reply after the due date can be configured on/off.
  • Backlog means replies that were received late or have not yet been received and are overdue so, in the absence of an extension, will be counted as late if and when they are eventually received.
  • Status of Risks, Defects and Change ?
    • “Open” means a process has not yet reached its logical conclusion (e.g. a risk has not yet been resolved, the time and cost impact of a change has not yet been agreed or assessed, a change has not yet been approved or quotation has either not yet been received or accepted or an assessment is outstanding or a defect that has not been either resolved or accepted)
    • “Closed” means a process has reached its logical conclusion (e.g. a risk no longer needs to be tracked is resolved, the impacts of a change have been agreed or assessed, a defect has been either resolved or accepted)
  • By default, we exclude current period so that reported data doesn’t fluctuate on a day to day basis. For example, if we report the % of comms on time in the middle of January when the month has not finished, the total might change in the future, so we only report completed months or periods. 

Data Safety

You cannot break reports or dashboards as you explore and interact with your content by filtering, slicing, searching and exporting. Your changes do not affect the underlying dataset or original shared content. This includes dashboards, reports, and applications. 

Remember, you can't hurt your data. The analytics suite is an excellent place to explore and experiment without fear of breaking anything.

 

In this section we have created support articles for the following:-  

  • Using Our Analytics Suite
    • Key reporting concepts
    • Reporting designed for everyone
    • Understand your audience
    • A common language for project success
    • Data safety
  • What are Analytics Dashboards
    • Advantages of dashboards
    • Dashboards versus reports for report designers [draft]
    • View data insights on dashboard tiles with Power BI [draft]
  • What are Analytics Reports
    • Components of a report
    • Components of a report in the PowerBI Service [draft]
    • Advantages of reports
    • Dashboards versus reports for report designers [draft]
  • What are Operational Registers
    • Components of a register
    • Advantages of Registers
  • Getting started with our Dashboards, Reports and Registers
    • Navigating between report pages
    • Using drill down in reports and dashboards
    • Filtering an individual reports and dashboards
    • Filtering all reports and dashboards
    • Exporting my data from reports
    • Customising reports (sorting and customising visuals)
    • Personalise visuals in a report
    • Display content in more detail - focus mode
  • Metrics Glossary
    • General Metrics
    • Portfolio Metrics
    • Risk Management Metrics
    • Payment Metrics
    • Change Management Metrics
    • Submission Management Metrics
    • Quality Management Metrics
    • Time Management Metrics
    • Benchmark
    • Advanced Activity Reports (coming soon)
  • FAQs

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