Project Snapshot

Overview

Project Snapshot gives project managers a clear, month-over-month view of how a project is performing and how it is expected to perform. This enhancement is designed to improve visibility into project financials — including actuals, projections, and comparisons to sold expectations — so that teams can make more informed decisions.

Projects can often feel like a “black box,” where project managers struggle to see the impact of their planning decisions on the overall project health. Without clear visibility into trends, effective rates, and burn rates, unexpected budget overruns can occur. Project Snapshot addresses these challenges by providing a simple, visual, and locked-in record of past performance alongside forecasted outcomes.

What is Project Snapshot?

Project Snapshot is a new dashboard view that displays:

• Historical performance: Each past month is locked once it closes, preserving the point-in-time predicted effective rate alongside the actual costs and margins for that month. This means you can see what you expected your effective rate to be at the time, compare it to the current (most accurate) effective rate, and understand how well your forecasts matched reality
• Forward-looking projections: Future months are forecasted based on the latest plans in your project shaper, offering a dynamic preview of where your project is headed.
• Sold vs. Estimated at Completion (EAC): The feature compares your project’s sold financial snapshot with its current EAC, making it easy to spot whether you are on track, ahead, or at risk of overruns.

By combining these elements, Project Snapshot answers key user challenges:

• Lack of visibility into project health and trends over time.
• Difficulty identifying when budgets will be exceeded before it happens.
• Confusion around how financial metrics (like effective rate and margin) are calculated.

How to access Project Snapshot

To be able to view Project Snapshot, this must be granted via Permissions in Parallax.  To access Permissions go to Settings > Permissions then locate the Permission Set and click to open.  Next, click on the following: 

• view margin percentage
• view costs and gross profit
• budget and revenue

By allowing those views gives individuals access to view Project Snapshot at the Project Level. 

How to Use Project Snapshot

1. Navigate to the Snapshot view within your project.
   • Each month’s data will be displayed in sequence, with past months locked and unchangeable.
2. Review historical performance
   • Track how your project’s costs, margins, and effective rates have trended over time.
   • Understand how past planning decisions affected financial outcomes.
3. Examine future projections
   • See how current resource planning and assumptions are expected to play out in the coming months
   • Monitor projected burn rates to anticipate if and when your project may exceed budget.
4. Compare sold vs. EAC:
   • The dashboard clearly shows how your Estimated at Completion compares to the originally sold project expectations.

   • Use this comparison to identify risks early and take corrective action before issues escalate.
      

     The Sold Benchmark is the total services revenue that was shown and plan for from your Financial Settings page.  Plans should match or closely match the total service revenue to the target budget when the deal closed.   

Why It Matters

Project Snapshot makes project financials transparent. By providing both backward-looking accuracy and forward-looking forecasts, it ensures project managers can see not only how a project has performed but also where it is heading. This helps reduce surprises, improves trust in financial metrics, and empowers proactive decision-making.