Users Struggling with Using Portfolios Plan Schedule Screen they are abandoning it and going back to MS Project

Users Struggling with Using Portfolios Plan Schedule Screen they are abandoning it and going back to MS Project

Does anyone have advice on how to tackle these issues? 

 

🔴 Core Trust Problem (Executive Level)

• Users do not trust the schedule in Planview as a reliable source of truth
• Leadership cannot consistently determine:
  • What is actually on track
  • What has slipped
  • What actions are needed

📅 Schedule Behavior / Date Movement Confusion

• Dates shift automatically with no clear explanation to users

  • Users do not understand why dates moved
  • Movement feels unpredictable

• Changing duration or dates can unintentionally break dependencies

  • Users are unsure when they are impacting downstream tasks
  • Requires manual rework → lowers confidence in the tool

• “Respect durations” behavior is not understood

  • Users do not know:
    • When it applies
    • Why work shifts vs stays fixed
  • Leads to inconsistent schedule outcomes across projects

• No clear indication when milestones are truly late vs still valid

  • Hard to differentiate:
    • Late vs re-planned vs incorrectly updated
  • Causes inaccurate status conversations

🔗 Dependencies & Critical Path Visibility

• Dependencies are hard to understand and manage

  • Users cannot easily see:
    • What is driving the schedule
    • What will be impacted by a change

• Critical path is not clearly visible or actionable

  • Users don’t know:
    • Which tasks actually matter
    • Where to focus effort

• Cross-project dependencies lack visibility

  • Impacts are hidden across programs
  • Causes surprise delays downstream

📊 Overloaded & Unusable Plan Screen

• Schedule screen is overloaded with too many fields, columns, and views

  • Users experience “too many clicks”
  • Hard to find what actually matters

• No clear “default view” for different personas

  • TPM, PM, execs all see the same complexity
  • Leads to inconsistent usage and avoidance

• Key information is buried

  • Late tasks
  • Critical milestones
  • Ownership

📐 Baseline & Status Confusion

• Baseline concept is unclear and inconsistently used

  • Users do not know:
    • When to baseline
    • What the baseline represents

• No consistent way to compare planned vs actual

  • Makes variance unclear
  • Weakens schedule credibility

• Milestone status can be misinterpreted

  • Missing approvals or prerequisites are not obvious
  • Projects appear “on track” when they are not

🧹 Schedule Hygiene & Data Quality

• Schedules are not kept up to date consistently

  • Updates are manual and perceived as burdensome
  • Leads to stale or invalid data

• No shared standard for what “good” looks like

  • Different teams do:
    • Different levels of detail
    • Different update frequency
  • Results are not comparable across projects

• Users maintain schedules outside Planview (Excel/MS Project)

  • Planview becomes a lagging system
  • Not the real working plan

🚨 Delay Identification & Reporting Gaps

• No clear definition of “reportable delay”

  • Users don’t know:
    • What should be escalated
    • What is acceptable movement

• Lack of proactive visibility when schedules slip

  • Managers are not automatically aware of changes
  • Requires manual inspection