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

Hi ​@margotrogers 

Here is my analysis on Date MOvement

​@margotrogers - This probably doesn’t make it any easier but these complaints from your users are normal. In the 16 years I’ve been a PV Admin, across 2 customers, I too have heard a lot of these complaints and issues.  Although we do not manage full project plans here at NASCO, the following is my surface level explanations of how I have approached these topics or some guidance on what to share with them that may help. 

1. Not trusting the schedule 
   1. We are used to our spreadsheets or MS Project plans that stay static, however the benefit of Planview pushing dates is that it tries to give a more reasonable view of what could be happening. By pushing dates the system is signaling that some things may be falling behind and attention is needed.  Without this it could be more difficult, so it is learning to identify the flags and address them. 
   2. If PMs are managing a full project plan in the tool then they should be sure they are updating what has finished by completing tasks or updating the % complete.  Also a check on ensuring resource assignments are accurate.  Did they assign a resource who isn’t working on the project and thus need to profile their effort differently or reduce their hours. 
   3. Ensuring the right column sets are available and educating users on when/why to use them helps the users view the right set of information based on their current need. (caution: Make your column set names meaningful)
2. Schedule behavior
   1. Having a column set that provides the value added details is important.  You may consider a column set that includes more date fields than just the schedule dates. Including the Actual or Actual/Schedule can be helpful as this will indicate when the work did start and not just the schedule date which can never be prior to time now (if you are progressing projects).
   2. Capturing a baseline and having a column set with baseline data is beneficial also. This allows visual indicators of the original date vs where the project plan is now.  Utilizing the gantt chart (adding to a column set) is beneficial also as it can show baseline and current in the one view. 
   3. I believe Planview is coming out with something in the future to help explain changes caused by progression, which could be beneficial in the future.  In the mean time it is important for users to know that when a project is setup to progress it is to help keep a current look at what is happening. If the dates did not push then effort could be scheduled in the past and we cannot do work in previous weeks. So the dates pushing out gives us a more real time view. If effort is more than a resource can complete (based on your settings) then it is pushed to subsequent weeks. This helps give light to when it could be done given the remaining effort is accurate. 
   4. Honestly I’ve not used Respect Durations. For our allocations we use “Respect Finish Dates”. This means if the work is not done how it is forecasted then Planview will try to maintain the finish date until it can’t any longer due to more effort being required than there are hours in the days remaining. 
   5. Milestone due dates - when you baseline your project and then include the Schedule Variance column you can see when those dates do not align and thus work has slipped. 
   6. Another tool that can be used is the Slipped Work tile. Per the definition “Provides an overview of all work items in the selected portfolio whose current finish date is later than the previous planned finish date.”
3. Dependencies & Critical Path Visibility
   1. If you do not have the gantt view in one of your column sets I would encourage you to add it.  This calls out the critical path in red. It can also show relationships of your tasks.
4. Overloaded & Unusable Plan Screen
   1. Be sure to utilize the Menus and Views screen > Role based settings to control what users can see based on the license they have.  If you setup your licenses based on personas then you can control what aspects of the screen are visible or not.  There are additional controls coming in I believe the June or July release. 
   2. For column sets, in your column set definition be sure to utilize the role feature here as well.  This will allow you to control how many and what column sets each license sees. Maybe your PMs need 3 but your Senior Leaders only need 1. 
      1. Also naming your column sets to something that is meaningful or intuitive is helpful.  You may choose to include number prefix that aligns to a step in procedural documentation. i.e. when you are in stage 3 use column set 3
   3. Utilize your tile reports to call out late tasks or milestones.  I personally love the ‘Milestones Due this Period’.  Also check out Wrk15 or Wrk35

Other concerns you listed does come back to enforcement of using the tool. I have found that when you do not have top down support this becomes more of a struggle. Having managers ask for PV data, or the ability to provide portfolio level reporting that shows inaccurate data is what then triggers people to maintain and update the data. 

This is not an easy road as people tend to be set in their ways of how to manage, or don’t truly want a project management tool and instead want something that paints a status that is pleasing. That is where Planview can be a benefit, not painting the fake picture but the reality. Having leaders who ask questions and become engaged helps others to finally jump on board. ;-)

This doesn’t answer everything but hopefully can give you a few nuggets of good information. 

Best regards, 
Pam Sargent
NASCO

Hi ​@margotrogers
 

It’s a lot to unpack here, but I’ll try to keep it clear.

The core trust issue you mentioned at the executive level is something most customers struggle with, I’m afraid. It’s not always about the tool, more often it is the process that isn’t clear enough. That being said, when it comes to the tool itself many people forget that Planview is a management tool rather than the reporting one. It offers decent reporting capabilities with Power BI being the strongest option, as it allows you to build bespoke solutions that help senior leaders understand what is on track, what has slipped and what actions are needed. We’ve built a number of dashboards for senior leadership that consume Planview data but present it in a clear and accessible way.

From a technical perspective, MS Project is very similar to Portfolios Plan (hence why there’s a connector between them) but Planview has an advantage because of progressing engine. Shifting dates should actually be expected as projects are planned in the future, so schedule start dates moves accordingly. This becomes predictable when you use the right set of attrbutes: schedule start/finish, actual start/finish and baseline start/finish. It can feel a bit unpredictable at first but once people understand that planning should always look forward, they tend to get used to it. I won’t repeat what ​@pamela.sargent has already shared as those were great insights, I’ll just add that Planview Anvi now gives you the option to see what has changed since the last progression. If you’re not using it yet, it looks quite promising.

Late milestones are something people struggle with the most. If you enable HH:MM in the preferences, you’ll often notice that some milestones have a finish time of 1700 and others of 0900. This usually happens when users enter either schedule start or schedule finish inconsistently and it can cause milestones to be incorrectly flagged as overdue. Using the milestone filters in the plan helps identify what is genuinely late. There are also several out of the box tiles & FastTrack reports (e.g. Milestones Due This Period, WRK15, WRK35 etc) that can support milestone tracking. In our case, we’ve moved it to the bespoke Power BI reporting.

Dependencies, despite what many people think, are actually well supported in Portfolios. There’s a dedicated dependencies tab with a Gantt view that allows you to visualise them clearly. As Pam mentioned, the Gantt chart within the plan also helps users understand critical path and task relationships (which are very similar to MS Project). Cross project/external dependencies are visible in the task information tab, if you see an asterisk (*) for a predecessor or successor in the line, it indicates an external dependency. These can also be visualised in the dependency tab when you create a work portfolio. More recently, we’ve been tracking dependencies through Logbook, which works well for us.

Planview is currently working on improvements to the project plan interface but the minimum setup you need includes dedicated column sets and role based configurations to control what users can see and do. Key information such as late tasks, critical milestones and ownership can be driven through filters, highlights and additional attributes (for example milestone levels). We use a Level 1 milestone type for major events like Go Live with predefined filters so users can quickly focus on these key points.

Comparing planned vs actual is straightforward when baselines are used! These can be taken manually or automatically as part of lifecycle execution, we use a hybrid approach with automatic baselines at gates and manual snapshots during re-planning. There are also FastTrack reports that show planned vs actual and you can incorporate this into Power BI. The OOTB Work Portfolio Dashboard is (Work Portfolio Dashboard - Planview Customer Success Center) a good starting point (especially in early adoption stages) but again we’ve developed a bespoke version.

Data quality, unfortunately, isn’t a tool issue... It usually comes down to the process. We’ve gone through the same journey. We use reports and PowerBI dashboards with a series of quality checks/tests and each WM/PM is responsible for monitoring and taking action when something doesn’t look right in the source (Planview).

There’s no single definition of good, it depends on your process. In our quality dashboard, for example, we track:

• Missing or inconsistent work attributes
• Plan issues (fore example no Go Live milestone, overdue milestones, assumed complete set by progression engine)
• Work assessment issues (e.g outdated updates, green RAG but late milestones)
• Forward looking risks that may turn into issues (unfilled requirements in the next 6 weeks etc)
• Missing baselines or allocations after actual start
• Milestones not baselined

There’s plenty more you can include and it really depends on what matters for your governance model.

One thing we always say during the training is that Planview doesn’t replace conversations! If something doesn’t look right or you’re unsure about an impact (especially dependencies) it’s always better to speak to the relevant people first and then update the plan.

Finally, Planview offers a dedicated adoption tool called Planview Adopt. If adoption is a challenge, it’s worth exploring or at least speaking to your SM. In my experience, good training upfront and strong support during onboarding make the biggest difference 😉

Good luck!

Best,
Michal

hi ​@margotrogers , this comes up more than you might think, and it's something we've been actively working on — Pam's reply is exactly right on most of it, so a few additions from the product side:

The date movement conversation is one of the most common trust-breakers we see, and Pam is right that the mental model shift from static plans to a live scheduling engine is the core of it. What's changed recently: as of April 2026, Anvi can explain the last Progressing Engine run in plain language, surfacing which projects moved and what drove it. Since you're on an Anvi trial, this is worth putting in front of your PMs directly. "Why did my dates change?" becomes a question they can ask Anvi and get a real answer, rather than reverse-engineering it from columns.

On the screen complexity and column set feedback, the April 2026 release introduced role-based action menu simplifications on the Plan screen. If you haven't reviewed Menus and View Settings since that release with your license tiers in mind, it's worth a pass. Pam's point about role-scoped column sets and meaningful naming is exactly right, and the new controls give you more to work with than you had six months ago.

The baseline and governance points you raised are where I'd encourage you to bring in our Professional Services team. What you're describing — inconsistent baselining, no shared definition of "reportable delay," schedules living outside the tool — are symptoms of a process and governance gap that configuration alone won't close. PS can run a best practices review, help you define what "good" looks like for your organization, and build that into your lifecycle and training. That work pays off disproportionately for a team that's already technically capable with the tool.

I've messaged you separately with a Connect 2026 session that maps almost exactly to what you've described, a customer journey from the same set of frustrations to a model they now trust. Happy to meet to discuss further, but I think the most impactful next step is engaging your Success Manager to explore a PS engagement.