Call Us Today! 1-800-895-3254
[email protected]
Microsoft Training
Integent offers a comprehensive portfolio of training services, with an ideal fit for every organization. Ranging from general courses to custom solutions, we have you covered.
Learn About TrainingSee Full list of Courses
Microsoft Consulting
Integent provides consulting services for a variety of Microsoft applications including Microsoft Project, Project Online, Project for the Web, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft SharePoint.
Learn About Consulting
Microsoft Support
Microsoft technologies set the standard for project portfolio management, business applications, collaboration, and more. Integent has flexible solutions to support every customer.
Learn About Support
Microsoft Project
Integent has the knowledge and experience to help design and deploy a solution to help your organization manage projects and resources more effectively
Learn More About Microsoft Project
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Integent can help you nsure business continuity with a custom cloud solution that connects sales, service, finance, and operations teams to deliver results.
Learn More About Dynamics 365
Microsoft SharePoint
SharePoint is Microsoft’s collaboration platform that is a place where team members can communicate, exchange data, share files and much more.
Learn More About Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft Power Platform
Consisting of Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents, the Microsoft Power Platform helps streamline and improve business functions.
Learn More About The Power Platform
About Integent
Integent was founded in 2009 on the principles of building long-lasting relationships with customers, exceeding expectations, and providing outstanding customer service. 

We’re dedicated to providing a customized solution backed by our knowledgeable team of Microsoft experts.
Discover What Makes Us Different
GSA Schedule
Integent is GSA Schedule Contract holder. A GSA schedule helps simplify selling our services to government customers.
Read More Here
News
Stay informed on Integent’s latest company updates and other important industry information. Our passion is customer success.
Read The Latest News
Videos
Learning new software doesn’t have to be difficult with our library of dozens of free training videos. Our video training always has something new.
Browse Our Training Video Library
Blog
Our industry experts share best practices and common pitfalls to avoid, in order to get the most out of your technology solutions.
Discover More

September 21, 2015

BI for Project Server and Microsoft Project Online: Using Color to Tell the Story

Being a visual person, I love the idea of charts, views and graphs. These tools make it easy to tell your story at a glance.  Are our projects in good health? Do we need more resources to accomplish our goals? Is our risk level above our threshold?

The primary example of this sort of reporting is the RAG (Red Amber Green) report.  Many of our clients choose to display this in Project Center, where the view can be grouped by color, sorted, and filtered as needed. Let’s start with that scenario.

You can choose to set up whatever health fields you want. Some groups want only one basic project health field.  Others like to drill down, and have separate health fields for Schedule, Budget, etc.

Often, the next step is to choose icons to display in Project Center and in the Project Schedule. This is where our first Best Practice comes in.

BP1: Consider the possibility of color blindness in your audience when choosing your icons.  Color blindness is more prevalent in men than in women. 8% of men live with some amount of color blindness. Therefore, Best Practice 1 is to choose different shapes to go with the different colors.

The second item to consider is how these values will display in Excel charts and other visual displays.  Remember, only the name of the value will be exported with the data (i.e., “Green”, “Yellow”, “Red”).  The display icons chosen within PWA will not export. Now, here’s the gotcha. In the rapidly expanding world of BI tools, some allow you to map chart colors to values, some do not. That makes it easy to present this visually confusing solution:

So, our second Best Practice is:

BP2: Best Practice 2 is to use meaningful terms to describe project health, rather than color…”High Risk”, “Moderate Risk”, “Little or No Risk”; “At Risk”, “Some Issues”, “Healthy”.  Note this practice doesn’t prevent you from using the traditional RAG colors in your displays, it just makes it easier to produce reports from them.

Want to learn more about our approach to BI?  Take a look at our Business Intelligence page:  https://integent.com/services/microsoft-consulting/business-intelligence

© Copyright 2023 | Integent.com | All Rights Reserved
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram