For those responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and reporting the status of awarded contracts on capital construction projects, their top priority is how to have a trust-worthy real-time single version of the truth reports that fulfill this need without the need to wait for months to get what is needed. They need to be able to have this information as reports that they can review, comment, share, and report on.
The first objective of using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) solution like PMWeb is to ensure that the contract management data to be reported on is trustworthy and comprehensive. This will be achieved by automating the different contract management processes needed to manage a capital construction project by defining the input form and submitting, reviewing, and approving workflow for each process. Those processes can be attached with all relevant supporting documents as well as linked with relevant records of other project management processes. The automation of contract management processes will enforce the best practices of transparency and accountability that each project entity seeks to have.
The second objective of using a PMIS like PMWeb is how such a solution can immediately fulfill the contract management monitoring, evaluating, and reporting requirements of the projects’ stakeholders. Using PMWeb ready to use contract management processes and the out-of-the-box stock of forms, reports, and dashboards, the needed reporting will become immediately available. Of course, those forms, reports, and dashboards can be fully customized and altered to fulfill any formatting or branding requirements when needed. Nevertheless, the forms, reports, and dashboards displayed in the article, detail the out of the box stock that comes immediately available to PMWeb users.
The first reporting requirement would be to have a single version of the truth of every single contract awarded on the complete projects’ portfolio that an entity could have. For each contract, the information to be displayed would be the vendor’s name, contact name, date, original value, approved changes, revised total, invoiced, balance and retainage. The contracts can be grouped by project, vendor, or any other contract field.
The PMWeb report reader can drill down from this report, to have more details on the change orders and progress invoices transactions. The second report on contracts status will display for each project, the awarded contracts, details of approved change orders, and details of interim payment certificates for approved work in place.
The reader of this report can further drill down to the awarded contract to review the contract particulars including the schedule of values (SOV). The form will also display the additional fields captured on the contract as well as all attached documents needed to support the awarded contract. Those documents can be downloaded and viewed if needed. In addition, the form will include the details of the review and approval workflow tasks associated with the awarded contract.
The reader of the “Commitments Log by Project” report can choose to drill down to understand the details of the list of approved change orders. The Change order form will include the details of the cost and schedule adjustments to the current contract with the option to details the history of the review and approval tasks associated with the change order.
Similarly, the report reader can drill down to any of the listed interim payment certificates to better understand the breakdown of what was invoiced. The report will summarize the interim payment certificate submission by showing the original contract value, approved date changes, revised contract value, total completed and stored to date, details of applied retention, total earned less retention, less previous certified for payment, current payment due and balance to finish including retainage. The form will include a list of approved changes, details of advance payment made, taxes among others.
In addition, the form will include the schedule of values (SOV) to detail the interim payment certificate. For each SOV line item, the report will detail item description, scheduled value, work completed from previous payments and this period, material stored, total material stored and work in place, percent complete, balance to finish, and retainage.
The same data captured for the awarded contracts will also become available to be reported on at an executive level using dashboards. For example, a dashboard can be created to summarize the contracts data along with the other project’s schedule, quality, health, safety, and environment (HSE), and other project management data. The dashboard can be also designed to include visuals to summarize the performance metrics as well as include pictures of the current site progress photos. Similar to the above reports, the reader can drill down for more information on awarded contracts by clicking on the “Financial Progress” card.
For those stakeholders who need to monitor, evaluate and report the performance of the complete projects’ portfolio, the PMWeb portfolio dashboard will summarize the data of those projects and group them by Program, Country, or any other data field. The dashboard will summarize the total value of awarded contracts, total value of work in place, contracts that did not commence, total approved changes, and total revised contracts value.
All PMWeb out-of-the-box forms and reports can be saved in MS Excel files in addition to other types of file types. This will enable the user to take advantage of the data saved in MS Excel by doing his/her analysis and reporting using business intelligence tools like MS Power BI. Of course, there is the option of reading PMWeb contracts data from the PMWeb database if this is a requirement.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with 40-year service record providing project management, project controls services, and project management information systems to over 200 projects with a total value over the US $100 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment, Hospitality, and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 40 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 300 articles on project management and information systems featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.