Enterprise Portfolio
Introduction
What is the Enterprise Portfolio? The Enterprise Portfolio in Fortes Change Cloud provides a strategic, top-level overview across multiple portfolios within the organization. It enables you to create scenarios on capacity (Skill/Team) or budget with a single view across multiple portfolios. This gives you centralized grip on your strategic capacity and common change budget.
Who Uses It? The Enterprise Portfolio is primarily used by roles responsible for strategic planning and enterprise-level governance, including:
- Executives and Senior Leadership, to evaluate how all portfolios support corporate strategy and to guide investment decisions.
- Enterprise Portfolio Managers, to coordinate across portfolios and ensure alignment with strategic priorities.
- PMO Directors and Governance Teams, to monitor compliance, performance, and risk across the portfolio landscape.
What Value Does It Deliver? The Enterprise Portfolio delivers value by:
- Providing strategic oversight: Offers a consolidated view of all portfolios, enabling informed decision-making at the enterprise level.
- Enhancing alignment: Ensures that initiatives across different portfolios contribute to shared Objectives and Key Results.
- Improving resource and investment management: Supports enterprise-wide visibility into capacity allocation and financial performance through scenario planning.
- Enabling scenario planning: Allows you to distribute available capacity or budget among Portfolio items of different participating portfolios and save the distribution as a scenario.
What is Enterprise Portfolio Management?
The premise of Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) is that you can create scenarios on capacity (Skill/Team) or money with a single view across multiple portfolios. This gives you centralized grip on your strategic capacity and common change budget. Various tools, such as extensive filtering and reporting, are available via Insights (Power BI).
Example: In your organization there is a group of project managers who are assigned to multiple portfolios. The portfolios with (potential) projects for which these project managers are deployed can be displayed together in one Enterprise Portfolio. The available capacity can then be allocated to the various projects based on priority or contribution to Objectives.
How to create an Enterprise Portfolio
- Click the app selector in the upper-left corner of the screen.
- Choose Portfolio.
- Select the + Add enterprise portfolio option.
- In the dialog, enter a name for the new Enterprise Portfolio, save it in an Organization Unit, and assign a primary owner.
Note: You can only save an Enterprise Portfolio in an Organization Unit in which Portfolio Management is activated and to which you have rights.
How to participate in an Enterprise Portfolio
Existing portfolios can make their data visible in an Enterprise Portfolio by indicating that they participate. A portfolio can participate in several Enterprise Portfolios.
- Open the portfolio that will participate.
- If you are administrator, manager, or supporter of the portfolio, click the Enterprise Portfolios icon in the right menu bar.
- In the screen that appears, click + Add Enterprise Portfolio and choose the desired Enterprise Portfolio.
Note: This construction ensures that an Enterprise Portfolio does not have direct access to a portfolio. The right for inspection must be explicitly given by the portfolio in question.
:::warning Opting in shares data with all Enterprise Portfolio users Access in an Enterprise Portfolio is determined by rights on the Enterprise Portfolio only. After a portfolio opts in, every user with access to the Enterprise Portfolio can see that portfolio's items and planning data, even if they have no rights on the participating portfolio itself. Check who has access to the Enterprise Portfolio before you opt in. :::
To see which Enterprise Portfolios a portfolio is participating in, open the properties panel at the top of the right menu bar.
Working with the Enterprise Portfolio
Once portfolios are participating, the Enterprise Portfolio shows the data of those portfolios, for example planned hours or costs.
Enter availability and budget
The idea behind the Enterprise Portfolio is that centrally, across Portfolio items (projects) of multiple portfolios, the capacity of certain Skills/Teams or the financial budget (per Financial Category) is assigned. Enter the available capacity (as type Capacity) or money (as type Reserved) at the bottom of the screen.
Note: Configuration and operation of the screens in the Enterprise Portfolio is the same as the corresponding screens in a normal portfolio. The difference is that the top grid is grouped by participating portfolio, with that portfolio's items below it. The portfolio row is a grouping header only, so you enter values on the Portfolio items, not on the portfolio.
Scenario planning
Once the available capacity and/or budget is entered, it can be distributed among the Portfolio items of the different participating portfolios. The distribution can be saved as a scenario.
When a scenario is satisfactorily worked out and discussed with the participating portfolios, you can apply the scenario. The allocation of capacity and/or budget is then applied in the Enterprise Portfolio and in the participating portfolios.
Objectives in Enterprise Portfolios
Enterprise Portfolios support Objectives, which provide a way to categorize and align initiatives across participating portfolios. Objectives defined at the Enterprise Portfolio level can be shared with participating portfolios, ensuring consistent strategic alignment.
Managing Objectives
Objectives can be managed on the Objectives tab. When a portfolio is related to an Enterprise Portfolio, Objectives can be added by:
- Select Objectives from a related Enterprise Portfolio: these are read-only in the participating portfolio.
For more information on working with Objectives and Key Results, see the Objectives tab article and the Strategy App documentation.
Dashboard (Power BI)
The Enterprise Portfolio includes a Dashboard tab powered by Power BI. This tab loads with a standard Power BI report containing multiple tabs, selectable at the bottom of the report.
For more information on using the Power BI dashboard, see BI Connectivity.
Best practices
- Use Enterprise Portfolios to gain centralized visibility across portfolios that share capacity or budget.
- Let participating portfolios explicitly opt in, so portfolio owners stay in control of their data.
- Use scenario planning to model different capacity and budget distributions before applying them.
- Leverage Objectives from the Enterprise Portfolio level to ensure consistent strategic alignment across all participating portfolios.
- Use the Power BI dashboard for cross-portfolio reporting and insights.
FAQ
Can a portfolio participate in multiple Enterprise Portfolios? Yes. A portfolio can participate in several Enterprise Portfolios at the same time.
Does an Enterprise Portfolio have direct access to participating portfolios? No. The right for inspection must be explicitly given by the portfolio that wants to participate. Once it participates, all users of the Enterprise Portfolio can see its items and planning data, including users without rights on the participating portfolio.
Can Objectives from an Enterprise Portfolio be edited in a participating portfolio? No. Objectives selected from a related Enterprise Portfolio are read-only in the participating portfolio. You can only create additional local Objectives.
What happens when an Objective is removed or unlinked? Portfolio items that were linked to the removed or unlinked Objective are moved to the No objective list.
Are the Enterprise Portfolio screens different from regular portfolio screens? The configuration and operation of the screens (e.g., capacity planning, financial planning) is the same as in a normal portfolio. The top grid is grouped by participating portfolio, with its Portfolio items as the rows. There is no editable row at portfolio level.
Need more support?
Contact your Fortes Change Cloud administrator or consult the online knowledge base for more step-by-step configuration guides.