The Dashboard is the first page you see in Project Manager. It shows what needs attention today: late tasks, projects close to their deadline, money, and how much work each person has.
Use it as your daily check-in. Everything on it is a shortcut: click a card, a project or a task to jump to the full page.
The top of the page
What you see
- The page title Dashboard, with a Refresh button in the header. Press it to reload the numbers.
- Today's date, the headline Your projects, in perspective. and the line "See what needs attention. Keep your team and delivery on track."
- A Create Task button. It opens the quick-add bar described in Getting Started.
- Four summary cards (see below).
The four summary cards
Each card is clickable.
| Card | What it shows | Where a click goes |
|---|---|---|
| Active Projects | How many projects are not completed or canceled. The small line reads, for example, "1 / 5 Completed" | The Projects page |
| Overdue Tasks | Tasks with a due date before today that are not done. The small line says Review overdue work | Stays on the Dashboard and opens the Overdue Tasks tab below |
| Progress | The share of all your tasks that are done, with "14 / 40 Done" underneath | Variable Tasks |
| Budget remaining | Total budget minus total expenses, with the total budget underneath | Portfolio |
The Budget remaining number is simple arithmetic across all your projects: the sum of every project's Budget minus the sum of every project's Expenses. Both numbers come from the project form. If you are over budget the card turns red and the number is negative.
Entries in a project's Expense Tracker (on the project budget page) are shown on that page only. They do not change the Expenses field on the project form. If you want the Dashboard to reflect your spending, keep the project's Expenses field up to date. See Project Budget and Expenses.
Project health
The Project health panel lists up to six of your active projects, nearest deadline first. Projects with no end date come last. A note under the title says: "Nearest deadlines first. Open a project to review its plan." Click View All to go to Projects, or click a project card to open it.
Each card shows:
- The project name and its Person In Charge (or Unassigned).
- A signal badge and the time left. The badge says overdue when the end date has passed, Over budget when expenses are higher than the budget, and otherwise the project's status, such as In Progress. Next to it you see a number of days, for example "147 d", or Today, or No deadline.
- Progress: a percentage and a bar showing the project's stored progress value.
- spent: expenses compared with the budget, for example "$3,500 / $15,000".
The card border turns red when the project is late or over budget, and amber when five days or fewer remain.
Health badges: On track, At risk, Off track, Critical
Project Manager also works out a health label for each project: On track, At risk, Off track or Critical. You do not set it. The server calculates it every time from the project's own data, so it is always up to date. You see these badges on the Projects page and on Portfolio.
The rules, in order:
- A completed or canceled project has no health badge.
- If the end date passed more than half a day ago, the project is Off track. After more than 14 days late it becomes Critical.
- Otherwise, if any task in the project is overdue, the project is At risk.
- Otherwise, if the project has start and end dates and tasks, and its task progress is 30 percentage points or more behind the share of time that has passed, it is At risk.
- Everything else is On track.
For example, a project that is 60 percent through its schedule but has only 25 percent of its tasks done is 35 points behind, so it shows At risk.
To move a project back to On track, finish or reschedule its overdue tasks and make sure the end date is realistic. There is no button to change health by hand.
Needs your attention
This panel has three tabs, each with a count:
- Overdue Tasks: due before today and not done.
- Today's Tasks: due today and not done.
- Upcoming Tasks: due in the next seven days.
Each tab lists up to five tasks with the task name, project, person and due date. Click a task to open the Task Detail Panel. The footer shows how many of the total you are seeing (for example "5 / 26") and a Variable Tasks link for the full list. If a tab is empty you see a friendly message such as All tasks on track, and a Create Task shortcut.
Team Workload
Team Workload counts the open tasks for each person (the person written in a task's Person field) and shows the five people with the most. The note says: "Open tasks by person — not a capacity estimate." It tells you who has the most open work, not who has time. For a deeper view, click View All to open Workload.
Finance
The Finance panel adds up all your projects:
- Budget Usage: expenses as a percentage of budget, with a bar that turns red above 100%.
- Budget, Expenses, Revenue, and Profit (revenue minus expenses; green when positive, red when negative).
Completion Trend
Completion Trend is a small bar chart for the last four weeks. For each week, one bar shows tasks Completed and one shows tasks created. Click View All to open Reports.
Planning tools
The row of links at the bottom opens Monthly Calendar, Decision Matrix, Resource Planning and Reports.
FAQ
They are two different signals. The Dashboard badge looks only at the end date and the budget. The health label on the Projects page also looks at overdue tasks and at progress compared with the schedule.
No. The Dashboard has a fixed layout. There is no widget picker or Dashboard Builder.
The expenses you entered on your projects are higher than the budgets you entered. Check each project's Budget and Expenses fields.
The panel only lists active projects, meaning those not completed or canceled. They still count in the "Completed" line on the Active Projects card.
Press Refresh in the page header.