Folio Configuration

Configuring a Folio

There are two ways to access the configuration page of a Folio. If you are currently inside a Folio, open the Folio drop-down menu at the top right of the page, next to the Folio's main navigation bar and then click the Configure item.

The second way to access the configuration page is from the Manage Portfolios page (Financials > Manage Portfolios). Locate the Folio you want to configure in the list of all available Folios. Then hover the mouse at the right end of the Folio's row, a Cog menu will appear (see figure). Click the Cog icon, and then select Configure.

General Information

From the Folio Configuration screen, you can edit a Folio's general information such as its name, description, timeframe, etc. To edit general information, first click the General item in the navigation bar on the left. This brings up the General information in the main part of the screen. Click on the field values (in bold) to edit them.

Folio Name

Name of the Folio. The maximum length of the Folio is 255 characters.

Associated board

JIRA Agile Board (Scrum or Kanban) that is associated to the Folio. When a Folio is associated with a Board, many of its configuration settings are driven by the Board's configuration and thus cannot be edited directly in Folio. They must be edited through the Board's configuration screen instead. Configuration fields that become driven and/or initialized by the Board are the following :

• The query of the saved filter defining the scope of the Folio is synchronized with the board's saved filter query. This means that any change to the Folio's filter query will have no effect. You must edit the Board's filter in order to modify the Folio's scope.
• The Earn Value Field is initially set to the Estimation field defined by the Board. This can be overriden in Folio.
• The Earned Issues statuses are synchronized with the last column mapping of the Board. They must be edited through the Board's configuration.
• The Hours per Day are synchronized with the Board's Hours per day. They must be edited through the Board's configuration.
• The Working Days are synchronized with the Board's Week days. They must be edited through the Board's configuration.
• The Non-Working Dates are synchronized with the Board's Non-Working Dates. They must be edited through the Board's configuration.

Owner

Owner of the board. The owner, along with Administrators named by the Owner are the only JIRA users who can edit the Folio and see the wage information it contains.

Start date

Date from which expenses and revenues defined in the folio are taken into account. This is normally the date at which the team is planned to start working on the scope of the Folio. Must be before the end date

End date

Date until which expenses and revenues defined in the folio are taken into account. This is the planned end date of the project and is critical since it defines the pace of progress the team should maintain to successfully complete the Folio's scope. Must be after the start date

Folio custom fields

If you defined Folio custom fields in the Global configuration they will be displayed below the Folio Status like sample fields Country and Department in screenshot above. Note that you can add new custom fields by clicking on the add more folio fields link 

Editing Folio dates from within the Folio

The start and end dates of the Folio can also be edited directly from within any Folio pages. To edit, click on one of the dates appearing just below the Folio name, in the upper left corner of the page and then select another date using the date picker that appears.

Scope

The Folio scope is a list of JIRA issues, defined by a JIRA saved filter, that constitutes the work to be done during the execution of the project. When a Folio is created, FOLIO automatically creates a saved filter owned by the user creating the Folio. The filter can be edited in the Scope tab of the Folio Configuration screen. The query of the saved filter can be modified at any time, unless the folio is associated with an Agile Board.

Saved Filter

The Saved Filter defining the scope of the Folio. Click the field value to change the Saved Filter. Click the Click to view in Issue Navigator link to view the issues that are associated with the filter currently assigned to the Folio.

Filter Query

The JQL Query that is associated with the current Saved Filter. It cannot be edited directly in FOLIO. See JIRA's Filter Management documentation to learn how to modify the JQL query.

Owner

Owner of the current Saved Filter. This is shown only if different than the logged in user.

Completion Ratio

In Folios that have Earned Value Management deactivated, the calculation of the completion ratio is based by default on the worked hours vs the remaining estimates of the folio's scope. In some cases when scope is undefined or constantly changing (such as in maintenance projects for instance), using the progress of tasks to predict a project termination date and costs forecasts might be irrelevant. In such situations, you can choose to base the completion ratio on the number of elapsed working days over the total number of working days in the folio's timeframe in order to obtain meaningful forecasts. Select the Based on project calendar progress option if it is the case.

Earned Value Management

The Earned Value Management (EVM) section allows you to activate or deactivate EVM for the Folio and to define the Earning Rule settings when EVM is on. The Earning Rule is a set of configuration settings that dictate how the Earned Value of the Folio will be calculated. It defines the statuses the project tasks must have to have their associated value earned. It also defines how much value each issue will have when earned. EVM is turned ON or OFF by clicking on the Activate / Deactivate button located at the top of this configuration screen.

Earned Value Field

A numeric JIRA issue field that determines the weight of each issue in terms of Earned Value. For instance if set to Original Estimate, an issue with an Original Estimate of 10 hours will contribute to 10% of the total Earned Value of a Folio which scope totals 100 hours. This should be a field that corresponds to an amount of effort required to complete an issue. The Earned Value Field can also be set to Issue Count, in which case all issues in the Folio Scope will be considered to have the same Earned Value when completed. Any visible numeric field can be used, including the Custom Fields that you may have defined.

The following equation shows the formal representation of the Earned Value calculation:

Where

BAC is the total planned value within the Folio's time frame

EVField_i is the value of the Earned Value Field of issue i

Scope to Earn

The Scope to Earn defines the total earned value units to earn within the Folio's time frame. By default the Scope to earn is the sum of the earned value field for all issues that are part of the Folio's scope.

Example: Suppose the earned value field is set to "Original Estimate", then the default Scope to earn is the sum of the original estimates of all issues included in the Folio's scope (as defined by its associated Saved filter).

This setting is especially useful for setting a target for projects that have a continuously changing scope, as it is often the case for Agile or Kanban projects. It makes the size of the overall project independent of its actual content when it comes to calculate earned value, performance indices, forecasts, etc.

Earned Issues

List of issue statuses for which the Folio's issues will be considered as Completed and thus will contribute to the Folio's Earned Value. If no status is selected, only issues flagged as Resolved will contribute to Earn Value.

Progressively Earned Issues

In some cases such as for long running work items, you might want Earned Value to get credited proportionally to their degree of completion. The Progressively Earned Issues setting lets you specify one or more labels indicating issues that should contribute to Earned Value as they progress, and not only when they are completed. Partial Earned Value credited for these issues is a function of logged hours, time remaining and Earned Value at completion. The formal representation of the calculation of Partial Earned Value for progressively earned issues is as follows:

Where

W_issue is the total number of hours logged on issue within the Folio's time frame

R_issue is the remaining time estimate of issue

EV_issue is the total Earned Value of issue at completion (see calculation in Earned Value Field section)

Example:

Accounting

The Accounting section of the Folio Configuration screen lets you specify Finance-related settings of a Folio. Default accounting configuration is taken from FOLIO's Global Accounting Configuration at Folio creation time. Folio Accounting settings can thereafter be modified independently from Global Accounting Configuration.

Profitability

Allows for tracking revenues in a Folio. When Track Revenues option is checked, the following elements are added to the Folio:

• a Revenues tab the Folio's main navigation bar. This new tab lets you specify planned and actual revenues for that particular Folio, as well as getting revenues forecasts. 
• (EVM only) EVM indices from the Revenues perspective in Health section of the Overview and Steering Committee Reports (at Folio and Portfolio levels)
• Revenues: Financials and Revenues: Budget vs Actual sections in the Overview and Steering Committee Reports (at Folio and Portfolio levels)
• Option to get revenues (planned and actual) information in Expenses, Budget Variance, Earned Value and Issue Cost reports.
• Profitability Report

As client costs

By default, revenues are treated as client costs. This implies that the colour-coded status of the revenues Estimate at completion (EAC) and Estimate to Complete (ETC) are shown in Red when above planned, and Green when below. If the option is deselected, then actual revenues exceeding planned ones will be considered to be a positive situation and thus revenues EAC and ETC color will be reversed.

Synchronize with the Tempo billed hours

If selected, then consulting revenues that are synchronized with the JIRA Work logs will have their number of associated billed hours driven by the billed hours entered via the Tempo Timesheet add-on.

Reserve

Management reserve is for unforeseen risks.  It is a percentage of the total budget. Setting the Reserve to a value greater than zero will result in having a green area displayed at the top of Forecasts charts indicating the amount of money in the reserve. The reserve is also used to determine the color of the Financial indices (Estimate at Completion and Estimate to Complete) displayed in the Financial sections of the Overview screens and Steering Committee Reports. Financial indices that exceed planned amounts will turn amber if they remain under planned amounts with reserve.

Example: Given a Folio with planned costs of 100,000$ and a reserve of 10%, Estimate at Completion will be colored in:

• Green if under 100,000$
• Amber if between 100,000$ and 110,000$
• Red if over 110,000$

Contingency

Contingency is for known risks. It is a percentage of every expense's payment. Setting the Contingency to a value greater than zero will result in having a green area displayed along and above the planned curve in Forecast charts, indicating the planned amount of contingency over time.

Tolerance

Tolerance percentage for the folio's performance indices. It determines at what point performance indices will turn amber and red if outside the range of values considered to be good.

Example: Given a Folio with a Tolerance of 10%, then Schedule Performance Index (SPI) will be coloured:

• Green if equal or above 1
• Amber if between 0.9 and 1
• Red if below 0.9

Currency

Currency to be used for all amounts of the Folio. If the Folio is part of a Portfolio that uses a different currency, then amounts displayed in the Portfolio for that Folio will be automatically converted to the Portfolio's currency using Yahoo Finances Exchange Rate service (if accessible from your network, otherwise an exchange rate of 1:1 will be used).

Capitalized Issues

In some cases, the work done on issues needs to be recorded as a Capital expenditure instead of an Operational expenditure. The Capitalized Issues setting lets you specify one or more labels marking the issues on which worked hours should incur a Capital expenditure. All hours logged on marked issues by the Folio's team members will therefore appear as Capital Expenditures under the Actual Costs and in Reports.

Permissions

By default, the visibility of the Folio is driven by the shares of its associated saved filter defined under 'Scope' (see Sharing a filter section from the JIRA Saved Filters documentation). You can instead choose to restrict the Folio's visibility to a list of specific JIRA users using the Viewers field. Note that the filter's shares also controls the visibility of the Folio's issues so you should make sure it is shared with explicitly specified viewers.

Also the owner of a Folio is the only user having write permissions on it. Administrators you name here will also have full read and write access to the folio. Again note that the filter's shares controls the visibility of the Folio's issues so you should make sure it is shared with the Folio administrators.

Shows the current visibility state of the Folio's Saved Filter. The Edit link brings you to the Saved Filter shares edition page in JIRA.  It is either Saved Filter shares (the default) or a list of specific JIRA users. You can add a JIRA user by typing her name in the text field and then clicking the Add button. If at least one JIRA user is specified explicitly as a Viewer, then it overrides the permissions of the filter's shares.  You can remove a user from the list by clicking the X next to her name.  Remove all specified users to revert visibility to the filter's shares.

Administrators

Administrators get the same view and edit rights as the Owner for a Folio. You can add as many Administrators as you want to a Folio.

Custom Fields

Custom fields can be added to Actual expenses and revenues and team members. Their value can be set in the edition dialogs of the related entries. Once a value is set, it will show up in the detail column on the right when the entry is selected, as well as in the Excel Export of the Expenses/Revenues Report. You can define as many custom fields as you want for each one.

4 types of custom field are available.

1. Text Field (single line) - A basic single line text box custom field to allow simple text input.
2. Select List (single choice) - A single select list with a configurable list of options.
3. Date Picker - A custom field that stores dates and uses a date picker to view them
4. User Picker (single user) - Choose a user from the user base via a popup picker window.

Making the field Required will force users to enter a value when adding or updating an expense/revenue/member.

Working Days and Hours

The Working Days and Hours section of the Folio Configuration screen lets you define the Work Schedule of a Project. It uses FOLIO's Global Working Days and Hours Configuration at creation time and can be modified independently thereafter. FOLIO will use these settings in most of its evaluations, forecasts and charts.

Worked hours

If the Synchronise with the JIRA Worklogs option is selected, then the actual costs related to team members will be automatically calculated based on hours logged on the Folio's issues. If not selected, FOLIO evaluates the number of worked hours of a team member based on his or her Allocation percentage, as defined in the member's Allocations table.

The owner can manually override the computed hours with a specific value for a specific period directly in the Team member's Worked Hours table.

Hours per Day

Number of normal working hours per day. Defaults to FOLIO's Global Hours per day setting or to JIRA's Hours per Day settings if undefined.

Working Days

Normal working weekdays. Defaults to FOLIO's Global Working Days setting or to JIRA's Days per Week settings if undefined.

Non-Working Dates

Calendar view of all Non-working Dates such as statutory holidays. Non-Working Dates affect how resource capacities, non-synchronized worked hours, etc. are calculated in that Folio. It also affects the Forecast charts and reports that may or may not take Non-Working Dates into account. Non-Working Dates default to FOLIO's Global Non-Working Dates.

Export Formats

The Export Formats tab lets you specify formats for dates and numbers when you export costs, revenues and team members in CSV from this Folio.  This overrides global Export Formats configuration for that specific Folio.

History

FOLIO records all changes that occur on the Folio's configuration settings for auditing purpose. The History tab displays a table listing all changes that occurred on the Folio's configuration as well as expenses, positions and team member deletions. Changes displayed include creations, updates and deletions and are sorted from the most recent to the oldest. An update is recorded for each modified field.