Professional services groups

Govern internal investment programs alongside the client-delivery systems your teams already use.

Typical roles
Also built for

What changes for this team

configured at rollout

Govern internal investment programs alongside the client-delivery systems your teams already use. Use portfolio decisions for strategic work; project invoices, timesheets and client acceptance remain in the delivery application.

Investment intake

Compare proposals for service development, systems improvement and capability building with an agreed scorecard.

Delivery links

Connect initiatives to the relevant external project records without giving every portfolio user access to client billing detail.

Budget visibility

Review approved allocations and reconciled spend with Finance before approving further funding.

Strategy to outcomes for this team

  1. 01

    Capture proposal

    Investment intake

  2. 02

    Score and rank

  3. 03

    Approve funding

    Approval required

    Budget visibility

  4. 04

    Review stage gate

    Approval required

    Delivery links

  5. 05

    Track outcomes

Same records, same gates. The configuration changes how the process runs for this team.

Workspace previews

Funding Requests Awaiting DecisionFundingAllocationsFunding approval waits for the portfolio manager and finance
Submitted
  • FA-88041 INT-57462
  • FA-95266 INT-74793
  • FA-75488 INT-67397
  • FA-69139 INT-24176
  • FA-85613 INT-47910
FA-88041
Initiative
INT-57462
Requester
BJ
FiscalYear
FY-590
RequestedAmount
36,640.47
Justification
JST-882

Funding approval waits for the portfolio manager and finance.

Funding and budgets →
My InitiativesInitiatives
You or You
Initiative NumberNamePortfolioProgramCurrent Stage
INT-63414Initiative 446PRT-2852PRG-8326SG-9120
INT-38940Initiative 575PRT-9086PRG-9628SG-4741
INT-76022Initiative 733PRT-3974PRG-7296SG-6978
INT-47981Initiative 753PRT-6568PRG-5243SG-2441
INT-15254Initiative 181PRT-1751PRG-1556SG-5222
INT-44413Initiative 964PRT-4318PRG-3279SG-5016
Initiatives In My ProgramInitiatives
You
Initiative NumberNameOwnerCurrent StageStatus
INT-87151Initiative 215ERSG-3571Proposed
INT-76201Initiative 334PESG-3156Approved
INT-30166Initiative 269PGSG-5080InFlight
INT-70954Initiative 801FCSG-2216ReadyForGate
INT-10531Initiative 953MESG-8108Completed
INT-87493Initiative 510YKSG-4038OnHold

Typical roles

Roles and permissions
Portfolio Manager

The PMO Lead — owns the function. Curates Portfolios, organizes Programs, owns the Backlog ranking, runs the quarterly PortfolioReviews, facilitates GateReviews, and owns the rebalance decisions.

Permissions
  • CRUD on Portfolios they own, Programs, Initiatives, Proposals, Backlog (rank order), StrategicGoals (org-wide read
  • create / edit gated to Admin co-sign), GateReviews (as Facilitator), RoadmapSnapshots (trigger manual snapshots), and PortfolioReviews
  • Read all ProposalScores, GateScorecards (post-Closed), BudgetAllocations, FundingAllocations, KPIs, KPIMeasurements, Risks, Dependencies org-wide
Project Manager

Read-only on Portfolio context for own Projects (so a delivering PM can see how their Project fits the Initiative narrative) and write on KPIMeasurements they are named owner of.

Permissions
  • Read on Initiatives where Initiatives.Initiative IN (Initiatives joined via InitiativeProjects WHERE ProjectRef IN own Projects) — but EstimatedCost and EstimatedBenefit are masked
  • Read on KPIs for those Initiatives
  • CRUD on KPIMeasurements where KPI.Owner = self (typically when the PM is named the KPI Owner for delivery-stage KPIs)
Finance

Read-only on Portfolio context with write on Budgets and co-approver on FundingAllocations. The reconciliation seat between Portfolio plan and the GL.

Permissions
  • Manage Budgets (set TotalAmount, approve, lock, close) and read BudgetAllocations
  • allocation corrections use the same jointly approved, idempotent reconciliation service and cannot overwrite approved amounts directly
  • Approve / reject FundingAllocations jointly with Portfolio Manager

Modules

Relevant reports

Reports and analytics

Budget vs. Allocation vs. Spend

Per Portfolio × FiscalYear: TotalAmount → AllocatedAmount → SpentAmount with RemainingAmount and burn rate. Drills into per-Initiative BudgetAllocations and per-Initiative spend feed from Finance. Finance's reconciliation view; Portfolio Manager's funding-headroom view.

Backlog Ranking

Proposals ranked by WeightedScore with BacklogRank, EstimatedCost, EstimatedBenefit, Cost-to-Benefit ratio, and Strategic Fit dimension score. Filterable by ProposedPortfolio and Source. The Portfolio Manager's working list for the next funding cycle.

Portfolio Health Dashboard

HealthScore distribution (Green / Amber / Red) across all active Portfolios → Programs → Initiatives, paired with AlignmentScore and KPIAttainment. Drills from Portfolio summary into Program summary into the per-Initiative grid. The Executive's daily landing report.

Common questions

All questions
How do I get started?

Click Start now, then use Proto to configure Portfolio Management for your business. Load your strategy, portfolio owners, review criteria and approved budgets.

Related question
Does this replace project delivery software?

No. Link initiatives to authorized project records for dates and health while tasks, staffing, time and billing remain in their operating systems.

Related question
How are proposals compared?

Use versioned scorecards, dimension weights and assigned reviewers. Preserve scores and rationale before an independent proposal decision.

Related question
Who approves funding?

Portfolio Manager and Finance provide separate decisions. The requester cannot approve their own funding, and allocation requires available approved headroom.

Related question
Can a stage advance with missing evidence?

Mandatory criteria, quorum and the applicable decision threshold must pass. Conditional decisions remain subject to recorded conditions.

Related question
How are financial actuals handled?

Import reconciled spend using approved period and currency mappings. Funding approval itself does not create a general-ledger posting.

Related question
Can executives see every detail?

Executive reports follow portfolio scope and field restrictions. Reviewer scores, risk narratives and budget details retain the access rules in the specification.

Related question
Can policy change during a review?

Freeze the scorecard and gate policy used by the open review. Apply a new version through a controlled change with refreshed affected evidence.

Related question

Other industries

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