The Decision Lens Accelerate Recommendation Engine suggests which projects could be added, removed or shifted in or out of a plan in order to improve the overall grade or improve on a specific dimension. Recommendations are based off a time frame that is set in the recommendation panel and based off projects that are marked as backlog, scheduled or in progress. Recommendations can only be made for future time periods and for time periods that have established budgets.
To use the Recommendation Engine, navigate to the Table View of the Schedule page for a plan and select the Recommendations icon. If using the Recommendation Engine in the Baseline Plan, youwill be prompted to create at What-If plan and apply recommendations there.
Recommendations are only updated when a new timeframe is applied, or the page is refreshed.
Recommendation Horizon
The Recommendation Horizon allows you to specify a timeframe within the plan for when you want to improve. You can only receive recommendations for future timeframes and can adjust the timeframe to pull recommendations for any years or months that have budget data.
Adjust the month and year for the start and end of the recommendation horizon and then select Apply to receive recommendations for that timeframe.
The Recommendation Horizon does not stay in sync with the Summary or Compare views.
Recommendations List
Recommendations are listed by order of impact for the plan and each will have an icon to show if the project would be added, removed or shifted in or out of the timeframe that was set in the Recommendation Horizon. If exploring recommendations from the Baseline, you will be prompted to create a what-if plan where you can apply the recommendations.
| Icon | Meaning |
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Add the project to the plan |
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Remove the project from the plan |
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Move the project outside of the Recommendation Horizon |
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Move the project inside of the Recommendation Horizon |
Each project has a checkbox that can be de-selected if any of the recommendations should not be applied. Removing a project from the recommendation list will impact Recommendation Engines plan and could give a different result from that displayed on the graph.
Once recommendations have been applied to a plan, an option to compare the plan displays so that the what-if plan can be compared to the Baseline or any other plan.
Recommendation Rationale
The graph at the top of the recommendation panel illustrates how each recommendation does overall and across each dimension to easily understand what each recommendation would give the plan and how it helps achieve a better overall grade.
The x-axis represents each recommendation listed within the panel and the y-axis represents the grades.
The straight line on the graph represents the trend of the plans overall grade and highlights the overall grade of the plan before applying recommendations and the overall grade of the plan after applying all recommendations listed.
The graph can be expanded or collapsed, and each dimension can be added to the chart by selecting the dimension within the legend.
In order to achieve a better overall grade, or improve within a single dimension, all recommendations listed should be applied. If a recommendation is deselected, a message will display on the graph to inform that the current set of recommendations have been invalidated.
Recommendation Targets
The default set of recommendations will be for overall improvements to try and obtain a maximum overall Grade across Value, Cost, Risk and Balance. However, users have the ability to tailor recommendations to target specific improvement areas. The various targeted recommendations can be generated by clicking on the individual icons, changing the recommendations to specifically skew to improving Value, Cost, Risk or Balance as desired.
Project Locking
Projects can be locked in order to maintain their current Plan information. Only Plan owners can Lock projects. Projects can be locked by clicking on the more menu next to the Project name in the Project or Schedule pages and clicking Lock Project. Locking can also be accomplished via the Project Details view by clicking the lock icon.
Locking a project will lock down the editing of any Schedule planning data which includes Status, Start Date, End Date, and Allocation. In order to manually edit these data fields, a locked project would first have to be unlocked. Locking will also remove the associated project from any recommendations.
Applying Recommendations
Recommendations are listed by order of impact for the plan and each will have an icon to show if the project would be added, removed or shifted in or out of the timeframe that was set in the Recommendation Horizon. If exploring recommendations from the Baseline, you will be prompted to create a what-if plan where you can apply the recommendations.
| Icon | Meaning |
 |
Add the project to the plan |
 |
Remove the project from the plan |
 |
Move the project outside of the Recommendation Horizon |
 |
Move the project inside of the Recommendation Horizon |
Each project has a checkbox that can be de-selected if any of the recommendations should not be applied. Removing a project from the recommendation list will impact Recommendation Engines plan and could give a different result from that displayed on the graph.
Once recommendations have been applied to a plan, an option to compare the plan displays so that the what-if plan can be compared to the Baseline or any other plan.
Please see the related video